Amazement, Wonder, Squeaks, and Siblings…
I had the honor today to take pictures of beautiful little Lindsey, only one day old, in her hospital room. I took pictures of her mom and sister and brother a few weeks ago, so they will look familiar to you if you are a follower of my blog. Can I just say again how much I love hospital shoots? I never can seem to remember from shoot to shoot how really tiny newborns are. Lindsey (I am not sure if it is spelled Lindsay or Lindsey, so please forgive me if I’m getting it wrong!) is just the tiniest little thing! Hannah and Jackson were SO sweet to their brand new baby sister, hugging her so gently and fretting when Lindsey cried. Hannah asked if Lindsey was going to go back in her Mommy’s tummy, which was so so funny. No Hannah, Lindsey is not going back in there!
Little Lindsey had a hard time getting comfortable (partly because we kept taking her paci away so we could get a few pictures without it) and instead of really crying, made the cutest squeaky sounds, just like a little baby bird! She is so very loved. What a lucky little girl to have such a beautiful, loving family. Her Daddy is in Iraq, so these pictures are especially for him.
Thank goodness Lindsey’s grandmother is here to help…
Coming up soon on the blog: Another maternity/sibling shoot. Stay tuned!
Filed under Recent Posts | Comment (0)A beautiful wedding…
I tell everyone who asks me if I do weddings (and a lot of people ask me if I do weddings) that NO, I don’t do weddings. There are many reasons for this, the primary one being that weddings take a lot more time than a typical family shoot. There are untold numbers of people involved; rehearsals, dinners, and receptions; and in the end at least a thousand pictures to cull through. There are second shooters to hire if the bride requests it; heavy cameras, lenses, and batteries to drag around, plus backup equipment in the car in case anything fails; and on top of all that nothing ever goes as planned and you only get one shot at the whole thing. And this is all before you get to the print and album order end of things. If I ever wondered before I got started in the photography business why wedding photographers get the big bucks, I have now figured it all out. At this point in my life, I am focused on being a good mother to my children and I don’t have time to do weddings in addition to everything else I’m required to do. I enjoy taking time on my family shoots and I just really love taking pictures of kids.
Someday when my kids are older I will probably start doing weddings, but until then I am content to keep things just the way they are.
Until Robin came along.
I took pictures of her then-fiancee’s kids back in the fall (if you’re really interested you can scroll back through the blog archives and look for the entry called “Sisters”). I really enjoyed working with her and I totally fell in love with those girls. So when she asked me if I did weddings I gave my usual “No” response. But then she said it would just be a small family wedding under a tree at sunset and for some reason I said “Yes”. I am so glad I did.
The wedding was held at the Crown Winery which is such a beautiful place! The weather had been horrendous all day but then it cleared up and was absolutely perfect. Robin and Shayne got married under a huge mulberry tree in the middle of the winery right at sunset, and it was probably the sweetest and most intimate wedding I’ve ever seen.
I even curtailed my natural instinct to simply follow the kids around and take pictures of them, and had so much fun taking pictures of the beautiful bride and handsome groom. They are so much in love, and I know they will have such a happy life together. Enjoy your sneak peek!
An idyllic family shoot…
I visited this amazing family last week, and mostly came away feeling that I should not tell my husband about where they live or we would be packing up the moving truck right now. They live in their former vacation home on 500 acres, land which has been in their family for decades. So this was not at all a typical shoot, since they have their pick of locations to take pictures. We took pictures on a fabulous rock, in a stream with what they call their “waterfall”, in a cotton field, on a trail through the woods, and on a dock by their lake. In just a few hours we saw a snake in the water and a bunch of wild turkeys; we found red frogs, cool mushrooms, a box turtle (probably still living in his new home in the backyard), feathers and cotton blossoms; we raced Izzy, the really fast family dog, in the Mule; we had to go offroad around trees felled by the recent storms; and best of all, I held a LIVING hummingbird in my hand, felt the vibration of its heartbeat, then watched it fly away.
How do I even begin to tell the story of this family and how they have chosen to live? Trust me, these pictures are only a small fraction of the amazing shots I have from this session.
So let me introduce Jason and Casie, and their three beautiful and very smart sons Ethan, Shaw, and Trey. Thanks, guys, for a perfect day.
Coming up soon on the blog: a wedding! Yes, I branched out a little. Stay tuned!
Filed under Recent Posts | Comment (0)Luke
Luke has to be one of the most interesting (or interested?) kids I have ever photographed. Curious is not really a strong enough word to describe him. His mom had told me that everyone calls him “the little engineer” and now I see why! Luke never ran around wildly - in fact, I don’t think I ever had to break into a run which is unusual for one of my preschooler shoots. Luke just really wants to know how everything around him works. So he would stop at every interesting thing for a long time and try to figure it out. Luckily we started out our shoot at the Train Depot, where there are lots of cool mechanical things to explore. Near sunset we went to the Experiment Station.
Here is a black-and-white art series, for your pleasure, of Luke figuring things out. And believe me, there were many many more just like these on the cutting room floor :
And some beautiful sunset shots:
Stay tuned in the next few days for my next blog installment of an amazing family shoot near Chickasaw State Park… Cheers!
Filed under Recent Posts | Comment (0)Catching up…
For all of you who have been waiting on pictures: I am finally catching up. I have been extremely busy the last few weeks and am taking pictures faster than I can develop them. I suppose this is a good problem to have, but whereas many photographers just batch-process whole groups of images or farm them out to companies to do it for them, I develop each picture myself because I want to make sure that each image you receive is perfect. This takes longer but hopefully is worth the wait!
I am now booked solid until the end of August, and am already booking into September. If you have been thinking of setting up a session or know someone who has, you should call me soon before I am booked too far ahead. Also it’s time to start thinking about Christmas card pictures. This year I am only doing Christmas card pictures as an add-on to a regular session.
LOTS of images coming up soon on the blog so stay tuned! (Let’s see, how long does it take to cull through 4,000 pictures to select the best ones? I think I need to stock up on Red Bull.)
Filed under Recent Posts | Comment (0)Jackson, Hannah, and baby sister-to-be
I had so much fun at this session with handsome Jackson, sweet Hannah, their beautiful mom Rebecca and their soon-to-be-born baby sister. We went to First Pres (It seems like I’ve been there a lot lately…) and the light was so pretty! These two lovely children really love their mom, and it shows in these luminous pictures. Their dad is in Iraq right now but will be home in the spring, and these pictures are a surprise to him. I also feel so honored to soon be taking hospital pictures of the newborn baby, so dad can see his new baby girl.
Jackson really enjoyed showing me his Lightning McQueen cars and Hannah loved trying on the big tutu I brought. I LOVE her tiny pink fingernails (chipped, of course). I think that one was my favorite picture from this session.
The pictures you don’t see are the ones where the kids are climbing all over their mom after I took the ones of them together in the grass. To be a mom you sure have to be tough. Nobody ever talks about how many times you can be inadvertantly injured in one day just from taking care of kids! But Rebecca is the most patient mom ever, and didn’t even seem to mind.
