Meghan & Buddy :: Engaged

She walks in a room, and everyone instantly smiles. He walks in a room, and it's hard not to laugh. Meghan and Buddy are a dynamic duo, and during our engagement session a few weeks ago, I walked away with sore face muscles from smiling and laughing so much!
Meghan and I work together, and I felt honored to be asked to photograph her engagement portraits. As you'll see below, Meghan is a natural beauty with a contagious smile. It was awesome spending the evening downtown with her and Buddy!
They're getting married this November in St. Simons Island, and I'm so excited to be a part of it! They already have a wedding photographer booked, but with my experience shooting wedding for the past few years and having to be the unofficial director, they're trusting me with the coordination of the day. Same hard work, similar structure, but totally different at the same time. I'm looking forward to the challenge!

Thomas & Teresa :: Engaged

Thomas and Teresa are getting married next January, and I'm SO excited to be their photographer. Thomas and my husband are best friends, and I've known him for over 10 years. Thomas is a wonderful person -- I consider him to be one of my best friends too -- and I'm ecstatic that he's found another wonderful person to spend the rest of his life with. Teresa is beautiful. Inside and out. She's out-going. And funny.
Here are my favorites from their engagement session. I cannot WAIT for their wedding.

Colten :: Child Portraits

Colten and I had SUCH a fun time in his backyard a few weeks ago. I was invited to his backyard playground for our session, and it was awesome seeing him explore around, and hilarious hearing him laugh. :)

I'm Alive... and why edited images are better.

I'm alive. I promise. I'm just swamped.
I've got great stuff to share, and I know that I'm behind on sharing, but it will be worth the wait. :) I've just finished up with the final images of Tina & Mike's wedding... so I can now focus on getting up some favorites of spring sessions I've done in the past few weeks.

Before scooting out of here and back to being a slave to Photoshop, I wanted to share a quick image with you. It's one from Leslie & Ike's 10 year wedding re-do portrait session. A before and after, showing why edited images are better.
Some clients ask if I provide a CD of all of the images that I take at a session. My answer is no. While I do show almost all of my images in a client's gallery, I take several out (i.e. no one wants pictures of themselves mid-blink or with a funky look on their face) and pare the images down a bit (i.e. it's often overwhelming to see so many pictures and many of them being multiple images of the same pose). While a client choosing images gets to see the "raw" footage that I take, they don't ever have the option of buying them. Why? Because edited images are better. I promise. And really, that's why you're paying me for my time and effort. You really don't think the only time I spend on your images is just the hour I'm photographing your family, do you? :) You're paying me for the whole package. When you go to a baseball game, you don't expect the umpire to call the game in the 8th inning. You came to see all 9.
Here is the proof... see the difference? Very little editing was done on this image (I strive to get my work good in camera so that I don't butcher them up in post-processing) but it makes such a big impact.



See? A little love goes a long way.

Spring Mini-Sessions!

I had such a good time during my spring mini-sessions a few weeks ago. A few people ended up having to re-schedule because of the weather, but we're working on getting them completed. The weather had been crummy the entire week before the sessions, so our location had to be moved from the park to VSU. I was bummed at the thought of not having that nature scenery, but I was pleasantly surprised to get some green in the images. :) Here are some of my favorites!

Sassy :: Child Photography

Sassiness isn't always a good thing. But when you're 3, 5, and 14 and work it in front of a camera... sassiness is an awesome quality to have. :) K, M, and M have been clients of mine ever since Miss Middle M was 1. I've been honored to be able to capture them grow, and I was amazed at how much they've grown since our last session together. :) K is maturing, and it's so neat to see her develop into a teenager. And Miss Tiny M is as much a fire-cracker as she's always been. All three girls kept me on my toes during our session, but we had so much fun together!

Leslie & Ike :: 10 Years Later

Months ago, Leslie and I began plotting our ideas for her 10th anniversary photo session. Leslie and Ike have been working on changing their lifestyle habits over the past year, and they've both lost a good amount of weight. So much so, that they look even better TODAY than they did TEN years ago! Incredible transformations. Including Leslie being able to fit into her wedding gown!
The weather desperately wanted to rain on our parade, but we refused to let it stop our plans. We made a detour to the church where they originally got married on May 26, 2001 and re-enacted their wedding portraits. Then we headed into down and hung out around West Hall of VSU. Which, coincidentally is where they met. (cues the "awwwww"s now)
I had SO much fun during our session together. Maybe it's because they're comfortable in front of my camera or maybe it's because they're so comfortable with one another. But I swear this was the easiest wedding-ish shoot I've ever done. It's probably because there weren't family members around taking pictures next to me, or a reception we needed to go to after pictures. :) It was difficult narrowing down my favorites. But I think I got them here. Enjoy! If there's anyone else out there who wants to do a session like this, I'm looking forward to you contacting me. It was truly a blast!!