Grossl Photography

Another sweet baby girl!  Congrats!

Still patiently waiting….

You might recognize Samantha from the office this last fall, she was gracious in helping us keep the office open and running smoothly :)  I had to keep it tame, Sam is a very expressive person so we had much fun shooting and then laughing about how many times she can possibly move or change expressions in ten seconds (you know how fast I shoot!).  I promised to not be too embarassing on the blog so I cut down the 50 I wanted to post, lol

To make a long story short I met my husband at her parent’s house about ten years ago at a party they put on!  She’s been Ava’s nanny since the get-go so its really hard for me to let her go and start being a grown up, it just doesn’t seem right!?!  She’ll always be our little Sammy… 

Remember, well behaved women seldom make history   We’re excited to watch what you become.

Love Tasha, Ava and Jack

Oh, and some old stuff, starting with a private little joke, sorry mark!

Okay I’ll quit with the Texas stuff but we celebrated Jack’s birthday before we left by bowling….

I broke 100, but how does this make sense?  I’m putting an 8 lb bowling ball to shame… does this mean I’m carrying a 20 lb baby around?  This is making me nervous LOL 

I’ve been thinking much about what family portraits really mean, what they should really do for us. A close uncle passed away unexpectedly two years ago, an uncle that lived right here next door to my parents.  My mother’s only surviving sibling, one of my fathers best friends.  He is greatly missed by all of us, not a trip goes by that one of us doesn’t mention “if Uncle Ron were here…”  His cell phone is still
programmed into my phone, I can’t bring myself to delete it, it doesn’t feel right.  I never really had any pictures out of him - a bachelor the last twenty years, he never had a family nagging him (a family portrait is usually the equivalent of a root canal for many guys, I get this, lol)
for portrait time once every few years, and I had never bugged him about being the subject of a portrait.  I never felt that time was running out, I never felt pressed about that.  At first I was pretty sad about not having a perfect portrait of him somewhere - a traditional head and shoulders portrait, something we see everyday.  My mother and I went through tons of albums collecting newspaper clippings (he led many successful fishing tournaments as boat captain off the coast here, many were with my father, I remember the fancy tournament tshirts i got every year as a child, they matched all the grownups, loved them) and pictures.  Going through all of these things it created such a
beautiful patchwork quilt of his life, I got to know my uncle as a younger man.  The downright spiritual connection he has had with fishing his whole life was painted a much brighter shade of gold, he’d been extraordinary at it since he was a kid - he always knew the places to go and what to use.  I chose one image to hang on my wall at home so my friends and kids can ask “who’s that?” and I can smile
to have a random thought of him.  Uncle Ron is in his late twenties/early thirties around the time I was born - all you can see is him draped over the side of a big beautiful boat with a huge fish hook in one hand, two seconds away from gaffing a beautiful marlin in the bluest sea water you can smell by looking at the image and the back of his shirt says across the back “CAPTAIN RON.”  You cannot even see his face.  I went with instinct on this choice, I can’t say exactly why I chose this image, except that it spoke to me  - this was the very essence of who he was.  As proud as I am of his military service in the marines in vietnam and beyond, that didn’t have much to do with where his true love was - so although his marine mug shot is nice to have, he doesn’t look like the shiny happy uncle he was to me in my life.  So I kind of blindly chose this one and had it preserved in a shadowbox frame (Marty at Artworks does an amazing job!) to keep forever - I’ve been thinking I just couldn’t have made a better choice.  This is what family portraits really mean - did a professional photographer shoot this image for me?  At
the top of the fishing tower on a boat miles and miles off shore?  I have no idea who to thank for this, but I’m thankful for my grandmother and mother not being afraid to keep every picture.  Make room for storage, keep them safe with good storage habits (getting wet is the worst!) so they’ll be around for the next generation to enjoy and ponder.  Keep the bad ones, the blurry ones, the everyday boring ones.
Those things eventually become more important.  I think of my grandmother who had four children a long time ago, who now has one with her today, and three in memories and photographs.  So as my work takes a new direction, I can feel it takes on new meaning as well, these are the things I want to be thinking about as I work with each of you.  Anyone can go to a department store chain and sit down beneath the
lights, click a few pictures and document what you looked like on that day, at that time.  My plans are to reveal something more from each session, get to the good stuff!  Eight months pregnant, I can’t go down to my Uncle’s old favorite bar, The CRAB N, and have a kubra libra
(Bacardi, Coke & a Lime) nearing the anniversary of his death like we enjoyed last year, but it doesn’t mean we think of him any less.  love, Tasha