This is a story about one thing leading to another, and I’m pretty proud of it.

After moving into our home in 2006 it was quickly apparent that our derelict garage was unsafe because a large black walnut tree had grown up next to it and shifted the foundation of the garage over time. The garage was listing and warped. I’m sure when the garage was built, the tree was probably a few feet away from the corner of the garage. The tree itself towered over everything on our block. It had been growing long before our home was built in 1890.

The rotten old garage was demolished in early 2007. The demolition took my dad and husband only half a day. Parts of it they just pushed over.

We really loved the tree, the shade it provided to our backyard and it’s general impressiveness.

In 2007 we decided to rebuild a garage and the change in zoning laws meant that the tree had to be removed in order to fit in a new garage. My father suggested saving the wood from the tree for floorboards or other household projects we had vaguely looming for the future. He connected us with a tree surgeon he trusted and the tree was taken down.

The tree cutter knew that we wanted to make maximum use of the wood. He took great care to preserve the long sections of branch, the main trunk and the valuable crotch. (go ahead and snigger. I did. It’s a funny word until you learn how valuable black walnut crotch is to woodworkers. Then you tend to throw it around with a bit more confidence…)

When the stump was cut, we discovered the entire base had been eaten by termites may eons ago. It was hollow. The whole tree could have come down in a violent storm. It would have destroyed any of the 8 houses it shaded, depending on which way it fell. It was a small consolation for taking down such a majestic thing.

The kids, neighbors, and local rabbit family had great fun playing on the logs for about a month. I had to catch my breath when I pulled this shot out of the archive and saw my own children looking so little…

The next step in this journey was to get a miller on site. We found a great portable saw mill person from Wisconsin. He set up his machine first thing on a Saturday morning and sawmilled till dark. I had encountered a few millers who would not come because there would be too much metal in the tree. For our guys, his fee was based on board feet, plus the cost of any blades that were broken when they hit nails that had been driven into the tree over the years. Metal simply destroys blades. All in all, guess how many blades were broken? Bearing in mind this is the Chicago suburbs….? None.

He mostly milled one inch boards to be used as flooring, but he also did a fantastic job cutting the main crotch and smaller branch crotches into gorgeous planks.

The one inch boards were loaded into his truck. My dad took an additional load in a trailer the following week. The boards were placed in a kiln to dry.

The remaining special pieces were advertised on craigslist and a woodworkers forum. A lot of grumpy old men took time out of their busy schedules to email me and tell me my wood was no good because it probably had metal in it. Finally, a nice guy from the forum came by the house to have a look. He bought up a few of the nicest pieces and promptly went back and told everyone on the forum that they were fools. He had bought some great pieces from “a nice lady who is just try to prevent her walnut tree from being turned into firewood”. Black walnut is the wood used to make those $7000 tabletops you see in magazines. The rest sold pretty fast…

After the boards dried and were cut into floorboards up in Wisconsin, my dad brought them back from the kiln in 2009.

They stayed in our basement and garage, carefully stickered (laid on small boards with air circulating between them) to prevent warping. We knew they were going to be part of the house someday.

The tree was put down in it’s new home as kitchen floor in the fall of 2011 and sealed in early 2012. Every tradesman that came into our home to work on the project, even the electrician and HVAC guys, commented on the floor. The head carpenter about burst with joy when we asked him to make a desktop and mudroom bench with some of the spare planks. Hopefully I will be sharing some more images of the full finished project next month.

Here’s the floor in place now.

Environmentally, this was the ultimate choice. Total use of the tree with little waste and hardly any transport (100 miles to Wisconsin). Diesel fuel was used in the portable sawmill. Not sure there is much of an alternative for that…

Financially, we came out ahead. The cost for good black walnut flooring is about $10 sq ft. We used 450 sq feet, so the value of the wood is $4,500. The cost of cutting, milling and transporting, minus the profit made by selling the special pieces was less than $3,000. By comparison, oak floor would have probably cost about $1,500. So we paid a premium for nicer wood, but not top dollar.

The kitchen floor has been a surprisingly emotional aspect of the house renovation, perhaps because my father, who is now gone, was so intertwined with the process. I also like to reflect on the number of hands that touched the wood and made it part of the house — very different from factory boards. There was the cutter, miller, board sawyer, kiln operators, floor installers and carpenters. The architect and builder incorporated it into the renovation properly. The children played on it, the woodworkers used it for their projects and now we walk on it every day. Majestic.

I am so proud to announce that my work for The Angel Band Project has been featured in this month’s edition of Professional Photographer Magazine. Proud as a photographer, but also proud just as a person.

The article covers a year-long charitable project in which I photographed musicians during recording sessions while they created an album in memory of a woman who was raped and murdered in 2009. The spirit and tagline of the project was “join the band”, an idea that meant anyone who helped get this album to completion was important. If you set up snacks at a fundraiser, dropped off lunch during a recording session, made a donation, did legal work, played an instrument, were a sound engineer or a documentary videographer, then you have joined the band. The tagline is also a pun on “band of angels”, which of course has greater symbolic meaning.

I love working with musicians. It was a true privilege to be a part of this project, so much that I hardly considered it “work”. If you are a photographer, I wholeheartedly recommend giving your time and service through a project, in addition to donating the occasional free session. In the meantime, click on over and join the band…

I’ve just added a new page to the site listing some of my ongoing projects. “Non-client” projects (projects outside my core business) are an important part of a photographer’s arsenal. Whether they be personally or technically motivated, they challenge me and help develop skills outside the typical session expectations, all while juicing those creative vibes.

Click on over and check it out! http://www.heidipeters.com/projects

— Dr Seuss

This is the ultimate holiday message. It embraces everyone. It’s modern, yet old-fashioned. It’s about Christmas, but it goes beyond a “Christians-only” interpretation to include anyone affected by the Christmas season in any way. The rythym progressively builds up the ugliness of overconsumption and the reader feels a nasty pang of guilt. But then with a single word Seuss gives the reader a little Christmas gift of his own. That one word, “perhaps”, is the gift of hope and humanity, failing and the chance to try again.

Ok. Enough post-modern interpretation of Dr Seuss! { After three children, one cannot help but develop some pretty intricate ideas about childrens’ stories. Don’t get me started! }

Like many folks and am reviewing the past year’s achievements, thankful for many things, looking towards the new year, and trying to think beyond the “ribbons, tags, packages, boxes or bags”. To be accountable for the future these lists are going online. Here’s a recap and my goals for 2011…

Things I’m happy about from 2010 (in no order):

• Participating in The Angel Band Project
• Working with loads of great kids and families. Thank you!
• Getting my studio set-up to run more smoothly
• Shooting products for Design Aglow
• Having a healthy and peaceful family
• Traveling to some new destinations
• Having a good work
  /life balance

Things I’d like to achieve in 2011 (in no order):

• Update my accounting/database programs
• Print off a fraction of the 1000s of photos of my own family now on my drives
• Site overhaul. Overdue!
• Blog almost every day, maybe re-try 365, or shoot personal projects at least once a week
• Get lettersfromprinceton.com rolling now that the family has given it the nod
• Find a new long-term charitable project
• Give my family even healthier meals
• Be a better listener

My goals about 2011, though in the back of my mind for a while, became clear to me a couple nights ago while I was standing with my Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow. (I took a camera out in the dead of night to shoot a snowstorm, of course!) Here are some of shots from that contemplative little snow session. Have you thought about your aspirations for 2011?

There are two details of his portrait I particularly like: the stains on his shirt from handling berries just a few minutes before, and the way he removed his sunglasses, just letting them hang loosely by his side.

I’m not a huge blueberry connoisseur, but these surely were tasty.

A few months ago I received an email from a longtime friend. There had been a tragic event. A music album was being produced in honor of someone lost forever. “Would I consider photographing a recording session?”

“Well, sure.” I thought. And what started as a simple request turned into an addictive thrill ride. While it is a passion, a roller coaster of fun, and an honor to work with kids, two full sessions and six songs later I had re-found a buzz. I have prior experience of photojournalism, and documentary work and also of photographing musicians — but never all at the same time.

After the shoots, I returned to my studio to edit. I downloaded rough cuts of the songs from the sound engineer and listened to these while I was editing. The sensory overload of working on images while listening to the music that had been created just inches from me was almost too insane. One theme that has run through this project for everyone is a touch of serendipity; when you accidently stumble on something positive, especially while looking for something unrelated. Call it God, or heaven or karma or angels or providence or luck or coincidence. Call it what you will, it’s a darn nice feeling.

The musicians featured on The Angel Band Project are amazing, kind, talented and generous. They include Norbert Leo Butz and Michael McElroy, The Wifflers, The Broadway Inspirational Voices, professional strings, and a crew of genius instrumentalists.

I encourage you to click over to The Angel Band Project, read more about this story, give a few bucks, and maybe have a touch of your own serendipity along the way.

Last weekend our family went skating at Millennium park. (Well, the kids went skating with Daddy while I took pictures, which if you ask me is the ideal way to spend a Saturday afternoon…) There was a break while the Zamboni fixed up the ice. Standing next to us on the side of the rink was this very adorable couple. With three kids in tow I don’t think I pose much of a threat to anybody, and they seemed kind of approachable, so I asked to photograph them. Below are the five shots I took in the 30 seconds before Dorrie wandered into the frame. I love these shots for so many reasons.

* This couple just seemed to like each other alot. He pulled back her mittens to hold her hand. They were natural. They doted. They made me think back to when I was 20-something.
* The Chicago skyline is an amazing background
* The fading daylight gave me a nice technical challenge
* They happened superfast
* I temporarily got that 365 buzz back

Result? After these five shots, I am resolved to shoot and post more non-client work to this blog. More of my own inspiration. Spread the love, ya know? And in return, I am going to encourage other photographers more often by leaving comments on their blogs. I would simply adore a few more comments along the way from my own readers. According to the web stats, you are out there and you visit regularly. Leave comments! Spread the love!

xo Heidi

{note: These snaps are totally random and I will not bore you with descriptions.}

Below is a sneak preview of a few of my faves, though every shot is so ridiculously hilarious that I am having trouble working on this batch of photos without laughing!

Running a booth is a great way to capture the people and personalities at an event. If you are looking for a booth at your wedding, party or charity event – drop me a note.

Loved the super groovy moves thrown down by this gal. She had her funk goin!

One of the nicest couples in town:

Some of the organizers gettin’ on their groovy train:

Head organizer. Keepin’ it real.

Yeah, baby, yeah! I think you’re shagedelic baby! You’re switched on! You’re smashing! You’re shagadelic, baby!

Very good friends:

And for absofrickinlutely sure the best costume of the evening goes to: