My sister is full of witticism lately – one that I have taken on as my own is “is that your next right thing?”.  When I signed up for the Roots Workshop last week I knew the answer to that question was YES!  Very much YES!  I have been searching for the right photography workshop for a while now.  I wanted something  that was closer to home, to give me the chance to actually see the people I attend with again.  I wanted something that was going to improve my photography skills.  I have worked in the business world for a while so I felt my business skills in a good spot.  And I wanted something that was going to provide me some honest critiquing of my work – how else can I learn and grow and provide my clients with images they love if I am not getting some feedback I can learn from.

Enter Roots Workshop!  I found Emilie Sommer and her Roots Workshop through a podcast I listen to and when I found out she was from Portland that made it all the better.  With some gentle but much needed prodding from Matt I went up to Emilie’s gorgeous studio last week and handed in my registration.  It was so great to meet Emilie – she was super nice and I immediately knew it was the right decision.  Now I am just counting down the days.  Emilie has a video from last years workshop – and if last year attendees are right my photography is going to change – for the better!

This past weeks photography assigment was The Weekend- I wanted the group of us to show what our weekends were like through our pictures!  When you see my post you might think I got mixed up with the food week – but I didn’t!  Matt and I had a much needed weekend at home and I dug into Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian cookbook for our Saturday night meal…but first!

Saturday afternoon I received a call from a nurse at Maine Medical as part of my work with Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep.  If you don’t know who they are you can check out their site. A family was about to lose their newly born son – one of a set of twins and I went to the hospital to help them capture those last minutes.  When I arrived they had changed there mind – honestly I am not sure how anyone can process any decision when that is going on  – so I left and took a walk down Brackett Street in Portland on the way to Matt’s house!

These shoes appeared to have been left behind, neatly arranged on the corner as if someone had been taken away by aliens!

I love the font in this sign!

My mailbox has recently been destroyed – and while this one will not work for my house I did think it was cool – very 1930’s!!

Not that interesting of a picture but this was where Matt and I had our first official date!!!

And now onto the food – ALL OF IT was cooked entirely from scratch ( I roasted those beets myself) and made with local/organic foods – all of it!

Beets and Avocado Salad

Goat Cheese and Mushroom Tart with a Potato Crust

Pan crisped sunchokes!

And may look like the cake from last post but its not!  The vegan chocolate cake with vegan ganache was so easy to make and so yummy I made it again!

This weeks photography challenge with my friends was food. I was going to shoot lots of food but after this masterpiece I figured I had it in the can.
For the record this is a VEGAN chocolate cake with a VEGAN chocolate ganache.