I'm very happy to be involved with The Talent Factory, a performing arts center in North Kingstown, RI. Once a year I photograph the dancers and actors before their annual performance. The girls (and a few boys) range in age from very young to teenaged and it's been great fun watching some of them grow over the last few years. Many thanks to Dana and her staff. This year I'm producing posters which I've got a couple of samples of here:

A few weeks ago I had a ton of fun with a family portrait session on the beach. The children were adorable and full of energy, never breaking down and behaving perfectly. And the parents were willing to do just about anything to get a fun, non-traditional portrait. Since finishing the proofs the mother e-mailed: "We had a blast. We would like to plan to do that hopefully every year . . . We are so pleased with the pics and we can't thank you enough!" Much credit goes to my wife who stands behind me and gets children to smile so wide.

More from the month of November and these are some of my favorite portraits that I did this fall. The baby boy in these photographs was around nine weeks old. To me, the best place to photograph a family with an infant that young is in their home. It's safe and comfortable for the baby, plus all the essential items are at hand. And in the fall and winter months there's the added benefit that it's indoors and doesn't look sterile or like the same ol' studio. I was going for very close and intimate portraits that emphasize the baby's early bonding with his parents.

We had our baby girl Brigid Rita Dadekian on Monday, February 4th at 6:26 a.m. She weighed in at 6 lbs. 10 ozs. and is 18 inches long. We came home from the hospital on Wedneday and are happily settled in. With an office at home I'm still "at work." You may find me responding to e-mails at odd hours or hear some crying in the background when I'm on the phone, but I'm still making photos. Heck, I've already taken about 200 of Brigid!

Saturday 4:40 a.m.

I don't want to turn this into the "here's my baby" blog, but very kindly several of my past and future brides have been e-mailing me asking to see more baby photos. So from time to time I'll show you some of my favorites. Thank you everyone for your congratulations and kind words.

For the last few years I've had a lot of fun photographing all the great young dancers from The Talent Factory in North Kingstown, Rhode Island. Dana Adames and her staff are such nice people to work with and watching their students become better dancers year after year is a treat. This year we tried something different with the Senior Company and I got to be a bit more creative. Here's five of my favorites:

It's getting to be family portrait time and if you're looking for portraits at the beach or ocean portraits, August/September is the best time (then we head into October for portraits with foliage). I photograph a lot of families with younger children and it seems as if a common lament from parents with teenagers or college-age children is that they don't have many portraits hanging on the wall from more recent times. So before the son heads back to college we had some photographs to take, for framing and of course for the Christmas card all the family and friends still want to see.

A great rural setting made for a unique portrait of Rogers High senior Brendan. The last one with the dog may not be the perfect portrait of Brendan, but it may be my favorite.

Readers of this blog may recall this image from my portrait day at The Talent Factory Performing Arts Center in North Kingstown, RI back in June.

What a glorious amount of sunshine Brian and Lisa had for their portrait on Easton's Beach this past weekend. They were in Newport on vacation for their 26th anniversary and their children decided a perfect anniversary gift was a portrait, since they hadn't had a true portrait of the two of them since their wedding. Hopefully it won't take 26 years for another!