Ellingsen Photography is ALIVE!

I'm super duper thrilled to announce that what I hinted at before has now finally come to fruition!! Ellingsen Photography is now live and open for business!

You can find me there and also on the purty new Ellingsen Photography Blog.

I haven't yet decided whether to keep both blogs going or to migrate to the new one, since I'd be posting a lot of the same content to both anyways. It's so hard to give up this baby that I've been keeping up for so long! But to help with my sanity, I might have to go with just one.

What do you guys think? One blog or two? Would you migrate with me? Any feedback is greatly appreciated!

Now I think I'll go have a drink and take a nap. :)

xoxoxo

NYFW

I don't consider myself a major fashionista in the slightest, but I've been reading Vogue and Vanity Fair for years and still love seeing the gorgeous creations that come out of New York Fashion Week (and of course London, Paris, Milan, etc.). Couple that with the fact that the most recent fashion week was for fall, my favorite season, and I just had to share some of the ready-to-wear eye candy that I've been drooling over!

{All photos courtesy of Style.com}

Anna Sui - oh the colors, and the glasses!

Jill Stuart - you can't help but love the paint-by-numbers foxes and owls!

Vivienne Tam - the girls all looked cozy and warm while still being sexy. The structured coats were gorgeous. And those BOOTS!

Jason Wu - the models look kinda scary, but the shapes super pretty and I love the ankle length cigarette pants.

Prabal Gurung - so glam and kinda Femme Fatale while still being feminine.

Isaac Mizrahi - I will always love him. I mean, really - dyed poodles and cakes on the runway! How do you not love? And can someone please bring back his talk show? I miss it.

DKNY - The sheer wearability is what always makes her awesome. And I love the idea of fall-ish neons.

What do you guys think? Any look you particularly love?

xo

OH HAI!

...is what Anja would like to say. :)

And two minutes later, she was like:

"Why can't I go play now, dad?" (Lars was standing just behind me.)

Doesn't it look like we're punishing her? Puppies crack me up.

xo

Ready to Pop

Much like the overabundant jasmine in our backyard, I, too, am ready to pop! Photographically speaking, that is. :)

My baby, my website that I’ve been working on for weeks, is just about ready to launch! I can’t WAIT to share it with you guys! I’ll succumb to clichés and call it (and the accompanying blog) a labor of love, because although they have required serious brain power and manhours, I’ve been nothing but excited and happy while working on them.

Also, I'm soooo happy it's still light out when I get home. Is it daylight savings yet? Because at this point I'm seriously missing the long golden afternoons. Lately I've just wanted to sleep when I get home.

What about you guys? What’s been your labor of love lately?

xo

Their Story

{The latest installment in my Memories series}

Happy Valentine's Day! I'm not a big fan of the "holiday", but because I couldn't hold off posting my parent's love story any longer, I thought today would be the perfect day to share. :)

So, to begin at the beginning: my dad is a native Norwegian. My mom is American. My mom's family moved to his hometown just outside Stavanger in early 1969 because of my grandfather's job (he was a lifelong international rep for Pratt & Whitney, a company my uncle and aunt both went on to work for). My dad became good friends with my uncle, Karl, and spent a lot of time at the family's house because of it. Like Karl's fifteenth birthday, for example:

(Don't you just love dad's bitchin' frilly shirt? He looks so much like Lars does in this picture, it's scary. That's my mom on the left.)

My dad was one of the coolest kids in school - he rode a motorcycle, threw parties, dated as many girls as possible and charmed all his teachers while doing so.

A year later the family moved back to the States, but not before my mom told my dad, "Wait for me to grow up so we can get married, okay?"

She was ten, my dad was sixteen.

And true to 16-year-old manhood, he said, "Yeah, sure, kid."

Ten years later...

It's now January 1980. My dad and uncle have stayed really good friends despite living on different continents, and now that my uncle is getting married my dad has flown to Bombay Mumbai to be his best man (Karl's first wife is half Indian, half English).

My mom and grandmother fly in from Connecticut and my dad goes with Karl to pick them up. The way he tells it, when he saw his best friend's baby sister for the first time in many years, "That was pretty much it for me." You know it's love when someone falls for you after you've been traveling for 18 hours, right?

Which makes these photos they took of each other while they were still in Bombay all the more meaningful:

From there on out, dad courted mom relentlessly. Long distance calls (a big deal in those days!), visits, flowers, etc. He was certain he'd found The One. My mom wasn't sure yet - she was only 21, and she'd have to move to Norway because my dad had a great job with Mobil Oil, which would mean giving up riding and training her beloved Arabian horses:

But how could she resist this face?

They spent more and more time together though...

And by November that same year, she had long since caved and they were engaged!

They were married in 1981. On April 25 they'll be celebrating thirty years together. I'm so thankful for their amazing example of a beautiful and hard-working marriage. Happy almost-anniversary!!

But seriously, who gets to marry their childhood crush?

xo