First Engagement!

Ok, so I left my very first engagement shoot feeling very... excited?... overwhelmed?.... ?   My friend Stacey, her fiancé, and her 2 boys were perfect subjects, so I was hoping I could do them justice...

Here's my first shot I'm sharing... I don't know how this is going to look to me tomorrow, considering it's 2:40 am and not too long ago we got home from watching a band, but here goes.

I love this shot.  These guys were so in love!  Look at how she's looking at him!!  More to come....

Kobe

I LOVE this kid. His mom is like a sister....we've been friends since 6th grade. We went out to eat and her lovely sweet dad paid for lunch. So awesome. MUCH more to come from this amazing guy.

Random

I'm going through and finding pics I glanced over the first time around.  I've taken so many pictures this vacation, I'm SOOOO glad I brought my camera.

Here's a random buggy love....  Her right eye is a little out of focus, but I still loved the picture...  ESPECIALLY her hair!

Don't worry, I'm FULLY aware of how adorable my daughter is right when she wakes up.  Just a diaper is bliss.

Now, it may look small... but this fly was HUGE!!!  Was.

Here are some more from the park with Mary.  I'm utterly obsessed with this outfit.  From top to bottom.  Her hair... her clothes....her SHOES!  Her little kankles!  YUM!!

In case you were wondering, yes, this little boy is ALWAYS happy...

My favorite.  Favorite.  Favorite.  She's such a sweet soul.

I really love this picture.  It's not totally in focus, but it didn't need to be.  There's nothing not beautiful about him.  Total baby love.

I have no idea how we got such a beautiful person inside and out.  The best thing I've ever produced....

Kolby loved her shoes.... and Maddie loved my old Starbucks cup...  It worked.

Right??!?  This little boy is EDIBLE.

I guess the Apple Apple® doesn't fall too far from the corporate, American tree...

Here's Kolby with another little girl Mary babysits.... (I can't remember her name!?  Don't worry, I can't remember most names anymore)

I LOVE this next  pic....  Such a sweet moment and I love the contrast between his pale, soft baby skin and her gorgeous, smooth cinnamon skin.  SO lovely....

Oh, I couldn't agree more, she's quite dilectible!

I BETTER get a chance to take some more pics of  Mary's brood.... The bottom middle is Marla.  She is one of the most hilarious kids I've met!  So adorable.  This pic is seconds before the pyramid crumbled...

Bottom left is another kiddo that Mary watches and Monica's son, or Bella's brother Tristan, is on the bottom right.

I will leave you with this. A masterpiece. Jer has been taking pics with my camera, but it's extremely difficult to use when it's on my manual settings. He managed to snap this picture of Maddie putting' out the vibe. She has no idea how funny she is haha

Steph

I worked with Stephanie YEARS ago and always LOVED her.  She agreed to be my VERY FIRST EVER family session!!  It was a lot harder than I thought it would be, but a GREAT experience....

Now, I learned a BUNCH of stuff before the session and used it, but now am second guessing myself because it's not anything I'm used to.  Just having one of those doubt days...

Here's a pic from our session.  :)

Bella Ireland

I found it nearly impossible to not laugh every time I was around this girl! She is just as hilarious and adorable in person, I ASSURE YOU!  haha

Hollywood!

Here are the rest of the pictures from the last post of Vivien.  This little girl was so fun to shoot.  She took GREAT direction and had tons of moves of her own! :)  It was really a great experience.  The light was really weird in the back yard and bursts of light kept sneaking through.  I really like COMPLETELY EVEN light on faces, but I experimented a little bit this time. Not bad for a 10 min shoot!

This is Viv and her little brother Kolby...

Kolby stayed awake while I bounced him and "shhh'd" for about 30-45 minutes. He was SUPER tired, but never gave in. This is him seconds after mommy took him... :)

This is Gran and Kolby...


I'll HOPEFULLY get pics of the rest of the family before I leave. Her older sister Marla is equally as darling and SUPER hilarious!

***NOTE****
1.  Yes, I am aware that there are WAY too many vertical pics...  I'm still learning, get off my back!?!

Viv :)

Mary's 3rd baby is Vivien.  Vivien is QUITE the character.   Here is her response when her mom asked her what she was going to do when she was old and no longer around to give her kisses:

"Well, when I'm in Hollywood, living in my hotel- I won't be renting or borrowing it, I'll own it- We can chat online"

This is Viv...

We pretty much think she's fantastic. :) More to come later.

Yummier Black and Whites

I really didn't get that many pics from Jenny's family session the other night, but I snapped a few from the background... Here are most of the rest of what I got.

 ALSO, I'm liking my black and whites SO much more. My Uncle Todd (who TAUGHT ME HOW TO SHOOT MANUAL in February- MANY THANKS A MILLION TIMES for your knowledge, motivation, and confidence in me!!) called me today and we talked about tons of photography and filming stuff. One of the things he mentioned was "dynamic range".... The reason my black and whites look so much YUMMIER is because the RAW format pulls SO much more information giving a bigger range between the white and the black.  Ok, I get it!  You're bored!  I'll show you the pics.

Check out daddy in this pic.....  He loves his babies.  It's delightful.


Like two peas... :)  So so so sweet.

RAW!!!

Ok, so JUST TODAY I started shooting in the RAW.  I'd heard from some people that RAW was all they shot in... and heard from others that RAW was just a space waster and really wasn't necessary.  I started out with just JPEG and didn't think too much about it until recently.  O. M. G.  It has completely changed my pictures!  I'm so excited!  It's changed my editing, too....  :)  Here are some shots I took today using the RAW format...

I went to the park with AWESOME Mary and snapped a few random pics of some of her kids...and kids she babysits.

Here's Ruby in color...

Here's Kolby, Mary's youngest...

A quick shot of Mary's second oldest, Nate AKA The Baby Whisperer with Mads and Kolby...

Sugar BUG!

And, of course, my latest OBSESSION. THE PIGS.

So, THIS wonderful chica let me tag along one of her family shoots. I stole a FEW shots, but for the most part, I watched and helped where I could. This is her beautiful daughter Hannah...

Here are a few of the shots I was able to steal of her lovely subjects, the Zellers. They have THE most beautiful kids. SO sweet and super fun to shoot. Caymbree was a total charmer. She smiled SO easily and was full of joy... 

And this little guy, Cohen, was quite comical! Jenny wanted to get a shot of the family feet. When she asked if we could take his shoes off for a shot, he FREAKED out. We were all very confused. It turns out, he thought he was getting a "SHOT" hahaha... TOO funny... This was a random shot I took when they were changing outfits...


More later... :)

Ruby

I had a wonderful play date in the park with my friend Mary.  This is one of the kids she watches.  She is a quick one and this was the only picture I could grab, but I LOVE it.  She's such a sweetie.

Will post the rest later...

Riverfront Park

So, she points.  She points, she points, and she points.

 And we look.  Because it's utterly exciting to see the world through her little eyes.... And because, let's face it, who runs the show?

Last week we went to Riverfront Park and walked around. We wanted to take her on her first carousel ride, but figured daddy's missed out on enough. We'll take her again when he comes into town (not soon enough!?)  Now, our day seemed a little rocky of a start, but turned out to be pretty fun.... Other than my lack of inspiration.  I just wasn't feeling artistic, but still got some pretty sweet shots.

This is what she was looking at from the shot above.

We were outside for all of 10 minutes before it dawned on us that, "huh, maybe our toddler would benefit from some SUNSCREEN"... We didn't even think about it, so we went to Twigs to cool off.  Our plan was to buy some sunscreen...but we ended up hanging out inside before going to the carousel.

Her faces are my favorite.

Riverfront has a really cool splash pad.  We didn't play, but we looked.

If anyone was wondering, yes, she runs the show.

We were cracking up that the geese were her size.  She was NOT afraid.  She even tickled one of their tales as you can see in the video.

After the heat, we went to get ice cream.

Like any woman, she loved the variety, but toiled over her decision.  :)

She loved the ice cream THOROUGHLY.  

But I think it's safe to say that she's been to the ice cream edge and back...... 

Great day.