Vivienne says Who Dat!!!

Well, after a few months of lock-out, the players are back and therefore it is at last football time again!

NFL has not been something I cared much when I first came to US. It took a while for me to get all the rules and even than, I was not ready to sit in front of the TV for 3 hours for 30 minutes of action. Especially because I didn't really have any teams to care for.

Than, something horrible happened to my wife's hometown in the August of 2005.

Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and it hit it hard. New Orleans was devastated and Superdome was badly damaged, and New Orleans Saints had to relocate and they were not able to play any of their game in their home stadium. Saints had a horrible season in 2005 and finished the regular season with a 3-13 record.

As almost all the horrifying things that try human beings' will to survive and prevail, this negative brought a huge positive... That was only possible because of extraordinary people...

In 2006, Saints hired Sean Peyton as their head coach and got San Diego Chargers' quarterback Drew Brees. With the exceptional leadership skills shown by these two men, Saints made it to the playoffs that year. Here they are...

After that season, I had a team that I cared for in NFL, and that changed everything about the way I look at this game. I didn't care they have never won the Super Bowl in their 40+ years of NFL history. It was a team that I was able to identify with, and to root for. And that 2006 season was one hell of a year for the Saints, although they came a game short of playing the final.

Of course, as all the football fans know, 2009 was the year when The Saints beat The Colts and reached to their first Super Bowl victory.

So "our" Saints were in California for a preseason game this week and we went to see them practice and introduce them to Vivienne.

Saints owner Tom Benson saluting the fans. Although there were a lot of controversies around a potential permanent relocation of the team to San Antonio following Katrina, Saints' fans are grateful for Benson keeping the team in New Orleans.

Saints in action.

Click on the picture to see the larger picture

Vivienne is so grateful to her uncle Joe who took the initiative to get all the signatures for her first Saints cap: Pierre Thomas, Marques Colston, Chris Ivory, Malcolm Jenkins, Jimmy Graham, the very awesome and always smiling rookie Joseph Morgan, Drew Brees and many more...

Here is Vivienne's hat after all the autographs.

I will leave you with VivoşMinnoş, wearing her hat proudly!

My Latest Fashion Shoot

I had a fashion shoot on Monday. Our model is Sabrina Vittore. I will let the photographs do the talking this week. Enjoy!

My partner in crime was discussing he next shot with the model, and I couldn't sit still and snapped this...

See you next week!

A "Macro" Glance to the Life with a Baby

As most of you know, Jen and I welcomed our baby-daughter a little more than 5 months ago. You can imagine what kind of a life-changer this event was for both of us. Let me assure you we both feel that our life changed for the better, and we are extremely happy. Obviously having a baby at home has its challenges and additional new routines in the daily life.

I have been seeing these pictures in my mind for a while and I was waiting for the right time and opportunity to take them and share them with you. Well, that time has come :o)

A lot of toys all around, already! :D The amount of toys will probably increase in the very near future, but for the time being, meet Freddy (or Feridun), one of Vivienne's favorite toys. He is a multi-functional firefly :D

And some more smiley toys that surround my smiling daughter.

Mother's milk is best! Even if it's frozen!

We are among those parents who do not believe in formula and we are lucky (and grateful) that Jen can breast-feed Vivienne.

And I can't.

So, a generous amount of frozen supply is pumped for daddy to feed Vivienne when mommy is away. A part of the routine.

After Jen's meticulous research, we ended up with these glass bottles: Dr. Brown's Natural Flow. They are washed and sanitized daily. Another part of the routine.

Yet another welcome part of our new life's daily routine, nap time is usually easy, but sometimes it can be very challenging and tricky. Like today.

Burp cloths and pacifiers...

Vivienne is teething, and depending on the day, she can really be in pain. We try not to give her all that acetaminophen and ibuprofen, so we went with our AWESOME pediatrician Dr. Peter Waldstein's recommendation: Camilia. The homeopathic medicine from Boiron comes in tiny individual doses and helps relieve Vivienne's swollen gums and teething pain.

A place we spend some considerable time is the diaper changing station! We prefer the non-talc baby powder!

And this little seat, all the way from South Africa. The Bumbo chair is world famous and incredibly convenient. It allows Vivienne to help me while I am working as you can see on the second picture.

All photographs except the last one are taken with the Nikon D3s. The lens is Nikon AF-S Micro Nikkor 105mm f2.8. This concludes our "Macro" Glance to the Life with a Baby. I'll see you next week!

A Trip Back to Film Days Part 2

I have been organizing and archiving prints and digitals alike and I wanted to share a few of my photographs from the last few print days I had in the beginning of this century. Again, as in the first revisit of prints blog I had a few months back, the prints are not new and the scans are not high quality.
For no particular reason, the selection consists of 6 photographs taken in two different location.
The first 4 were taken in Çanakkale, Turkey where my family has a small holding. Although I cannot visit there as much as I would like to, here are a few pictures I took when we were there in 2002.

Tons of street dogs in the village. Here is one of them.

Black and white high speed film is one of my favorite things to shoot with and I really miss it sometimes.

I call this one "Agean Blue vs. Aging Blue". The Agean Sea in the back and the old little boat on the beach. This really makes me want to go back there, like NOW! :o)

The last two are from one of my trips to Seattle... I believe it was 2004. I really need a new and better scanner!

See you next Friday!