Let’s start with the part about being over the hump.  It is Wednesday (a.k.a. humpday). But this week, today is the equivalent of Thursday, since we are driving to VA on Friday instead of going to work. My sister and her family are on the east coast visiting my sister’s father-in-law and family. Since they live in Alaska (my sister’s fam), we can’t pass up an opportunity to visit them when they are within driving distance. I’m all kinds of excited about seeing them.

Next: Last night I shot some kind of stuff for a fun little editorial that I’m working on for SoJones. It is more stuff from our same designer friend who made the dress in Reagan’s bodega photos. Our friends (the Adams) were kind enough to be my go-to models again. It is especially important to mention what good sports they were about standing out in the cold while I fought with finicky strobes (notice the inconsistent lighting in the photos). Hopefully it will be the last time I have to deal with Canon’s line-of-sight IR triggers. I think that I’m going to use some “Christmas money” to buy a new pocket wizard setup before we go to VA.

And… one more

Thursday evening we set out on a secret mission that I dubbed “project: snap tree.” We hit 6 trees, all in one evening. We started in DUMBO and worked our way up town, mixing in some burgers along the way. For the most part these shots were a combination of super long exposures with light painting (thanks for the idea on the light painting, Seth).

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I guess that “melee” is not the right word to use. But I’m already feeling like I might have been involved in a melee, and the weekend is only half way over. Friday, I shot a Kid Zoom exhibit at one of the Opera Gallery spaces. I’m not going to lie, I am not a huge fan of the gallery, since they still have Mr. Brainwash tripe on display in their Spring St. space. But, whatev. I enjoyed shooting KZ’s work. How often do you see spray painted bears?

Which brings us to Saturday. We were up early and headed to Jerz. Yeah, the garden state. We took a little jaunt to the Paramus Ikea. It was ok. Our friends the Adams came with us. So that made it bearable. After our trip across the Hudson, Sam (Adams, not my brother Sam) had to work. So we dropped him in Manhattan. Meanwhile, Anna (Adams) came with us to W-chester to visit PJ. Below: a shot of Piper hanging out on Anna’s lap and playing with the new elephant hand puppet that Anna brought for her.

Piper was sleeping when we arrived. She was bit groggy during our entire visit. But that wasn’t about to stop her from climbing up for some airplane rides.

We don’t normally shoot Piper with flash. But the blinds in her room are currently broken, which makes it tough to get any natural light. Some of them turned out pretty cute.

I’m sure that the other kids in the room appreciated the occasional burst of light. Sorry, Piper’s roommates.

After a relatively decent visit with Piper, we were Manhattan bound to start working on our Christmas cards. Yes, we celebrate Christmas around the Breinholt house. Try not to get offended, those who celebrate Hanukkah or Universe-mas or some other vaguely agnostic/religious holiday that occurs toward the end of December.

Doing Christmas cards (late) is no easy matter. So we took a break and did a quick photo shoot at our favorite local bodega.

Reagan was rocking this dress from one of our designer friends who operates out of Brooklyn. Reagan had the idea of shooting in a bodega, and I loved it. So, I cleared it with the owner a couple of days ago. It was a lot of fun. The store was still open for business and everything. I had to hurry and move the strobe stands every time that someone was trying to get through, hahaha. Sunday: back to the garden state for a wedding. Happy this-n-that!

Ok, first of all– feel free to count the number of beards that appear in this post. Second of all– we had a blast last night. There were a lot of cool people who showed up to the party at Kiehl’s. Reagan was chatting it up with Dexter, before I snapped the image above. She was interviewing him for her hair blog.  The shot below is of my homey Zach, in action. Zach is the guy in the middle of the frame wielding the 5D. It was the first time that our beards had ever met. They seemed to hit it off nicely.

I am a big fan of Jeff Koons, so Zach actually volunteered to take the shot below. He is a pretty cool guy. In addition to his art, I can definitely appreciate all of the philanthropy that he does.

Finally, a shot of Reagan in front of step and repeat, in some of  her new digs.  She was looking pretty hot last night.

After the Kiehl’s party, we met up with some of Reagan’s friends for a wrap party for a movie that Reagan was an extra in. It was good times all around. I have been battling a cold, or something for the last several days. When I woke up this morning, it was a bit more than I could handle, so I ended up working from home. This actually worked out kind of nicely, since my brother arrived this morning. We were at least able to get lunch together, etc.. More good stuff later this week.

A couple of weeks ago, I was doing some work on the north end of our building and noticed that 1 WTC  is now as tall (or taller) than where I sit. I managed to write a quick blurb about that observation on FB. My friend Jon read it and asked me to take a photo. So, Jon, here is your photo. It isn’t the sharpest image, because unfortunately, I’m shooting through dirty glass. But you can definitely get an idea. You can see that they are also making progress with the reflection pools. The one closest to the tower actually has water in it. Gothamist ran an article about it the other day.

As a bonus you can click here for the full resolution image (6.5 MB). Again, not the sharpest.

What I meant was, I didn’t have any digital Halloween photos. I did, however bring along the trust Polaroid to the Halloween party. When I say “the Halloween Party,” as far as I am concerned, there might as well only be one. We get together with the same group of friends pretty much every year (except for those who moved away ). Anyway, here are a few shots that I scanned. The shot of Parking Man and Scissor Girl, was actually taken by Edward Scissor Hands (that dude has some serious dexterity for being of the scissorhanded persuasion).

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The weekend was a good one. I’m not a person who get’s really amped about Halloween. So, Reagan made up the gap and put together a costume for me, since I had to end up working most of the day Saturday anyway. I was “parking man.” I didn’t get any photos. I’m sure that Reagan will put a few up at some point. BTW, Reagan is one of the people who says “costchewm,” while I pronounce it “costoom.” So, I snicker every time I hear her say it. Back on point–check out the photos of Piper at her Halloween parade, if you haven’t already.

Despite having to work, and the other activities of the weekend, we were able to spend some really fun time with Piper. One of my favorite photos of the weekend, is above. Piper was trying to crawl underneath a chair, without taking her eyes off of Fantastic Mr. Fox. Skills, I tell you.

Piper was in an awesome mood both Saturday and Sunday. Saturday, we had a tickle/hangout session before Piper was worn out and decided to take a nap.

^—tickles… and the nap –

Sunday, some of our good friends, Sam and Anna came to meet Piper for the first time. Here is Piper hanging out with Anna and Reagan.

One more item of note, is Piper’s new silver moccasins. She loves them. Sometimes she feels like she can’t inspect them closely enough.

For the rest of the photos from our Piper visits this weekend, go here.

Apologies, in advance for the copious amounts of photos in this post.

Last Thursday night, I went to DUMBO for a PBR pop-up party. I met up with our friends Sam and Anna, because Sam was doing video. We were totally bummed that Reagan couldn’t make it down. Reagan still wasn’t feeling well, and had scheduled a hair appointment for that evening. While I was waiting for S and A to make their way down town, I snapped a couple of sunset shots at the north cove marina (and of course I was daydreaming about buying a sailboat).

We made our way over to BK, where the crowd was exactly how one would expect it to be for a PBR event.

I loved this DJ, she was bananas.

The Adam’s Kung Fu style, under the Manhattan Bridge (not one of my better photos, but it would be wrong not to post this kind of Kung Fu action):

Anna, totally zoned out on the Chamber’s St. platform:

Last weekend, Maggie, one of Reagan’s good friends that she grew up with in TN was in town with her fiance from DC. It was especially cool to see them because it was our firs time meeting her fiance, despite failed previous attempts.  One of the things that we did was visit an exhibit at the Brooklyn museum, of work done by an artist on a show that Maggie and Ben watch.

The dude’s work was pretty cool. Most of it was painted or drawn. But there were two large sculptures in the center of the exhibit, that reminded me of something extracted from the ancient Pompeii.

Below: Maggie and Reagan being dramatic.

We capped off the afternoon picking up a slice in the FiDi. Reagan snapped the shot below from the upper level of the dining room.

Totally kidding, about the “already” part. Holy cow, torrential rain makes a week drag and drag, no? Anyway, tomorrow I’ll be shooting the event below. So, please (pretty please) feel free to come by. I mean– Bloomies, you know where it is. And.. free Heine. How can you turn that down?

Post script: I. Hate. Hiccups. From now on, I’m not even going to say it is cute when Piper has them. Miserable.