River Bluff Kids

I took some pictures of the children's volunteers and kiddos at church on Sunday. We're going to be recognizing volunteers soon and encouraging others to volunteer in the children's area during the service.

Who can say no to these faces??

Mac Momma

I'm officially a Mac Momma now... My MacBook Pro was delivered two days ago and is fabulous! I'm kinda stuck right now with what I can do with it, since I don't have Photoshop yet or the internet at my house... But that will come soon enough. I was hoping that I could "use" the neighbors wireless internet on a consistent basis, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen, so I'll have to just break down and get the internet at my house... The nice thing is that I can deduct that monthly bill for tax purposes :)

I took some pictures at church on Sunday. We are having volunteer appreciation event coming up and I was asked to take some pictures of the volunteers and the kids... I got some pretty cute pix of the kids...

Hopefully, I'll get to edit these pictures soon and I can get them posted. Be careful out there in the snow!

Jon & Rebecca's Engagement Pix

Re-posted from October 2008...

Rebecca and Jon are wanting to create a save-the-date postcard for their upcoming wedding, so we set out on a shoot downtown to get some early pix. Most of them are off-centered for the purpose of adding wedding information to the postcard... We had a lot of fun, especially when we came across an old building that we got to explore..

See more pictures here.

Zach & Stephanie's Engagement Pix

Re-posted from December...

Zach and Stephanie are getting married in May. They enjoy nature and wanted to get some pictures outside, so we headed to Springfield Lake and also got a few shots downtown. The best part of the day was after the shoot... when Stephanie, a licensed massage therapist, gave me a one-hour massage. I should make that a requirement after every photo shoot... hmmm...

See more pictures here.

Michael & Emily's Anniversary Pix

This is re-posted from December...

Michael and Emily were wanting some pictures for this year's Christmas cards. In conversation, I found out that they never had the time to get engagement pictures taken, so we recreated the proposal and took some belated engagement shots as well. Michael and Emily were great about spotting some fun locations and props.. such as these hay bales, a bright green spot of grass on a hill, and an abandoned girl scout building. They were so modelesque--and we had such a fun time... The best part of the shoot was taking action shots of Emily running and jumping into Michael's arms.. the slow motion pictures on my camera were hilarious!

See more pictures here.

ARRRRGHHH!

The reason for my frustrated scream is that I was trying to clean up my site a little and accidentally deleted some posts... My plan was to remove the "engagement" labels from these posts and just lump them together into "couples." However, I found out that the instructions aren't real clear on here on how to delete labels, so I ended up completely deleting about 6 posts. Unfortunately, there is no "undo" button on here.

ARRRRRGH!!!

So if you're looking for examples of my engagement pictures, be patient with me as I get those loaded again.

thanks.

Introducing Lee Ellen Starks!

I just helped my amazing musician friend, Lee Ellen, set up her very first blog! I designed her header from our photo shoot pictures we did a few months ago, which was a lot of fun. You should check out her blog and go support her at some local gigs!

http://leeellenstarks.blogspot.com/

Commercial Project

I was contacted by Michael Perry of New Seasons Landscaping to photograph a recently completed project that included a bridge, a built-up patio, and an amazing enclosure, complete with a super-cozy fireplace and an amazing ceiling. It sure made me envious! It was snowing the day of the shoot, which made things interesting. I'm sure it was pretty entertaining to watch two grown men follow me around with umbrellas to block the snow. :) Anyway, here are some pretty pictures for you to look at.

Shutterfly Products

I've been getting emails from www.Shutterfly.com for awhile now. Shutterfly is one of those online places in which you can do a lot of fun things with your photos. I received an email for some free and on-sale items, so I thought I would give it a whirl. The first coupon was for a free calendar from Shutterfly, and all I had to pay was $5.99 for shipping. So I created an Images by Jen calendar for my home office with some of my photos from 2008 sessions. I was pretty impressed with the quality of the calendar... It's not top-quality, and I'm sure there are some sites that have better products and less-compressed images, but since it was free, I can't complain. I decided to keep it pretty simple so that the photos would pop. Here's a tiny snippit of what one of the months looked like... (minus the orange box around the picture)...

I also decided to try to get two poster-sized advertisements together to try to get some business for upcoming Spring sessions. These 11x14 collage posters were on sale for $5 each plus shipping. Again, I'm satisfied with the end results, although I wish they gave more options as far as fonts and font sizing on the templates. I actually purchased these as a promotional offer to get a free 8x8 photo book. However, Jen didn't read instructions very well and forgot to put the promotional code on the last page of the purchase, and therefore, will not be getting the free book. Silly Jen. Let this be your lesson... When you're trying to get free things, read the instructions. Very carefully.

P.S. T minus 6 days and counting until I get my MacBook Pro in the mail.... *smiles*

MacBook Pro = Mine.

I did it. I bought my MacBook Pro. On sale. Now I wait (patiently?!) until it arrives. My life will never be the same...

Music to the Ears

I've been looking around on YouTube a lot for Photoshop Tutorials (found some pretty awesome ones...look out for some new editing techniques!), and while I was looking at some music videos, I came across this guy and his brothers. Their band is called BoyceAvenue and they do a lot of popular cover songs. I've spent a few hours listening. I think I'm in love with his voice.. and his guitar and piano playing abilities are a nice bonus... ;)

Their web site: http://www.boyceavenue.com/

And here's a sample video:

Buy Handmade at Etsy Shops

A lot of crafty people these days can earn extra income by selling their crafts on an Etsy Site. An Etsy Site is "your place to buy & sell all things handmade." The only things that can be sold fall into three categories: Handmade--Goods handmade by you, Supplies--Commercial and handmade crafting supplies, and Vintage--Items 20 years or older with vintage appeal.

You can search for items several ways, including by product or location, even color! If you're business savvy enough to create your own store, it could be a great way to earn some extra cash. It's also a great place to buy one-of-a-kind items for yourselves or gifts for others.

Check it out. http://www.etsy.com/

Here are just a few examples from Springfield MO.

missindie indie fashions and fiber art...

elsiecake paintings, canvas, embroidery...