Tuesday, August 30, 2011

I Heart Faces Photo Challenge - White


Sunday, August 28, 2011

Party on!

We are super excited for Tabatha & Gary's wedding coming up in a few weeks.  It is actually the kick-off to the start of our crazy fall wedding schedule.  They are getting married in Bradenton, and it is going to be gaw-jusss (Southern for GORGEOUS!).  I was lucky enough to tag along to the bachlorette party with my camera in tow.  There was like 10 cameras there, so I tried to just snap some of the details and a few portraits.  It was great fun, and there were a lot of dares involved, and everyone was a great sport!


Party games full of crazy dares.  I promise, we kept it clean.  Mostly.

What girls don't take pics in the bathroom?





Sadly, I don't think we got to use this card.




We earned digits! (Some are deleted on purpose.  I didn't think Carlos would want the world calling him.)

More dares and a random person's phone.  And calling random people on random person's phone.



My card got bunny ears?

From this point on I have Katy Perry's Last Friday Night Playing over and over in my head with a few altered lyrics.



Live music! 
Kissing bald guys.

Score more digits.  And from my hometown too. 


High five fail.



Drunken country line dancing. (Okay maybe not - I didn't know which way to turn when I got out there either and I was perfectly sober.  LOL.)

High school antics of ice down the shirt and a tickle fest to boot.



The Hokey-Pokey started out innocent enough...

And then quickly became not-so-innocent...

The girl in the hot pink hat was a riot.  Thank you pink hat girl for entertaining me and making me laugh all night.

What dare to use next?



And with that we left to go back to the real world of work and children and sleep.  I hope things didn't get too out of control after we left. We can't wait to see what a blast the wedding is going to be!



Thursday, August 25, 2011

Random thoughts and old pictures

We have done a lot for our business this year.  We have revamped our style of shooting, our gear, our webpage, our pricelist, and all of our marketing materials.  It has been a lot of work, but so far it has also been a huge success.  I love where we are going, and hope to keep setting goals and pushing forward in the right direction.  But it's hard.  It's easy to lose track of those goals.  It's easy to let one simple negative in and it can make it feel like, "What on earth am I doing?"

Sometimes I get to critical, or I over-think things and make them way harder than they should be.  I forget to lose myself in my creativity.  That's when I have to go back to basics.  Go back to shooting for fun.  Go back to being super creative and taking risks.  Success in the business world is all about taking risks, right?  Only I am a big chicken.  I have to get over it.  And I am working on that. 

So my advice to you (and to myself), is to take risks.  Put yourself out there and see what happens.  You'll never know if you try!

Here are my first risks.  My very first photography class at FSU.  My very fist SLR camera.  I had no idea what I was doing and I took pictures of everything.  80% of them are crap.  But the rest are beautiful.  And those few beautiful shots are worth it. 











I love how these look "vintage" without even trying.  That's just the way they came out of the camera.  I should have used filters to correct the white balance, but I didn't know what white balance was.  Sometimes I wish I could still get that vintage look with digital and photoshop, but it never looks quite right.  I love that I was fascinated enough with the porch light reflecting in a puddle to grab the camera and photograph it.  I love that I photographed my then boyfriend, Gary, because he sadly passed away after a long battle with cancer.  I started this project for his wife, so she could have a copy of a few precious pictures I have of him, and I am so glad that I did - for multiple reasons. 

Photography is precious.  People are precious.  Life is precious.  Many times, after all is said and done, after memories fade, all that is left are pictures.  Make sure you get in front of the camera.  Take pictures with your kids.  They are not going to care if you weighed 10lbs more or didn't have make up on - trust me!  All they will care about down the road is having a great picture with their loved ones. 



Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Because I can never make up my mind...

I love pictures so much and have many fabulous pictures.  I can never pick just one out to submit for contests.  I also have the same issue with animals....

I don't submit them in contests, but love all of them and love to photograph them.  So here are a few more from our daily lives in the past few weeks.  There is also a rare peek of me in front of the camera courtesy of my fabulous 4 yr old photographer Mackenzie.