This is the plane, I don’t know enough about planes to tell you anything about this one, other then I was told it is fast for it’s size.

Here is my Aunt and I brushing up on our Pilot safety, etc. We spent a lot of time at a 45 degree angle to the earth, so here are some clouds. And this is the ranch, from way up high. All those “puddles of water” are vernal pools. 

I really lucked out on this trip! Big thanks to our pilot and my Uncle for letting me tag along!

Check back tomorrow for some more photos of Flying M, taken from the air.

With a little help from my aunt and a bunch of online research we came up with a game plan to hit up Gloria Ferrer (try saying Ferrer three times fast) and Cornerstone Gardens as the two locations for the shoot. I love California and have a special place in my heart for Sonoma, as that is where my grandparents used to live, but I had never been to either of these places, so it was a lot of fun to do some new exploring.

Huge thanks to the staff at Gloria Ferrer for granting us special access to this cave!!

So imagine my shock when I found out that my stepmother’s mother, Cay, had Ansel as her wedding photographer! Yes, you read that correctly. World famous landscape photographer and all around legend photographed a wedding.

My step-grandmother got married in Yosemite, on the lawn of her fathers house; he was the superintendent of the park and as such was living in a beautiful spot along the Merced River. Cay remembers that they had a great view of Half Dome from the front yard and Yosemite Falls could be seen from the back.

During this time Ansel was doing quite a bit of work inYosemite, having a dark room set up in Best’s Studio, a studio started by his father in law in the Valley. Since Cay was going to school in Arizona, before she got married, she had even bummed a ride, or two, with Ansel to and from school, as Ansel did work all across the West.

Cay remembers one time when Ansel was in town he came over to her sorority to take her to lunch. The gossip about the bearded, scruffy looking man, who took her to lunch, went on for a few days afterwards.

Cay says father must have paid Ansel some money for shooting her wedding, but she doesn’t know how much. She does remember though, that he brought along a second photographer to help during the ceremony. Her favorite photo from her wedding is the one of her in front of Half Dome, though she does remember it took Ansel quite a long time to get it to be perfect and, at the time, what she really wanted to do was go down and go swimming with her new husband.

As a wedding present Ansel presented Cay and Andrew with a print of Moon Rise Over Hernandez on the back porch of her parent’s house. To this day that print hangs in her home.

As a wedding photographer myself, I do love to tell this story. I am not going to lie, it tends to impress people, just a little, and I love the thin connection it gives me to a man whose work I am in awe of.

Okay, enough with the excuses. Long time blog readers may remember a shoot I did last year after my Grandmother passed away. Basically very shortly after Audrey passed Mere and I decided to play “dress-up” and did a little photoshoot in Audrey’s clothes.

Well, now that my Grandpa Les is gone we decided to do the same thing. “Dressing up” in your Grandpa’s clothes isn’t quite as fun as dressing up in Grandma’s, but acting a little bit grumpy was pretty fun. I should clarify that my Grandpa wasn’t always grumpy, but in the last year of life he got old, fast, and he wasn’t thrilled about it. Can’t say I blame him.

If I am in a photo it means Kevin took it, and it’s possible he took some of the other ones too. 

For any other Sacrementans interested in portraits, Senior or otherwise, I will be back in town the week before Christmas and a few dates this summer.

I had maybe one of the best Thanksgivings ever this year. I spent the first part of the weekend hanging out with my mom’s side of the family. This was the first time we were all together since my Grandpa passed away, and we had a good time remembering Grandpa and enjoying each other’s company. After dinner on Thursday we went into his room and started looking at some of the stuff he left behind. To our delight (sort of) we discovered that he had kept around 15 pairs of his glasses, all neatly labeled with either “fair,” “good,” or “poor” and the year. I thought it would be fun for all the Ayers progeny to put them on and make grumpy grandpa faces. So we did:

You may recognize one set of these glasses from the photo in this post, as well as the inspiration for grumpy faces.

The second half of the weekend was spent with my dad’s side of the family and I promise there are photos from there too, but right now there is dinner to be made. It was really great to see my cousins on my dad’s side of the family and I am even more excited to meet my first niece or nephew some time next year!

I have a lot to be thankful for in my life, but I want to say to my whole family that I love you all and it was amazing spending so much great time with you all this weekend. People are the best part of my life and I am eternally grateful that my family is the perfect combo of crazy and love.

Big hugs!

And Happy Monday.

P.S. For all you Canadians reading this, Senior Portraits are not in fact pictures of grandparent’s, but are photos taken during the Senior year of high school (grade 12).

While I was in Sacramento over the summer I spent a Saturday morning with my my grandmother Grandruth. We went to the farmer’s market, the peach farm, I helped her hang some art and we had lunch together. It really was a perfect morning. While we were at Tomich Peach Farm, I took a few photos while I listened to my grandmother and the farm owner talk about peaches in a way I never even knew existed. They weighed the pros and cons of three different varietals, talked about the lug of the peaches (I am still not sure what that means) and then discussed in detail when the peaches would be best to eat. After about 10 minutes we finally had a box of the most beautiful peaches and I enjoyed them immensely for the next few days I was in town.

After a few days in Sacramento I headed down to Santa Cruz to see my mom’s side of the family and since my Mom lives in Santa Cruz, I had to go to to the beach. I actually went a few times, including two trips to the Boardwalk.  At this point Kevin had joined up with me on the trip, and I think the following photos sum up the difference to how Kevin and I approach outings to the beach.

This is Kevin’s idea of fun:

I still do not understand how he can submerge himself in cold water and love it so much. So much as my little toe gets wet and I swear I have hypothermia. 

This is my idea of appropriate beach behavoir (and yes I am wearing a long sleeve shirt, cause Santa Cruz just isn’t that hot):

Can you tell I am my mother’s daughter?

At least we both have a good time and are enjoying life in our own ways.

Farewell summer! This year was a great one and now I am looking forward to pumpkin pie and hearty veggies!