KIRSTIN LAMONDE photography: Gearing up for Art Hop 2010

Art Hop is this awesome 2 day art festival in the south end of Burlington. All sorts of businesses and store fronts convert their space into galleries for the weekend. On Friday night, the streets come alive with "arthoppers", people galavanting from one exhibit to another, eating street food, nibbling on hordervs and perhaps doing a little drinking. It's a blast. Jay and I always managed to make it out, though with kids in strollers you're restricted a bit. We had been looking forward to doing up Art Hop right one of these years.

Well, this is the year! Kinda. I mean, we won't be swilling martinis and musing over the thousands of pieces exhibited all over the city. This year? I signed up. So arthoppers will be musing over me!

It's all a bit stressful, first selecting the specific photos, then figuring out how to display them and getting them all ready. I also signed up for a juried peice. Like a true newbie, I committed my first faux pas with my picture hang hook on the back, not wire. Oops. Just chalk me up as an Art Hop virgin...I'll know better next year.

All the stress kind of came to a head yesterday, when I checked the Art Hop website and discovered that in the program, my name...is wrong. They have me down as "Kristen" (not unheard of, I'm kinda used to it at this point) "Unger." That's my maiden name. I haven't used it nearly 10 years. The only places it still exists is on Facebook, so the old gang from West Springfield High School (go Spartans!) could find me, and my yahoo email...which I've had since I was 17. It wouldn't be such a big deal if wasn't hoping it might lead to some business for KIRSTIN LAMONDE PHOTOGRAPHY.

AND to top it all off, I'm without my camera. It's at Nikon right now being serviced. I was having a bit of trouble with "backfocusing" (which means the camera is actually focusing slightly behind what I am focused upon). So I feel somewhat naked...and irritable. I do have my backup camera, and boy do I love her, but she's just not quite as fancy. I miss my fancy camera.

SOOOOO, I don't really have any photos to post, since I haven't been able to take any. Oh wait, I can show you some of the ones I'm going to show next weekend! There, problem solved. So here, have a gander.