i had the awesome privilege of attending a photography workshop last week with inspiring children’s photographer Barb Uil (also known as Jinkyart) from Australia.  How opportune that she came all the way from Australia at the same time I came all the way from China… to meet in Ohio.  =)

Barb is regarded by many as one of the best children’s photographers, and I loved soaking in some of her creativity and childhood magic. It’s also left me contemplating where I want to take my own photographer endeavors.  Definitely looking forward to see how i continue to grow in this art.

note: if you are in michigan and interested in a session during september, contact me.  what better way for me to exercise all of my workshop inspiration?

but as a nice unexpected surprise, we are sticking around Michigan for an extra month.  and since it was last minute and unplanned, we have a much quieter month ahead of us.  so this past weekend, we kicked it off with an improv picnic on the deck followed by a bonfire and s’mores.  it was the girls’ first bonfire, hannah’s first time roasting marshmallows, and kaylah’s first taste of marshmallows. a yummy time overall.

for those of you in michigan, i may be taking a few sessions for the month of september while i am here.  contact me if you are interested.

for some reason, her hat makes me think of flying… but perhaps that’s because we are busy getting ready to fly back to the US in just under a week!  looking forward to six weeks full of family, friends, celebrations, non-chinese food, traveling, visitors, reunions, and more…

other notes:
- booties courtesy of Shokay.  I really wanted to take these photos before she outgrew them!
- special thanks to the owners of Cafe Corner in Jiaxing who let me rearrange their furniture for these photos.  =)  They also run ishop and I.C.ology, which i find inspirational.

i had the privilege of spending an afternoon with baby Theo and his family.  more to come soon…

i will add this to my collection of signage.
i confess i photographed this as we were exiting this “no entering” area as well.

we spent one afternoon in an artsy section of beijing – the 798 art zone.  i am always refreshed and inspired to be around different forms of creativity.  and there definitely seems to be a creative community in this city.  at 798, we liked walking around and seeing the different spaces…

… fun figures…

and becoming one with the art. =)

but i confess the highlight of the day may not have been the art, but rather drinking coffee at the 798 art cafe from the coolest coffeemaker contraption ever!

how this works:
1) glass container on the left contains coffee grounds.  metal container on the right is filled with water. the oil lamp is lit to heat up the water.
2) as the water begins to boil, it travels over to the glass container side and mixes with the coffee grounds.  as the water empties from the metal container, the metal container becomes lighter in weight, and eventually shifts upward, due to the connected weighted metal ball (on the opposite side) that tips downward.  when the metal container shifts upward, the lid to the oil lamp (that was originally resting on the metal container) flips down and puts out the flame.
3) as the air cools, a vacuum is formed within the metal container and it sucks the coffee back over from the glass side.
4) freshly brewed coffee ready to serve.

aside from it brewing a good cup of coffee, i admit this contraption probably appeals to our techie minds too.  when we ordered the coffee, we had no idea it would be brewed this way right at our table.  but as you can see, we thoroughly analyzed how this mechanism works. perhaps not everyone would get quite as excited?

The Community Center is located on the outskirts of the city in the heart of a migrant community (we were impressed we could even give the taxi driver accurate directions!). While we went through narrow alleys to find it, the center is bright and welcoming.

On that particular day, they were offering free medical check-ups for all the kids in the community.

Although we only got a small glimpse and understanding of what CMC does, I can see they are doing a good work and many people have been encouraged by it.  I enjoyed walking around and photographing the kids.  Hopefully, I’ll have a chance to photograph their lovely faces again.

and yes, they do have outfits for boys as well.  one particular high point of this photo shoot was that it gave me an excuse/chance to interact more with some of our local neighborhood kids and their families, as i was in need of some cute models!  in one instance, i just went to a spot in our neighborhood where the kids usually gather to play and asked a couple of them to model for me on the spot (like this handsome boy below).  pretty soon, many of the parents/grandparents were asking me to photograph their kid, even if they weren’t modeling for me.

checkout their newly updated website to see the full line (and some familiar models).  they even have a cute promotion right now in honor of June 1st Children’s Day!

a couple weeks ago, we took a family vacation to Beijing.  the trip was part of our goal to travel around China a little more this year, and it felt like quite an achievement to finally get ourselves beyond the greater Shanghai area.  the week was spent doing a good mix of connecting with friends and playing tourist.

we took one day to go to the MuTianYu 慕田峪 section of the Great Wall.  the whole setting just felt really beautiful, being out among nature, seeing the Great Wall curve and stretch across the green mountains.  loved the textures and lines of the Wall as well.  kind of amazing how a relatively simple construction concept can be breathtaking.

we took a cable car up (note the special significance of our particular car).  you can toboggan slide down, but we opted not to despite the ticket office’s insistence that it would be safe with a kid and infant.  and hannah had a great time climbing the Wall.