John & Jean {A Farmer and his Wife}

Married for 32 years?! These two acted like newlyweds! John was "misbehaving" most of the time, but Jean was eating it up. Seriously though, they were both sooo excited about this session which made me over the top excited to photograph them!

They are the storybook couple for "The Farmer and His Wife". Through and through that's what they are. The recreation of "American Gothic" tells such a story unique to them. It is them.

Jean mentioned that her and John's adult daughters love their dad's hands. So of course we wanted to get some images of his hands - what better way to showcase them than but incorporating them into his fields and showing off who he is!

I also thought this image of John holding Jean's shoulder was so stinkin' sweet!

Sunset and silhouette images...LOVE them!

This storyboard makes me happy:

John and Jean told me that when they got married, 32 years ago, that they never got a picture of their rings. I was so happy to be able to do that for them! Note: It was like 9:30 pm and not enough light to do this outside. Thanks to Jean for holding a flashlight to the rings to get me sufficient light!!)

This couple was amazing and I look forward to a lasting photography relationship with them!

Hudson {ONE year old}

Hudson (along with his big brother Brennan and his Mommy and Daddy) has been a friend of the family since before he was even born! This little man is ALWAYS smiling. Every time I look at this kid he gets a big grin on his face from ear to ear...so you can bet I was stoked to get to photograph him.

The session was a breeze. Hudson was nailing his poses and expressions on the first try! Good job little dude!

We asked big brother Brennan (soon to be 4) to get some pictures with his brother. He happily obliged (was it because he was bribed to get to play on the playground if he did good pictures?!) LOL - gotta love bribes!

I did notice Hudson's belly sticking out while I was photographing. And I did tug his shirt down numerous times. My guess is that Brennan pulled it up just a teeny bit right before I took the photo and I didn't even notice. Of course this would end up being the one with the best expressions! You know what though? I LOVE it like this and am totally loving the chub sticking out. Besides, it won't be there forever...cherish the memory!

Brennan was a total ham. Cheesin it up PERFECTLY.

Love his little smile!!

Momma Lindsay said she didn't dress up for pictures and was just a tiny bit hesitant to get in one with the boys. I am so glad she did - I love this sweet photo and I know her boys are going to cherish it!

Nick & Megan {Expecting a baby GIRL}

Fun. Hilarious. Sweet. Memorable.

These are only a few words that come to mind when I want to describe what it was like to photograph these two! They were honestly made for each other - they feed off of each other's warmth and laughter. The baby girl that they are about to bring into this world is DESTINED to have an amazing personality.

I must admit I love photographing two people who are so in love with each other. It was so incredible to me to watch how they just got each other going, filled each other with happiness, which is completely evident in their photos.

By the end of the first hour, Megan was getting very tired...who wouldn't at 37 weeks pregnant?! She was such a trooper, though, and we even hiked up a near 50 steps to fit in some sunset and silhouette photos. So glad we did...

I feel truly blessed that this gorgeous family has chosen me as their photography for the baby's first year of life. I know I will always have something beautiful to look forward to!



Little Miss Londyn -{6 Months}-

Little Londyn, diva to the max. This little girl was totally glammed out beginning the day her mama found out she was having a girl! Now 6 months old this little princess has a wardrobe bigger than mine!

She was seriously the sweetest little 6 month old ever. She would sit where we wanted her to and for the most part wouldn't budge. She did fall over a few times (oops!) but took it like a trooper, got back up and continued to pose for me!

Right off the bat she was full of smiles. She brought her grammy along to help with that...she wasn't too sure of me.

She even brought along a couple of swimsuits to model - and of course she looked ADORABLE!

I couldn't get over the custom-made bloomers with her name on it!

Londyn was clearly the star of the show, but I know where she gets her looks from - her gorgeaous momma (and grammy, of course)!

She didn't even mind putting her legs in the pond water (the water was pretty warm).

After about 2.5 hours she was starting to get tired but still managed to strike one last pose!

I feel so lucky to have gotten to capture this moment in time of Londyn's life!

Evan is ONE!

I had never met Evan in person until the day of his one year birthday photo session. I had seen plenty of photos of him online, but of course you can't fully learn about a person's personality through images.

Boy was he a great kid!! Just like every single one year old I have ever met, it was a little intimidated at first. He didn't burst out in a fit though. I think he shed like one tear and the whole time frame of being timid lasted like 30 seconds.

Then this little man was ALL smiles. Actually, he had a variety of expressions which made for awesome pictures!

 Daddy brought the John Deere tractor. I was so excited to see they brought overalls for him too!! Do you think this kid might be a little bit country?!

Of course there was a cake smash session. This is the first time I have ever done one of these sessions where the child actually digs in with no problem. Mommy and Daddy actually brought two cupcakes for him...and he had NO problem making both of them disappear almost instantly! The blue frosting was awesome. It stained everything. Even me!

This photo shows just how much he enjoyed his cake!

MACRO

One type of photography I have never really focused on is macro photography. I have had the lens for a few years, but never really thought to play with it. I love it! It is very tricky to get the photos just right, so it definitely takes a little bit of patience, especially when first starting out with it, but here are some fun images I have captured with it:

Creepy Crawlers at Midnight

My property is currently under a snail invasion. I don't know if it is all the rain or what...but at night they are EVERYWHERE. Seriously, last night after midnight, my husband and I stopped counting when we reached 60...and that was just on and around my deck. They were on the deck, the house, hanging from the trees, covering our plants and bushes and all over in the mulch.

I thought it would be cool to grab my macro lens and a few flashlights and head out to photograph one. Easy right? Well, not really. They are slow creatures but they move A LOT. When you are photographing in such low light, you are forced to use a slow shutter speed. At about a half second shutter speed even the slow movement of these little guys showed up on film. So, I had to deal with that.

In addition, using my macro lens I had to get pretty much right on top of the little guys. Any small movement by me and they would tuck up into their shells and wouldn't come back out. This was hard to deal with because again, with such slow shutter speeds, I had to rest my lens on the deck right next to the snail.

So, my finished photo for me was a complete success!! It is actually a composite of two different photos (3 if you count the added texture). The depth of field was so shallow that I had to take one exposure with the shell in focus and another with his body in focus...the merge the two images.

Settings: Manual Mode, ISO 100, 1/5s, 3.8, two flashlights - one to the left lighting up the back of him, one to the right lighting up the front.