I ran into this girl on the Sonoma Plaza last summer. I really liked her face and energy and thought that on my next trip back to San Francisco to photograph models for my Bridal Fashion Shoot I would do some personal work with her. When I was employed at city model management as an agent and scout I was 22. If I approached young girls to model they, or their mothers would give me a distrusting look. I was 22 and looked 16. Freckles skinny, fat cheeks I would think it odd as well. Now, as a mom and in my 40s I usually get to shoot 9 out of the 10 people I want. A luxury of age. I work really well with people new to the camera. It could be all the years in front and behind of the camera. Maybe the really uncomfortable modeling helped so I can now set them at ease.

I showed up to her house at 3:30 a little late. With 2 big make-up boxes in tow. I said hello and we headed for her closet. After I finished her makeup we grabbed a few of her things, matched it with my own portable closet in my FJ and ran for the hills. We spent two hours up in the Mission Highlands area and it was really cold.  I usually get the same thing from first shooters…I never knew modeling was so hard and I never knew I could look so good. Not to be a know it all, I did. That’s why I shoot and that’s why I picked you. I was a scout before a photographer. I know what you are going to look like on my film the first time I see you.

If I ask you to model for me you can bet you will be pleasantly surprised by what your bones are going to photograph like. I know,  I am know it all! I can’t help it.

When I met her mother, Gea, I was 23 and Gea was still in High School. I felt and instant repour with Gea and her mother Betsy. I became friends of the family; I became Gea’s mother agent. Gea modeled for city model management for years. I came to know and love Betsy and got to know Gea’s grandmother Joanie and got to hear the story of Gea’s great-grandmother Cookie. I visited their wonderful old home in old town San Jose. I always thought if I were to write an Epic novel this line of women would make a phenomenal slice of an American story. There is a very special story inside the generations of women that live and have lived in that house in San Jose.

One morning Gea called me at home to inform me that she had had a prophetic dream about me and her.  She said,” Kimmie, I had a dream about us last night. I dreamt we were both pregnant with girls”. Me, just having had given birth not 9 months previous, was like NOT!!! Some months later we both gave birth to girls. This is her girl!

My dear friend Edgar pulled the dress from a designer friend of his Mark Zunino, who if I could afford it, designs would fill my closet. He is a genius. We shot it in Edgar’s Twin Peaks apartment. 

10 feet tall and stunning

Her red shoes

waiting on a ride

Soft

Growing up

Her First Test

Edgar's wall

There she is

At the Saramonte shopping mall in 1970 there was a toy store, I can’t remember the name, it was situated in the Southern Wing of the mall on the western wall. The first time I saw them I must have been 6. There was a wall full of dolls. Collector’s editions as I know it today. Then all I desired was to hold one. To dress her put jewelry on her. I love the ball gowns all indicative of the confederate south. It’s no coincidence why I love, Gone with the Wind, Hello Dolly, My Fair Lady and many more. I am mad about beautiful clothes. Costumes if you will.  I spent many hours of my early childhood standing in front of that glass staring at those dolls. The one I wanted was a doll in a huge wedding ball gown. There were many reasons I didn’t have a doll collection, the first being I didn’t know how to take care of it. Somehow I have satisfied my need to play dress up with myself, my daughters and the brave girls that model for me for the sake of making a pretty picture. I have wondered for sometime my attraction to the fashionably feminine and beautiful. I am not gay; sometimes I wish I were, husbands are hard. I remember my mom telling me once the males of all species were more beautiful than the females, that was at an age when I was apt to believe anything she said. I knew that her statement was false. That was just impossible. I wanted to remind her of the fat bald smelly 50 year old man we walked past. I was also most grateful to my creator for making me a girl. I recall feeling like my creator got my costume just right, I felt so lucky to be a girl.

I caught a picture while I was gone. I didn’t plan it. It was a moment. Mia seeing for the first time what was inside her grandmother’s class case. Then it all came together. My attraction is a simple as hers. PRETTY. I like pretty things, among other things.

Her First Look

Let me in

 I also have a knack for making people feel prettier than they have ever felt. A letter from a recent shoot.

Hey Kim! Just wanted to say thanks for EVERYTHING. I absolutely love my pictures. I’ve never seen myself in that kind of picture before..its weird. But you made me feel so pretty and confident. The pictures are perfect- love the processing! It was fun chatting with you bout your life as a model..I gotta hand it to you..you’re a strong woman. Gosh I have a new respect for models..they go through a lot. But anyways, thanks for taking the time out of your crazy schedule, not to mention being a mom of five kids, and make my senior pics an amazing experience. Oh and thanks for the make up tips. Well, hopefully I’ll see you sometime soon!
          Kelsey

And now, some of the pictures I took of  the amazing beautiful young woman that were gracious enough to let me photograph them.

Sarah and Grace

All there

A FriesianRush Ranch

Last Light

Top of the Bay

Portraiture isn’t my main source of income  weddings are. I do portraiture because I love it. I do portraiture because I have time to be creative to think things through. I do portraiture to get better at my craft. I do portraiture because I never know what the experience is going to bring to tangible fruition. The images usually will surprise me. I am clear there is a large mystery to the process of portraiture and that has very much to do with the soul that is encased in the body I happen to be photographing. I am a believer that we carry around a soul and a personality very much inmeshes with an ego. It is amazing to observe who comes to the front for the camera. The only people that this rule doesn’t apply to are babies. It is my experience that once there is a self consciousness, then, the self doubt, the editing of one’s authentic self begins to happen. I have never photographed a person who was not somehow affected by their own personality. Ego, personality, self-doubt is a part of me and all around me in the humans I observe. My job, as a photographer, is to get all aspects of my shoots ready for the soul to show. Hair, makeup, clothes, light, camera settings, background, props then I wait for them sometimes it’s a long wait sometimes a short one, but inevitably they show up, my job is to see it and capture it. It’s like catching hummingbirds with a net. I have no judgment about who they are I feel so lucky when I have captured them, it’s really hard, but fun and really satisfying.

People try to be what they think I want. I want to see them; most don’t know who they are yet so it becomes a part of the process them hiding, me waiting.

As a model in NY , SF and Paris as an agent in SF as a photographer traveling Northern California I have come to understand I have a passion for being with young people and sharing with them what I know about many subjects. I am comfortable with them inside and outside my house. It helps I have many children and like them.

There really is no more of a gratifying experience;  photographing a young person who has never been in front of a camera professionally before is golden. I was a fashion model maker in SF and I loved model development. The people I shoot today are going off to careers in other fields, but I have never seen why not share what I know about fashion and photography and make up and styling and energy and how the camera sees the truth of emotion. The product usually brings surprise to them. They have never seen themselves that way before. 9 times out of 10 they tell me it’s a confidence booster. They leave feeling good about themselves. I love that part.

Last night’s shoot.

That Hair

Movement

The meadow with snow

one of my favorites

A really cold day

She plays the violin

Lights and Darks

against the wall

A Happy look

She left in her junior year to live in Switzerland, forgoing the normal school functions, prom, senior trips, dances, graduation. While she was there she finished high school. She’s in JC now and only 17. She played woman’s soccer while she was there, worked as an Au pair for my cousin and was able to travel to Germany and France. I don’t believe in 11th and 12th grade or 4 year colleges for 18 year old kids (unless it’s a full ride or their parents have that much money to throw down) or the SATs. It’s been my experience that 11^th and 12^th grades for 65% of the high school population is an education in partying and procreation. We don’t have Ivy League money and our local school isn’t producing many scholars for full ride academic scholarships, so our college path differs a bit. It’s a fast track through the 11th and 12th grade with our local charter school then straight to the local JC while living at home and then leave home at 19 with an AA and a plan for a BA through grants and scholarships. No loans, no credit cards, modern day slavery we think. I am not saying it’s the right way I am saying it’s our way and it makes the most sense for our finances and geographic.

Last night she went to a dance with a friend and I did her makeup and we decided to pull off her senior portrait pictures her way. She said it was way more fun than the dance. I love that! We still have great fun together and I love teaching her how to do make up although her career of choice is RN.

it reminds me of a 1982 Vogue Cover Shoot

with her girl

very late 70s

Her eyes

O la la la

Jane is one of my muses and by muse I mean she really makes me feel like painting, photographing and writing. All of my children and my husband at one time or another will invoke a creative drive for me. Yesterday it was Jane all dressed up for a Holloween dance where noone dressed up. She came right back home and slipped into jeans, but I was able to grab these before she ran off.

Jane

Lady Jane

Twilight

Mask

Dark Skys

A little Paolo

up close

Jane

Lassen

Big Meadows

This is just a tiny sneak peak at the wedding I shot this weekend at Lake Almanor. Song and I had never met she booked me like most of my brides do based on the work and a conversation. I just adore this girl. I was so excited to see her dress shoes and veil. She has more personal style in her small frame than most super models do. It was F R E E Z I N G  the weather had turned but it made for a great back drop.

Song

The Shoes

Through the looking glass

Song

Headed for shelter

The wind in her hair

On the Lake

In the Aspens

Mt. Lassen

A rest

A walk

A blur

When it occured to me it would be a good idea for me to be a wedding photographer I ran my business plan by my lovely friend Molly. She thought it was a good idea too and asked her brother Jimmy if I could help shoot his wedding in Tahoe. Their main photographer Kurt Andersen was so generous and kind to allow me to photograph with him.  It didn’t have to be and he was.

It’s been an honor and a priveledge to be included in Jimmy and Elena’s family and their process as a family ever since.

This was Mia’s mama before she arrived

Lady in waiting

 Here is Miarose this morning!! She is so smart, engaging, charismatic and funny. I guess I love shootin babies too!!!

Miss MiaRose

Ian and I had the honor and privilege of going to Manhattan this last weekend to shoot a wedding in the  Old Con Mansion, on the upper East side, it’s now Sacred Heart School .   A super stunner of a place.  Alison went to school there as a girl. Paul’s mother also attended school there. Only Alumi may marry in the chapel. I felt like I had entered the Age of Innocence really. Visually I felt as if I had walked into another age. I will never forget it.  Thank goodness I don’t have to put down discription words because I have pictures.

I don’t really write too much about the characters I encounter or their impressions on me. But I must say I will miss this lot.   Paul has swagger, there are only a few on the planet that get this magical gift of charisma and he is truly one of them. Every word is wit and jest. I feel inept in his presence and would like to learn a little from  him about people skills. Alison is the personification and balance of grace, grit, style and beauty. The whole experience was  fun,  fast  and  magical. I hope the pictures touch how much  I  LOVED NEW YORK and more so how much Alison and Paul love it. They are the quintessential New York couple and it shows. 

In no particular order I am  dropping in a few of my favorite Images from the day. There will be many more on the wedding site  under Images under Weddings Under Alison and Paul.  The body of works from Sonoma and New York will be posted on Pictage in about 8 weeks as well. 

Getting Ready in The Ball Room

Adjusting

The Make-up

The Mother

The Staircase

The Groom

The Courtyard at the New York Palace Hotel

Take Two, The right guy

The Accesories

The Beauty

Father Chris The Priest and NYFD 's Chaplin

NYFD Chaplin

The Ceremony

The Location

The Families

The Kiss