Alaska Parent Magazine: Cutest Kid Cover - Fairbanks Childhood Photographer

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Last winter, Alaska Parent Magazine held a cute kid contest.  The prize: the cover of the winter 2016 issue!  As luck would have it, the Cutest Kid in Alaska was deemed to be Isadora of Fairbanks, and Alaska Life Publishing asked me to photograph her.  

And boy, is she a cutie!   

 

You can grab copies of Alaska Parent at many spots in Fairbanks - you can find a list of locations here!  

Charcoal Supply Co. - Fairbanks Commercial Photography

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This past summer I had the pleasure of working with several local businesses, one of which was Charcoal Supply Co..  Let me tell you guys - I learned SO MUCH about barbecue while working with Dan.  I had no idea barbecue was so intricate, so nuanced -  its own art form.  Dan pursues it with the passion and enjoyment you see on the most dedicated chefs, and I can only hope that a little of his prowess sunk in via osmosis.  Because after photographing all these goods, I'm ready to hit the grill.  

Cuban-style Plantains for Breakfast - Fairbanks Documentary Photographer

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Plantains are kind of a new thing for me.  As you can imagine, they're not exactly Alaska's most common import.  Fred Meyer will usually have a small display of them between the organic and non-organic bananas, but half the time the miniature sugar bananas or red bananas are mis-identified as the plantains... or there will be none at all.  And when I do find them, it's rare to find green, unripe ones - even if they look green when I grab them, by the next morning they're bright yellow with brown dalmatian spotting.  

Ripe fruit is generally a good thing, though, right?  I would tend to agree, except for the case of the plantain.  Plantains are more like a potato than a banana, and you prepare tostones - those wonderfully smashed-looking savory discs that litter my Instagram feed's enviable plates - with green plantains.  

It's a good thing that ripe plantains can be just as delicious, if more undercelebrated.  It turns out Cuban-style fried plantains are made with only a few ingredients: over-ripe plantains, coconut oil, brown (or coconut) sugar, and salt.  

They're not something we make often, but it sure is fun once and a while.  It's a dish I don't think I would have ever considered making before the scientific findings that 'fat doesn't make you fat' really gained traction - and even then, it took me a while to overcome fat phobia.  (I remember the first time a naturopath told me how nutritious coconut oil was, and prescribed a tablespoon a day.  ...Plain.  Solid fat eaten off a spoon...  I'm pretty sure you could have made a fairly successful meme with the expression on my face.)  Of course, I'm not arguing that these are health food, but neither are they the anathema they once were.

But seriously, you heard about the corrupt research about fat (and conspicuously, NOT sugar) that Harvard's been generating for the past FIVE DECADES, right?

This particular morning, I had ripe plantains in the fruit bowl.  And Norah was wearing super cute jammies (I may or may not have squealed aloud upon finding them at Once Upon A Child).  And my camera was nearby.  And so this was breakfast.  :)

Clearly, none of us had had coffee yet.  

Clearly, none of us had had coffee yet.  

Mama+Baby: Ashley & Maddox - Fairbanks Portrait Photographer

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I'm a little bit in love with this set of images.  I'm lucky enough to have friends and colleagues within the local photographer community who are willing to be guinea pigs for ideas I want to work out; in this case, the lovely Ashley of Applegum Photography let me monopolize her and baby Maddox for the morning.

Mother+Child sessions are a real love of mine on any given day, and this particular set of portraits was designed to capture a specific bond in a specific way.  My youngest child is just a few months older than Ashley's Maddox, and I just absolutely revel in his babyhood.  I could eat it with a spoon.  I love his plush cheeks, milky breath, and downy hair; the coos, the smiles, and even the squawks.  And the cuddles.  There is a palpable oxytocin rush when he intentionally leans his face into mine for kisses, or nuzzles into my neck, or reaches out to touch my cheek.  HEART MELTED.  

It got me to thinking that I really wanted to design a session that could document this particularly sweet paragraph in the chapter of the mama-baby story.  I wanted images that look like the moments feel.  

And if that makes any sense to you, well, I just may be the photographer for you.  :)  All kidding aside, I really do think every mama deserves to have such a beautiful portrait of her love for her baby.  There really is no more powerful thing.    

Eggs & A Slice of Light - Fairbanks Documentary Photographer

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My daughter's preschool teacher recently gifted us a dozen homegrown eggs on what turned out to be a spectacularly sunny (and really chilly!) fall day.  Upon opening them, I saw they were a variety of sweet, muted pastel hues, and I couldn't resist the urge to take a quick photo in the bright sunlight.  That got Norah's interest, though, and as she came over to see what I was doing she began counting them, pointing out the different colors, and asking why they were different...and I "accidentally" made a photo essay about it.  (Hashtag, photographer problems.)  Seriously, though, you couldn't have planned a waldorf-inspired moment better if you'd tried!  We got to count, match, and talk all about chickens.  Every day since then, she's requested "pretty eggs" for breakfast and has painstakingly selected which two eggs she'd like from the pantone array of peach, ecru, pale turquoise, and almost-blue in the cardboard carton.

Picking up my camera and taking the time to indulge in personal work like this - documenting our everyday moments - has been so good for my soul.

Tiny House, Growing Family - Fairbanks Family Photographer

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It just snowed for the first time this winter yesterday.  So I'm still in the 'oh, snow, you're so pretty' phase of things, and it seemed like a good time to finally get some pretty winter sessions up on the blog!  

These faces are probably familiar to many - both Baylie and Bjorn grew up in Fairbanks and seem to know almost everyone, LOL!  And they became even more well-known on an entirely different scale when they joined the tiny living phenomenon about two years ago (yeah, this session is circa late 2014....oops).  

This sweet session shows them with their first tiny house, here in Fairbanks.  They've since moved on to warmer climes (Washington state) and bigger houses (... I think they gained something like 25 square feet in their new tiny, haha!), but this is a chapter in their journey that's definitely worth remembering.  

You can catch up with their adventures raising two (soon to be three!) kids in a tiny house on Baylie's blog, Tiny House Growing Family.