2008 October | Cowbelly Pet Photography Seattle Blog

Monthly Archives: October 2008

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Sonoma/Napa Valleys sneak-peek II

October 28, 2008 – 4:24 pm

Photography continued over the weekend on Sunday with a lovely sunny trip up to Healdsburg and my final shoot over in St Helena in Napa Valley. I LOVE St. Helena!

I’m still not ready to give a proper sneak-peek of the dog photos because uh, my apologies, but I am on vacation now and I’d rather focus on drinking wine and relaxing in the sun, than punching buttons on the laptop, lol. (Sorry Sarah, Daniella, Janelle and Tristan- you gals will have to wait! sniff…). But I will share a few environmental shots today to whet your whistle for more to come.

Post-tasting. Sacked out Healdsburg pooch in background.

St. Helena vineyards.

The boutique David Fulton Winery. The winery is pictured below, and the surrounding property is where we did my final dog shoot. On the side of the winery is a very large deck overlooking the vineryards and Napa Valley. A bunch of us (my client, her husband, the winery owner down the street, his wife, David and his wife, their son-in-law, gee, who am I forgetting? oh! the dogs- yes, 3 dogs!) sat out on the deck and drank wine and chatted about all kinds of things late into the evening. It was one of the best nights I have had in a long time, and reminds me of my time in southern France. MaryLee offered a place to stay for myself and my dad the next time we are in St Helena and you can bet we will be taking her up on it! I will definitely be back. A huge thank you to everyone there for making that night so special! And for the incredible bottles of wine you sent with us. We even took home a bottle so fresh that it didn’t even have a label yet! Wow, thank you thank you.

It wouldn’t be California without palm trees.

After we said our tearful goodbyes and left the David Fulton Winery we went over to Cindy’s Backstreet Kitchen restaurant and had a fantastic dinner. I highly recommend to anyone who goes to the Napa Valley to check out Cindy’s. You will not regret it!

Last night we also stumbled on one of the best sushi places I have ever been to- Sushi to Dai For in old town Santa Rosa. We devoured our food like it was the last meal on earth, and the asparagus will forever hold a special place in my heart. I read mixed reviews on the place today but honestly those people must have been high, the food was SO good.

We are currently staying at the gorgeous Vintner’s Inn, surrounded by vineyards. It is one of the most beautiful places I have ever stayed. I promise to share more images when I have more time! I’m off to head back out on the vineyard-facing balcony to do some relaxing in the late afternoon sun. Please don’t hate me! I have worked sooo hard for this little reward.

Hope everyone is having a fantastic week! I promise to drink a glass of wine for you!

November + holiday 2008 schedule update

October 28, 2008 – 3:44 pm

I am on vacation now (I swear I am!) but wanted to do a quick post on my schedule. My November shoots and art schedule is filling up unsettlingly fast, with Christina booking clients for me while I am gone. (From Friday through Monday we got no fewer than 7 new requests for shoots and art! yowza). I also don’t know if I mentioned this but November 14th-16th I will be on Mt Rainier photographing a backcountry snowboarding trip for the Seattle Times. I have a good girlfriend who is a travel writer for the Times and she volunteered me to do the photography. When she asked me I was interested in doing it I was like “UH, yeah-uh”. Are you kidding? Get paid to do the two things I love most in the world AT THE SAME TIME?! Although it’s nearly impossible for me to get away for a weekend at this time of the year, this is one opportunity I couldn’t pass up!

So that nixes one precious weekend in November- the busiest month of the year for Cowbelly. Which leaves me with *I think* just a couple weekend days still open to do holiday shoots.

So if you are reading this and you are planning on working with me for a holiday gift this year or would like to squeeze in a shoot before year’s end, please contact Christina THIS WEEK! I anticipate by week’s-end I will be fully booked for the rest of the year. At that point I will be referring holiday work out to one of my many talented colleagues.

Oh and, after reading Grace’s comment about SF in January I checked out the average temps for SF, Marin County and Tiburon specifically (the locations I need to come back to) and wow, it IS awful! So no trip in January. Maybe November, but it’s a *big* maybe (see above).

Oh and, gosh darn it about the projected showers in Seattle this weekend. (And Sonoma Valley AND SF!). I have shoots booked on Saturday, Sunday and Monday in Seattle and I thought that I could maybe reschedule them due to Seattle rain and stay in California for two extra days and do the commercial job, but alas- RAIN everywhere, wahhhh!

Oh well, I will be returning to Seattle on Friday, and will do the shoots this weekend and will make it work just as I always do. It hasn’t stopped me in my 5+ years of doing this and it won’t stop me now. Yucky weather be damned! :-)

And on the topic of holiday work lest you think I forgot about the ‘you know me‘ post where I ask people to tell me about themselves, and promised to select a winner of a pack of holiday greeting cards, I have not forgotten! Sometime close to Thanksgiving I will select a winner. I will also leave my comments on the replies I haven’t replied to yet if that makes any sense.

Lastly, I will be taking 2-3 weeks off following Christmas, from 12/23-1/14 or so, so plan for that as well. You can expect things to be very quiet on this blog for awhile following the holidays.

Is there anyone else besides me who is shocked that we are nearing the end of 2008? Where does the time go?!

By Jamie 'Cowbelly' | Posted in Behind-the-Scenes | Tagged holiday schedule update | Comments (1)

in Cali

October 25, 2008 – 11:44 pm

I’m in Sonoma Valley now, nearing bedtime at the end of a long day of shooting. It is absolutely beautiful here, and hot! 85 degrees today and expected to stay this way until next weekend. The weather could not be more gorgeous.

I had three awesome shoots today with some really great clients and their really great dogs, and although not ready to do sneak-peeks of any of the dog shots, wanted to share with you one ‘environmental’ shot from each location.

Tomorrow is more shooting- some for editorial and one more private client. And some for myself!

BTW: for those who wanted to meet up with me in SF on this trip- whether client or friend or colleague, who weren’t able to due to my time constraints and their schedule, it looks good that I will be coming back down to the bay area in January to do some commercial photography and several private client shoots in/near Marin County and San Francisco. I have no idea what the weather is like at that time of year but hopefully it will be good! I LOVE San Francisco so I am happy to come down.

Hope everyone’s weekends are going great, wherever you are, and before I completely unplug on Sunday night I will try and schedule some posts for you to enjoy next week!

Sanger’s shoot location this morning. Can you say WOW?

Max’s shoot location. The most fennel I have ever seen growing in one place ever. The air was scented with the stuff. Yumm.

Heaven’s shoot location in her very own vineyards.

Happy weekend!

By Jamie 'Cowbelly' | Posted in Travel shoots | Tagged cowbelly california trip, napa valley pet photography, sonoma shoots, sonoma valley pet photography, Travel shoots | Comments (8)

Bailey finally gets her shoot

October 21, 2008 – 8:00 am

You guys remember Bailey and her mom Kathy? The ones whose shoot was rescheduled so many times over the past year due to weather I was beginning to think it might never happen?

Well guess what. We finally did it! Yay!!

And aside from a little issue which almost got us kicked out of the park (Kathy this will be our little secret) it went great. No sunny skies but the light was perfect for this pure white girl and enabled me to get some really interesting photographs of her fur, which I personally find fascinating. Here are a few of my favorites from our session.

Her fur is magical.

Not normally a fan of shooting straight down on a dog, but these shots make me giggle.

Bailey has the softest belly.

Two new all-time faves below. Bailey is all girl.

Super busy this week trying to wrap things up with current clients and get ready for the upcoming trip to California, but Christina and I have already started implementing some of our changes and things are going great! It’s so cool to know I can run around like a chicken with my head cut off and I’ve got someone in the studio taking care of business. And I can see the benefits for all involved, which is well, just awesome.

Happy Tuesday!

By Jamie 'Cowbelly' | Posted in Private client shoots | Tagged bailey, bailey maltese, cowbelly, floaty white dog fur, kathy and bailey, pink sparkly dog collar | Comments (14)

Gunner Greenlake sneak-peek

October 18, 2008 – 2:10 pm

I am loving the fall dog sessions! Fall is my favorite time of year, both in general and for photographing dogs outdoors in parks. Especially goldens, I think because their golden fur creates such a nice look with the golden sunshine and foliage.

It’s pretty cool that we can get shots like these in the middle of the city.

The subtitle to this post should be “Gunner and his stick”.

You see, I gave Gunner this stick at the beginning of our shoot, and he decided it was his favorite thing ever in the history of favorite things. Through the entire shoot he cracked his mom and I up with his stick antics. We tried hiding it, we tried taking it away, we tried distracting him, and he wasn’t having any of it it. Gunner is awesome.