Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!

Dear friends and followers,

Remember me? Don't worry, I always look startled in pictures. It might be an awkward characteristic for a photographer, but I never liked having my picture taken. I hope you're doing well! I'm very sorry about neglecting this blog, I will try to do better from now on ;) 

The reason I've been away for so  long is that we moved! Things happened so fast and I can hardly believe that we've lived in our lovely new home for over a month already. Sometimes wonderful opportunities just cross our path and we better grab them before they're gone, right?  

It's an old house (from 1950) and a ninety year old man lived here before us, so the house needed a lot of improvement. We removed suspended ceilings, repaired and sanded all the walls, painted them - including two wooden walls, which look lovely in white - laid new floors and so on and we're still not finished, but that's alright. It's a home of our own and we already love it to bits! I absolutely love how it has a character and a story of its own, as old houses do.
We finally have a garden now and the cat and the kid love to play outside. Our cat Ziggy is twelve (that's her in the pics) and has always been afraid of traffic, so she has always been inside. But in this short period of time she turned into a true adventurer, exploring the garden and the alley at the back! I'm so happy for her, it's a whole new chapter in her life :) Our other cat, Zelda - probably the sweetest cat in the world - sadly passed away this year, so it's nice to see Ziggy this excited about her new home. Nothing more relaxing than having breakfast while watching her hunt and "kill" fallen leaves ;) 

However, in all this time I've missed photographing! But now things have settled down a little, I plan on catching up as soon as possible. Starting with some family snapshots and some refreshing autumn walks! Lots of new ideas are taking shape in my head and now there's finally time to enjoy the process! I'll keep you updated and I promise to take some photos of the house soon as well :)  

                                                                                                                                                          


























Last but not least: as a token of my gratitude to all my followers and supporters of my work, I'm having a giveaway on my facebookpage! Just like and share (make sure you've liked my page as well) and you might be the winner of a 8"x10" print of my original photograph "Tonight, Tonight"! Good luck!

Studio Yuki Giveaway   

https://www.facebook.com/StudioYuki

See you all soon and have a great week! xx

Just A Perfect Day

"Just a perfect day
drink Sangria in the park
And then later
when it gets dark, we go home"
Lou Reed - Perfect Day

Sometimes it's just the little things that make me happy. 
Finding little lost treasures when cleaning the house. 
Seeing my two year olds eyes go wide with anticipation 
when he realizes he can have those hand puppets that 
have been lying in a closet for ages. Hearing a big 
'Weeeee!' when he bounces around the room, happy 
with his new toys. Playing endlessly with them, me - 
holding a french looking police man puppet - exclaiming ridiculous half-french sentences and 'parbleu!' and 
'affreux!', while he - holding a puppet of an old lady - 
giggles like a school girl. Simple moments, but oh, 
so precious...

Later that day I took my camera for a walk (I have a feeling it may become unhappy if I don't take it out regularly, or maybe that would be me) and that's when I found this. A little place of magic. 

I've passed that place so many times and it never occurred to me before to walk downhill a little, to check what's down there, closer to the stream. Now I'm glad I did. I felt like being in the Cambodian jungle again, only this time in my own back yard (not that I actually have a back yard, but it wasn't far and it sounds pretty good, don't you think?)

Some days are better for magic than others. This was a perfect day, finding treasures everywhere I looked. Imagining the end result, the way the photograph will be once I've sprinkled my own, personal magic over it. But isn't that what life is? A treasure for us all to see and experience in our own way? 

What makes you happy? Where or when do you find your magic? I'd love to hear from you!

Farewell, for now. Keep dreaming. xxx

New Beginnings

When a friend told me about Etsy a long time ago, I decided to check it out. Maybe it really was a great place to find those little eyes for my amigurumis.... So I created an account by the name of Maximonstertje, a name inspired by one of my favourite children's book: 'Where the Wild Things Are' by Maurice Sendak. Little did I know that I would start my own photography shop on Etsy within a few months! Well, when it comes down to it, I never really thought about a good name for my shop. I already had the account and I had nothing to lose, and thus Maximonstertje was born!

Although I love the name, I do realise it's not easy to pronounce, let alone remember. That's why I've decided to change it. The idea has been brooding in my head for a long time (and I tend to take my time with things, have you noticed? ;) and now it's finally official: Maximonstertje Photography will from now on be STUDIO YUKI!! Weeee, exciting times! :D

Now I've explained the why, I'll fill you in on the new name. 'Studio' pretty much explains itself, the name 'Yuki' is a name I've loved since childhood. I always had a thing for Japanese animation (and everything Japanese, for that matter) and, having a 'boy's name' myself, I dreamt of having a cute, girly name like Yuki (though Yuki is also a boy's name in Japan, to make it just a little bit more complicated). Yuki is a name that is used a lot for anime characters and it always stirred something inside me. It also is the Japanese word for snow!

So, what's going to change now?
Not that much. I'm still me and my work won't be any different! I will be focussing on doing some more photo shoots this year, on learning new techniques and on creating more of the ideas that have been jumping up and down in my head! And on getting organised, but I'm not going to talk about that now... it would fill an entire blog post!
What will (and has) changed is my facebookpage! I would love it if you'd visit me:

www.facebook.com/StudioYuki

Since facebook doesn't allow us to change our page names (isn't that ridiculous?), it felt like the right thing to do. And of course I'm changing the name of this blog, my Flickr page, my Fine Art America shop and so on too!
I'm also working on an actual website! Won't be long now! I'll keep you posted :)

And...... to celebrate new beginnings... I'll be doing a giveaway soon! Stay tuned and enjoy your week! xx

Road Trip!

Can you believe it's already September? I'm constantly wondering where the time has gone! Maybe I should buy a watch... ;) Lots of things have happened over the past few weeks, but I won't bore you with the details. However, I wanted to share some pics from our little trip to Germany with you! Erwins brother rented a house in a beautiful rural area called the Eifel region and invited us to come and stay with them! Sweet, huh? So we packed our bags, got in the car and started driving. I love road trips! One of the more fun things to know about us is that we are extremely lazy... Not lazy when it comes to the things we like doing, but lazy as in not doing the ironing and letting it pile up until we can barely enter the room, so we have to spend the better part of the week catching up. Or, in this case, having a GPS (got it from a friend who bought a new, fancy one) that hasn't been updated in years. Which led to some hilarious moments where we got stuck in a corn field, but all in all it made for a very adventurous trip ;)

One of our stops on the way there was in Monschau, a gorgeous historic town located in the hills of the North Eifel. This town has many, many preserved half-timbered houses, and its narrow streets give a true magical, medieval feel to it.  It's not even that far from home, so we will be going back! Such a beautiful place.



I loved this house! I could totally picture us living there!


Our little man had a lot of fun and even started talking a lot more during this trip. His favourite word by far? Car. It's so much fun driving on the highway hearing 'Car! Car!Car! CarcarcarcarcarcarcarcarcarcarCAR!' over and over again, haha! Luckily that changed once we got to the rural area. From then on it was 'COW! Cow! Cow! Cowcowcowcowcowcowcow  ...COW!'  When we stopped for coffee and waffles he even called the lady who served us 'cow'. I'm not sure she appreciated that.

Oh, and this cute little guy went with us! His name is Trubbs. He's on holiday with us and Ravi loves to take him everywhere. Trubbs was made by Polly from Polly Doodars and since Polly couldn't go on holiday this year, she decided to send a Doodar instead! You can find Polly here:  https://www.facebook.com/pages/Polly-Doodars
Trubbs' adventures can be followed too! https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dinky-Doodar-Days

Now.... on a completely other note (while still posting pics of our trip, sorry about that, my camera is just glued to my hand I'm afraid), Maximonstertje is almost ONE! Wow, and what a trip it's been! Can't believe it's already a year ago that I started a shop on Etsy! I want to THANK YOU all for your wonderful support, kind words and everlasting positivism over the past year, I am so grateful to have you! Keep an eye out for an upcoming giveaway (probably this weekend!)!!!  

I'm so excited and curious what the next year will bring!! Starting this Friday with a very special photoshoot with a very special lady! Weeeee! :D 

Do you like road trips? Remember your first or your favourite one? Tell me, I'd love to hear about it :) xx

 

  

Onwards and upwards!

Hello and a very good morning to you! I haven't been that active in blogging lately, sorry about that!
It's mostly because I have medication to help with my anxiety issues and luckily it's going so well that I can slowly reduce and eventually (almost, just another month!) quit the rotten pills. Which is of course a good thing, but the side effects of reducing the amount haven't been that much fun ;) My terrible mood swings are killing me (and my husband, for that matter). But it will all be for the best! Keeping positive here!

So, that set aside, I've been working like mad! Making my first calendar (sneak peek later!), adding new iPhone cases and editing new and old photographs and having so much fun doing it!
Also, more and more people are inquiring about doing photoshoots and I'm thinking of really going for this!
I have my first official appointment for a family shoot and I'm so incredibly excited (and just a little bit nervous)!

Here's a little sneak peek of what will be listed in my Etsy shop soon :)  

More iPhone cases:

More photos:

   

And the 2013 calendar (NOT finished yet, so some of these images might not make the cut):





What do you think of it so far? I would love to hear your opinion! Have a wonderful day and enjoy the sunshine! x

Little Family Photo Shoot

It might be a bit late for an introduction, but I've been doing some photo shoots lately and thought it would be fun to make one of our own little family! Yesterday was a gorgeous day, so we went to a nearby park and had some fun! It seems to me it happens all too often that I take photographs of everything I find interesting, of our little boy, but never of us as a family (and then there's that thing that I hate to be in front of the camera ;), so here you go: it's us!

Just the two of us (our munchkin kept running away to play, can't blame him!) I couldn't help the bunny ears, I have a very geeky sense of humor.

  We caught him eventually! It didn't last long...

Our sweet little boy standing perfectly still for a minute :) Love him to bits!



See you soon and have a wonderful weekend! xxx

AND THE WINNERS ARE...

GIVEAWAY WINNERS!
Hello everyone! It's time to announce the winners of my Fabulous 500 giveaway! Thank you all so much for participating! And the winners are: 

 2nd prize (one 5x5 or 5x7 photo): CAROL GRESSELL!!!

1st prize (one 8x8, 8x10 or 8x12 photo): AMY SCHAULAND!!!

Congratulations, ladies!! Please contact me at maximonstertjefineartphotography@hotmail.com or send me a message on facebook with your address and the photograph of your choice! You can pick anything from either my Etsy shop, Fine Art America, facebook or Flickr :)

Yay, that was exciting! I wish I could send you all a present... But for those who didn't win, no sad faces please! I've made a special coupon code for you if there's something you've been eyeing! Just enter FAB20 at checkout for a 20% discount! This code will be valid for a couple of days :)

I'M IN LOVE!

And now something completely different. I am in love. My darling sweethearts name? The Nikon D7000. What a camera... We're still on a getting to know each other basis, but deep in my heart I know... he's the one for me!

We went for a lovely walk after the storm and sang the tune of 'My Little Pony' to the horses:

He brought me flowers:



We had a picknick in the park:



I even showed him the magical forest. Hey, I don't show that to just ANYONE!

Today he even spent the entire afternoon on a graveyard with me to take photographs! If that's not true love, than what is? ;)

You'll be hearing more of him in the near future!

Have a fantastic week! xx