I love me some moo...

moo.com Go check them out. They are the amazing company who printed my business cards which I just ran downstairs and grabbed 30 minutes ago. What I loved is the array of images I was able to use! So colorful and fun. Just what I want for my business.

Here they are in all their colorful glory




This is how they arrived

And here is the inside

Love them! Not only are they reasonably priced, they are awesome. Go check them out. :)

A run on the turkey-DC Family Photographer

I woke up early this past Saturday and headed north on George Washington Parkway to Turkey Run, a park/trailhead along the Potomac to photograph a family I have known for a year now. You may remember John and Kate from this post and this one when their son was younger. They had originally booked one session but when it began to rain at the end I offered to finish shooting at another time.

In July when they were passing by Lexington where my family and I were living at the time we invited them for 4th of July dinner. My daughter took to them immediately and I felt that a friendship was formed.


Now here I am, back in the DC area and we've already hung out a couple times, at a park, at dinner, it's been great having friends. And that is what I had always hoped for when I started this business: to make lasting relationships with the families I shoot, to photograph their family as they grow. I'm so grateful for wonderful friends like John and Kate and for being able to get out shooting again! Despite the cold that their little boy had I'm pleased with what we were able to get. Hope you guys are too.

Sites and Sounds: Ballston Farmers Market

I saw a sign last week about a farmer's market near the Ballston Metro Station. Thankfully, since that's all the info I knew of, the market has a blog and twitter page and I found out that the market is open every Thursday from 3pm-7pm. Ahh... I'm telling you, heaven is found in local farmer's markets. E and I enjoyed some fresh blueberries, picked just this morning from a farm about an hours drive from DC. Couldn't be any better than that!

Washington DC- DC Family Photographer

I am sure it's normal to be moving around so much while you're young. You know, college age, moving apartments, getting internships, etc. But I don't really 'classify' myself as part of that age group anymore. I mean, I'm almost thirty, I'm married and I have a toddler. So when we packed up and moved to Washington DC last week, with only one week's notice, I felt a tad faint at heart.

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely LOVE Washington DC. I lived here after I got my undergraduate degree, worked for the awesome Marriott Hotel chain and couldn't wait to return someday. And now someday is today. I have moved 7 times in the last 5 years and that's only cities. If you count apartments that first number goes up to 9. I told my husband, I am ready to settle down for longer than a year.

We will be in Washington DC for at least one year, I am hoping many and I can't wait to start marketing, networking and getting out there, meeting families and taking pictures!

Until then, (and while my computer is still in a box for the next few weeks) here is a shot of my husband holding my daughter taken from one of my favorite places right outside DC, near Reagan National Airport; Gravelly Point.

One of my favorite images

It's no secret that I'm in love with Europe, France in particular. Immediately after my husband and I married we went to Europe for two weeks so that I could do research on my Master's thesis. The research took us to France where we stayed in Paris for one week and allowed me to show my husband one of my favorite cities. This trip resulted (among many things) in some fantastic images. The one below is of the chateau, Vaux-le-Vicomte. My thesis researched the surrounding gardens and we were lucky to spend a day wandering around, taking in everything around us. Enjoy!

My life

Being a mother is hard. But when I see that my daughter has done something like this, it makes my day:



She has obviously learned that babies (such as herself) like raisins.

Time for reflection

As we are all aware the beginning of January is a time for reflection about the upcoming year and what each one of us wants to accomplish. I am actually one who gets very excited about the new year and about creating goals that can realistically be accomplished. I'm a BIG list person. I have post its all over the place and love being able to cross something off of my google calendar.

Ten years ago in 1999 I was barely 19 (my birthday is the 31st of December) and my family and I spent New Year's Eve with close family friends. At their home we created "time capsules" to be opened ten years later. We put in a picture of ourself, any magazine or newspaper clippings we wanted to include and any other "important" items we felt necessary to put in. I am slightly embarrassed to say that when I opened the box up there were NUMEROUS pictures of Celine Dion as well as pictures of my then on/off (more off) boyfriend and something you might call a love letter from him stashed inside.

Oh gosh... as I read through the things I had written about where I was in 1999 I realized that luckily many things had changed. But I also came to the conclusion that a lot of things about me had not changed. And that worried me. I went for a run on snow packed roads the next day and struggled to get a good solid grip in the snow. While running I thought about what I would write and put in a time capsule to be opened in 2020. And I wondered if I would still have the same "unchanged" characteristics that have carried through since 1999.

You may remember my 101 goals to do in 1001 days. Well, I'm making progress! I realized this past week that these goals I made for myself last year may just be what I need to help overcome the unwanted characteristics that I've been carying around for ten+ years now. Do any of you feel this way? Is there any characteristic that strongly sticks out to you which you would like to change?

I am going to be sharing with you some of the goals I have been able to accomplish in the coming days. So to everyone reading, Happy New Year (ten days late) and best wishes with your goals!

This is an image from New Year's Day 2010. It had stormed the previous day and when we awoke the sun was peeking through the clouds and there was of all crazy things, a rainbow. :)

Goal #94- Shoot my brother's wedding

When I was choosing the 101 goals to do in 1001 days my brother was not married but I was hoping he would be before March of 2012 :). Well, Dale was married this past Saturday to a wonderful girl named Leisa in the Oquirrh Mountain Temple of the LDS Church. I was so excited (and slightly nervous!!) to photograph their wedding. And despite the 20 degree weather and 15 mph wind chill it was a beautiful day. I edited the images below on a laptop so I hope that the colors aren't too far off. Thank you Dale and Leisa for allowing me to capture this special day for you! Enjoy Spain!

I was lucky to arrive at the Temple as the sun was coming up.

These two were so happy the entire day!

We came around this side and the wind literally just sucked the breath out of us.

Love how this one turned out!

So beautiful and so happy!

The smartest thing Leisa did was choose to wear snow boots instead of regular shoes.

Gorgeous!

Thanks for being such a good sport Leisa and taking your cape off for this one! :)

LOVE you both so much!! Welcome to the family Leisa!

Travels and family pictures

My husband and I had decided that we were going to stay in Nashville for the Christmas holidays. We went home to the Northwest for Christmas last year and both he and my daughter were hospitalized with illnesses. Yuck. We went to Oregon to visit his fam in June and then Washington/cruise to Alaska in July with my fam. We were tired of traveling...

But things have changed and we decided to head west with a little stopover in Utah. I figure, E will only be "free" as far as flying terms go for just a while longer and believe it or not, tickets were extremely reasonable.

So.... I'll be out in Utah mid December and then up in Washington and Oregon (Oregon only for a few days though) so email me and let me know if you want to meet up or schedule a session. I probably won't have time to do any shoots in Oregon though. :( Sad.

A couple of weeks ago I had my friend Emily of Emily T Photography take our family pictures and she did such a wonderful job. I wanted to give her a little shout out and include a picture of my family. It's soooo nice to have awesome images of us and I can't wait to hang some of these as 16x24 prints on our wall! Can't thank you enough Emily!!!

I've changed my mind about wearing black for photographs. I LOVE it! :)

I'm sorry, but can I just say how cute I think my little girl looks here? Love her.

And one last cute little picture of my girl taken by me. We went out to an amazing park here in Nashville and just had a fun time playing with her ball. :)

#s-7 and 29-Buy a monitor calibrator and can my own jam

Before I make note of my goals may I please wax nostalgic for one moment? I LOVE tennis and in particular, love the US Open. I was lucky enough to attend two US Opens with my family before I was married and I have such wonderful memories of those times with my fam whom I love. I was so excited to watch Melanie Oudin shoot onto the stage this year. Such a class act and cute girl. My favorite was her shouts of, "Come on!" when she would do well. Can't wait to see more of her. Here are a few images from our last US Open in 2006... it's been way too long.

In 2006 it rained 2 of the 3 days we were there. This is how they dry off the courts.

Got to know my umbrella pretty well that trip.

Pardon the blur, this is what happens when you give you camera to strangers, I mean, my sister. :P Ha ha Em.

Goal #56 is to attend the US Open. Maybe next year? The year after? I only have two years to do it in.

Though I can't cross of that lovely goal above, I did buy a monitor calibrator and was able to can some strawberry jam. I'm still wondering if the calibrator was worth it. Though everyone will tell you to calibrate, there are many who admit that even calibrated, what you see on your screen and what gets printed isn't always the same. I finally resorted to calibrating and then tweaking a bit with images from my lab. I'm happy.

The strawberry jam is fantastic. You can see three jars in the picture. I made five, gave one away and we've already eaten the other. There is nothing like homemade jam and it's so easy to make! Life is good.

The one behind the camera

That would be me. The one, for the most part, behind the camera taking the family shots. My husband isn't all that bad at taking pictures though. Someday I dream of having a husband-wife team and making tons of money and spending our days together shooting, editing, etc. But until then I do most of the shooting.

Ella's life has been very well documented through photographs but there's almost always someone missing in the picture and that person is me. I look back over the thousands (yes... thousands) of images of Ella and there are only a small handful of images that include me.

We have yet to get professional images taken of my family. I know, your jaw just dropped right? My father-in-law who is also a photographer took our family's pictures in June when we were home in Portland but we have yet to pay someone, spend a couple hours with someone, walk around carefree with someone snapping away as we laugh, smile, kiss, squeeze, give loves, run, crawl, pick up sticks, etc.

Each day Ella gets bigger and my heart just aches as I realize that my little baby is growing up. It's time for me to do it, I can't keep putting this off. If you're stuck on the fence or just haven't gotten around to doing a family session don't wait. Your children will grow up right before your eyes. Make sure you've captured that time!

Until then, here are some images I took of Ella yesterday at Belle Meade Plantation here in beautiful Nashville.

A Vandy ball she loves playing with from her uncle

Can you see the ever so subtle lens flair? Love it!

She was more fascinated by sticks and rocks than anything else.

Just had to include this picture. Is this bark not gorgeous? And let me just say one my time how much I love my new lens.

She got blessed with long eyelashes.

It's really hard for me to stand by and watch Ella do anything which causes her to get dirty. Man. I just kept telling myself that she was having fun.