No words.

I love this kid.

New year.

So 2010 is done.  It was a big year for me.  I was engaged, converted to Orthodox Christianity, got married, moved to a new place.

My style has changed a lot.  I probably even pass for a decent member of society.  I bought a green peacoat and I'm growing my hair out - this speaks volumes!

Maybe I could just live in a world where what you look like doesn't matter.  Where people see You - and that's enough.

Longwood Gardens & Stevie Wonder

 On the 27th, Nathaniel and I visited Longwood Gardens with Nathaniel's mom and step-dad.  It had been years since I last visited and there was a dreamworld-nostalgia at every turn.


It was a very cold night and the wind was whipping snow up into our faces, so we spent most of the time inside, where the Christmas tour had me convinced that every room was the most beautiful.

It's so important to have beauty in your life.  I was fortunate to be raised by parents who understood this value.  From a young age I was exposed to a variety of art classes and spent a lot of time at home creating sketches and various crafts.


My parents had a modest collection of paintings, charcoal drawings and sculptures around the house.  Even the polished, deep honey-colored floorboards or the hand-made cabinets that my dad worked on were an affirmation that the human soul needs beautiful things.

When I moved out of my parent's home, I lived for a while in a poor neighborhood in West Philadelphia.  My apartment was on top of a nail salon and constantly smelled of polishes and chemicals.  Looking out through the bars on my living-room window I could see the pub across the street where middle-aged men and women danced slowly to the sounds of The Supremes or Stevie Wonder, long into the night.  I used to take the bars off the window when my roommates weren't awake and balance in the old wood frame, just listening to cars go by while Signed, Sealed, Delivered wafted from the open door across the road.


I have carried some things with me from the room I grew up in all the way to the little home I have today with my husband.  Little trinkets, seemingly meaningless.  Things that are beautiful to me.  They help me remember that my soul has been fortunate.  Even above the nail salon at 2 am in West Philly, I still was able to find Stevie Wonder.

The water front.

It's life, Jim, but not as we know it.

I am happy.  Fully, completely, beautifully happy.

I had a chat the other day with an old friend from my modeling days.  It made me realize I'm the one who has changed.  I felt so empty in front of the camera.  Just standing there - faking expressions, feelings, ideas.  Inventing false realities.  This self-obsessed world that is thoroughly saturated with vanity and entitlement.  I lived in that world but I didn't belong.  I was so lonely, so empty.

And now I'm with Nathaniel. I'm pursuing the things that make me happy, and he supports me like no other. I'm photographing what I love.  Real life.  Things make sense now.

This is what I want.

This is what I want.  No lights.  No backdrop.  No poses.  Just people the way they are - which is more than enough.

I have fallen completely and hopelessly in love with this part of life.  Pregnancy is beautiful, birth is empowering, children are innocent.


I want to show this.  Nothing staged. Nothing fake.  Just honest reality, which is more breathtaking than anything else in the world.

I love this baby more than I can express.