The Need for Peace

Hi everyone!
I've been insanely busy lately. I'm not complaining, but I just don't have enough time to blog about all the cool things I've been up to. The Free Press has me running around like crazy and I just finished up a couple of Vermont Life photo assignments for the summer issue. On Sunday I am off to a photography workshop in Cape Cod for a week. Too busy, I tell you. And wedding season hasn't even started yet!
So here I am, finally blogging about a war protest in Burlington that I covered on March 22nd...

















Peace!

Happy Spring !?!

When I think of spring I think of daffodils and green grass. I don't think of snow boots, winter parkas and frozen fingers. But living in Vermont, that is our reality. Love it or leave it. So when Easter morning arrives, we don't pout about it, we just don our winter gear, do a quick egg hunt and run inside to thaw out and eat yummy food. The funny thing is, my kids didn't grow up with the spring memories that I did, so they don't really know any other way.
I hope you had a happy Easter day!

Our family egg hunt...



Baxter is thinking...all right already, can we go inside and eat jelly beans now?

Later in the morning, our friends came over and we had a second egg hunt...

Yeti loved the hunt!



Sugar and spice and everything nice...
and you know the rest...

Summer caught in the act of sneaking goodies...

Frost-Freelance

As a freelance photojournalist, I get a wide range of assignments: from sports to profiles to press conferences to fires. But after many years of working for the Free Press, the assignments that I still have a hard time believing I am getting paid to do are "stand-alones". I am literally paid to drive around and find pretty pictures that don't go along with a story. Hence the name.

Since people are my all time favorite subject, I particularly love the slice-of-life photographs, which typically consist of folks out in the environment doing something or anything of interest. Even when I'm not on assignment I find myself scanning the scenery for these. It's a sickness really.

So here are a few of my favorite winter drive-by images...

Our 3rd Annual "Great Escape"

A few years ago I heard there was a new indoor water park a couple hours away in Lake George, New York, and I knew it would be a fun way to beat the winter blues. So we've packed our suits and headed for an overnight at The Great Escape each winter since.

Baxter plays with the water.
What a nut!
Summer and her pal, Brigitte.
Baxter prepares to ride the waves...

Totally pro!
I'm sure even the best surfers have lost their shorts.
My boys!
Summer and yours truly.
Summer's pal, Riley, on the Lazy River.
A little snapshot of me and the kids...before...



...and after! (sorry Summer)

TODAY! (yesterday)

The TODAY show is taking a winter break from their NYC studio and brought the whole team to Sugarbush ski area here in Vermont yesterday to broadcast the show. I was fortunate enough to photograph it for the Burlington Free Press and had a blast documenting the hoopla and meeting the cast and crew, who were all so friendly.

I briefly met the whole TODAY show gang, but my favorite was Ann Curry. As I told the metro editor of the Free Press, she was the kind of person I felt I could be pals with.

Here are a handful of my favorite published images and outtakes from the day.

Ann Curry, Natalie Morales and Al Roker joke around before the camera rolls.
Natalie and Matt Lauer
Al
Ann and Al
Al and Matt get a ride from Sugarbush snow patrol.
Matt
A furry fan
Hoda Kotb has her first snowboarding lesson.

You snowboarding fans will recognize this Vermont celebrity. It's olympic gold medalist Hannah Teeter.
My pal, Mike Riddell was in a ski wear fashion show. Everything was going great until...
...oh, thank goodness...he's just showing off the board shorts under the pants!
Nice work, Mike!!
Our local NBC weather personality, Tom Messner, is on the far right.
The scene
On the far right is the TODAY show photographer.
Koko, another furry fan
Natalie and Hoda
young fans wave to the NBC camera
Joel Banner Baird, the writer from the Free Press, stayed toasty warm in this hat.To the delight of the crowd, Meredith Viera took time out for hugs and autographs.
Warren friends!
The fabulous Ann Curry!
Joel from the Free Press snapped this happy photo of me before we left.

What a great day! :-)

Orchids

No, unfortunately, I didn't fly off to Tahiti to take these orchid photos. I just journeyed upstairs to my bathroom. Admittedly it's difficult to live in a place with 6 months of winter, so if I need a break from the grey, dismal, frosty days I can soak in a big tub surrounded by windows, and walls painted the color of a Bora Bora lagoon.
Of course, the sad reality is that the kids are the only ones with time for bubble baths these days. Oh, and the cat, who loves to lounge in the empty tub and watch the water drip.
The good news, is that it only takes a moment to enjoy the beauty of this amazing plant. I don't know too much about these exotic beauties, but this one is called a Phalaenopsis or "moth orchid" and it lives on the edge of the tub. It is the perfect flower for me because I neglect it and it loves me anyway. It blooms a couple times a year and the flowers last for months.

I captured these images in natural light with my I.S.O. set to 125, with a 70-200 Canon I.S. lens, at F-stop 2.8.

Raggedy Pote

Since Daria is away, I'm showing the blog a little love!

Way back before we had kids, we had a rather nomadic lifestyle, traveling all over the place. Oftentimes I'd have to leave weeks at a time and would miss Daria sooooo much, so we would find creative ways to be together. Well, most have heard the story about Raggedy Ann and Andy--the "raggedy" and the "andy" has always fit well on my part--but Raggedy Daria quickly made her appearance. Over the years, our nicknames evolved for each other until we officially became Pie & Pote (short for compote, if you must know). Naturally, our two dolls became Raggedy Pie & Raggedy Pote! Anytime we had to be apart, then our raggedy partners would accompany us (usually sneakily stowed away into the suitcase for the person leaving or under the covers for the person staying home)!

Since Daria headed out to California last week, I found Raggedy Pote hiding under the covers at home (and, of course, Raggedy Pie was traveling west too!). Summer and Baxter miss mom sooo much, and you can see below that Summer fell asleep with Raggedy Mommy wrapped snuggily in her arms!



Yeti looking a little camera shy.


Sometimes the snow doesn't quite happen...the other day we first got freezing rain, which ends up enveloping all the vegetation in a beautiful icy casing, and then we got a few flakes to dust everything!

California here I come...

I'm heading out the door for California. I'll be visiting family and friends in the San Francisco Bay Area for a week. My pal Patty is heading out for business so it worked out that we could travel together. I'm sure we'll be busy reading People Magazine, doing Sudoku puzzles and chit chatting. I'm so excited to go, but it's always difficult leaving my family for any amount of time.
I'm sure I'll have so many photos to share when I return, so stay tuned!
I'll leave you with a few photos I took yesterday while I was playing with my 50mm 1.2F lens.
xo

Fun at Blueberry Lake

Yesterday our family took a little road trip over to Warren for an afternoon of cross-country skiing at Blueberry Lake Cross-Country Ski Center. The cool thing about Blueberry Lake is that they welcome dogs on their trails, so Yeti got to ski for the first time. I'm pretty sure that he had the best time of his life!

The craziest thing happened out on the trails...it was getting dark as we made our way back to the lodge, and suddenly, Yeti ran barking up the trail and he found my pal Barrie Fisher, her squeeze Steve and her dog Teaky! It was the world's biggest coincidence because I had called Barrie in the morning to see if she wanted to meet up since we'd be in her neighborhood. I told her we'd be nordic skiing, but I didn't say where, so it was extremely cool to bump into them. We ended up having an awesome dinner together and celebrating her birthday, which is TODAY!!













HAPPY BIRTHDAY BARRIE!!! xoxo

Happy New Year!

Our family wishes you and yours a healthy, happy and prosperous 2008!

xo Daria

Holiday Cheer with the VPP

Our family hosted the annual Vermont Professional Photographer's Holiday Party on Sunday. It was a very festive and cozy gathering of some of the members and their families. A few of the highlights of this year's party were the live pianist, the pomegranate martinis and the gift exchange. I can't remember who took home the Chia Shrek pet, but I'm sure they are enjoying it thoroughly!

Thanks to all of you who were able to attend. We had a great time!

Enjoy some of my favorite snapshots from the day...

Kevin Macy bonds with Yeti over a beer...
The lovely Dorothy attended with her husband, John...
Dorothy snapped this photo of Yeti and me...
Ed Champagne(left), The VPP President Don Whipple, and his wife, Louise...
Summer and the kids were busy having fun with the Dance Dance Revolution set up in the basement, so we didn't see them too much...

The lovebirds Annalisa Parent & Chad
Barbara, our pianist extraordinaire...
Yeti with his new buddy, Arlo...
Gathering 'round the piano for some holiday tunes...
Larry AsamJeff Marcotte's family...
Ann and her son Ross
Robin Foster
Thanks to Gillian's cousin, Susan, we got a group photo...
The birthday girl, Jessica Rotkiewicz!
Gillian Randall (right) brought along her cousin, Susan, who lives in Santa Rosa, California, the town I grew up in. It's a small world!

A Special Holiday Greeting...

...with gLOVE!



~The Bishop Family :-)

Home for the Holidays

Happy Holidays!! I hope your holiday season has been filled with peace, love, and laughter!


We have been non-stop since the weekend with fun and cozy get-togethers with our closest friends and favorite neighbors. But I cherish Christmas morning when it's just our family. It's so relaxing and peaceful and the kids are overwhelmed with excitement. It's magical!

Being invited to one of our neighbor's gingerbread house decorating parties has been one of the highlights of our holidays this year. It was the 25th year for this special family tradition, so it was an honor to be included. Baxter and Summer were unbelievably focused for 2 hours and I was impressed with how beautifully their houses turned out.

the blank canvases...
yummy decorations...


Summer and Baxter are in the zone...

tips from the master, Auntie Kim...
Auntie Jen...
hard at work...
sticky fingers...
the masterpieces...

here's Baxter's...
and Summer's...
a cute detail on Summer's...
The crew...

Vermont's fringe benefit

The best way to cure the winter blues is to get outside and play in the snow! The bummer is, sometimes there's not enough snow and sometimes there is snow, but it's just too darned cold for this California girl. Lately, we've had plenty of snow and the sun has been smiling on us nearly every day. Perfection!!

Thanks to Andy, I've been able to snap a few photos while out and about with my handy and adorable Canon Digital Elph. Only trouble is, I can’t find the strap, so it’s nerve-wracking to take photos on a ski lift, 20 feet above ground, while the wind is blowing! Yikes!!

So, Andy and I finally got out for a ski together on a fun weekend away thanks to my photography pal Karen Pike!! I photographed her daughter Emma’s Bat Mitzvah last summer and she blew me away with a gift certificate to the Inn at Baldwin Creek in Bristol including a fabulous dinner and breakfast AND she took the kids for the weekend! Karen and her family are THE BEST!!

Here we are at Ole’s Cross Country Ski Center in Warren on our weekend away.
We bumped into at least a dozen old friends from the Waitsfield/ Warren area of Vermont. It was a total bonus!
Our good old friends from our mountain biking days: Marilyn and her husband Adam! Click on her name to see how fabulous she is!

We arrived to pick up the kids from a block party in Karen's neighborhood and Baxter, who had never before been ice skating was playing hockey with the boys! We were so proud!!
Andy snatched up the camera when he and some friends traveled to Maine a couple weekends ago to ski in the Rangeley Lakes 50km Loppet (a.k.a. a super long cross-country ski race, through deep snow, with a broken ski pole.) The super heroes pictured from left: Karen, Mike C., Jesus, Andy, Paul, Mike R. (also an awesome photog), Audrey and Phil. Doesn't it look like an ad for L.L. Bean?
Last weekend we utilized our ski passes at Bolton Valley Resort and met up with a bunch of neighbors for some fun family skiing.
Good thing Andy has long arms or we wouldn't have all fit in the photo taken high up on the chair lift.
Summer, Mia and Patty.
Here is most of our group...
and here is the other part...

SNOW DAY!!

While most people in the country were getting flowers and chocolates for Valentine’s Day we received the biggest Vermont snowstorm in 24 hours…ever!

Over 30 inches of snow fell in our area and, boy oh boy, are we excited! The monster storm has been dubbed “The Valentine’s Day Blizzard”. The preoccupation has been removing snow from roads, driveways and sidewalks. Most people in our neighborhood still hadn’t been plowed out of their driveways until this morning. It’s been wild! The kids have had 3 snow days in a row and they are loving life!

This weekend’s agenda: SKIING!!

Here is our unplowed driveway on Thursday morning...
The snow piles were too big for the regular plows, so they had to bring in the heavy artillery...
Our mailbox...
Bayberry Lane is finally cleared...
Andy is the shoveling champion of the universe!
One for the records! Clockwise from top: Mia, Will, Max, Summer and Baxter by our 9 foot tall lane post.
Max runs up Bayberry Lane.
"Kip" and my pal Patty's legs...
Summer with her "BFF", Mia (best friend forever)
Jumping off the mountain of snow at the end of our lane. Wheeeee!...

Sweethearts!!

Leah and Peter will be married in the city of Burlington this August, so they decided it would be nice to meet up at Shelburne Farms for their engagement session. I found them inside the visitor’s center doing a little wine tasting. We could have just hung out in that warm cozy place sipping wine all afternoon, but there were a couple horses and a sleigh waiting outside for us and many sweet moments to be captured, so we braved the elements.

Leah and Peter couldn’t be more adorable and can’t wait to photograph their wedding…when it is warm outside!

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!!
xoxo

Art Inspires Art

Back in January, Katharine Montstream, an amazing painter from Burlington, called to tell me that she admired a photograph I had taken that was published in the Burlington Free Press; she asked if she could use the photo as inspiration for a watercolor painting for a 2006 Christmas card! I was so thrilled! Katharine sent me the card today and I think it is more beautiful than my photograph!! You can see for yourself…

If you happen to be in the Burlington area this weekend, they are having an open studio where you can come see some of her fresh work, meet her and her family, and buy some incredible artwork, cards, etc.!