The Golden Hour
I normally schedule my shoots early in the morning if they are going to be on the beach. The sand reflects a lot of sun and any other time of day we get a lot of shadows and many other hard-to-work-with factors. Early in the morning it's mostly overcast and predictably light. In the last few weeks of Nevmeber, the morning hours got to be extremely chilly. Taking a little baby to that weather seemed cruel so I started shooting at the golden hour. This is one of the photos I snapped on the way home from one of my shoots. Torrey Pines State Reservice. 50mm.

Christmas Bitterness
My friend Cagla sent me a Christmas card today. I was joking with Jake that I am holding a Christmas card from a Muslim to a Jew. I added that if I weren't living in America, I would have never even noticed that.

In my experience Christmas is considered a lovely holiday in Turkey. Back when I was dating my former boyfriend and he came home with me during Christmas, my friends couldn't understand why he wouldn't want to go to church to light candles.

Despite the fact that a very tiny percentage of people in Turkey actually celebrate the birth of Christ, we all have Christmas trees. Or New Year's trees as we call them. We have Santa Claus. We buy, wrap and exchange presents. Instead of Christmas Day, we do it on New Year's Day. And either my family was not religious enough, or we were cheated out of the Chanukah tradition of exchanging gifts for multiple nights. For us that was only candles. Nothing more than that.

I am often amazed when I see how bitter non-Christians are about Christmas. I am also amazed that people choose to do stupid things like get mad at a store that uses Happy Holidays over Merry Christmas. If you're really so religious then you should remember that this season is not about shopping at all! You should also remember that Jesus wouldn't have been so spiteful and petty. If you're not so religious and actually do more than just celebrate His birth, then why the fuck do you care what people call it? Just be merry and happy. 'Tis the season to give, not to bicker.

Now back to the non-Christians. I must not be religious enough because the idea of celebrating Christmas doesn't bother me one bit. Maybe a ton of years ago, it was about Christianity and Christ but now it's all about Hallmark, shopping, and carols. Christmas is one big Hallmark card. It's time for family to get together and laugh, bicker and watch as the kids go crazy over the presents they got. Nothing more. If I were a truly religious Christian, I'd be very disappointed at the current state of Christmas and what it now has come to symbolize.

So if you're a Jew or Muslim, why not do it the Turkish way? Get a New Year's tree, fill it with presents that you open on Christmas day. And remember, you get all those amazing Bar-Mitzva gifts that the Christians never do!

All joking aside, I don't want David to grow up bitter and I want to stick to my roots a bit. So we will have a bit of everything. We will have New Year's trees. We will open one present Christmas eve, two presents Christmas day, and the rest on New Year's Day. We will also light the candles on the Menorah. I'm sure he'll find a reason to be bitter with that too. But at least this way it's all inclusive.

Communicating Without Words
It never ceases to amaze me how much David can say without the use of words. He does make sounds now but they don't really have meaning to me. However I can understand everything he wants from his sounds and facial expressiona and tonation. He is loud and clear! He is now old enough to realize when something he's enjoying is taken away. When something he wants is not done. NOW! I can't wait until David will be able to talk but in the meantime I am enjoying this subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) way we communicate.