maple syrup

My kids love maple syrup. They love it with the kind of passion that degrades into whines when they don't get enough. So we had a great time at the annual Maple Syrup Day a couple weekends ago at Little Stony Point, one of my favorite Cold Spring spots. And, this being a small town, we ran into nearly everyone of our friends plus our village mayor, who played the bagpipes for us. We watched sap dripping out of the tree and then watched while it boiled down into syrup. We capped off the day with a mini hike along the Hudson River. An amazing day. Great thanks to all the volunteers for the delicious pancakes and lively music!







My daughter and her best bud were watching for trains and ended up looking like teenagers in an American Eagle ad. Kind of scary.

in honor of spring snow

It's the 4th day of Spring, my daughter reminded me this morning. We were driving to school in a snow storm. Since the snow is sticking around, I figured I'd post some wintry images today. When we shot these headsots (of my lovely friend and actress Alexa Wolkoff), the makeup artist was wearing a snow bib and the snow went up to the top of my boots. Alexa managed about 5 minutes outside before she insisted on heading back in, but I think those 5 minutes were worth it! And the lovely Hilary and Bob at Cold Spring's Hudson Hil's Cafe were kind enough to let us shoot in their restaurant on their day off, so we had a great place to warm up.

dreaming of ireland

I have a thing for Ireland, even though I've only been there once. The landscape, the accent, and the music (I go goo-goo over an Irish fiddle) makes me feel nostalgic for some simpler way of life that probably doesn't actually exist in Ireland. But we have it here! When I drove up the long, winding dirt road leading to this family's home, I felt like I was in another country. And since these kiddos are half Irish, I was excited to make Cold Spring—with its rolling hills and grazing sheep—look like the old country. The gorgeous knit fisherman's sweater helped! It was cold and windy out, but we loaded up on hot chocolate and managed to have a lot of fun. Baby A couldn't really handle the bitter temperatures (I mean, who's kidding, neither could I!) so we brought her inside for her own little mini-studio shoot, where she was determined to crawl....even if it was backwards.

newsies and news

I knew I was going to have a blast with this family when they welcomed me with hugs. I swear I've never photographed a warmer family and I secretly want them to adopt me. Maybe I can be an auntie? Pretty Please? We had a great time going through old vintage suitcases carrying scary porcelain dolls and old cameras and playing dress-up in vintage fur coats and newsboy caps. When mom mentioned The Newsies (Christian Bale at his Disney best) I new this shoot was going to be amazing. Seriously, I was meant to photograph the pre-teen set! We braved the bitter cold, the kids and their dog skating over 2-inch thick ice that covered feet of snow below it, and I just love the results! What do you think? Don't the outdoor photos almost make you want another fresh dump of snow?

But wait, there's more!! I want all of you to head over to my new website (carolinekayephotography.com) and let me know what you think. It's the reason my blog posts have been conspicuously absent over the past couple months. Every spare moment went into that baby. I'm really happy with the results and hope you enjoy looking through the galleries. I've got a bunch of other announcements, but I'll leave those to another day.