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Laura Egley Taylor

Then a miracle occurs . . .

field trip!

January 18th, 2011

glass-casegift-certificatebacon-cupcakesIn which Laura and Mel discover a new cupcake shop a mere .3 miles from the office and proceed thence in order to investigate—all in the name of research for tomorrow’s Peggy’s Kitchen shoot. (We’re featuring recipes for desserts for kids with allergies in our March-April issue).

Luckily, Mel (Staff Photographer/Ad Production Manager/Web Designer Melyssa Holik) had a gift certificate, so we were able to bring some tasty specimens back to the office to further our study.

And, yes, they were delicious.

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Photos taken with my iPhone (using that Hipstamatic app  I can’t seem to stop using). And yes, y’all, that bottom shot shows, among other yummies, BACON CUPCAKES with maple buttercream frosting.

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Kitchen, what kitchen?

November 17th, 2010

kitchen? what kitchen?

For the Jan-Feb Peggy’s Kitchen shoot, I knew I wanted a sunny kitchen—with a cheery view of winter out the window. Asking friends and staff for location suggestions, I came up blank. Everybody’s got dark kitchens, it seems.

So this morning, Mel (staff photographer Melyssa Holik) came over to my house and we set up the shoot in my son’s bedroom. Which cracks me up. Not exactly studio material, I mean. And definitely NOT a kitchen. But believe it or not, I think it actually worked.

By the time Mel arrived, I had swiped some cinderblocks from my neighbor’s back yard (hoping he wasn’t watching through his back window!) to raise Reeve’s desk to the height of the window, scrubbed the walls and window casings around his desk, and pulled a curtain down from our living room window and swapped it out with the dark tablecloth that Reeve has used for a curtain for, I don’t know, 7 years now? I also had tried to clear the walls of boy stuff, though you can still see a bit of a huge pirate flag in the mirror behind me in the photo above.

hot-chocHappily, Mel got some really fabulous sunny winter-kitchen shots. It’s fascinating to me how it works—this business of creating an illusion. To look at Mel’s photos, you’d never guess they were shot at my house, let alone in a kid’s bedroom.

(Here’s a sneak peek at one of her shots. Mel: “But are there too many marshmallows?” Me: “Can there ever be  too many marshmallows?”

Yum.

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Photos of 1) Mel at work in our newly contracted professional studio, shooting Tanya Carwyn’s recipe for hot chocolate made with coconut milk; and 2) just one of the many lovely shots she got.

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women at work: just another day at the office

November 15th, 2010

cinnamon disaster

In which Laura and Mel (staff photographer Melyssa Holik) shoot hot drinks for Jan-Feb, spill cinnamon while trying to sprinkle a fancy pattern on the surface of one of said drinks, and, absent a vacuum cleaner, discover that effective traffic cones can be hastily constructed out of paper when circumstances demand.

Meanwhile, Managing Editor Melissa Chianta, who might have thought she was going to get some editing—or even some managing—done today, finds herself agreeing to go for an impromptu manicure in order to better serve as outdoor mug-hugging hand model for the hot drink photography team.

(Yes, these are the women with whom I work. And, yes, I am very lucky—and very grateful.)

Stay tuned for the results of the trio’s efforts!

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manicurePhotos: 1) Mel’s self-portrait (this shot made the cut for her photo-a-day project); and 2) Melissa takes a break from work to show off her manicure (while still holding on to the tools of her trade in the other hand)

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when production deadline exhaustion meets ADHD Month

September 29th, 2010

adhd

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Mel (a.k.a coworker and fellow production person Melyssa Holik): . . . and then do that with them; so what do you think?

Laura: I’m sorry Mel; I just blitzed out. . . . Could you say that again?

Mel: Oh, that’s OK. — Sorry, let me finish this Pringle. — It is ADHD Month, you know. Ha! I was just thinking how Pringles can look like ducks’ beaks if you try to talk with one hanging out of your mouth. . . .  So what did you need?

Laura: Sorry, let me just finish this email to. . . Um. . . so. . . what?

Mel: What did you need?

Laura: Oh. . .well. I think . . .what?

Mel: You asked me something?

Laura: Oh, yeah. . .I don’t remember. . . .  I think I just wondered what you said?

Mel: Oh, that. . . (laughs) I have NO idea!

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Photo taken with my phone downtown last week is my attempt to illustrate the state of my brain right about now.

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here we go again. . .

September 2nd, 2010

houseIt’s toy time at the Mothering house! Product Review Editor Candace Walsh‘s desk has been a little like the receiving office at the North Pole, snowed under by boxes and boxes of toys, many of which have had to be assembled.

In years past, this task has fallen to Mothering‘s circulation director, John “You Da Man”* McMahon. Since John was out of town last week (traveling with his son Ian, who is starting college at Duke this fall), Bram McMahon has kindly stepped in to help. (Bram is John’s—and Mothering Editor and Publisher Peggy O’Mara‘s—younger son.)

So our staff photographer, Melyssa Holik, is starting to get all a’tingle with anticipation. Despite the fact that she has to shoot what seems like hundreds of toys, I’ve noticed that she seems to enjoy this project. (I’ve also noticed how much “arranging” and “setting up” sure can look like “playing with” . . .)

Regular readers of the magazine will know that all this buzz and hubbub is in preparation for our annual natural toy review (which appears in our November–December issue each year). And it’s a team effort: the UPS guy delivers the toys; Bram assembles them; Candace looks them over, reads up on them, plays with them, and writes about them; then Mel photographs them, gets text from Candace, and lays out the reviews.

It may only just now be September—and still almost 90 degrees out—but it’s beginning to look a bit like . . . well, you know!

*Since he is, actually, da only man in the Mothering offices these days.

UPScandace-and-boxesBramPhotos, from top: 1) my favorite so far of the toys Bram has put together (dolls artfully arranged by Bram); 2) the UPS guy makes a delivery at Candace’s desk; 3) Candace at her desk, last week, surrounded by boxes; 4) Bram, stopping by several afternoons this week to do assembly, thereby proving that he got his dad’s toy-building genes, for sure.

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company’s coming!

August 11th, 2010

sprucing-up

Our Mothering.com team is made up of folks who live around the globe.* And they’re coming to visit us here at the Mothership. . . tomorrow.

So we’ve spent some time today sprucing up around the office—and for those of us in the Production Department, that has meant straightening up, cleaning out, throwing out, and doing things we’ve been meaning to do a long time, like hanging up that white board—the one that we rely on to know what day it is. . .

Tonight, as Mel and I were finishing up, about to head out the door, we realized again how blank our cinderblock walls are. (Our part of the office is in what once was a furniture warehouse.) The quick fix? Double-stick tape and large printouts of color swatches from the palette we use for the magazine. We’re thinking we might be onto something.

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*Seriously: our web master (though we prefer the term web mama), Cynthia Mosher, lives in Saudi Arabia.

palette-wallsPhoto below kind of gives the gist of the paletted walls. (And, yes, the white board really does say “Today is Lazy Day and Healthy Cheetos Day.” It was one of those doubly exciting days.)

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homemade soda, anyone?

July 18th, 2010

opening-spreadTo shoot our July-August Peggy’s Kitchen section, an article by Cynthia Lair on do-it-yourself soda, Staff Photographer Melyssa Holik and I spent the day at the El Rey Inn, a favorite “staycation” getaway spot of mine and Tim’s, right here in Santa Fe.

The El Rey is pretty special: a Route 66-era inn tucked away just off the main drag behind white adobe walls and surprisingly lush—for the desert, I mean—gardens. Mothering Editor and Publisher Peggy O’Mara and I thought it would provide a casually elegant, summery background for the soda shoot. And it was really lovely. . .

Here are a few behind-the-scene shots from the day.

Above: The opening spread of the article, a lineup of syrups and fruit teas, mixed by Mel in preparation for the shoot.

Below: 1) Mel lines the bottles up along a wall conveniently situated beneath a skylight and above a stairway; 2) You can see that the rooms were being cleaned while we were there—oh, the glamour of the photo shoot . . .  3) We had to have a poolside photo in an article about summer drinks! 4) Mel sets up the last shot before the wind blew the placemat (and the drink) off the table; 5) I liked how cool and inviting this photo was, and wanted to show at least a hint of the Spanish-style architecture of the El Rey; and 6) Mel sets up that shot.

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speaking of miracles

June 9th, 2010

summerWe have a July-August issue! Or we will shortly.The magazine was on press Tuesday night, so we’ll be getting the bound copies next week sometime.

This one feels miraculous because we had several seemingly insurmountable obstacles to overcome and, as of a week ago, still didn’t know how we were going to resolve things.

But the logjam broke on Friday, and just about the whole staff leapt into action (including our dear Fulfillment Manager Sarah Patamia, who made a mid-afternoon coffee-and-brownie run to help Melissa, Mel and me through an energy lull, then turned around and went out to buy us a fan, since it was the hottest day of the year and our air conditioning had died), working together to birth the issue.

And in other semi-miraculous happenings:

• My 20-year-old son, Reeve, who historically has been cautious (and sometimes seems to have inherited my knack for anxious imaginings), went on his first solo backpacking adventure Monday night. Stuck it out through rain and hail and mosquitoes and made it back home in one happy but exhausted piece.

• Thursday night, unable to wind down after getting home around 11 p.m. (See: anxiety regarding insurmountable obstacles, above), I went out for a walk with Reeve. Bent down to pick up a lucky quarter I saw in the street and almost couldn’t get up again. Muscle spasm. Lower back. I’ve heard about them but never experienced one. Five days later, I can almost put my shoes on without wincing. Huge perspective check. I’m very, very grateful that this was not something more serious. And thrilled to be almost back to normal. The human body is its own miracle. . .

• After one of the cooler Springs I can remember—this seems impossibly quick, but—it appears to be summer. And it’s been toasty (for Santa Fe, anyway: upper 80s, low to mid 90s), but lovely. To celebrate, Tim and Reeve carried our kitchen table out back last night for supper in the cooling evening air.

So, now I’m full of gratitude for the miraculous (or even the merely remarkable), have taken a couple of days off to restore mind and body, and am just about ready to dive back in and get to work on September–October.

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Photo: Ah, summertime! Our oldest cat, Koufax, observes the morning from the mud room. We’ve been sleeping with the back door wide open at night; no need for screens because, miraculously, Santa Fe doesn’t have mosquitoes. (Yes, that’s a litter box, right by the back door. It’s there because, ironically, our still sort of feral kitty, Twombly, refuses to go out back.)

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When Mel rides her bike in to work . . .

May 25th, 2010

mel-bike

she rides her bike IN to work.knitting-basket

How many people do you know who bike
around with their knitting? Excellent stress-reducer during these hazy, crazy days of magazine production.

Oh, and also in the basket? Her towel . . . (Happy Towel Day!)

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how to make a magazine

May 24th, 2010

front-porch fun with chalkWell, sort of. Mel and Lally and I got a little sidetracked when we discovered this deliciously colorful chalk still hidden deep in the recesses of the trophy (on display in the community kitchen area) awarded in Friday’s scavenger hunt.

So the three of us grabbed the chalk and went to town, as they say, on the front steps of our office, everyone else having already left the office for the day. Squatting over our artwork like little kids, scribbling and scrawling in the almost-summer evening air. . .

Sometimes the path to creating a magazine is a winding one.

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