Tiffany and Jonathan's Album

Camping in the Champagne region of France and Moet and Chandon

side note: I am shooting all these photos in Belgium and France with my point and shoot...I know it is so bad but I have to use it every once in a while and I am going to head back there with my big camera and get some more photos...We went camping in France to get a little further away from Brussels and found this cute hut to stay in. It was perfect for us and our dogs and they also delivered fresh chocolate croissants and bread in the morning...ahhh, camping in France! Of course, we got lost on the way down, which always happens to us, but we made it. The Champagne area of France is, of course, the only place in the world the makes "champagne". Everywhere else like Korbel, the wine maker close to my home, makes "Sparkling wine". So we visited the huge and most famous of Champagne makers, Moet and Chandon, and you will see that their compound looks like a well protected Embassy. There are apparently 100 million bottles of champagne under their buildings in their cellars that are built in the chalk that exists in the region and the ingredient that gives the Grand Cru grapes their special taste. Some bottles of Champagne that they have cost as much as 25,000 euros a piece! Napoleon also liked to frequent the champagne maker, Moet, and had a special room in the Chateau just for him. The other buildings you see where Chateaus built by Chandon, husband of the daughter of Moet, who built them for his children. There also is a building owned by Pierre Joulliet, another Champagne maker present on the Avenue de Champagne. There are hundreds of champagne makers in this region in France and we intend to go back and visit the smaller mom and pop champagne makers in the region.

My fascination with out of focus flowers

I've had an obsession with taking photos of flowers really up close or out of focus. I like the shapes and colors to look abstract and I find it appealing, like a Mark Rothko painting. I always think that nature has the best combinations of textures, colors and features that work so well together, or the most bizarre (in the case of the platypus or elephant seals, for example. Who would have thought of creating really huge mammals that have really big noses that have to wobble and thrust their bodies onto the shore to be able to mate, feed and birth? They make god awful noises and are a bit ugly as well but they are amazing creatures). As artists we have to find the same harmony of elements to create things that people respond to. I'm not sure if I do that with abstract flowers but I like to look at the textures and colors that make up a flower.

An album that is 9.5x13 size

This album was created for Rachel and Dave who were married a year ago and it was published with Graphistudio as well. My other album companies are Zookbinders , Asuka Books and Renaissance Albums . These are some of the pages only of course and be sure to click on individual photos to see them in larger size and more detail.

A few pages created for Megan and Andy in their 12x8 size album

Here are some more pages of an album that I just created. Megan and Andy had a family wedding as they have 4 kids between them and their children were a big part of all the events of the day. They were also the best dancers:) Megan and Andy have been friends for a long time and their wedding was a celebration of a union that was a long time coming!