Christmas with Ida Valentina

It has been a challenging year for all of us.  At Moda we were very lucky to have Susie working behind the scenes to keep the wheels turning whenever we were distracted by our new project (Ida). We quietly introduced our new entity (The Wedding Assassins). Even more quietly we released our  'Cherish Photography' project.  We are proud at what we have achieved in what has indeed been a difficult year and we are excitedly looking forward to whatever comes our way for 2010.

We have a couple of special projects in the think tank. (A deep - almost bottomless - vessel full of crazy ideas, hopes, and wishes.) One involves travel, and the other is about education.  Actually they are both about education because we always want to learn new things.

... and then of course there will be Ida Valentina .... currently a two tooth ... who will add her own brand of unpredictability to our chaotic lives.

Ida Valentina ... the beginning of the joys of teething.

Anyway I just wanted to say a big 'thank you' for any part you may have played in this exciting year.

All my love

Johannes

Last year we went to a conference and one of the speakers was Kate Bezar.

She spoke passionately about a dream she had of starting a magazine like no other. She wanted to create a publication about real people doing real things real well.

She also believed that stories were created to to be shared. From this dream was born Dumbo Feather, pass it on, not a magazine and not a book but a 'mook'

Today's mail brought us the latest copy and in it was a story by Kate that started with this quote "In 1938 Cyril Connely, an English intellectual writer,and literary critic wrote "There is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hall" ..

This a great beginning to an astute observation on the impact of parenting on creativity.

What I am shamelessly saying is that its a great publication well worth the subscription.

Back to the Dumbo Feather ... the thing that you believe in. This is an important idea.

In some ways as a photographer we can become the Dumbo Feather for our clients.

If they believe in what we do then they themselves can achieve so much

All of their time pieces are set to 15-20 minutes fast. Their microwave and their car clocks!!!

The quantum part of this gets complicated because they also exist in our world (15 minutes behind theirs.)

They are seldom late (in our world) .

I am not lying about the 600 images ...

Now I am beginning to understand where all of the powerful emotions come from... already I am protective, proud, and besotted.

It is something that only the reality can give you any idea of what it is like. People offer you their wisdoms but not until the baby is yours does any of it make sense.

Thank you to everybody for their best wishes and gifts.

I won't be able to help myself showing you images of our beautiful Ida Valentina but will try to get back to my 'knitting' as soon as possible.

The day before Ida was born

See, I did help!

We arrived home to a Wreath from our neighbour, Ann, and a sign from our staff

She is 7lb 3oz and was born at 6:42am

Mum is good ... in fact fantastic.

Ida Valentina van Kan

Take care

Johannes (Very tired)