3 things to do while your Pregnant

3 Things to do while your Pregnant

1. keep a journal

2. write your child a letter of how excited you are to meet  them

3. have a maternity session done and include a photo with the letter to your child. Give them the letter and photo when they leave home.

Fun Photo Session Idea for Kids

Oh Yeah, this was a blast! All I used was a white paper backdrop and finger paint! Fun for a summer day.

Oh Yeah, this was a blast! All I used was a white paper backdrop and finger paint! Fun for a summer day.

Great Pregnancy/Maternity Pose

I love this pose for a pregnancy photos. I love how it focuses on her, but her husband stands behind her wrapped around her.  The amazing complexities of life can be photographed in a second and mean so much.

Mother and Daughter Photo Sessions

You are never too old or too young or too busy, you looks and beauty are always enough and you could never give your daughter a better gift. Start a tradition and schedule one day a year to have a mother and daughter photo session. You will never be sorry.

have fun!

Do a photo session with your daughter and include something you love to do together. These pictures are treasures. They only become more valuable as the years pass.

Baby Love

Love on those babies! Oh and then get them photographed of course <3

3 Great Examples on What to Wear for your Family Photo Sessions:)

I get this question a lot! Here are a few of my recent favorites picks for outfits. Bright coordinating colors photograph great. The denim and white in the last photo makes for natural sweet photo. Be bright, be natural, most of all be you!

read this before you do your newborn session

no matter how you look or feel, can I give you one piece of advice?  Choose to take some photos with your precious newborn. I have posted about this before, I just see it so many times.  Some mommies I manage to talk into taking a few, other refuse, but if I can tell you from my heart, be in at least a few! I would be very surprised in you ever regret it and I know your baby will never regret it. It is such precious time and then it is gone, and you can't get it back. So PLEASE be in your photos with your baby:)

Advice for a Great Photo Session

One of the keys to a successful session is relaxed parents. We all want the great shots, but when we try force our children to sit and smile when they clearly are much happier doing what normally make them happy, why not follow them.  My advice for this evening, to moms and dads that want great shots is to relax :) Love those babies, don't worry about perfection, just focus on the relationships you have with your children and I will capture it. Good night <3

couples and their babies

I LOVE family photos, I love photos of mommies and daughters and dads and their boys. All of you that know me know how much I treasure images with my children. But here is a thought I wanted to share, that I fall short on many times and in many ways, but when was the last time you took the time to take some beautiful memories with your spouse. Not only are you the foundation for your children, but we should value our relationships with our husband or wife. It is incredibly special and so are they. 

Oh and here is a book suggestion that helps you remember: The Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas. My beautiful friend put this book in my thoughts and I finally sat down to read it. If every person in a marriage would read it I think there would be more loving couples and less divorces. 

Giveaway!

GIVEAWAY

 I wanted to do another giveaway for the holiday season. This one is a bit different from the last.

I am incredibly blessed. I know how much I have and truly do count my blessings everyday. Here are a few from my list:


#431 health
#855 bedtime story giggles
#859 house littered with books, art and crumbs
#988 clean water
#925 rain at night, shelter and a roof
#935 prayer

and the list continues. I know there are people out there in need. I know some of them well and some from a distance.

For as long as I have been doing photography I have wanted to change something with my pictures. First I wanted to be a journalist and allow people glimpses into to other worlds, so they could help. Now, of course I am a wife and mother and I want to stay close to home. I do family and children photography because I feel like I am showing the beauty of love and relationships, and that fills my spirit.

This giveaway is for people in need. You can nominate yourself or anyone else. Please leave their story or yours below.

I am sure I will want to give the session to everyone, so I apologize in advance. This is for someone who needs some joy, something to hold onto, or for someone who is celebrating something amazing they have had to overcome.

Please tag and share this. Leave your story below in a comment or on facebook or in an email to me and share this post for your chance to receive a FULL SESSION (details on location and date must fit into my holiday schedule)

I will choose a winner on October 1, 2013

Smile

After a long break, I am going to try include blogging into my crazy life once again! So I thought I could just start you all out with a smile :)

Peace Sign Project May 18

Friday May 18 Peace Sign Project!!! Please message me if you can make it.

Wedding Sweetness

Spring is Here!!

Image Collection {online portfolio #4}

One of my great friends, along with one of my favorite photos. I love that this is the photo in between the ones of them all sitting and looking at the camera. I love the way the boys are being themselves, the younger snuggled on his daddy's lap and the older boy being curious and exploring. The way that the couple look at one another with love and sweetness and tenderness despite all of the trails that come with children and marriage. This reminds of a real and authentic happy family. 

"Family is one of God's Greatest Masterpieces." don't know who said this but it is so true.

busy busy busy

I will get back to my favorites collection, I have been busy at the beautiful Davis Island Garden Club with  a great couple. Looking forward to a busy spring!

Image Collection {online portfolio #3}

 This image brings my joy, bring me a smile every time I look at it. It was taken at the Davis Island Garden Club in Tampa. I took a series of images as she spun, practiced and danced around ignoring my

presence. It was so refreshing that she just kept doing what she was doing. That comes in childhood, innocence, I think. We lose more and more of it as years go on, so looking at her reminded and I was thankful for her.

                                                                                                                                                              joy/joi/

Image Collection {online portfolio #2}

             I have included a few portraits of women on the morning of their weddings. They go from 4-5 hours before their ceremonies all the way in the limo the way to the alter. I feel wedding photography can be even more then even telling the whole story of a wedding, it is a passage way in a woman's life and soul. If the couple chooses to stay the course through a lifetime, a marriage can transform you to depths that could never be reached, would never be reached without it. I have only be married for 6 years and I am learning this.

           These women are beautiful, in love, they dress, they prepare, they readying themselves to new, to be different. I believe they will never be the same. I think further and I picture their young daughters viewing these, seeing her mother the morning she married their father. Glowing woman, classic, independent of dependents and I all can think is how her daughter's eyes may light up at the thought of that being her one day. For me these portraits carry so much more, sometimes more then the ceremony, or the bride and groom standing firm in their pose. This is her, now and becoming.

Jennifer checking her hair

                                                   Stephanie applying her last coat of gloss

Ashley moments before her father sees her

Amanda in her robe spraying her perfume

Jennifer on her bed all dressed

 

 Stephanie with 30 seconds until her walk

Jen with all bridesmaids helping her dress

                                                  Jennifer in her limo, leaving the hotel

Image Collection {online portfolio #1}

One of my absolute favorite images. Black and white film, I was on a wedding as a second photographer, a gorgeous tall woman with a flowing wedding gown and all of her eight bridesmaids there to help her as she dressed. Before having a digital camera that fact that I took two full rolls of 36 photos in her hotel on getting ready photos alone, was excessive. Now of course 72 frames seems not enough for such a time. There were a few that I loved from this sequence, but this by far the one that stays with me. I believe this wedding was in 2005. There is some work I keep from 2005, simply to show my growth as a photographer, but I keep this one to remind me to work that hard always. To work like I have to catch it a roll of film, rather then limitless attempts with a digital camera.  I can remember how inspired I was that day and how I was able to pick out some moments that are simply timeless. Digital cameras, unlimited frames, 7 extra years of experience and I can still honestly tell you it is in my heart, the rest is just technology and age... 

xoxo