Last week I traveled to Orinda to photograph 2 year old J and his little 1 year old brother C. Absolutely beautiful children and absolutely mobile children. Mom is surprising Dad with some portraits of the boys, so if you happen to know these kids, don’t tell Dad, it’s a secret!!!

Mom was such a good sport! These boys had cupcakes! It was C’s birthday the next day and they had some left over from a celebration.

He’s sort of waving at me. Can you see it? Blurry hand!

Dad held both of the boys with ease.

I think from this look here Mom and Dad are telling me it’s time to let them rest!

My clients, however are residents of the city by the bay and know how to dress their adorable son, H! H is about to turn two years old and he is a mighty bundle of energy and spunk. He’s on the go and interested in things like trucks, balls, boats, sand, sticks and leaves. Very happy little fella. We had our summer session and here are a few sneak peaks for his mom and dad. They were both with me at the session and very nice folks to hang out with. We met at Chrissy Field which is one of my favorite San Francisco locations. It’s close to the Presido, which is another favorite as well as Baker Beach. You can’t beat any of those locations for unique settings.

H is very fascinated by nature. He’s a boy’s boy. He’s all boy.

I brought along my dog toy (which doubles as a kid’s toy). It’s a rubber chicken that looks EXACTLY like my brother-in-law. I call it Uncle Dave. Unfortunately, no one else in our family recognizes the resemblance except my husband. They think I am insane. H is already throwing like a champ.

The water fascinated him as well. Here he is peering over the wall, staring out at Marin County and Alcatraz in the distance.

I just want to say that it’s never too late to have the family you always dreamed of having. No matter how your child comes to you, the opportunity to parent a child is by far one of the most rewarding lifetime experiences. S and R tried for many years to conceive a child on their own and finally adopted their first child, a boy. M came along and guess what happened one month later? R found out she was pregnant! At the age of 40 she delivered a brother to 10 month old M.

It gets even better! We received a call a few months ago that a happy surprise was coming. R was expecting another child–a girl–at 45. Congrats to the family and to her big brothers M and M. Ha ha…sounds like a candy plug doesn’t it?

By the way, Maggie is the new family dog. Sweet addition to an already full house!

Ok, so it’s obviously after July 29 and I mentioned my life was changing. It changed. Hopefully you have read my about me section here–the photographer in the body of an IT geekette yada yada yada. I might have to redo this now. I am a self-employed photographer full time. That means accepting more clients that I have had to turn away and it means devoting 150% to Pam Biasotti Photography instead of the 105% I was devoting my time to!

For the first time in 22 years (uh oh now you can figure out how old I really am) I am not working for a big corporate company answering to the pointy hair bosses or evil human resource directors as to how much more productivity they can squeeze out of me while cutting expenses more and more each year. (Disclaimer: My last manager was really none of those things and I love her to death and only stayed in the corporate hell hole for as long as I did because she rocked and was the BEST example of what a manager should be) For the first time in 22 years I won’t be walking into an environment where Lumbergh is asking me to work 24/7 on an outage that is really the application side’s fault or the business side’s fault. I won’t be toting hardware from one building to the next or re-imaging a desktop. I won’t be on my hands and knees disconnecting equipment. I won’t be sneezing repeatedly at all the chemical crap in the company carpet. You get the picture. The people who were on the same contractor account as me were awesome. I will miss them all terribly but I won’t miss the days of Dilbert like absurdities that plaque every corporation.

I have done it all. From college I worked in banking as a Customer Service Manager/Ops Quality Control person with an Assistant Vice President title (which is REALLY NO BIG DEAL cause everyone is an AVP in banking), managed call center employees (ackkk fancy word for babysitter of the disgruntled), worked as a Help Desk admin (How many times are you going to forget your password? Sheesh!), Data Security analyst, Network Engineer, IT Consultant, blah blah blah

I went through the motions, did my work as well as I could, gave it my best but something died in me after my youngest came along and I just couldn’t forge ahead the way I used to. I lost my spark. So, anyway, the outsourcing company I worked for outsourced me one last time on Tuesday the 29th. It was a good ride but it’s time for a change and for Pam Biasotti Photography to be a top children’s and dog portrait photographer. I have some big plans and changes coming my way and I look foward to sharing them with my past, present and future clients. Here’s to the next 22 years of doing what I #$%()$%$#’n LOVE!!!

Speaking of love, Riley’s got some new cousins.

Here are some more wedding shots from last weekend. I definitely need to keep my second shooter status, as I just don’t think I can make formals look exciting. It’s hard work to shoot a wedding. There are so many inspirational photographers out there that make it look so easy.

I was out of the office on location last weekend and spent a few days up in the Pacific Northwest with Erika. We had a wedding to shoot and did some dog mini sessions. Weather was sunny, warm and perfect. I was able to breathe smoke free air and escape the fiery haze that has been plaguing the Bay Area for the past several weeks. Here are a few sneak peaks.

I will be returning phone calls and emails beginning Tuesday.

His blog is worth following. His journey is changing day by day as his little girl continues to grow and he continues to embrace the changes that he has had to endure without his wife, Liz. You might want to check him out and read through his blog to understand some of the photographs I have posted here.

Matt and his family were visiting the awesome Aunt Deb in the SF last weekend and graciously invited me to hang out with them for a bit. Every single person that was there had wonderful stories to share about Liz and Matt. The love they all have for Madeline is such a treasure. Such a loving, positive great group of people. It gave me a lot to think about in my own life. This is truly one of those times when you don’t sweat the small stuff because everything is the small stuff.

Here’s just a few images I wanted to share.

While Madeline napped, I was offered good food and drink. The Stellas were my present to Matt. I brought Madeline a little outfit.

When Madeline woke up, Matt introduced us. She’s as beautiful as her pictures on his blog. Her eyes are just like his.

This is my favorite image.

Matt asked me if I wanted to hold Madeline. Are you kidding? Absolutely! I gazed into her big blue eyes and she had no problem with a strange person holding her. I even had the pleasure of feeding her. She drank her bottle quietly while those piercing eyes stared back at me.

We lost the light and soon it was very dark. But we continued for awhile with flash. This is Liz’ mom and her sister. You can see where her big smile came from. Both truly lovely women. Dad isn’t pictured here but he was just as friendly and warm.

Lastly, I wanted to show one shot of Matt with his good friend Ken, “The Bastard”. I just report it the way it’s told to me.

Looking forward to meeting you again next time you are in the SF, Matt. You are doing a fantastic job.

I was tempted to make myself look glamorous, but you shouldn’t doctor someone else’s work EVER.  I wasn’t wearing any makeup, my face was full of dog saliva and my hair was definitely bed head style.

Steve and his wife Terry also breed Goldens and you can find out more about them here.