A Busy but Fun Weekend!

This weekend was filled with photos and singing! I did a shoot Saturday evening with these lovely girls! The weather was a gorgeous 60 degrees at shoot time!! We went to a little cabin in the woods and it was tons of fun!

Immediately following the shoot I had to get my booty home so I could head to church for our Thanksgiving service. We had a great time singing and listening to the little kids tell us what they are thankful for!! Too cute!

Next weekend will be our Holiday parade and taking pictures of the kiddos with Santa in his sleigh immediately following! Not sure what to expect from that but it should be a good time anyway! I am sure I will have lots to share with you but for now I need to make it through the holiday in front of me! I am cooking for my little family of 4! I was prepared to cook last year when I came down with a stomach bug so my guys and little gal went to Walmart, McDonald's and Subway while I stayed in bed trying to get my fever to break! What a Thanksgiving to remember!! Hopefully this year will be better!

If you want to see more from this shoot you can go here! Talk to you soon!

Another Shoot in the Can!

Not literally, of course! That just means I am done, it's a wrap and I can move on to the next project! The next wedding is this coming Saturday!

If you want to see some more amazing shots you can go here!

I Know What I Said!! But............

I just had to share! We had a great shoot last night and I got up early, not by choice and decided to put this shoot to bed so I could enjoy the rest of my weekend without this hanging over my head! Besides, I was excited to see the finished product and so was my client! There were, after all, the first professional shots the little one had taken! Enjoy!

Princesses, Competion & Little Stalkers!

Little did I know that when I showed up to shoot a 90th birthday party I would be stalked buy the cutest future photographer!! Ha! She grabbed her folks camera and followed me around and even caught me taking a photo of her!!

This party was a multi-generational shoot where the generation gap was more of a canyon than a gap! The youngest great granddaughter was three and the guest of honor was turning 90 on Sunday!

I love this shot because the tiny princess in from is very independent and she decided not to jump so the camera focused on her while her sisters and cousins are out of focus! I am going to play with this photo some more and will share the result with you later!


I know this was a 90th birthday but the girls kept calling me to take their pictures and I obliged! Now before you get carried away, I did my job shooting almost 300 photos of the rest of the family and the guest of honor! You can click here if you don't believe me!

The Spoiled Rotten Diva

I'll admit it, my little diva is spoiled and I am the one who made her that way with a lot of help from daddy! She is a little shopper who loves clothes and accessories that go with them like shoes and hair bows!

I love to do her hair and put pretties in it as a finishing touch! She has hair accessories that match almost every outfit she has and we have recently ventured into the world of hair bands with flowers on them! Now, I did my fair share of research on where to buy these lovely creations and gasped when I saw the price on some of them!! My first thought was: Who in their right mind would spend that kind of money? My second was: I can make those here at home!!

So I set off to the local Wally world where I bought headbands, clips and flowers! It was as easy as snipping the stem off of the bottom of the flowers to make them flat then attaching them to the clippie with a hot glue gun and then putting it on the knitted headband! The cool part about putting them on clippies is that you can also just put them in the hair without the headband for a different look! I have made four of them so far and the cost was under $20!!
I know I have promised shots of her in her new handmade tutu that I made a couple of weeks ago but I have not had the opportunity or the help from the moody teen or the knight to help wrangle her for a photo shoot! Hopefully, we will get that done in the near future! I vowed that I would never again do a photo shoot of her by myself because it was waaaaaay tooooooo hard! So for now y0u will have to settle for the the flower headbands! Happy Tuesday!

An Unexpected Shoot!

So I was watching little man the other day when the knight came home and said let's go outside! Great, I have help with the kids, this will be fun! Well when we put little man in the grass, after some meandering around the yard, I spotted a photo op and I was not disappointed and neither was his mommy when she pulled up next door and saw what we were doing! Yup, this was a freebie but I am giving them tons of cards to hand out to friends and family!! Ha!

For more from this shoot click here!

Is It Over Yet?

The week, I mean! For some odd reason this week is just dragging on and on and I am ready for a day off! I am ready for the knights finals to be over! I am ready for the moody teen to start finals, so they can be over! I am ready for the rain to be over!

I think you all get the picture! I just have so many things on my plate right now that are not what I consider fun (like photo shoots)! Just everyday, mundane junk that has to be taken care of and since I am home all the time, it falls to me!

The darling diva and I went for a walk a couple of nights ago and she got excited when she saw the pool! She cracked me up when she said she wanted to swim like a fish in the ocean! What an imagination she has! I am so looking forward to spending lots of time at the pool with her! Maybe I can just pretend to be on the beach!! Ha!

Today's photo is an old one with a new twist! This is from the diva's 2 year shoot with a reflection added at the bottom of the photo! Pretty cool, huh?

Tip Tuesday #2 er, um, well Thursday!

BLONDE MOMENT! I forgot tip Tuesday until last night so this week will be tip Thursday! I promise to put a postie note on my forehead so I remember next week.

Tip # 2 will seem obvious also, however, not many people do it! Most people just expect to turn the camera on and bingo bango, great photos! Sorry, I wish it worked this way but, alas, it does not! So tip # 2 is TAKE LOTS OF PHOTOS! Isn't that a duh tip also?

It took me a while to learn that in order to get that one great photo you must take many even hundreds of photos. On a photo shoot, I will take an average of 400 photos to get those 15-25 that are keepers! I know it seems like a lot but it really isn't in the digital age (it doesn't cost anything to toss (delete) the bad ones) so it is very doable.

While I am taking these 400 photos I will adjust my camera settings and see what works best with the subject, background and lighting that I have available. With kids this is a low number of photos, you may take over a thousand depending on your memory card and I always suggest you have two or three of these with you when shooting.

Today's tip is also a lesson in patience, which I have very little of some days! The photos are, obviously, water in motion! Let me tell you it was well over 300 photos to get some that I could tolerate!

Your assignment, should you accept the challenge, is to grab anyone who will pose for you and shoot away! If you prefer nature shots, go to the park and spend the afternoon shooting the trees, the squirrels or the flowers. Don't get discouraged if the first ones are a little off, readjust your camera and trek on! If you would like you can send me some of your work to show off!