Closed for the Holidays

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We are closed for the Holidays and will reopen on Wednesday, January 3rd. In the meantime we have been visiting with family and friends. Christmas was amazing and tomorrow I am headed to New York with my entire family to celebrate my nephew’s 9th birthday. See you in 2013.

Put On Your Best & Dance In The Sun Light

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She had emptied her dress up box and put on her snowman white costume. She was dancing in the family room in the sunlight. She danced for awhile before she realized I was taking pictures, when she caught me she smiled! Smiling she continued to dance!   Happy Wednesday internets. Pull out your dress up clothes and dance in the sun. You won’t ever regret it.

2011 – A Story Board Of My Personal Life

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This is a story board I decided to do for 2011. If I have time I might go back and do one for 2010. I am planning on doing this every year. I am going to have it blown up to 12 x 12 and printed. I plan to hang it in my living room. 2011 has been a phenomenal year. Not only personally, but also professionally. I can’t even begin to desribe how truly blessed I am. So as I say goodbye to 2011 I am looking forward to all the amazing things that will happen in 2012. 1. Went to Napa with a great group of girls for Mez’s 40th birthday. 2. Seeing San Francisco for the first time. 3. Spend over two weeks in California and met my best friend’s baby for the first time. 4. Visiting the Pacific Ocean with Devon, Tim, and Brayden. 5. Watching the sunset over the Pacific Ocean ( on my list of 30 in 30) 6. My brother and my mom at his 41st birthday at Smokey Bones. 7. Christopher turns 1. We do his pictures at Longwood Gardens with his siblings. 8. Brayden lives on the east coast while his daddy is deployed. 9. Apple loving toddler. 10. Buying myself extra sleep at 5 am. 11. My sister’s daughters. 12. Gran and Lucas 13. Gran and Noor. 14. Gran and Anais 15. Naked iPad time. 16. Colorado for Huck’s first birthday. 17. Aunt Kate and Huck go to Gymboree. 18. Huck and his daddy. 19. Huck gets his first taste of Birthday Cake. 20. My mom and her godchild with his child. 21. All is Well Necklace. You can read all about it here. 22. Half the six pack enjoying top shelf ice cream from the DQ after a trip to swim in the ocean in APRIL. 23. Sisters play. 24. Anais watching the tv with her sun glasses on. 25. Wearing a tutu suit, dragging her blankie, and watching her show. 26. My oldest nephew Jake turns 15. 27. The lost super bowl bet. My bil is a Steelers fan and my brother is a Green Bay. Whoever won the superbowl the other one had to wear the winning team’s jersey. Unfortunately the green bay jersey came with a cheesehead hat. 28. My brother, his wife, and their youngest at his first holy communion. 29. My brother and his family. 30. My mom and Brett. 31. The six pack all in one picture. 32. Noor is the only grand child to walk in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure on Mother’s day. 33. Ella turns 1. 34. Ella eats cake. 35. Maddy and her family come to the beach for Memorial Weekend. Someone loves corn. 36. Touring Philadelphia with out of town family. It is true she is my LOVE. 37. The summer of toddler corn loving. 38. Still loves the apple products. 39. Lucas and his famous jumping in front of other people’s pictures. I have about 30 of these. When he lets me take his picture it is only of him being a goof. 40. Anais and Ice Cream. The dessert of choice at the beach house. 41. Noor making homemade ice cream. 42. Noor boogie boarding. 43. Noor and sidewalk chalk. We loved the sidewalk chalk this summer. The girls and I would spend countless hours outside drawing. 44. Anais learns to hopscotch. 45. Lots of sidewalk chalk for whoever wanted to play. 46. Happy 3rd birthday Anais. 47. Brett and Anais dress up as Repunzel. 48. Anais and her mermaid cake by Aunt Jean. 49. Gran and Anais celebrate their birthdays together. 50. Denise and the boys come to play at the beach with the girls and I. 51. Noor portraits. 52. Sister portraits on the beach. 53. Toddler Frat. Exhausted girls from lots of late night fun at the beach house. 54. Anais would cover her mouth and giggle whenever she got excited. It was beyond cute and only lasted a very short time. I am so glad I captured it. 55. Anais and sunflower portraits. 56. The Gvodas Girls go Charlie’s Angels on us. 57. Anna jumps. 58. Ella is a riot and a complete challenge to photograph. It took her 15 months to like me but we have succeeded and she is now one of my bff’s when I visit. 59. Abby my oldest niece and her portraits. 60. Abby poses. 61. My cousin and her husband welcome the newest family members. The twins arrive 5 weeks early. 62. The twins are a month old. 63. Noor turns 6. 64. Noor has a tea party birthday with her sister and some friends. 65. Oreo cupcakes requested by the birthday girl. 66. Noor gets a barbie bike from Aunt Kate. 67. Sara and Kate annual apple picking. 68. Camrynn is born. She is the baby of one of my oldest friends. 69. Another trip to VA Beach. More sister love. 70. A famous Anais face. 71. Charlotte and Cooper come to play at the beach house. 72. Aunt Kate visits Huck for Halloween and to meet his new baby brother. 73. I get to meet my god child and spend a week with him and his family. 74. My cousin and his wife welcome their second son into the family. 75. Sophia Grace joins her 4 sisters at the Gvodas house. 76. Quick unexpected trip to the beach house. Silliness with Gran. 77. Gran teaches Anais how to play UNO. 78. J. So many things I could share about J. Someday I am sure I will, but for now he is a big part of my life and I am so lucky to have him. 79. The Bucci kids. Finally did their portraits. The last formal session we had was for Lucas’ first birthday. He just turned 3. 80. Brett and Lucas. Two brothers from different mother’s. My brother’s youngest and my sister’s oldest. Usually can be found together and playing their DS gaming systems. 81. My entire family minus my sil who took the picture. Happy New Year.

Life & This Blog

by kategiovinco 1 Comment

I haven’t been here on this blog very much because I am struggling with what to write. I know it is mainly photos and I need to remember that. Set a schedule and blog. So that is what I plan to do for 2012. Twice a week I will sit down and blog. I will blog old shoots, new shoots, and as always my personal family snapshots. I am heading to VA beach today to spend the rest of the week with my entire family. My mom, my siblings and their families. I can’t wait to spend 4 days with them all. I woke up this morning to a very exciting email. There is a photographer in Australia I found a few months ago. His name is Tim Colson and he offered his first giveaway on his blog. I love his style and am working on growing myself into a more journalistic type of photographer. I am totally inspired by his work. Back to the giveaway. He was offering it to someone anywhere in the world. You could enter but if you won you had to give the shoot to someone else. He asked that you share someones story about why they deserved to win. I entered my mom and even though I would be in it, I thought she was deserving of it. Being a photographer I am always taking pictures never in them, so I wanted to offer my mom an opportunity to have a family shoot with me in it. Below is what I entered: I am a photographer from Philadelphia, PA, USA. I am not sure how I found your blog, but I have fallen in love with your work. It is stunning and heartwarming. I feel like I am a part of everyone of your families.  I am not sure this would count but I am going to enter anyway. You can decide if it qualifies. That being said it isn’t for me, but I would be in the shoot. I would love to give a shoot to my mom that I could be in for her. I am always behind the camera never in front of it. I know it would mean the world to her for me to be in our family snap shots. My entire family lives together all summer long at our family beach house. I know I am so very fortunate to be surrounded by my family so often.  My mom is the first woman to live past 50 in her family. Her mom died of breast cancer at 49 when my mom was 20, she had two babies at the time and moved home to raise her 15 year old sister. Her sister died at the age of 40 from Breast Cancer 16 years ago. My mom helped to raise her daughters who were 2 and 7 at the time. My mom found out she had breast cancer when she was 59. She had a double mastectomy and she is an inspiration to everyone around her. She is the most amazing person I know. In honor of her sister and her mother she walks every single year in the Susan G. Komen 3 day. She walks 60 miles in 3 days. For the last 20 years we walk every mother’s day in honor of all the woman who have suffered from Breast Cancer. She also is a peer sponsor at the hospital where she found comfort and recovery from her cancer. She has suffered so much loss in her life yet she is the most positive person I know. My father passed away 10 years ago and I know he is the love of her life. She still to this day claims that he is. That their love was something she was blessed to have. My youngest brother committed suicide 18 months ago. He suffered from years of addiction even with that she continues on. From his death she honored his memory by starting a charity in his honor called Project Call Home. http://www.projectcallhome.blogspot.com. She knits hats for addicts in the city of Philadelphia. Life is short and I don’t take a moment of it for granted. I would love to capture my mom, my siblings, their families, and myself in our life at the beach. I know it would mean the world to her. Tim emailed me this morning and although I didn’t win the contest I won something even better. Next time he is in the states he will come to my family beach house and shoot with me. He will capture me with my family and while doing so I will be able to learn from someone I respect as a fellow photographer. I can’t wait to see what he captures when it comes to my family. I would also love to in return offer to photograph Tim with his wife Kesh and their new baby when they visit. 2012 is going to be a fantastic year. I promise to make more appearances in photos as well as here on the blog. Here is a small portion of my family on Christmas morning at my brother’s house.

This is what…

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So I could title this so many different things. I saw a group of photographers doing a project called “This is what…” and each week they document their own families doing something. Like This is what dress up looks like, this is what baking a cake looks like, etc. When I was working on my mom’s Christmas gift I kept thinking…”This is what…”  and of course a couple other things I really can’t share on this blog. Like my real thoughts on making a family calendar. So anyway there are so many different possible names for these images and this post. For example: This is how we celebrate Gran’s birthday breakfast… This is what the beach house really looks like…
Keeping it real: The truth behind the beautiful images…
Keeping it real: What the beach house looks like 90% of the time…
Oh I could go on, but instead I will give you my family pictures that I am just starting to process from the summer. I have so many personal images I haven’t even touched. I try when I upload them to my hard drive to cull them right away and process a few favorites, but sometimes that doesn’t even happen. Every year for Christmas I give my mom a calendar and a box of all the photos I processed through the year. The snapshots of my family that is. And I say processed because I take so many more than ever even make it to process point let alone print. So enough here is Gran’s 62nd birthday breakfast.
There is always food on top of the fridge, in the cabinets, on the counter. That is what happens when 20 people live together all summer. Plus the random Nintendo DS, dress up clothes, etc. You name it you could possibly find it in the kitchen.I give you random commentary of the beach house kitchen, the people in it, and how it looks 90% of the time.
All three granddaughters decorated the birthday cake. The littles watched the big. The cake that we all have for every birthday. Black Magic, my grandmother’s recipe. It is yummy. 
I love how focused Anais is. She is so curious and takes it all in. Oh to be 3. Well here she is 2, but 2 days later she turned 3. Anais and Gran are birthday buddies.
The birthday girls.
I love this picture. My mom is sneaking some icing.  Brett is randomly scratching his stomach waiting for his piece of cake. Noor and Anais want their cake. They are having a stare down on the first piece that goes to the birthday girl. They have to wait for Gran to have her piece and then they get served. Oh the injustice of it all. 
I love how annoyed Noor is that she has to wait for cake. I also love that her face is still painted from an adventure to town with her Gran.