we've moved!

ok so at the risk of the whole world knowing where we live, our new address XXXXXXXXXXX

(i've deleted our address. if you didn't copy it down then call me and i will send it to you.)
figured it would take me ages to actually send out a mass email. this weekend was a bit nuts because jason's brother got married on sat. i shot the wedding and jason was in it. so after 11 hours of shooting, we fell into bed at 3am. jason's mom and aunt knocked on our door at 7:30 which was great because otherwise i don't think we would have gotten our rears out of bed until noon, we were that tired. other members of his family joined us through out the day so we had 8 people helping us move. it made it soooo much easier. the only downside is that i have no idea where anything is. i'll post some pictures soon.

holy cow twice in one week!

it is so wicked hot outside!!! i'm not knocking those living in the desert. but it is SUPPOSED to be that hot there. it doesn't sneak up on you, it doesn't prevent you from sleeping at night, and i swear i never had my eyeballs sweat the way they do here. of course being the good journalist i am, i have to go immerse myself in other people's sweat misery and document people looking like they are melting into their shoes. this is harder to find than you might think. most people don't walk down the street when they feel this way. they hide. so that leaves construction workers! which are oh so fun to shoot. that statement could be considered dripping with sarcasim if i was dripping with sweat!!

turning 30

so friday was my 30th birthday. i had some issues with it as i think i have written about on previous blogs. i stayed up on thursday night until midnight and i know this is going to sound pitiful, but i actually cried when it hit midnight. dumb, i know, especially since i wasn't born until 1:30am on 7/28/76 and that was phx time. but i woke up friday morning, put on my frida khalo t-shirt (since i figured that if anyone didn't give a rat about their 30th birthday, it would be her) and went about my day. i met with a bride first thing, went to the retired ladies home where i have been working on a photo project, had lunch with jason and then went to target, tipsy. yep, i was parked at target and jason dropped me off after i had a bomber sized corona at lunch. i highly recommend. i got to sober up while debating tiki torches or citronella candles. good times. sunday we had a big bbq in the backyard of our current house. which made it kind of a goodbye party as well as b-day party. but now i feel better about 30. i do feel like i've accomplished something and i also feel a slight divide between me and the 20-somethings that work here at the paper. but i guess that is ok. maybe the phrase should be changed to "don't trust anyone UNDER 30!"

thanks to everyone for the calls, emails and cards. it made the day great!

yes i suck

so it has been almost a month since i posted about going to martha's vineyard and yes it was lovely. time got away from me and the longer i put it off the more i felt like i was behind. so quick re-cap.

the vineyard rocked. good photos.
4th of july kind of quiet. watched fireworks from porch.
sailfest was this past weekend in new london. old man drove
car into crowd injuring 30 people. no one died.
jason and i moving to new london august 12.
found great cheap place 2 minute commute instead of 25min.
amazing garden.

whew... now i feel better.

i will send out our address in email so that the whole planet won't
know where we live.

martha's vineyard

i'm shooting a wedding this weekend on martha's vineyard with my friend jacqueline. i've never been there before so it should be lovely. we are taking the ferry over saturday morning and then the wedding is sat. afternoon. we are spending the night and coming back on sunday afternoon. the weather is supposed to be just gorgeous too. i'll post some pics when i get back.

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!!!!!

so jason has started watching the world cup. but i have discovered that he only likes to watch it on telemundo. at first i thought this was dumb because he doesn't speak spanish and wouldn't know what the announcers are saying. but after watching germany (aleiman) score 3 goals in 18min, and heard the announcer yell GOOOOOOOOOOOL!! it is definitely better in spanish. not to mention that it is pretty funny to hear one of the announcers do a german accent everytime he pronounces the name of a player named von steiger.

Holy Crap!

Wow it has been ages since i posted. mea culpa. jason and i got back from our trip to ohio on tuesday. we went to a wedding, 2 baseball games and a great outlet mall. not to mention lots of forebidden fast food. my body is pissed, but i had a great time. the wedding in new orleans the week before was unbelievable too. there was a voodoo blessing which wedding guests were able to be blessed as well. i actually had voodoo dreams for a week. it was pretty cool actually. i asked this guy at work who is mr. new orleans and he told me (and i quote) "they're just spirits, darlin, go with it." which i did and it was pretty cool.

Busy month

I apologize for being so remiss lately. it has been a whirlwind of a month so far and doesn't look like it will slow down again until mid-june. they have shuffled the beats of all the reporters at work which means a wealth of new story ideas flowing in. this makes for wickedly long days shooting 3,4,and sometimes 5 assignments. i guess its feast or famine though because all winter long we have been just starved for actual stories to work on as opposed to the drive around look for a feature game. which we all hate. i'm getting ready to start a story on home birth which will be interesting. i'm keeping my fingers crossed that a couple i recently met will agree to let me document their pregnancy including their giving birth at home.

this upcoming week will be nuts as i try to work in a session with the couple, and get the ball rolling on a story about the coal industry in conn. there is a power plant nearby that burns coal to generate electricity but also steam to run a nearby paper mill. it has been raining for a solid week and we are not scheduled to see the sun here until next friday which puts a damper on the coal project a bit.

on friday, i am leaving for new orleans for my friend jacqueline's wedding. i can't wait! i am so excited for her. i come back on monday the 22nd and then jason and i leave for a road trip to ohio on the 25th. two of my friends from college are getting married. we are going to also go see a family friend (martha, for those who know) and catch a cincinnatti reds game. the wedding is in cleveland on sunday and we have tickets to catch a cleveland indians game on monday. should be tons fun! i love going to major league games. jason and i saw a reds game with martha the last time we went through ohio. it was awesome! we then head back to conn. on tues.

whew!
i'll update again when i can. i got a new little canon elph digital camera so i hope to put more grab shots up here.

martha and me

so thanks everyone for your awesome comments on the site. now i just need people to HIRE ME!!!

my friends, marcia and heather and myself went to nyc on wed. to see a taping of martha stewart. it was very interesting to say the least. tune in on monday may 1 to see us. it shows here 11am on nbc but for those of you with tivo it won't be hard to find. i'm pretty sure we will be on because of the fabulous head wear they adorned us with. i won't say any more for now. better to leave you in suspense. i'll be sure to blog about it monday. my friends and i all had green on and if you are looking at the audience we are on the far right side, 3 rows up.

•kategardinerphoto.com-wedding photojournalism

thar' she blows!!!

so i got to shoot the coolest thing ever yesterday. they blew up an old bridge in nearby jamestown, ri which made for unbelieveable photos. follow this link and see the gallery:

then click on the News section. you will see Jamestown Bridge Demolition. i would just post the pix here but don't want to run the risk of the paper being irritated by my posting their intellectual property on my own blog.
things we have to think about.

ok so the link is having issues at the moment. i think it is a mac thing. i will fix when i get to work.

may the earth swallow me whole

so funny story, today i went to the mall to return one
pair of flipflops i bought that i thought would go
with a dress and didn't. (one pair looked great so
we have a winner) anyway i stopped into the bathroom
in the food court and then walked to am. eagle
outfitters to return the shoes. i'm standing in line
at the place and this tiny gay guy employee walks up
to me and says "oh honey, you've got a bit of t.p.," i
look down at my shoe and there was a toliet paper
trail of about 10 squares long stuck to the bottom of
my shoe!!!! the guy reaches down to pull it loose but
3 squares remain securely behind. so he grabs again
and one square stays behind.

MORTIFIED!!!!!

finally i say, oh thanks don't worry about it. and
then have to stand there in line for another 10
minutes dying on the inside while waiting to return
the damn shoes with one square attached to my shoe. i
tried to look like i had completely forgotten all
about it the moment the guy walked away, but everyone
in line totally heard our conversation and i swear
they kept looking at my feet!!!

i had to wait until i left the store, hid kind of
behind a pillar and picked the rest of it off.
GROSS!!!

anyway thought you all might be entertained...

good stuff

well my weekend in new york was lovely. my friend jacqueline has the most amazing friends. we went to tons of wonderful restaurants but would frequently find ourselves just standing on the corner talking. we also decided you know you are no longer in your early 20's when after a night of drinking, no one got sick and we were all ready to shop the next day. the second night we were there, we all were also ready for bed at 2:30 am instead of partying until the sun came up.

i'm basking right now in the coolness of a gadget we were issued at work. i just finished shooting my assignment and now i'm sitting in the parking lot of the beach where my laptop is using its verizon broadband card to use the local cell phone signal as an internet connection. i just surfed the web calendar to see if there were any cool events going on in the area today to photograph while listening to the scanner. all while sitting in my car. technology is so amazing!!

so excited!! AGAIN!!

i realized as i typed the title of this post that it had come up before and for the same reason. my website is really ticking along. my web goddess just sent me the latest update. it is going to look so cool! i will post my web address after she makes the latest update. what is there now is not good. so i'd hate for you to see it with its pants down. i'm heading down to nyc tonight with some girl friends. we are having a bachelorette party weekend for my friend jacqueline. it should be fun. i'll update you when i get back.

peas and lettuce

so spring has sprung here. i raked out my garden beds this weekend and built up my planting mounds. i'm trying to make my garden a bit more organized this year. last year i lost track of what i planted where and didn't really know until they got rolling what was what. i also planted my peas last year really late mostly because i had no idea you were supposed to get them in around st. patrick's day. who knew? they did grow last year but not very much. lettuce will be a new experiment this year. i think i am supposed to cover the lettuce beds but not sure yet. it hasn't been freezing at night lately so hopefully i'll be ok.

nothing new or exciting maybe manilow

so i wish i had something riveting to put here but i don't. i finished my photo galleries for my new website. hopefully my web chica will have it up and running soon. i'll post a new link when it is running. my friend jacqueline's bridal shower was on sunday. it was most lovely.

ok so i'm not usually a watcher of american idol. i usually find ryan seacrest painful, but i just finished watching 'bones' and it is on after that. barry manilow is singing right now and you know he is kind of scary looking these days. his skin has no creases. i can't decide if it is just a face lift or if there has been some significant pealing involved as well. not to mention makeup. he also looks more like martin short's "jimny glick" character minus the fat than himself. weird. what people do to make themselves glam. what, old housewives wouldn't still swoon over mr. manilow if he had a wrinkle or two?

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!

Eat, drink and be merry!!

alright already!

ok so i've been getting harasssed that i haven't posted anything new on my blog for awhile. SORRY! i've been crazed. i went to a national press photographers assoc. northern short course for 3 days. it was totally crazy but really awesome. i'm fired up again about photo which i totally needed. i haven't had any professional development since i went to this course four years ago. the kind of sad thing is that the last time i went to this, most of the classes involved issues that came up in newsrooms, ie. ethics, lighting, digital work flow. but this time most of the classes were how to be a freelancer, build your own business and there was even a "losing your job" seminar. one of the lecturers gave a statistic that the ny times spends on average $700 per day on their staff photographers with ins., salary, travel, etc. they pay their freelancers $150 per day. he said that when more papers figure out the immense savings behind hiring freelancers over staffers our jobs are toast. yippee. anyway i learned a lot and got to mingle with many very cool photogs. i think i only got 7 hours of sleep during the whole 3 days.

Facial Fabulous

all i have to say is that if you ever get the chance to have a facial, i highly recommend. deb and i went to camelback inn on sat. and had glorious facials. we also layed by the pool, drank cocktails and took in a little sun. i swear i look at least 5 years younger. even jason said he could tell the difference. although he didn't saying anything about specific years :O)

i'd write more but i have a ton of stuff to do. i just got home from phx and now i have to pack tonight to leave for cherry hill, n.j. tomorrow after my shift. there is a national press photographers assoc. conference that i'm going to until sat. busy, busy, busy!

i'll update more about my trip soon!