Cheater Cheater Pizza Eater

I am cheating on myself.  Which sounds really bizarre I know.  The thing is with the Littledude and Ladybug in my life I have used my camera a lot less.....although recently I went crazy shooting them for a few days....but instead I have been cooking a LOT more.

I have been posting on Facebook about some of my culinary adventures, the hits and the spectacular misses as I go.... and family members, as well as a few friends kept asking for recipes....so I did the inevitable.

I started yet ANOTHER BLOG!

Heirlooms at a farm stand in New Jersey

Zia's Kitchen is all about Gluten Free and "Kid Friendly" cooking.  I am trying to cook super healthy for them, but sometimes in order to get veggies in the little dude I have to resort to trickery - covered in a lot of cheese!

All the photography is of course be mine, of course while in the midst of cooking and getting dinner to the table I don't get much time to whip out the Canon. So the iPhone and my sub par kitchen lighting has to do.  Thank god for the apps Camera Awesome (same people who I built my websites with) and Instagram.  

My kitchen the other night

So check out Zia's Kitchen at www.ziaskidkitchen.com  The address ziaskitchen.com was already taken by a restaurant somewhere. Booo and I thought I was being original! 

I will work on upgrading the photography to my normal level, as a family friend said upon seeing my photography for the first time last night at Sunday dinner..."wow, you take good pictures of food"

Awwww thanks.  Combining my 2 of my favorite hobbies in the world...Food & Photography.  Now if I could just get more travel in there somewhere!

Organic Farm in New Jersey

Farmers Market in North Yorkshire, England

Farmers Market in North Yorkshire, England

Oh how they grow

I've been missing my friends in California lately.  My little friends, who are not all so little anymore.  I am sad that I am missing so many of them as they grow up - beacuse we all know how quickly they grow!

So I found myself going back through old photo shoots and picking out some of my tried and true faves and doing a little re-editing.  (My post production skills have grown a bit since these shoots)

 you lookin at me?

 and THAT's my final word on the subject!

 anyone who knows me knows this is my favorite!  She is my business card for goodness sake!

 my old next door neighbor Seven - she was SUCH a model! 

She LOVED being a test subject for me - I must have shot her half a dozen times at least!

Then there were the family shoots.  This family I am biased in my love for as they have been part of my close circle of friends for well over a decade - pre-marriage, pre- kids and I can't BELIEVE I am missing these monkey's as they grow!  :-(

 What a good big brother.  Jackson and Ryan

 Action Jackson - this kid was hard to shoot as I had to chase him all the time!

Mommy and Ryan

And then my favorite.  The Belly shots followed by the baby a few months later.  I am getting geared up for doing that with my sister in the next few weeks - if it would just stop storming here in South Florida every evening and killing our plans!

 Mom and dad getting ready for the new arrival

 And then comes baby Kaya!

Those little feet are going to be 2 years old soon!  I can't stand it!

I guess I was in a nostalgic mood today - missing my little friends, their parents and southern california.  Sigh.  

Working on getting gigs to shoot little ones here!

The Beauty of Love

I got a chance to shoot my sister and her fiance last weekend while I was visiting them in New Jersey. It was a very bright and sunny day - but their property has so many trees that I was able to use as a natural filtration for the harsh bright direct light making for some beautiful natural and at times very romantic lighting. What a treat!

For more of this shoot visit my website at photosbyamandanicole

My Beautiful Family

Just a few snaps from a Post-Wedding Family brunch last week in Port Jefferson NY.

First Cousin of the next generation.....

The happy couple enjoying their wedding cake for breakfast - how great is that??

Cousin Jack - What a handsome boy!!!

The Big Move

What a long time it has been. Taking 4 months off posting on my blog would be considered completely unacceptable....if I had anyone besides myself reading it!

Moving is never fun. Moving across the country by yourself with your dog and cat is even less of a good time - but after 6 days, 5 motels, 3 major rainstorms and one check engine light going on later - we made it to our new home in Fort Lauderdale, FL.

The biggest crime of it all was that my camera stayed packed away for the first 2 1/2 months that I was here settling in! I didn't realize how terrible it made me feel until the day I pulled it out to take a walk around my new neighborhood with the pup. I felt as though I had been missing a limb all that time and didn't even realize it! My camera is back in action and all is right with the world for now.

I have seen some interesting things so far - and have much to explore, but my favorite was running into this local man and his "gussy girl", making me think Ft. Lauderdale may just have some real potential for photography!

Little brothers

Another set of beautiful children that I have been lucky enough to have seen from the times they were born. Jonas is almost 4 and his brother Christian is almost 2.



Kids are tough - but little boys are even more challenging to photograph as sitting still is not a concept they yet grasp! I had to chase them all over the beach and the playground - making it a game - but in the end it was lots of fun and worth it!

Family of Friends

Ahhh my little Raguse babies are growing up so fast! I love shooting my friends families - watching them grow and change. Mom and I were remembering when Jackson was born and now he just turned 4! In addition now he has his beautiful sister Ryan to play with!

Family portraits are a tricky thing because you are at the mercy of children and their ever changing temperaments. We had a few moments of light before the clouds completely blotted out the sun and the cold wind picked up - making it un-ideal for our youngest subject - but we did capture a few.


Jackson is such a sweet older brother to his baby sister Ryan. We got to play for a few hours which was so wonderful! Then we got some of these wonderful family moments.




I felt a little sad during this shoot. We plan to do another in the next few weks - but knowing I am moving away from LA and will no longer see them on a regular basis - to watch and photograph them as they grow saddens me. I guess I will just have to come back and visit as much as possible!

Fun Family Holiday Cards

It's that time of year - when people realize the Holidays have begun and it is time for taking family photos for the holidays cards.

Scooby was such a good little model. His owners were fully prepared for him to be a menace for the shoot - but in reality - other then the bow - I think he really enjoyed himself and acted like a professional dog model!

Family Matters

So on Friday I did a photo shoot of the largest family I have worked with to date.

Always a challenge to work with more then a few people and when you add in all the children and a 10 month old baby - wow! Almost 100 shots to get a handful where the MAJORITY (never all) of them are looking at the camera. However "perfection" is not all that is important. to me some of my favorite photos don't have every single person looking directly at the camera with perfect smiles pasted on their face. A Family is never perfect - it is full of all sorts of different personalities and my goal is to try and let those individual personalities shine through wherever possible.

I really enjoyed working with this family, but as
always my biggest joy is working with the children. The three girls in red live in my neighborhood and the girls in white are their cousins. The girls know me by sight as I walk by their house with Asher a few times a week, but until the day of the shoot they really had no connection to me. As always with kids - they start off a little shy, a little unsure, and sometimes more then a little annoyed at having to "sit still" and smile for a stranger. When working on family portraits , it is always a challenge to get them to settle in, which is perfectly natural, and also why I love to let them run and play and try to capture them in action. It doesn't take to long before they are having FUN with the whole process and of course those are the moments where the best photos come through.




One of the lovely girls even became my "art director" when it was her idea for them to pose for this next photo.














Some people may not be happy that all 5 girls are not looking at the camera and smiling in perfect unison. But as I said - that isn't family, that isn't life. Instead the natural beauty of all of their individual personalities shines through in this, and I believe that is what makes a photo special.

To me it is important to let the kids feel involved and when they come up with ideas or poses I always go for it, because the more fun they are having the bigger the smiles. The bigger the smiles the more genuine and beautiful the photos turn out. Natural life, my favorite way to capture such beautiful children.

Family Portrait Time

Well I have been busy the past few days - reading, studying, practicing. Photography is something you never stop learning about. A marriage of art and science, beauty and technology. There are certainly times when I feel secure with a shoot, set-up etc, and others where I second guess myself every step - or make rookie mistakes that remind me how much there is to learn.

Fortunately my technical/scientific side of my brain has always somewhat dominated the artistic and creative side - because although photography is such a mix of both, the best intentions and artistic eye can be derailed quickly by the technical elements. My left side of my brain is always running through F-stops, exposure, lighting and berating myself for how much I don't know yet. Then my right side has to fight through the noise to think about the artistic quality of the shot - how to find the beauty in the subjects and show it the best way I can, to let my eye do what it needs to do to capture the moment.

It is a learning process that at times can be frustrating and lead to sleepless nights....but at others when I come across a great shot I re-connect with the joy in the whole process. While working on my most recent Family portrait ( a multi-generation family of 13 - including a 10 month old) I came across this one and worked on it first.

Mom loved it - and THAT is why I do this!