Karen Jacot / the blog

What is cuter than a toddler at the beach? How about ELEVEN toddlers at the beach?? And ten beautiful moms who get together at least once a week for a playgroup who asked me to get a few group shots of them all.

The cute was out of control. I will share two pictures with you for now. There is probably some funny caption that should accompany the first one, but I’m so bad at being clever. Any ideas?? In this first shot with the naked bums, you can see there are only six and not all eleven. This was the most I managed to photograph in a line at once (naked, anyway–we did a different series of a line of babies with clothes on). Moms kept setting down the kids then running out of the frame real fast. Kids would stand up, toddle off, run off, cry and look for mom, whatever, so the quantity and identities of toddlers in the naked baby lineup was ever-changing. I just stayed behind shooting constantly as babies moved in and out of the lineup. It was probably very comical for outsiders to watch.

The other night we were at the beach playing around after dinner and my husband got hold of my camera. Now, he is not a photographer by any means. He’s the guy who when we were first dating found a roll of film in a drawer, got it developed, and found photos from two separate trips to Europe plus a Christmas gathering…all in 24 frames.

So I chose the settings for him, showed him how to move the focus point around, and asked him to get some pictures of me with our son. I usually keep it set on the continuous high-speed shooting mode, which keeps firing the shutter (at 6 frames per second) until you release the button. This is great for action shots like the ones below.

After he’d fired off a bunch of shots, I asked him if he felt like a photographer now. He answered, “If I had any idea what I was doing, I might.” He might not have known what he was doing, but he still captured some great shots of the two of us.

And here’s one that I took. Love how he’s carrying his Crocs in this one. (He doesn’t like to wear shoes in the sand–can you blame him??)

Here’s a sneak peek for the family of some of the photos I shot yesterday in La Jolla of this adorable girl with SO MUCH beautiful hair. Her grandparents are visiting from India to celebrate her adoption finally being made official recently.

We tried to do a few in the sand near the water, but the tide was coming in really fast, so we ended up IN the water instead!! LOL!

Next up, some family shots that I took in Portland. Here’s our pregnant SuperMom, and her daughter and husband. (And hey, did an extra toddler sneak into that last picture????) I am really on a B&W kick lately.

My best friend from childhood now lives in a city far away from me and has children of her own who I never see. In fact my trip to Portland was the first time I’d ever met her four-year-old at all. I’ve got to find a way to visit her more often, because that is just wrong. I did photograph her oldest when he was just a few months old, back when I shot film and did all my black-and-white printing in a darkroom in Boston. It was cool to see that they still had those photos hanging on their wall now, six years later.

Her boys are super cute and have tons of energy and lots of personality. There was really never a dull moment while I was there.