Candids by Courtney

*Inspirations*

Here's another great photographer I've come across... Candids by Courtney. She's a natural light photographer from Florida who takes beautiful baby and family photos. There are tons of pictures of her kids on her blog, and they are absolutely B-E-A-U-tiful!!

Here are some examples of her work...

Pioneer Woman Photography

*Inspirations*

I've decided I want to share with you sites I come across that inspire me. Here's today's treat. I was recently told about this site called The Pioneer Woman. Basically, it's a blog-site by a stay-at-home mom who is really talented in a lot of areas. She's a great writer who tells all kinds of stories about life on the ranch. She writes about photography, Photoshop techniques, cooking, decorating, gardening, and homeschooling. It's very entertaining. I especially love her step-by-step Photoshop tips. She also has some free Photoshop actions I'm looking forward to downloading soon! I'll be visiting her site daily!

Spring Cleaning?

I know it's not officially spring yet... but I've been in the mood to clean and organize my house. I'm hoping I'm getting out of the winter-blues funk I always get in every year. I can't function without sunshine!!

Anyway, I tackled my first room last night, my bedroom. Vaccuuming, dusting, rearranging, finding those missing socks... Oh, and I finished one of my "projects," a framed necklace holder I just never got around to finishing up. I'll post pix of it soon, as well as a chair I reupholstered to match it.

I also had some help hanging my new mirror in my living room, and it looks fabulous, if I do say so myself... I'm also trying to get some of my "honey-do" projects marked off my list of things to do around the house. Since I don't have a honey, I guess that leaves them up to me to do... hmmm. I just had help changing out all the light switches and receptacles in my house. Thanks, Jason! I wasn't about to touch that on my own!...

My Grandma sent me a few more vintage pictures in the mail that she wants me to edit and enlarge. The one that brought tears to my eyes was a simple snapshot of her and my Grandpa, who passed away when I was in high school. I look forward to working on those and seeing the smile on her face when I give them to her for her 93rd birthday.

I'm getting antsy about getting internet and cable at my house tomorrow... I joke about it, but I really AM getting high-tech... Surround sound, laptop, cable, and internet all in the span of one month! woot.

I'll post some pictures soon, since this is like, a photo blog... :)

High-Tech

I'm digging my way out of the ice age and will soon be caught up with the rest of the world... Yes, I'm finally getting the internet and cable at my house! I've gone almost 2 years without it, but now I see that it's a necessity if I want to continue learn more about photography and editing on a more consistent basis. Mr. Mediacom guy is coming on Tuesday to give me the hook-up. I'll consider it my birthday gift to myself!

Today's my big day... Today at 2:15 pm I turn 27. I'd like to say THANKS to everyone for the birthday wishes. I happen to love where I am in life right now, and I'm excited about what this new year has in store for me. For the past few years, I've described my late 20's as "Solid" and I still feel that that word applies to me now. I've got a great job, an amazing church family, friends and family that are so supportive... I have the means to pursue my passion for photography, God has provided me with my own house and has allowed me to be financially stable, and the list goes on and on... To sum it up, I just feel so Extremely Blessed.

I want to share with you some verses from my favorite Psalm, Psalm 139. Whenever I think about the future, these come to mind:

Psalm 139:15-18

My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,

your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!

Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand.

P.S. If you're new to the site, for the last three engagement sessions, I forgot to post the link to their additional pix on my Facebook. I just added them today. Be sure to click on those links to check out the rest of the pictures from their sessions!

Blogging

I've been a little lazy with the blogging recently. I haven't been able to do much editing lately, but I do have a few things on my to-do list...

* My Grandma's 93 birthday is coming up March 1, and she had a picture from the 1930s of her, and her sister, Nadine, and some of the neighbors that she wants me to work on so that we can enlarge it for her. I haven't worked much with editing vintage photos yet, but the photo is in excellent condition. I'll get it posted as soon as I can!

*I've got some old engagement photos I found that I want to get posted on here to add to the collection. I'm going to spice them up a little in Photoshop, since I didn't have access to that at the time...

*I'll be hanging out with the amazing Lee Ellen Starks on Saturday, as she starts recording her first CD. I'll be tagging along with my camera so that she can have pix to update her blog with.

*I need to create a different header for February, the month of love... hmmm...

My 27th birthday is Friday, and I'm excited for a girls' night that includes sushi and a chick flick :) More to come later!

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.