Miss Brenna – Part I {Molalla, Oregon Children's Photographer}

It is hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that this beautiful young lady was younger than Cooper when I first met her.  Her mom tells me often how fast their young lives go by and before you know it you are longing for the days of toddlerhood again.  I believe it!  Well, and besides the fact that Matt has known Brenna’s dad since Matt was probably Gage’s age!  How’s that for history??  AND, Brenna’s parent’s were one of the first couples Matt and I went on a double-date with when we first got together.  Way. Back. When. 
Brenna is such a sweetie and is totally adored by my boys.  Her and her sister, Nicole, are wonderful with them and playing at their home with the sprinkler under the trampoline is one of my boys’ favorite summertime memories. 
When thinking of subjects to do portfolio building sessions with, Brenna and Nicole immediately came to mind.  Here are some of the images of my session with Brenna…

… and there are more to come tomorrow!

A Post Worth 15,000 Words…

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and since time seems short lately, I’ll spare you the words (well, most of the words) and just share the photos from our recent trip to the Oregon Gardens, with our wonderful friends…

Maybe this one will go on their wedding announcement…

Kaden was fascinated by the leaf chipper that was running nearby…

 And maybe someday this will go on THEIR wedding announcement…

Can you tell we had a perfect PERFECT time?  Totally.

Have a wonderful weekend! 

Sweetness Defined by Little Miss Ellie Marie… {Molalla, Oregon Infant Photographer, Baby Photographer}

There is just something about her that makes you want to pause a moment… 
… and just stare into her eyes…
… and wonder what she’s thinkin’. 
Ellie is the second daughter (but third child) of our wonderful friends, Brian and Melissa (I’ve mentioned them a few times on here) and Melissa was nice enough to let me practice on her and Ellie.  Our other 5 kids combined entertained themselves while we played.  I had so much fun during the whole shoot, and straight through processing all of these images (plus about 70 more!) of this adorable face…
(And since I am never able to sit down for a straight stretch to process all the images at once, I now see my inconsistencies in their coloring… ah… *sigh*… the challenges of learning.  I am also irritated that I didn’t up my ISO and therefore my shutter-speed, but that’s a whole ‘nother issue… living and learning.) 

… anyway, I love this one…

But regardless of my color issues, I look at each individual picture of Ellie…

… and her with her mama…
… and I just see her sweetness. 
Thanks for sharing your girl with me for the morning, Meliss and for letting the boys run wild!  Now… just to get my camera on little, bitty Gracie. :)

My First Family Session…

… was a pretty good effort, but boy did I learn a lot about what to do next time… if there is a next time.  :)  You may have seen my post on Miss Em’s shoot from a few days ago… from which we rushed to her grandparents’ house to photograph her entire family.  Being told you have 15 minutes to photograph said family, in addition to knowing the light was quickly fading and that 3/4 of the group doesn’t particularly like having their picture taken, made me a little totally nervous.  But these folks are wonderful and since the goal was to get a shot with everyone in it, I suppose was succeeded. 

However, like I said, next time I do a family shoot, I’ll approach it very differently… not as the friend taking a picture, but as a photographer with vision, direction, enthusiasm and more experience.  I won’t shy away from giving instruction and will take my time thoughtfully posing the group (if the session warrants it).  And I will just have to get over my nerves and maybe sing and dance and be crazy to get a LITTLE smile out of the entire family…  

… like, clearly, someone was doing here…

A QUICK SIDE STORY… I thought it was pretty cool that my such a big moment in my (hopeful) photography career should come at the hands of the couple, Don and Julie, who were the FIRST people Matt introduced me to as “his girlfriend”.  9 years ago.  He’d just picked me up from the airport and we had to swing by Don and Julie’s on the way home so they could give him instruction on taking care of their dog while they were out-of-town.  I’ll never forget how kind this couple was to me; a total stranger dating a young man they’d known forever.  They welcomed me then, and have only gotten more wonderful the longer I’ve known them…  

I took about TWENTY shots to get one that everyone was looking at the camera, although I LOVE the ones that resulted from mom and dad tickling the kiddos to bring out some smiles, too. 

And I insisted on taking these… the only TWO I took of Becky and Ryan…

… and I love this one…   Of course, it is fall, so we had to play in the leaves… … and take some with the fall foliage…

Hopefully this won’t be my last family shoot … but if it is, I enjoyed every moment and couldn’t have picked a better group of people to photograph. 

And I JUST realized what day it is… so much for Five on Friday… doh!

I Think I’m Hooked…

A few weeks ago, I thrilled to be given the chance to do a photo shoot (my FIRST!) for our dear little friend, Emily.  She was about to turn 6 and I hoped it would be a nice gift for her (and her Mama) to primp up and take some photos.  It was sure a gift to me… Miss Em was the polar-opposite to the “subjects” I am used to shooting (my dirty little boys) so this was PERFECT.  She was excited, cooperative (yes, Becky, she was!)

This is a bit picture heavy… because I’m so happy to share!     Can you believe the one above and the one below are the same girl?? Talk about a GREAT subject!!

Oh, okay… and the one above and now the one below??  Yup.  Same little girl.  I don’t know what prompted the below capture, but so many words come to mind when I look at it… dreamy.  Gorgeous.  Six?? Hardly six…

I DO know what prompted this one… I told her, “Let’s take one for Gage and Cooper…” and this is the pose she gave me…

I shifted position and embraced the challenge of backlighting… my camera was searching for something to catch focus on, and settled on this stalk of hay.  I had to acknowledge its effort, and snap the image… turns out I kinda like it… a lot. 

The backlighting gives a total different feel to the photo… hazy, dreamy …

Above and below are two different edits of the same photo.  I’m still trying to find “my style” and while I typically find myself veering toward clean, classic edits, sometimes, vintage funky ones are in order …

I have SO. many. more. photos of this session, but blogger would surely close my account if I posted them ALL. 

So, I’ll leave you with this… our final image of the session…

… but hopefully not our last…

Thanks for the practice, Em (and Becky!)… it was priceless…