Brooke and Taylor's wedding was one I won't soon forget. This couple knows how to treat each other and the people around them. My heart was full seeing how much they were loved by their friends and family. I am sure it is in part because of how they  are so kind and loving toward everyone.  I only met them last year, but I was touched by their gentle spirits.

Brooke was so calm before the wedding. Everyone was enjoying the getting ready time.

Mom was pretty calm, too.

Nothing like a kiss from the one you love, on your wedding day.

Brooke's dad went to high school with my husband. He is such a nice man. I just love the Dunkin cup he came out holding after he got suited up. It completes the look.

The emotion in this image!

She is positively stunning!

Just look at the  bridesmaid's reactions as Brooke comes down the stairs.

 The neighbors come out to see them off.

A big shout out to First Choice Limousine. The driver, I am sorry I don't remember his name, was amazing. He really knew how to go above and beyond in his job. He was so helpful.

St Ignatius Church at Boston College, where the couple met, is beautiful.

It was a beautiful ceremony.

To say this was a tight knit, fun group, is an understatement. This is a thing they do when they get together. They are all cousins.  I'm not so sure what it's about, but maybe I'm better off not knowing.

Toasts given by the Maid of Honor and the Best man, were both touching and hilarious. 

The guests at the wedding were so much fun! I had a blast with them!

Th DJ really kept the crowd dancing and did a fantastic job!

Best to Brooke and Taylor! Thanks for letting me join in your celebration!

This is a story about a Moose. The moose is dead, but the story lives on.
The man in the picture above is my husband and you see, he has a problem with having an addiction to online auction sites. Things could be worse.

So as I sit in my home in Maine typing this, I can see 8 things in this room alone, that have been purchased on auction sites. Most of these things I love, so I benefit from his addiction.

However, recently he came to me and said, "I just want to tell you that I bought a moose head."
To which I replied, "What the hell? Why do we need a moose head?"
His casual reply was, "It was really cheap, you don't see them that cheap. I always see them for way more money!"
Wait, my mind was in disbelief, he actually knows what moose heads sell for? Who knows that? I thought that only people who hunt moose have them as trophies on their walls. And.... people actually sell moose heads? Really? Isn't that just not right if you didn't shoot it, you just bought it?
I then ask, "What are you going to do with this moose head?"
To which he again casually replied, "It's for my barn in Maine, and I bought a bear head, too!
WHAT???

This is what the barn looks like and will look like for a long time. Construction had to go on hold because my daughter is getting married and we need to pay for a wedding.  Apparently, you can't wait to buy the decor for the barn because you will never see it at such a bargain price again.

The story gets better, the moose head is too large to ship, so we are off to a little overnight vacation to Pennsylvania to pick up , "Rudolph",  the moose. (now named).
Here we are picking him up in Pennsylvania. Note, the moose has a ripped nose and a hole in the fur on his head.  Perhaps that is why he was such a bargain.

Of course, Rudolph does not fit in the back of the vehicle fully, and we have to travel all the way back home with back of the Explorer roped down with a part of a moose sticking out..............

...and this guy in the back seat.

So now Rudolph stays in our basement, for the time being.

 John and Johnny can spend time admiring him there. 
As it turns out, our son-in-law's German Shepard's fur was just the right color match. John was able to use little bit of it to repair Rudolph's issues. This is the first time Jager's   excess fur has been viewed in a positive light.

As for the other purchased decoration, I think we can bear with him for a little while longer.

I know I say I love everything, but I really do love so many things. So here is another thing I love, going to new parent's homes and having a photo session with them and their newborn .

Meet beautiful little Kaelyn and her mom, Jackie.

Newborn feet are so cute. Jackie's mom made this blanket for Kaelyn.

She peacefully slept through most of the session, except.........

........when she was disturbed for an outfit change.

It didn't take long before she was back to sleep.

One of the advantages of in home newborn sessions, is being able to photograph their surroundings. This is a gorgeous nursery Kaelyn's parents have put together for her.

It was great spending a morning in the sun drenched home of these beautiful ladies.

It was such a pleasure to photograph this young lady. When I was her third grade teacher 4 years ago, I knew she was special. I remember the day she got her first guitar and brought it in to show the class. She demonstrated how to play one chord, that was all she knew at the time, but she was determined to play. I also heard her singing as she walked out to recess one day, and her voice stopped me in my tracks. It was beautiful!

This was Ashley back then.

Fast forward to this year. I left teaching to pursue a career in photography and Ashley has been developing into quite a musician and actress. She is an 8th grader at Sharon Middle school and will be playing Sandy in the Middle School Musical. I was thrilled to have the opportunity to photograph her, recording this very special time in her life.

I had been wanting  to have a client who wanted portraits with some type of instrument or object that was important to them.   Ashley fit the bill.

She was so easy to work with, just like when she was in 3rd grade.  She was totally comfortable with me and I really enjoyed our time together. I should mention that I also taught her older brother, who is also very talented and is in the High School's theater productions. I would love to get him in someday to take his portraits.

This is a behind the scenes picture Ashley's mom took of us.

Here are a few more from our session.

Perhaps you are  a past student of mine with a talent. I started teaching in 1983, so there are a lot of you I would love to see again. Maybe you have a son or daughter that  does something very special that could be frozen in time by coming in for a portrait session. I would love to do this for you. You don't need to wait until senior portrait time. Ashley is not even in high school, but she and her family will have these images to preserve  this important time in her life.

Feel free to contact me. I love the challenge of planning out a session just for you.
Regards,
​Ann-Marie Ford
amford61@aol.com

 I always enjoy the speakers. Here are two of my favorites, Lindsay Adler, and Peter Hurley.

In February, the learning continued. I attended, Evolve, the convention for Professional Photographers of Massachusetts. It was held in Plymouth.  Another great photography educator, Joe Edelman, presented here. I was very inspired to try some new things after hearing his talk.

My friend and fellow photographer, Diane Brophy, an I, got together and did some experimenting with using color gels inspired by  the presentation by Joe and another presentation we attended later on in the year by Lindsay Adler, also sponsored by PPMA. This was one of the resulting images of beautiful Emily Pemberton, a client I met my first year in business.

Photographer, Ben Shirk was also at Evolve. I never even thought about trying compositing, which he is a master at, until I heard his talk. I was only going to stay for a little bit of his presentation, but I was mesmerized. I experimented with the technique. Here are a few of my attempts.

I still need a lot of practice, but I enjoy trying.

The variety of work I had this year was wonderful.  I did some theater photography,

quite a few weddings and

lots of headshots.

This one I particularly liked because the client needed it to try out for a role as an extra on a movie. He had to look like a tough guy. I loved the challenge. He got a call back based on the image.

Real estate photography is another type of photography I love. Above are examples of two different homes I did this year.

Senior portraits are always so much fun. It was great spending time with many seniors this year.

Families and children were a big part of my sessions this year.

I photographed Veronika and Greg's wedding, their first child's infant images and now the addition of their new daughter. I love their family.

This is another image from a different family that I have been photographing for several years now. I love this image. It is so him. He hates having his picture taken , so I just run around with him and get what I get. No posing.

Here is his sister. She is the complete opposite. She loved the camera and the camera loved her.

Event photography is my chance to go into Boston and meet lots people. I have regularly photographed the Harvard School of Dentistry events. This year I photographed an event for both the Harvard Dental School and The Medical School. 

At another event, I ended up meeting speaker and author David Horsager.

Which lead to me taking his new headshot.

........and then a conversation I had with him lead to him to inviting my husband and I out to his conference in Minnesota. I photographed the event and my husband attended. We both loved it. That was in November.

The year ended with another exciting opportunity. I spent a morning in December photographing Patriots wide receiver, Chris Hogan and his family. I also wrote another blog about this.

I remember sitting at my computer in January being discouraged about my lack of bookings. I never thought that the year would go as well as it did. God had other plans for me.  Sitting around being discouraged was not one of them. I thank him for all the opportunities he brings me. I can't wait to see what else this year will bring.

My personal life was filled with blessings, too. My mom and dad moved back to Maine from Florida. We now see each other more often. 

Our oldest daughter, Emily, got engaged to her wonderful boyfriend, Corey.

Our youngest daughter, Sarah, is still crushing it as youth pastor in Hawaii. We are very proud of how she has embraced the culture there. 

My awesome husband was Promoted to Chief of Police in Sharon. I am so proud of his accomplishments.

In December, my son-in-law graduated from The Randolph Police Academy and is a member of the Sharon Police Force.

If any of you know my family, you know we truly "Run on Dunkin." I'm sure we aren't the only ones, but we are pretty obsessed. We frequent or favorite location in  Walpole, MA  so much that we have become friends with several of the employees. We even exchange Christmas gifts .

This is Andrea, she is so nice, we just love her.

 My Brother and sister in-law's dog is named Dunkin. He gets to go to Dunkin every day to get his Munchkin.

We have a favorite "Dunks" in Manteo, NC. , where we like to Vacation.

I created this image for an assignment at New England School of Photography. The assignment was to select an iconic image and put your own twist on it. I did  Breakfast at Tiffany's Iconic Audrey Hepburn image, giving it a Dunkin twist. 

Here is another image I created for my NESOP class. I love when my family gets in on my silly ideas.
There are so many more Dunkin images I could share that would illustrate my obsession with Dunkin Donuts, or Dunkin as it is now called, but let's get to the real reason for the Blog. I want to share the unbelievable opportunity that I had  this last summer.

It all started when I met Tony Weisman, the CMO for Dunkin when I was photographing a conference he was speaking at in Boston. We got talking about my obsession with Dunkin and my love for the company. We chatted for a bit, great guy, by the way. He told me about an idea he had to recreate an old photo of the original Dunkin Donuts in Quincy, but he needed a photographer. He asked if would I be interested in working on the project?  WHAT?????   Would I be interested? I had to remain professional. Was I really hearing this? It has been a dream of mine to work for Dunkin Donuts since I started my photography Business. 

He didn't have to show me the picture, I knew it well.

The project was underway. I contacted my neighbor, Jimmy Keating, who owns several old cars and has lots of friends who also have cool old cars. I knew he would be able to help me identify the cars in the original picture and who might own similar ones that we could use for the shoot. I was right, he was a huge help. He put me in touch with Billy, who brought this car to my house to let me look at it. He also gave me leads to where I might find the other cars. For the next few months I visited car shows and scanned the internet for possible cars.  The cars we settled on  were not exact matches, but were in the same era.

After several postponements due to bad weather, the day of the shoot finally arrived. It was over 90 degrees, but the sky was clear. I thought I was early, but when I arrived at the first location we were shooting, but the guys with the cars were already there. I think they were as excited as I was.

I was warmly greeted by bothers, Victor and Octavio Carvalho, the franchise owners of the two stores we were photographing.  They own both the  the Next Generation Dunkin in Quincy, and the original Dunkin Donuts, also in Quincy. Their father owned the original shop before them. They also own many other Dunkin Donuts franchises in the area.

These guys were awesome!

So this is one of the original images.

Here is the edited version.

We moved about a mile away to the original Dunkin location. This store was more challenging. As you can see, the pavement was uneven, the mid-day  light was harsh,  there wasn't much room to get the right perspective, unless I was to stand in the middle of the busy Southern Artery. There were wires, cars, and other building to contend with. The old cars in front of the old Dunkin Donuts, caused people to gather. Cars on the road started slowing down and people were taking pictures. At one point, I had to politely ask people to step back and wait until I had captured my images. It was all very exciting to see the commotion we caused.

Here are some more images from the shoot.

I will leave you with the final image of the original location. Thanks you everyone from Dunkin Brands. You were all a pleasure to work with! Thanks to all of you who stopped by to read my blog.

In my job I get to meet and spend time with so many wonderful people. This past Saturday morning I had the pleasure of photographing Patriots wide receiver, Chris Hogan , his wife Ashley and their twins. They are just a beautiful family.

This is Chase, a handsome little guy.

And this is Parker a beautiful, independent little girl.

The weather was perfect to meander around at Wards Barry Farm in Sharon.

The twins really LOVED the animals! It was fun to see the joy they experienced by being so close to them.

Thanks Ashley and Chris for letting me record your  family outing at the farm. I hope some special memories were made for this holiday season. Enjoy a few more images from the day.