I Heart Faces March Photo Challenge – Beautiful B&W

The face I love most…

Rock On!

Last weekened I had one of my favorite photo shoots!  His name is Mason…his goal is to be famous!  I had the pleasure of photographing him and his guitar.  I love how I was able to get creative…editing these photos was so much fun!  I was able to try new things and experiment with different ideas I’ve had.   Check it out…

Lucas ~ A precious addition to a beautiful family

If you have read any of my previous posts you might recall “Surprise, I’m getting married!”… well, this is the follow-up post…   I have had the pleasure of photographing many important parts of this young family’s life so far and I can’t tell you how honored I feel to have been included.  I can’t explain how much it means to me that they have trusted me to record and create images of so many important events in their lives!  This is why I love photography…this is where my passion comes from!

Let’s take a trip back to November…

Becky’s baby shower…

Becky with her sister at her baby shower.

The next time I saw Becky was in mid January when I thought I was showing up to take maternity photos…then found out I was there for her and Rickey’s SURPRISE wedding!  They have been so patient and trusting in giving me experience…I was able to photograph my first engagement, maternity session, and wedding in the same day!

After their wedding, our next meeting was February, 10th and not only did I get to see Becky again but I also got to meet the newest man in her life…little Lucas!  He is so handsome!   He has cheeks that even a non cheek pincher would love and the cutest pouty face!  I thought at first he was just like his daddy and didn’t like to be photographed (sorry Rickey, haha!) but after he got used to being naked I think he kind of liked it….   He was so cooperative…I mean a little baby pee never hurt anyone, right?  haha!  I had so much fun with him and Becky except when I had to be the big meanie and take his pacifier from him.  His pouty face made my heart melt!

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Thank you so much Becky & Rickey!  You have been blessed with a beautiful family and I have had such a great time sharing these experiences with you both!

Day 9 :: Someone you love

If it seems like forever since my last post on my 30 day photo challenge…that’s because it has been forever!  This is such an easy subject…in theory.  I knew immediately I was going to photograph Ella.  The problem with photographing Ella is that she HATES it!  I had to wait for the perfect moment…when the time was right…when I could bribe her with something!   Because of the few minutes she spent in front of the camera she is now getting 2 books from her January book order.  At least she wanted something educational 🙂  I actually love when she doesn’t want to cooperate with having her photo taken, I think it makes her more photogenic.  I don’t get cheesy smiles, I get her, and although she may be slightly grumpy I love her facial expressions.  Please don’t ever tell her, but these are the kind of photos of her I love most.

Here is Ella, aka: snug bug, bug, buggy, love, lovey, or any combination on those on the 2,351st day of her life…

f/2.5 - ISO 200 - 1/100 sec

f/2.5 - ISO 200 - 1/100 sec

Happy 1st Birthday, Sophie!

May I introduce to you our cat that I never wanted, Sophie.  After months and months of Ella begging for a kitty, I finally gave in.  I think it’s important for kids to have a pet/pets growing up and after the dog “issues” we have had in the past, I was not ready to venture down that road again. Even though, contrary to what everyone might say, I really do like dogs!  I was very nervous about getting a cat…me and pet hair do not get along very well and I was worried it was going to be a bigger pain than what it was worth.  BUT, I wanted Ella to be able to have the experience of owning and taking care of a pet.  So we started looking…  We definitely knew that we wanted adopt a kitten.  I put a blurb on Facebook that we were looking for a kitten and a good friend’s sister actually found Sophie for us.  She ended up being rescued from a high kill shelter near Philadelphia.  From the minute I saw her photo I knew Ella would LOVE her.  She was soooo stinking cute!  Mostly black with white whiskers, white beard, and little white-tipped paws.    Her name was not Sophie when we found her, Ella came up with her name and Ernie and I thought it was perfect!

It’s been almost a year that we have had her and she is an awesome cat!  I will be the first to admit that I was not keen on getting her and I did not expect to like her, but she has been a great addition to our family!  Some of Sophie’s favorite activities include chasing her favorite blue mouse toy, sun bathing, and sitting on my lap while I am on the computer.  She knows her name and comes when I call her.  When I ask her if she’s hungry she will answer me with a little meow and runs to her food bowls.  She either sleeps with me or Ella every night and likes to have breakfast with Ernie in the morning.  She loves having her belly rubbed and hates being locked out of a room that we are in, you will see two little white paws under the door trying to get in if that happens.  She is a very friendly cat, in the past year that we have had her she has endured many walks in Ella’s baby stroller wrapped up like a doll and I have never heard her hiss!  She also hates when we go away and definitely makes us pay for leaving her when we get home by either pooping where she isn’t supposed to or running around like a crazy cat all night keeping us awake!  Other than that, she keeps herself out of trouble for the most part.  Ella and Sophie are definitely BFF’s!  We are looking forward to many more years with our little Sophie Soph.

Surprise…I’m getting MARRIED today!

I thought I was in for a pretty low-key weekend… Saturday morning I had planned on driving down to Philadelphia with my sister, Bethany, to do a maternity photo shoot for one of her college friends…or so I thought…  When we arrived Becky greeted us at the door wearing a bath robe.  We did get held up in some traffic on the way and were a few minutes late in getting there but I at least thought she would be dressed!  Little did we know that she was planning on surprising us with a wedding!  It was a great surprise!  It was a very small, intimate wedding but it was beautiful and I feel very honored to have been a part of their special day.  Quite honestly, if she would have asked me to photograph a wedding I would have freaked out…the whole small and intimate part would have gone in one ear and right out the other, I would have only concentrated on the word WEDDING.  It was actually a VERY good thing that they kept it a secret!  It took a lot of pressure off of this amateur!   I LOVE photography…it’s a great HOBBY…I enjoy taking photos for people when they ask but I don’t handle pressure all that well… It’s probably just some weird mental thing that I have going on but, ultimately, it is what it is…

However, I ended up having a really great time!  Everyone there was so nice and had a great sense of humor.  It was freezing outside but we still managed to get some great shots.  It helped that Becky looked BEAUTIFUL (especially for being 9 months prego and Rickey was super handsome in his Army class A’s).  I LOVE military photos so I was super excited to try out a few ideas that I had!  At the end of the day, I knocked out my first engagement session, maternity session, AND wedding!  Thank you MR. & MRS. BUCKLER for inviting me to photograph your special day…you were so awesome to work with!

P.S.  I can’t wait to meet Mr. Lucas!!!

Congratulations Mr. & Mrs. Buckler

Day 8 :: Bad Habit

Cookie Dough Confession ~

Day 8 of my 30 non-consecutive-day photo challenge is to take a photo of a bad habit…  I gave this some thought and I almost decided to pass the buck and go with someone else’s bad habit…like Ella biting her toenails or Ernie stuffing his socks into the sofa cushions in the basement (both are GROSS!) but I ultimately came to the conclusion that this photo challenge is about me and that I should be the one to come clean with one of my own bad habits.   While I may have quite a few, I decided to go with the one that gets me in the most trouble!  SWEETS!  I love it all…candy, cookies, cake, ice cream, etc…  Some of my favorites include:  Reese’s peanut butter cups, Swedish Fish, Milk Duds, Peanut Chews, red velvet cake, Vanilla Bean Cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory, cannoli’s, and tiramisu!  The only thing stopping this “bad habit” from turning into an addiction is sheer willpower (and a trash can!).   I can make sure my laundry gets to the hamper and I do not bite my nails but I can do some serious damage to a bowl of raw cookie dough 😉

f/2 - ISO 200 - 1/100 sec

 

Day 7 :: Fruit

Day 7 was a piece of cake…or a piece of fruit I should say.  Ella and I LOVE fruit so there is always plenty on hand year round in our home!  Our favorites are strawberries, apples, bananas, and clementines.  With all of the sickness that is running rampant I have been eating clementines by the box trying to grab all of the vitamin C I can!  I also love their color, orange looks great with so many colors so I wanted to create a very vibrant and colorful photo.  Check it out:

f/2 - ISO 100 - 1/100 sec

Day 8 Challenge:  A Bad Habit – This is where I get to air out my dirty laundry…litterally!  😉

Days 5 & 6 :: High & Low Angle Photos

I know, I know…It’s only the first week and I am already getting behind!  So maybe this is a little bit more difficult than I thought it would be   I’m not a quitter though so I have resolved to complete the 30 non-consecutive-day photo challenge 🙂  I want to keep the focus on trying new things with my camera, shooting at different angles and different times of day, and shooting objects I normally wouldn’t think to photograph.  Afterall, it’s still practice, right?

On Saturday I met the Frost family at the Akron park to shoot some family photos for them and some individual photos of their adorable little girl, Autumn.  I had so much fun chasing her around the playground.  I was able to complete days 5 and 6, high and low angle photos, at the same time!

f/2 - ISO 400 - 1/100 sec

f/2.8 - ISO 400 - 1/100 sec

Amazing!

One words sums up today’s post…AMAZING!  I woke up at 7:00am and still half asleep I drug myself into our bathroom and that’s when I saw it.  Before I had a chance to fully wake up I went for my camera…up went the window and out went the screen!  Here is what I saw, God is amazing…

f/6.3 - ISO 200 - 1/80

1/6/2012 + 0700 hrs = amazing