Are you tired of the blizzard scenery or grey winter skies in the northern hemisphere? I'm here to give you a visual vacation to San Diego so take a few moments for yourself and escape into these dreamy, desert botanical images.
I hope you feel restored now or even inspired to start planning a getaway for yourself.
Do you have a blank wall in your home needing art? Have you been too busy with work and kids or overwhelmed by curating a gallery wall? I'm really excited to offer you a curated gallery wall from my collection and I'm calling it a Wall of Sunshine to chase away the cold.
Here it is presented in vintage gold frames thrifted in Portland, OR for my very own home.
My shop has been updated with my 2016 Calendar, Sperare (it means hope, in Italian). Calm your hectic work days all year with my nature and floral photography sitting right on your desk.
Like last year, it comes with a reclaimed wooden clipboard with a magnetic back which was a big hit with my customers. If you are a returning calendar customer, you can keep your clipboard and order the refill pages only!
Choosing the images for my calendar is a fun task each year for me. It's a little year-in-review of some of the beautiful moments I documented.
I was proud of myself this year for seeking and photographing the beauty around me even while I was so ill. I'm selling my calendars this year pre-order style and they will ship around the week of December 2, 2015 in time for holiday gifting.
PS I love this little deer and he loves to be in my photos during the holiday season.
I learned over the weekend that February is the normal time for plum trees to bloom here, so I am now enjoying their beauty instead of worrying about why they are blooming "early." I snapped these pretty blossoms on a walk this morning, it was quite cold but sunny as could be. I hope this palette inspires you, no matter where you live, especially if you are still knee-deep in snow.
I'm thrilled to offer my 2015 photo calendar to you! It comes with the cutest magnetic clipboard you guys. Put it on your fridge, or for you DIYers, pop it on your magnetic chalkboard wall because I know you have one of those somewhere. :)
Order by 12/15 for Christmas gifts or anytime for year round deliciousness.
Have you ever been to Portland in the spring time? The cherry tree blossoms all over the city create a "pink snow" and it never ceases to delight, amaze and distract me.
I encourage you to pin away and share the joy of spring with everyone you know.
I made a slideshow* to show you the beautiful softcover photo book I created and published with Artifact Uprising.
Sweet Eventide Vol. 1 from Jessica Nichols on Vimeo.
This 56-page premium soft cover photo book features some of my most beloved iPhone images. It is 5.5 inches square and printed on 100% Post Consumer Recycled paper. My first batch of books sold out and my second batch will arrive around December 13th. There is a little secret at the end of the book for you, and it's not a photograph but it is a part of my heart.
People are saying lovely things like:
"Your book is Magnificent."
-- Jamie W.
You can pre-order your copy using this link.
* The music I chose is in the public domain, isn't it beautiful?
Introducing Sweet Eventide's 2014 Calendar, Natura.
This 2014 calendar is a collection of my favorite images from nature, or natura as they say in Italian.
Here is the complete collection of photographs included in Natura:
(rows from top to bottom, months from left to right)
January through March April through June July through September October through December
Order your Natura 2014 Calendar for $25.
Yesterday, I was one burned out mama in need of time alone. So I got my husband to hold down the fort, grabbed my camera and drove away from home with no plan. I ended up out near the Portland International Airport and parked my car directly under the flight path just as the sun was setting. Ahh...bliss.
I watched the crescent moon, the snow on Mt. Hood, the headlights on the cars going by and the lights under the airplanes coming in for a landing. I felt the brisk wind rustle in the trees around me and I listened to the roar of those jet engines over my head. All the while, I was clicking away on my Canon, totally oblivious to my cranky, spent mood from half an hour before.
With the very last light, I put away my camera and snapped a photo of the scene with my phone for Instagram. Without thinking, I wrote about what photography means to me and now I would like to share it with you too.
I am a photographer because I need to see the magic all around me every day. The days can be so long, so full of conflict and negotiation and giving and deciding things and struggling. When I am running on fumes and desperate for me, my camera is always there to help me see the magic that is there all along, even when I'm too worn out to see it without my lens. And my camera doesn't care about my grammar. And I hope my photographs have helped you see the magic on your hard days too. That is my deepest wish.
I've been listening to Hawaiian music on Pandora with my office windows open to a sunny, warm day and editing my dogwood photos that I took earlier this week. It's all rather blissful if I do say so. I have enough dogwood photos to last you for days. Are you ready?
If you enjoyed these, please let me know in the comments and please feel free to pin them!
Have a beautiful weekend!
This is my favorite photo that I took this week. It's a sign on the side of a building over on NE Alberta Street in Portland.
It commands you to stop and think, doesn't it? I've been thinking about what sorts of limits I have been putting on myself. I've been limiting the amount of rest and downtime I'm allowing myself to have. I have also been limiting the amount of Kettle chips I want to have. I'm trying to set myself free of limiting thoughts about my business.
What sorts of limits are you putting on yourself?
Good morning! I am having a bout of insomnia so I gave up on sleep and started tinkering on the blog. I hadn't really warmed up to the spring banner that was here, and I love my Etsy banner so here is a version of it for the blog. I have also gone back to a font I fell in love with years ago. I'm sure it's not web-perfect but for now, I'm going with it. I tinkered around with my laptop file folders too, and found these spring roses from Betty's garden in California to share with you.
Yes, I am watermarking my photos again. Let me explain, even though it might be self-explanatory.
Last week, I discovered another uncredited pin of my ranunculus image. This happens a lot on Pinterest, and not just to me. I suppose I consider myself lucky that no one (to my knowledge) has taken one of my photographs and added some text to it and then called it a day. Ugh! I've seen that happen. I'm flattered my ranunculus image is so loved still and it accounts for 25% of my sales over on Etsy. But last week's discovery was pinned by a well-known magazine whose staff member had repinned it from some random blogger, and so with their large audience, it's been repinned from them way too many times and with no link to me at all. It's really too bad that image wasn't watermarked, then there would be no issue. Good old hindsight!
I have wrestled with the watermark issue since I renamed my blog three years ago. I used to watermark and then I took some advice in an e-course to stop watermarking because "the big blogs won't feature work that has watermarks on it." At the time, I was eager for any possible exposure so I dutifully stopped watermarking.
And in a way, it worked just as predicted in that e-course. The ranunculus photograph was featured on a big blog, and they linked it to my Flickr where I had uploaded it. The traffic from that big blog to my Flickr got that image on the Explore page. And then it made its way around Tumblr and then over to Pinterest and well...here we are with a rampantly uncredited image floating all around the internet.
Now I am going back to watermarking my images. I do not believe I am a one-hit wonder with my photography so while I cannot really help the ranunculus image come back to me at this point, I am going to do my best to keep my future images connected to me. I have had many people find me on Etsy and say, "I fell in love with this ranunculus photograph on Pinterest and I had no idea I could buy the print until now!" Gulp. How many more of those people are out there?
Looking back, removing my watermarks was a fear-based decision. Now, if a "big blogger" wants to share my work with their readers badly enough, well they can certainly reach out and contact me. I'm very friendly and responsive. It's not worth another ranunculus/Pinterest/Tumblr problem, that much I know. I guess all of this is the evolution of Jess the photographer and businesswoman.
Back to the fun stuff, what is blooming in your garden or neighborhood?
We went to the mountains recently in search of the white stuff. There wasn't much snow to be found, but I found plenty of pink in the sky.
So these pink sky images are pretty much as far as I go for Valentine's Day. For some reason this year, all the tweeting/FBing/blogging about DIY/buy/buy/buy for today got me down. (And I mostly get handmade marketing thrown at me, not Hallmark). I am not against love! Far from it, but why such a fuss for this one day? The Noodle couldn't believe people have to work on Valentine's Day. Even in 2nd grade, Valentine's Day is a huge deal. I have a big heart full of love. I am simply not inspired by Feb. 14th.
How do you feel about today?
Up next, the adorable flying bat craft all the 2nd grade boys created!
Hi sweet friends! It rained this weekend for real for the first time. I loved it. It was also our first weekend without non-stop plans in far too long. I needed that. I spent some time putting the Noodle's Halloween costume together (he'll be Inspector Clouseau, Peter Sellers style) and I finished up processing photos I took at a birthday party earlier this month. I thought it would be fun to share some of my personal favorite shots from the party, it's too hard to resist with Halloween coming up!
Yesterday, Nikon Guy released his set of Mexico photos to the wedding guests and to my delight, it included one of Canon Girl. Can you all see how happy I am when I'm out shooting? This is a pure Jess moment and I'm so grateful Sean captured it.
Guess what? I picked up my fancy rental lens from Borrow Lenses today! I got the Canon 24-70mm f/2.8. I tested it out at the cupcake store today which always has pretty flowers on the table.
It is really, really heavy. I am looking forward to testing it out further. I'm feeling a little under the weather today so this was just a toe in the water kind of test.
I wanted to let you all know that I have some great guest posters lined up while I'm away! They will start running on Wednesday. I will also schedule a couple of posts from me. I will photograph something delicious before I go to surprise you. Also, there's an interview of little old me over on Max and Ellie plus a giveaway of one of my prints.
Did you have a good weekend?
Art for the big-hearted, radiant woman who is ready to immerse herself in beauty.
