The Hess Family...

This is Julie. She has been nominated for a very special award. Young Mother of the Year to be exact! In order to be prepared for a special luncheon that is coming up she needed an updated family picture and an individual portrait of herself. She contacted me and I was so glad to help. I think all Moms should have a nice portrait taken of themselves. Julie, you are so beautiful. It was so fun to hang out with your family and be a part of this process with you.

Julie and her husband Zan have 7 children. They are a funny family! Julie shared with me that she told all of the kids that they were to do whatever I wanted them to do! I should have asked someone to stand on their head just to see if they would obey Mom's orders.

We went to a location that is usually reserved for weddings and large functions. We had the entire place to ourselves and the weather was perfect. Julie, I am glad we decided on a morning session and not afternoon because it was really rainy on the way home.

Look closely, because I altered the sign above their head to read...The Hess Family Est. 1992 (the year Julie and Zan got married).

On to the Fantastic Seven!!!

These are for Goldie...

The next photos are the last from my session with the Burtons. Goldie needed some updated photos for her home of three of her kids. And because all of us are obedient and do what "Mom" says we headed out and Michele, Joe and Natalie took their turn smiling pretty for my camera. I was thrilled because I love to take portraits! What can I say it is my happy place!

I had fun talking to Michele. You see the Burton family and the Shinkle family (my husband's family) grew up together. So we had fun discussing which of the children from each family were close in age or went to school together. Michele had some funny stories to share about when she was a senior and my husband was a freshman(ish). It was good to meet you Michele and fun to talk to you. I think this first photo is one of my favorites of the entire session. So pretty! You are so photogenic with your red hair and killer baby blues!



This is Joe and he wins the award for traveling the farthest for this family gathering! He came from China to be there for his Dad's birthday. Does that make my little photography business international then?



When I was taking Miss Natalie's photos I told her she reminded me of Michele Pfeiffer a little bit...does anyone else see it! By the way Natalie, it was meant to be a compliment because I think Michele Phifer is super duper pretty.


This was just a silly shot that shows what a good sport Natalie was...she had this blue coat that just made her eyes pop and so we took this sassy snow bunny shot! Thanks for humoring the photographer.

Weeee.....

Sort of proud of the next five images. I really don't know how I managed to get the series of shots in focus. Still fun though!

Lisa and Curtis brought along this old sled and it ended up being a fun prop to use in some of the photos. By the way Lisa I will include this little sledding series on your disc.

What a good lookin' bunch!

This next was one of my favorites of this session. Mainly because if I was the Mom of these three it would tug at my heart strings! So handsome!

Let's Go!

One more family to share. This group of six was ready to rock and roll right when I got there. They were the first family to head out into the snow with me. We worked quickly because it was cold, but so pretty. Once again I have to say the kids were so good! I love all of their outfits! And how on earth can these kids be any cuter! And a great big THANKS to Kari for being kind enough to let me borrow her snow boots the entire day because I didn't think to bring snow appropriate shoes...you saved me!

The fellas.

The girly, girls! Beautiful!

Darling group of kids!

And the Award goes to...

I am continuing to work on the large family session that I mentioned before. As I said Goldie and Gary have 10 children. Camille is their oldest. As I arrived at the location that we were going to take the pictures Camille greeted me first. I knew right away she was the oldest. She was so organized and helped me get everyone where they needed to be when they needed to be there...I kept teasing her the she was the C.E.O. of the group!

I also decided as I was preparing these images that Camille and her husband, Ian, have the most fantastic smiles...therefore they are the Smile Winners of this session!

Camille and Ian your kids were so fun to work with. Camille, I thought it was so cute that your oldest wanted you near by to make him laugh and to make him smile! I also love that no one was afraid to breakout the "potty humor" either...what can I say that is the best way to get a genuine smile sometimes.

This young lady doesn't need much help to flash a beautiful smile....very quick to smile and happy!

And last but not least the youngest! I did a post about this young man and somehow it got deleted but it was super nice to meet him!

Prepare yourself...

Be warned that I will be using words like adorable, well behaved and fun, in abundance over the next few posts. This is one of the families from the group session that I mentioned in the last post. I want to point out that it was approximately 22 degrees outside during out time together and the kids did fantastic! All of them were extremely well behaved and how could we not have fun exploring in the snow for good spots to take pictures.

1+1=39

Over Christmas break I received a phone call from a women who I have admired for many years. She told me that her husband was having a birthday party and her entire family would be there. In my book any family gathering is important and special but this was going to be extra special. I understood how much it was going to mean to her to have this memory captured. You will understand too, after we do a little bit of math.

Did you know that 1 + 1=39. Well it just computes that way when you are a member of the Burton family in 2010. This is Goldie and Gary.

This is Goldie and Gary with their 10 children.

And this is Goldie and Gary with their 10 children, children's spouses and grandchildren....39, count them if you like!

I will be sharing more images from this session soon because I got to spend a little bit of time taking pictures of some the individual families too.

Dramatic...

How different things look in black and white. I was doing some final editing on this wedding and I just really liked how these turned out in black and white. It just give a different feel to the images. It is my practice to give a disc of all the colored images and a disc of all the same images in black and white.

So there is this kind of dramatic...

Oh la la, even more dramatic...

And then there is this kind of drama!!!

Love you guys and I just have to say it was a pleasure to work with you and your family.

Before and After...

One of the things I do to learn more about photography is to read other photographers blogs. I have noticed that several of them post before and after pictures of their images. I think it is a good idea. Because it gives my clients an opportunity to see an image before I work some magic in photoshop to make it look it's best.

I have considered doing a few before and after posts for awhile now. The purpose behind these posts will be to help my customers understand that taking the pictures is only half of the process of hiring a custom photographer. When I get together with a family to take their pictures my job is only half way done.

The other day I was looking at some images with a client and she asked me "what would you do to that image, it looks fine to me." What a great question!

So I am going to give you a little look into what I do to standard portrait image to make it shine. The first thing I do is to crop the image to make sure it is composed the way I want it. This one was pretty straight forward. For this image I wanted to make sure my son was the hightlight. So I lightened him up and darkened the edges. Therefore, the viewers eye is drawn to Bodie, representin' for the Raida's!!! Although, his skin is pretty buttery to begin with I did smooth out his skin slightly. I sharpened the overall image to ensure he was in focus.

All of this my not make sense to most of you, however, the images don't come out of my camera done. It is like cookie dough it is good as dough but when you put it in the oven and bake it turns into something better!

Just some of my favorites...

Just some favorites from the wedding that I did in the fall. What a fun couple to work with...I love the "wonder twins" pose with their rings!