You are currently browsing the Uncategorized category.
One of my favorite photographs from my destination wedding in Negril, Jamaica… more photos to come, but does this scream From Here To Eternity or what?! Sigh. This, folks, is love.
And for the record, shooting wedding photography in Minnesota is fun, but it’s hard to beat Jamaica in the winter 
I’m putting the finishing touches on my boudoir album for the site, but here is a sneak peek at these beautiful images… stay tuned!
Every now and then it’s time for a change, but some changes take a little longer than others. My big change for 2010 is a total revamp of my wedding photography website, but what a project it has been! It’s so hard to sift through thousands of pictures and choose my favorites, the ones I think help you understand my work the best, the ones I think represent all the amazing things my photography can do on your wedding day. My new site is almost complete, and I decided to use almost entirely weddings from 2009 – partly because it’s fresh and fun and still in my heart, and partly because these couples are some of my new favorite people.
Stay tuned for the official unveiling, but here is a sneak peak: http://www.cynthyaporter.com
Hope you like it!
A few weeks ago Nashville hosted several national photography associations and industry vendors for a massive gathering of thousands and thousands of photographers from all over the world – what an amazing sight! I opted for the most specialized gathering among the masses – a five-day convention specifically targeted at wedding photography professionals.
It was such a treat to spend hours and days listening to some of the world’s most famous wedding photographers talk about our craft – I came home absolutely inspired and I’m very excited for my upcoming weddings this year. They are going to be more awesome than ever~ I can’t wait.
I also had the chance to work on some bridal photo shoots while in Nashville, and it was a great opportunity to experiment with some new lighting and posing techniques. I love these photos – I hope you do too
Justin and Marie had such a beautiful wedding in Winona, I loved shooting under the backdrop of towering stained glass in Central Methodist Church and I really enjoyed watching how the couple involved their little girl in the day’s events. From photographing their gorgeous portraits to the fun candids of them dancing at the Riverport and enjoying their friends and family, it was a great day. Being around this couple was sweet and romantic and touching, and I know they will have a future as lovely as their day was. Here are some of my favorites…
Bonnie and Andy had a beautiful day for their wedding along the banks of the Root River in Lanesboro, the only thing more beautiful than the day was the way Bonnie looked in her gorgeous lace wedding dress. The wedding party was lots of fun – I really had a wonderful day as the wedding photographer these great people. Thanks Bonnie and Andy, here’s wishing you a long and happy life together!
Cute feet
[/caption]
Happy bride and groom
[/caption]
USA Today is running a full-length feature story with a photo by Cynthya Porter this week in the Mexico/Caribbean edition of the publication. The story chronicles the journey of three young men who are canoeing from Winnipeg to Cancun for spring break. Thanks USA Today and good luck guys!
At its national convention in Chicago September 26, Independent Free Papers of America announced Cynthya Porter received first place in the feature story division of its contest and second place in the news category.
Porter’s winning feature story shined a spotlight on homelessness through the eyes of a man living on the streets. Her winning news story explored a scandal involving chaperones on a student trip to Europe, during which one of the students was locked out of her host home and stranded at 2 a.m. with no idea where her chaperones were or how to reach them.
For these awards Porter competed against journalists from across the United States and Canada who belong to the North American IFPA newspaper association. The awards bring the total to 42 state and national awards that Porter has received for her writing and photography during her past eight years at the Winona Post.
Life’s little epiphanies have a funny way of sneaking up on me in the least expected places, sprinkling in powerful “aha” moments even during the most mentally vacant points of my day.
Take, for example, the dove family in my back yard. Oh sure, at first I thought they were just little cooing trespassers who figured my ladder was the best place for a nest.
Think again. These birds had an important life lesson to share, and I’m just glad I caught it before it was too late.
The ladder never seemed like a particularly good place for a nest to me, it hangs sideways along the garage and is only about four feet off the ground.
But for some reason, mother dove thought it looked perfect and she’s scrabbled together some grass and twigs there the past several seasons.
Because the nest is entirely visible, my daughters and I have enjoyed front row seats to one of the most marvelous circles in life, from the time the bright blue eggs appear to the day the fledglings are perched precariously on the wires up above.
In return, we cluck over mama bird a bit, making sure there is always a bit of water and bird seed around while she sits in vigil on her impending brood.
With no small excitement my daughter announced one day that two chicks had emerged, both curled into fuzzy little balls in the bottom of the nest while mother went off in search of sustenance.
Okay, you’re right, she was probably out trying to find just a moment of sanity after sitting on that nest all those weeks, but seriously, can you blame her?
Anyway, every day we watched as the chicks turned from freakish looking little creatures into feathery birds until they were almost too ridiculously large to sit in the tiny makeshift nest. They were cute, actually they were so ugly they were cute, and I think we all began to feel a little like these birds were a part of our family.
Mama was a good provider and the babies were strong, and some days as I watched her I’d ponder the similarities of this mother outside raising her offspring and me inside raising mine.
Finally the day came when mother dove sat atop the chain link fence and coaxed the babies, it was time to leave the nest.
With a mixture of sadness and pride my daughter and I sat on a bench swing and watched as the first baby made the colossal leap and fluttered next to mom.
But baby two didn’t want to go. It just sat there stubbornly staring back, perfectly content right where it was and unmoved by mother’s urging.
I thought about my own children just then, how the nest of home is safe and comfortable, and how frightening it must be to have to leave it, presumably forever.
As parents we have the mixed role of sheltering our children while they grow, doing our best to keep them from harm but knowing at a certain point they must grow up and leave.
It’s kind of sad really, and just as scary for parents who must coax their children out into the world hoping they have the skills to manage it on their own.
But this baby bird wasn’t budging and mother didn’t seem sad, she was actually getting kind of miffed. All day she sat there chirping encouragement at baby two, and all day it sat there looking back. Sometimes it would walk to the edge of the ladder and peer up at her, but it was just too uncertain to trust its wings and fly.
Perhaps it was afraid to sleep in the now cavernously empty nest by itself, or perhaps it finally decided if mom said so it must be the right thing to do, but sometime late that evening it finally took the leap and was gone into the shrubbery of the chain link fence with its sibling.
I admit it, I felt proud and strangely moved by the spectacle, and the next morning I went out to the yard to see if mom and babies were still hanging around in the shrubs.
What I found in the back of the yard instead took my breath away.
Carnage.
Maybe it was a cat or some other baby bird devouring night creature, but there by the fence was the unmistakable evidence that one of the babies had been killed overnight. There was no sign of mother dove and the other baby, presumably because they fled for higher and safer ground.
I sank down on the bench swing and cried for the baby bird and for its mother, struck by the cruelty of it all.
Just then my daughter came outside for her morning peek at the birds, and though I tried to stop her she knew right away something terrible had happened. I gave her a hug while she cried too.
“Go back in the house,” I told her. “I don’t want you outside right now.”
Wiping away tears, she headed for the back door with me on her heels. “When can I go outside?” she asked me.
“When you’re 35,” I replied.
I’m being terrorized in my house and I’m sick of it. Yes, I have a teen and a tween, but I’m not talking about them this time.
I’m talking about uninvited guests who lounge around and mooch off my heat and eat my food and generally make this peaceful soul feel alarmingly murderous.
I’ve never been a killer, but the mice who’ve sought refuge inside my big old house have made me start fantasizing about sinister things like BB guns and whether the cops would understand if they showed up and my walls, floors and furniture were full of holes. If you’re cold and want to hide in an exterior wall until spring, fine. But when you try to drag a piece of warm pizza off the counter, eat my one saved candy bar and sit around playing cards in my breakfast nook, you’ve really pushed me too far.
Yes, I know, put everything away and set traps. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The problem, and I’m not too proud to admit this, is that I can’t figure out how to set one of those old wooden traps without snapping it on my fingers at least a dozen times. After a half hour of that misery I’d rather strangle mice with my bare hands, if all my fingers weren’t broken, that is.
When I do finally somehow get a trap set, those infernal creatures just mock me by licking off all the peanut butter without tripping the bar of death.
So I went to the store and got dummy traps, the kind you just squeeze the back of like a big chip clip and it sets itself.
The problem is that those traps aren’t powerful enough to kill mice that have been well-fed on peanut butter. And, feel free to disagree with me on this, but the only thing worse than a live mouse or a dead mouse is a maimed mouse looking up at you with those Fievel Goes West eyes and a disfiguring injury inflicted by yours truly.
I wish I could whack them with a broom at that point, but of course, like an idiot, I feel all guilty and I try to save them.
Right after I tried to kill them.
You get the picture.
I have actually thrown two mice outside and wished them the best, which is stupid because “the best” in their minds is undoubtedly whatever I’m making for dinner, and they were probably back inside before it ever came off the stove.
In fact, the other night it looked like the mouse that was scaling my cockatiel cage for a bite to eat had a little cast on his leg and I’m pretty sure he flipped me the bird.
This, of course, means war. No more Mr. Nice, er, Girl duped by that Disney tomfoolery making adorable characters out of nasty little rodents. No more second chances and guilty consciences. From now on it’s all glue traps and poison, and maybe I’ll borrow a few cats.
All I can say is thank heavens I don’t have a BB gun, because I’d hate to really crack someday and be having this conversation instead with the Winona PD.
