I am so excited to announce the latest and greatest news here from The Picture Lady:
After almost 7 years in our current location, we are moving to our new property!

The Picture Lady storefront opened more than a decade ago, and it has been a wonderful adventure of trying new things, designing spaces and making the best of what we had to work with. We’ve rented two different retail spaces and through each build-out and move, I’ve made notes as to how I want my ultimate dream studio to look, feel, and present my own style.
And now, here we are, at the brink of making that ultimate studio dream a reality!
The building of the new studio is happening in several mini-steps. The first being the biggest…
Moving to our new location.
We are moving out of our current, rented space, onto property owned by me (yay!) and in a VERY convenient location for everyone.
The Picture Lady will be doing business in a smaller space, while we all get to watch the new building get constructed on the same property.
I am so excited to have you all join me and my staff on our journey through the design, construction, and “bumps” along the way as we complete a studio made up of my dreams and your wishes. It’s going to be the best of everyone’s world!

We will be open for business at the new location on June 1, 2012 (so… really, really soon!)
The new physical and mailing address is:
The Picture Lady
2820 N. Silver Creek Dr.
Palmer, AK, 99645
The new location is super easy to find… we are right across the street from Colony High and Middle schools. With the new Trunk Rd and Bogard Extension projects underway, our new location is, literally, in the heart of Palmer and Wasilla.

If you’d like to keep up with the move, the humor of watching us squeeze my current studio into a smaller and temporary space (just for a while!), the construction of the new building, and some of my design schemes and ideas then feel free to “LIKE” The Picture Lady page on Facebook and follow my Studio Designs & Ideas on Pinterest.

We are in for quite a ride and I’m so happy to have you along.

When I first opened the storefront for The Picture Lady, I did teach classes, and they were a huge success. My goal was to help people better understand their cameras and what they can do with the tools they have for image making. Of course, back then, it was film cameras we worked with and film images we discussed. As time marched on and the digital age became the accepted norm for photography, the film classes died out.
So, finally, after quite a lot of cajoling from many (most? ) of you, I’m going to offer some educational classes on How To Use Your Camera!
The focus of these classes are to help you make the best images possible with the equipment you have in your possession.
These classes are not “How To Become A Professional.” If you’re looking at this opportunity as a way to jump start your photography business, I can promise you these classes won’t be of much help.
But these classes will be awesome for the following:
–When your baby falls asleep next to your puppy and you want to catch an image of it with your camera
–When your children are, finally, playing quietly together in their room and you want to have that moment to remember
–When you’re skiing and you want “good pictures” to remember your winter holiday
–Any vacation trip you ever take
–All of those amazing sunsets we get in the winter time
–When you climb to the top of the Butte in the summer (or winter!)
–All of your children’s sports events

We are offering three different types of classes.
–One for the iPhone. This class is probably going to be my favorite to teach, as the iPhone is the camera of choice for me for 96% of my personal photos
–One for the Digital SLR. This class will be perfect for right after the holidays, as I’ve already fielded 10,534 calls from spouses wanting information on A Good Camera to get their significant other. (Hopefully your spouse is one of the ones who called, right?!)
–One for the Point & Shoot crowd. With the influx of the DSLR’s on the market, I don’t want to forget about my beloved P&S clients. I use our family P&S on many of our vacations and my day hikes. These cameras have limitations, but are so convenient to keep on your person where ever you go.

So that’s it! The classes will be held in January and February. Each class type will have limited openings so it would be best to call ASAP for the class you are interested in taking.
I’m looking forward to the adventure!

Mike and I recently flew down to Chicago to bring home our new baby!
We’ve added a very special little man to our life and I could not be more excited about his presence. Guys, meet Leonidas Demetri, the Great Dane puppy!

We are experienced dog owners, Leo being the fourth puppy we’ve raised together (and the SEVENTH puppy I’ve had in my life). But he is the first giant breed dog either one of us have ever owned. Needless to say, a LOT of research went into the process of deciding whether a Great Dane was the right choice for our family. And it turns out, he was!

We are expecting Leo to grow to be about 180lbs, based on his pedigree. This picture of him with Mike will be an image I plan on taking every few months to demonstrate his quick rate of growth!

Leo’s first studio portraits. He was a trooper!

Leo has already made himself at home in the studio. He visits pretty much every day and loves meeting everyone (especially the kids!). I figured a puppy who spends so much time in the studio needs a camera of his own.

We all agree, Leo’s favorite toy is his stuffed armadillo.

Leo was not a fan of the snow when he first arrived. But after about a week of being home, he’s starting to get comfortable with the white stuff.

Leonidas has been a BLAST to train. I’ve been working with him for nine days and he’s, by far, the best trained puppy I’ve ever experienced. He knows his commands, he sleeps through the night (three nights is all it took for him to get the hang of things), he adores his crate, he uses the bathroom outside on command (this was a MUST in my eyes for a dog his size) and he’s wonderful with people and other pets.
Okay, Mom Brag Time over.
Everyone is welcome to stop in to the studio to meet our new monkey. And if you can’t make it to the studio, just friend me on Facebook and you’ll get to see LOTS of pictures of my little man who is growing, literally, right before our eyes!

We camped at Lindeman before heading on to Bennett. This campsite was HUGE. Two separate sites to camp, an interpretive tent with photos, letters, and memorabilia from Lindeman City during the rush, and tent housing for a few rangers who stayed on site at the camp to welcome hikers and give everyone a general check up, making sure we were all relatively healthy and of sound mind at the end of the journey.
We woke the next day to our final breakfast on the trail. More oatmeal! Then it was time to pack up and hit it once again for our final day of hiking. We were both happy and sad to know this was the final day. Tomorrow would mean a ride back to Skagway on the train, a hot meal, and eventually, a hot shower. But today, we were still enjoying what was left of our adventure and our final hike out of the woods of the Chilkoot Trail.
We arrived in Bennett with little pomp and circumstance. Seeing the train depot in this abandoned town made the going home part very real for me. It was an interesting experience to walk out of the wilderness and right back into civilization.
Our first order of business was to unload and cache our scented items for the last time, then find a place to set up our tent for the last time, then eat ramon noodles on the trail… for the last time.
The next morning we woke early and packed up our goods. The train depot opened at 10:30am for hikers to come in and eat steaming bowls of stew, cold slaw, bread (I ate so much bread!), cold water/tea/coffee, and some (delicious) apple pie. The train arrived around 12:00 and hikers were separated from the tourists on the train. While we were welcome to mingle when the tourists were off the train, we ate in separate dining rooms (ours was in the back of the depot) and rode on separate train cars. This segregation was, of course, because of the smell of the hikers. As one person put it to me; “The tourists are happy to hear your stories, they just don’t want to smell you.“
Awesome.

I found this to be humorous… the closer we got to Bennett, the more signs of civilized life I’d see. One sign was after EVERY ascent, Canada set out benches for you to rest a bit before continuing on. We never used the benches, but I suppose it’s a nice treat to have them waiting for you if you need them!

The last mile or so into Bennett is all sand. Right there in the middle of the woods!

Enjoying our last meal on the trail with the group of folks who were hiking within a day of us on the trail. All good people!

That’s a lotta Ramen! (we boiled out all the sodium )

This shot is for Liz, the Canadian mother-in-law I always wanted, but never got!

This final shot the night before heading out of Bennett on the train, I think sums up the feeling at the end of the trip. This was image was captured by one of the other hikers, Chad, and I’m forever appreciative to him for grabbing this of Andrea and me. (Thanks, Chad!)

And that’s all for the Chilkoot Trail!
We did have more adventures on the way down to Skagway and back home to the Valley. But these posts summed up the hike, which was a pretty grand adventure in and of itself.
Stay tuned for the hike we have planned for 2012!

After climbing over Chilkoot Pass, we really felt like there was nothing more left to conquer.
We were not exactly right about that.
While there were no more 60º grades to climb (for those not in the Know… that’s pretty steep), there was still a lot of uphill left to do. The Chilkoot never comes DOWN out of the mountains, you pretty much go up hill the entire way. But the adventure is worth the climb, I promise.
After packing up and saying a happy goodbye to Happy Camp, we were on the trail again toward Lindeman. This day we hiked up at the tops of the mountain ridges and right along the edge of the gorge. The weather was absolutely amazing and the views from the mountain tops just could not be beat. I took a LOT of pictures through this day. We titled this our “mountain lakes” day.
Immediately after leaving Happy Camp we were scaling our way along the edge of the ridge, slowly climbing to higher ground and making a trail as we went.

More boulders to scramble! YAY!

The (creepy) skeletal remains of a boat from the gold rush days.

This is just before the river plummets down into the gorge.

We hiked along the rim of the gorge. Unfortunately, a caveat of photographs is the inability to demonstrate exactly how steep a grade really is.

All in all, not a bad way to spend the day.

Next entry will be about our last night on the trail.

As we headed to our tent for rest, we made the decision to wake up at 3:30am. This should give us plenty of time to wake up, get breakfast, pack up camp and hit the trail by 5am. Bedtime was around 9pm.
I never really slept that night. It wasn’t the journey ahead that was bothering me, but for some reason my brain would not shut off. I thought about my studio, my family and friends, books I was reading at home, music, food… you name it and it was on my mind. I tossed and turned the whole night, mostly anxious for the hours to tick by so I could get up again and get going. There was a lot of excitement racing through my brain during those 6 1/2 hours of “rest.“
At 3:24am we were awake. Wide eyed and ready to go. The morning was very quiet as the only other people awake were our new trail friends, Bill and Ginger. We had come to adore them and look forward to seeing them at our camps each night. Great conversationalists and outstanding hikers, they were our inspiration.
First order of business was a hearty breakfast of instant oatmeal, protein powder, and some GU. (YUM! DELISH! actually… not really. But the oatmeal was good!) Then it was off to pack up camp, fill water bottles, clean dishes and make sure our packs were ready to roll. By this time others in the camp were starting to stir. I got more than a few comments about the early rising. But we had been watching the weather and we knew our beautiful sun was not going to hang on for long. It was important to us to try and summit before the bad weather hit. That was the goal anyway.

My camera hung on the back of my pack with a carabiner. Whenever I wanted to take pictures it became a bit of a production to get the camera off my pack and into my hands, this took extra time that, normally, was not a big deal. But this early morning we were watching our time, as well as the weather! 9 mile hike began with 3.3 miles ascending to the pass and the waterfalls, boulders, and artifacts along the way were distractions I couldn’t stop photographing! The camera was pulled out quite a bit, and time ticked by as I tried so hard to capture all that I was seeing that early morning.

Unmarked graves were along the trail, particularly the closer you got to the pass.

There was a LOT of boulder hopping and rock scrambling this morning.

About 40% of the trail on this day was on snow. The snow was very soft as it was melting, this made post-holing quite the reality. I post-holed about 3 times, 2 were particularly bad. Having hiking poles on the snow was a huge help as the long ascent up the mountain was slow, slick, and unsteady.

The Scales!
This was a welcome site and a chance to sit and eat a quick bite for energy before the Golden Staircase. This area was where Canada’s Northwest Mounted Police set up scales to weight the goods of the miners. No one was permitted up the staircase and into the pass (into Canada) unless their outfit weighed in at one ton (2,000lbs). This area was absolutely littered with artifacts that were left behind.

The weather was coming in fast by this time. It was still early in the morning and there was not another soul in sight. The clouds were creeping down the Chilkoot Pass at a steady rate and I knew that any window of high clouds for the summit had passed. As we looked up at the pass and the boulder field we were to ascend, I began to remember the words of the ranger at the station back in Skagway;
“People are calling it the Vertical Ladder right now. It’s really nothing like a staircase on the boulder field.“
The miners of the late 19th century climbed this pass in the wintertime. They made 40 trips up the mountain with 50lb packs on their backs. Stairs were carved out of the snow and the miners climbed the stairs into Canada. But today, there were no stairs. There was just a vertical climb on boulders into Canada.
If you look closely at this image, you can see the red gates that mark the right side of the pass. It was boulder scrambling the whole way up, the snow in the middle was much to soft and unsteady to risk trying to climb.

About 1/3 of the way up I stopped to grab a shot of my view. I knew I’d regret it if I didn’t take this shot. Andrea later told me that watching me angle for the shot and balance on the boulders had her certain I was going to fall. But I didn’t, and as I told her… I had faith she’d catch me if I did fall. Her response was just to give me a look that read; “yeah… right…”

Once we got over the boulders we were at what is called the False Summit. (or, as I was fond of shouting out randomly during the climb; “FALSE HOPE!!”) At False Summit we continued on snow. At first the snow was a welcome relief from the boulder climb. But the low hanging clouds, cold wind, rain, low visibility, slipping, sliding, and trying to avoid post-holing to the point of breaking an ankle got really old, really fast.

At the summit there was not much celebrating. We still had about 5 more miles to go before we could break for camp. We were still in avalanche areas and stopping was not wise. After a quick rest in the warming cabin (not that warm), change into dryer clothes, and a celebratory snack of tuna and crackers I packed for Summit Day, it was time to head out again. The first clear view on the Canada side of Chilkoot was Crater Lake. Cold, lonely, desolate and massive. Like the rest of the pass, this lake made me feel small and insignificant. It reminded me of a quote from a miner in regards to seeing the Chilkoot Pass during the gold rush; “…you feel your insignificance as an atom in this universe. No time for dreaming… as dreams are not made here.“
That about summed up my feelings exactly.

Our lone picture at the summit of the pass before heading on.

The longer we hiked, the higher the clouds lifted. The wind was blowing about 50kph (30mph) and we trekked on. The ground was uneven, the rocks were everywhere, snow patches had me cursing, but the views were steadily becoming more breathtaking.

Finally we made it to Happy Camp. We were the second group to make it in (behind our hiking heroes, Bill and Ginger!) and grateful to see level platforms on the edge of the mountain for our tent.
Happy Camp is named so ironically. Normally the weather is terrible in this valley and a camp site on the edge of the mountain meant terrible winds and rains that sweep through the area. We did have the wind, but the clouds had lifted and the views were outstanding. Everywhere I looked I was surrounded by rugged beauty. Words cannot describe the feeling of being at Happy Camp. It was an inspiring end to a day that will turn out to be my most cherished on the trail.

The view from the tent.
This night’s rest was the best I’d had in decades!