The Thomas Family {Portraits}

Well I must say, Allison and her family have been super patient with me this past month. Life has brought me lots of changes in such a short period of time and I've been trying so hard to focus. Finally, I'm coming out of my fog (more on that later) and hallelujah, the blog post is finally up!!

We spent a few hours in Chapel Hill on UNC's gorgeous campus. Allison, Donald, Stephen and Charlie were such a pleasure to work with, including their little puppy Sylar. I promised a puppy and here he is!!


This photo makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside on a sunny afternoon.






I really wanted to debut my new watermark logo on these photos but I COULD NOT delay this posting any longer and I have been having some issues with format. So, I guess that will have to wait until my next photo shoot, which wouldn't you know it, is my first wedding next month!

Ava {Pet Portraits}

What a beauty!! Ava was rescued by her mommy Lark from a pretty bad situation and thank goodness! What a great dog and what a gorgeous breed, the Siberian Husky. While Ava had a few moments where she couldn't sit still (and what dog doesn't?), she is such a sweetheart and I loved working with her and Lark today.

Dogs are so funny. I can sit there and make every obscene noise in the book and jump up and down and not have them flinch. But god forbid someone (a stranger, or someone they haven't seen yet) walks by or says one word, they all dart their faces in that direction...haha..I think it's hysterical. I've joked with the past two clients how I'm going to start hiring the bystanders to dart out at any given moment to get the dog to look in the right direction! lol. As for this session, we didn't need to come to that...Ava was very patient and I got a lot of great shots this afternoon. Here are a handful of my faves!

For this first photo, I just want to make it a point to say that I have not touched this photo with any editing software, well besides my tag on it, but that's it! I just wanted the raw image straight from the camera to give you the most crystal clear idea of just how beautiful this dog is.


Here is Ava and her mommy Lark!


Say hello to some gorgeous Christmas cards!




Just stunning!


I am so thankful for all of the photo opportunities I have had in the past few months. I want to thank Lark and Ava for spending a somewhat chilly afternoon with me. I hope you have a wonderful holiday and Christmas cards and photos to remember!!

The Loftin Family {Portraits}

Boy was it chilly today!! It's finally starting to feel like Christmas (and not only in the shopping malls!). This afternoon I had the pleasure of photographing Megan and Patrick with their two dogs Amos and Caden. Todays shoot consisted of muddy paws, funny noises and yes, even waving a large stick (didn't quite work out like I'd planned-apparently little kids running around are more interesting!) ;) In the end, I got some great shots and we had a darn good time doing it!

I laughed as soon as I took this shot of Caden and had to show Megan and Patrick on my camera right away. What a ham!!






Wow, what a gorgeous family!! ;) Thanks so much for letting me capture you all. It was great working with you and I know your Christmas cards are going to be adorable! Happy holidays!!

The Mitchell Family {Portraits} take one

Wow what a week!! I should so be in bed right now but I had to blog at least a couple of photos from todays shoot. For five hours sleep after a 12 hour night shift, I'd say these aren't half bad. ;) Robin and Mitch and their dogs Boss, Chappy and Wrigley decided to pose for me on this most beauuuutiful fall day. Robin and I went to nursing school together and have been through so much...I was thrilled when she asked me to take some family portraits. To me, pets are like family, so that's how I categorize these photos as well. ;)




Off to bed and a hellacious day of an 8 hour class, nap and then a 4 hour shift from 7p-11p. Hope to have some more teasers up soon!!

Tar Heel Boxer

Saw this gorgeous boxer today outside the meeting place for the lighting class I went to today (pics to follow of assignment). Can you believe he was actually riding a skateboard?? By the time I had asked permission to take his photo, he was more interested in the group than his board. I think one of the other people in class may have gotten a good shot of this though! Too cute.

I can see your halo!

Having fun with a little light. Light that is FREE I might add. I was able to catch Colby in a few poses but that little monster won't stay still for an instant. I put my finger over the bottom of my flash to try and get a little light in front since the sun was right behind him. Still working on that. ;)

What A Ham.

I have new shots of Colby I will hopefully upload tomorrow but I just can't get enough of what a good little model Cooper is. Playing around with shutter speeds yesterday, I realized that Colby requires a much faster one. He just can't sit still for the life of him!!! I did manage to get some goodies of him though.

Still reading and playing around with RAW image formats. Found the disks that came with my camera and uploaded software that handles RAW images. I am currently shooting RAW+JPG just to get some working material (but still have the JPG's since I know what to do with those!!).

I have a shoot scheduled for Sunday with a friend and her nephew so hopefully the weather will hold out!! I hope to break out some of my old photography work from like 10 years ago using film...I just have to scan them in. Should be interesting to recap on those fundamentals and assignments I had back in high school.

Oldies, but goodies

Here are some pet photos from the past!




haha...I love catching them in awkward moments.

The Many Faces of Cooper

If you know me, you know I love to photograph my pets. They are my biggest guinea pigs when testing out something new I've learned. Meet Cooper, our adorable yet finicky 3 year old tabby who we adopted at just 6 months old (he's a youtube star as well..lol). Cooper is by far the top model of the house because he stays still long enough and moves just enough to give you a different angle or "look". It's hysterical but I think he's been watching too much Tyra with me.

This first photograph really intrigues me. It was one of my first shots (and dark because I had just gotten done taking photos outdoors). It was just a test shot but holy cow!!




Wow!! What a difference from uploading to flickr.com vs. photobucket.com!!
I really love close up shots that show a lot of detail (macrophotography?!?). This is Coopers' "get out of my face" look, but really I was just zoomed all the way in, but from the look on his face, he knew it!

There will be many more posts about photos of the babes (we have two of them!). Colby doesn't sit very well...only when he's napping, so I'll have to catch him soon.