Editing Time!

I had three photo shoots this weekend... One with my fellow band member, Lee Ellen, who is an extremely talented songwriter, singer, and musician. We got some shots of her and her guitar for some publicity shots for gigs.. and hopefully, for a CD in the near future! We spent a few hours in a field and then headed downtown for some more urban shots... Then I met up with a couple needing some portraits for Christmas cards, and we ran around downtown for awhile. I also met up with another fellow band member, Kacey, and her husband, David, for some fun couple pix, since they hadn't had any recent pictures taken. Theirs was the easiest shoot I've done in awhile! They were so easy to work with because it was so obvious they were crazy about each other. Mushy, but true... Anyway, I'll be editing these this week and hope to get some pix posted soon.

P.S. I took some pictures of a friend recently and she got some Christmas cards printed with her photos on them, and I have to say it was really exciting to see my photos in print! I also saw another picture I've done recently blown up to an 11 x 14. Exciting! If you do any fun prints of my pix, I would love to see them!

Greek Day 2008

I absolutely love this picture and had to post it. This is a photo of Greek Day 2008 that my church, River Bluff Fellowship, helps host for the Springfield fraternities and sororities. I am in our church's praise team and we played a few songs during the event (I'm there at the keyboard playing and singing vocals..). This year we had over 1,000 greeks join us. We were able to have Wayne Hagin, the former voice of the St Louis Cardinals, come and give an inspirational talk. Some of the greeks were also part of a blitz build for a Habitat for Humanity family, and we got to meet the family and honor them at the event.

It's been such a blessing to be able to a part of this for the past few years and wanted to share it with you.

Photo courtesy of Mike Wingo Photography

Erin's Belated Birthday Photo Shoot

I offered to take some pix as a birthday present for one of my good friends, Erin... and we finally got it scheduled, but it just so happened to be on a 40 degree day in November. Erin was a trooper though, and you can't even tell from her photos that she was freezing! I'm labeling these photos as Fashion, simply because she's wearing an awesome scarf and a fur-lined jacket that she could probably model in magazines.. I would buy them! 

and p.s. as you can see, I have beautiful friends!!

and p.p.s. as you can also see, I had a hard time narrowing down my favorite pictures, so there are a lot!! Enjoy...

See more gorgeous pictures here.

Richart Family Pix

Here are Sam and Kristy and their little one, Logan. We met on a pretty chilly day in the park--it was about 40 degrees and windy that day.. brrr! Poor Logan was shaking the entire time, so we had the quickest photo shoot I've ever done... in 30 minutes flat! But I think we got some good fall shots out of it!

See more pictures here.

Swann Family Pix

Meet Mike and Molly and their three adorable munchkins. We headed to Sequiota park for this shoot. The kids had fun "catching" seaweed on sticks and exploring the cave. We found this cool tree with some carvings on it, so I stuck in Mike and Molly's initials for a more personal touch. I did promise Mike I would photoshop at least one swan into their photos.. but unfortunately, I've run out of time for now... maybe later.. Enjoy!


See more pictures here.

Rhoads Family

Here is one of my favorite families from church... and it's easy to see why! We started outside on a brisk morning, then headed back to their new house for some indoor pix, full of bed-jumping, a few tears, and a lot of smiles!


See more photos here.

One Month Blog-iversary!

As of November 1, 2008, my imagesbyjen blog is one month old! Thanks to my handy statistics counter, I'm able to see that I've had 337 new visitors in my first month (excluding myself, I swear!). Thank you for visiting, and thanks also for your encouraging words!

Here's what I'm able to see...


Hopefully, these numbers will keep getting bigger!
Have a great day!

McGee Family Pix

Here is the McGee family. We were celebrating their new house and autumn! Little Brandon has had a lot of practice with posing, as Emily likes to dabble in photography. He's a natural, don't ya think?

See more photos here.

Weekend Fun

I've got a full weekend coming up... Two sessions of family portraits for some church family with the Most Stinkin' Adorable kids you've ever seen (and the parents are pretty cute too..)! I CANNOT wait for those! I think they mentioned that they may use the photos on their yearly Christmas cards, so for those of you from church, keep an eye out... Also on the agenda are some engagement pix for some newly-engaged friends who are needing a photo for their save-the-date card, with a full-blown engagement session coming soon. The weatherman says it's going to be a great weekend in the 60s with sun, so I'm pumped!

I did drive around last night after work for about an hour looking for some fall trees that have turned, but realized here in this area, the trees still haven't fully hit their peaks yet. I also realized that with it getting dark so early, it's hard to find fall trees when it's pitch black outside at 6:30. Oh well. Next time I'll take my night vision goggles...

My Life as a (Wannabe) Hand Model

I've secretly always wanted to be a hand model. yup. I have what you call "piano hands"... long fingers with a wide reach... that just so happen to be good for playing piano AND that are also good for.. hand modeling! Hand modeling is appealing to me for several reasons:

1) Hand models generally get to model big, shiny, sparkly objects called diamonds. And I love wearing sparkly things. I always have. I blame it on my parents, who would take me on family vacations to Branson when I was younger. I was infatuated with the female singers we would see and their pretty, sparkly dresses. I've been attracted to sparkles ever since. Don't get me wrong.. I'm not obsessed with diamonds or anything. I'm perfectly happy with owning cubic zirconia (except there is ONE ring I hope to own one day that will be the real deal...and as a side note to whoever will want to give that wonderful gift to me, my amazing girl friends concur that because I have such long fingers, only BIG rings look appropriate. But that's just a side note. :) Anyway, to wrap up point#1, I think it would be a blast to be able to wear amazing jewelry without having to pay for it.

2) On to point #2. Hand models could probably comfortably do their job in their pajamas. How cool is that? Who cares that you don't have on an ounce of makeup or that you have a zit that is making its grand entrance on your nose? In what other realm of modeling would that be okay?

3) Lastly, hand modeling would provide a little extra cash in the pocket. But then again, some of that money would have to go towards the many, many manicures it would take to keep such beautiful fingers and nails from becoming dull. What a rough life that would be. I don't know if I could handle that.

So if you know of any photographers or magazines that are needing new hand models, you know how to reach me. Seriously, though... the only place you'll probably see these hands is on my own blog... and photographed by ME.

Have a wonderful day. I hope this post made you giggle. Edited family photos coming soon!