Amber & Camdyn | Family Photography August 17, 2010

We had been trying to schedule this session for months…LITERALLY!

I started talking to Amber back in October or November of 2009 trying to find a time that would work for both of us. Let me just say, this proved to be more difficult than I imagined!

Amber lives in a small town about an hour from Amarillo, so we had to make sure first we could be in the same place at the same time…now this may not sound like a big deal, but let me tell you – Amber is a single mom who goes to school and owns her own business – talk about being busy!!! Along with that, I work a full time job with only every other weekend off and do photography as an on the side thing for now. I was almost beginning to think we’d never be able to coordinate this!

But finally, finally, FINALLY! we caught a break and were able to meet up. And I’m SOOOOOO glad we did because here’s what the results were:

Now Camdyn and Madilyn just happen to be best friends!

Amber, thank you so much for spending some time with me and allowing me to capture some special moments between you and Camdyn! You have so much in store with your future and I’m excited to be a little part of your journey. I can’t wait for our next session!

Manic Mondays | Weekend Update August 16, 2010

Well, it’s Monday again, worst day of the week for most of us. I posted this recently on Facebook and I’m pretty sure I apply this to most Mondays: For all those affected, Monday will be cancelled due to lack of interest. Totally love that saying now.

This weekend was emotionally exhausting to say the least. Lots of things going on in life and trying to slow things down and take them day by day again so they become more manageable.

One thing going through this whole emotional process that has been really positive, is learning to rely on God and prayer a LOT more than I have been. I feel that over these past few weeks I’ve been able to more clearly define my relationship with Him and it’s allowed me to do things I haven’t been able to in the past. This has been a blessing beyond belief. I feel like a weight has been lifted off me and I can breathe freely again.

With that being said, I’m going to rearrange my life and make sure that I’m putting God in the forefront of my life and my marriage. This isn’t going to be easy, it will take a lot of work and constant effort, but with time I’m sure it will just come naturally.

On another note, one of the blogs I’ve been following recently is called In the Name of Love. It’s written by Bianca Juarez, who just happens to be the twin sister of none other than Jasmine Star! She’s very insightful and inspirational and most importantly, real. Check it out for yourself, I think you’ll find some really good stuff.

This week be on the lookout for new blog posts of many shoots I’m still catching up on.

And because no post is any good without a picture, here is something that my fellow photog and partner in crime, Alena Swanson, posted last night. I think it’s highly entertaining!

Here’s hoping we all have a good start to the week!

Alex & Julia | Family Photography August 15, 2010

Today I’m introducing Alex and Julia. I had the pleasure of photographing these two little cuties back in June on a visit to Amarillo.

Originally this was supposed to be a family shoot, but their dad Gabe ended up having to work. But their mom Kim was determined to get pictures, so she got the girls ready and we met up at a little park.

Kim and Gabe, thank you for trusting me to capture these images of your wonderful girls. They are both full of so much personality and I really enjoyed getting to know them. I look forward to being able to capture the whole family sometime soon!

The Priests | Family Photography August 10, 2010

This post is going to be a little different because I need to catch everyone up on two different shoots for this gorgeous family. I’ll start with the most recent one. You might remember these guys from this post – First Shot or this one – Madilyn’s First Christmas. Well, I got to take them out again in June. I swear, I think if I lived in Amarillo again, I would be Madilyn’s personal paparzzi! Here are the pictures from their most recent shoot.

 

 

Mimzy joined the fun halfway through the shoot. Madilyn was all smiles after that!

In January, we celebrated Madilyn’s first birthday. I was supposed to post these a LONG time ago but, what can I say? At least I’m posting them now.

4 generations of women: Great Grandma Josie, Mimzy Dorothy, Mandi, and Madilyn.

Mimzy, Mandi and Madilyn had matching shoes! How crazy-cute is that?! Mandi had Madilyn’s special-made, they came out great!

 

Mandi had everything coordinated and had everything matching! She’s just like that lol.

I especially loved the customized birthday hat.

Yay for presents!

Give me cake!

And this is what happens when the 1 year old gets cake!

And look at this little cutie! Morgan looking good!

Well, now I’m caught up, with this family at least. lol Hope you enjoyed them!

Manic Mondays | Weekend Update August 9, 2010

Starting today, I’m going to be posting Manic Mondays at the beginning of the week.

Basically, I’ll be giving you an update of what I was up to during the weekend and some sneak peeks of what’s coming on the blog for the week.

Monday’s aren’t going to be entirely dedicated to photos, but just whatever is on my mind as well so you can get to know me better, like for example, my well loved Dr. Pepper post lol

This weekend, my mom was in town. She brought Hershey to see the specialist for her eye…and here’s the result of her visit.

Poor Hershey! But this should help her eye get better. She’s been running into things and not able to function properly, almost like she’s drunk. It’s entertaining and funny but sad all at the same time.

On Saturday, I went to a viewing of the movies that made it to the BEST FILMS of 2010 for the Albuquerque 48 Hour Film Festival.  The main purpose for going was to watch Chamber No. 6.  My friend Aimee’s brother, Davey, directed this movie and her boyfriend, Joseph, was part of the team that wrote the script. We watched 12 short films that were all made by local artists. Chamber No. 6 ended up winning best overall film of the entire Albuquerque leg of the festival and is now going on to a bigger competition. Honestly this movie totally deserved it! Please check out the link above and watch the film, it’s only about 7 minutes long. Also you can become of fan of Davey’s page, Lindele Media on Facebook. Here are some pics from the event.

Danielle and Aimee

Me, Danielle and Aimee

Davey accepting the award for their film.

Then on Sunday, I had the opportunity to 2nd shoot for Alena for a wedding that not only was she the photographer for, but also the planner! Talk about being multi-talented and multi-tasking! Here’s a sneak peak for you! I will be posting more pictures of the even next week so be sure to stay up to date on my posts!

Another update, that I’m really sad about actually, is that I didn’t win the Jasmine Star and CreativeLive contest. I was so sad that I actually boycotted my favorite photographer’s blog for a whole day and a half! LOL I know, I’m too much, but what are you gonna do. I’m back to looking at her blog again and there’s no hard feelings, she had a tough decision to make! There were over 100 videos submitted and she could only choose 6 people! On the upside, I will be purchasing the 5 day event downloads that I can watch at any time, so it’s like being there in spirit!

Hope you enjoyed the very first addition of Manic Monday!

The James Family | Family Photography July 31, 2010

I’m posting this very special blog today as an anniversary shout out to my Aunt Debbie and Uncle Ryan. They got married 11 years ago today and are still very happily married. I admire their faith in God and in each other and look up to them as a couple. I hope to continue to learn from them and hope to have a relationship as strong as theirs.      

   

Happy Anniversary you two, and to many more to come! Love you both!         

Back in January, I had the pleasure of taking my aunt and uncle and their family out around Amarillo for some updated family pictures. It ended up being the longest shoot I’ve done to date just because all of the different dynamics of the family – but it was totally fun!          

Them and their girls, Jordan, Ryleigh and Kyndal.        

        

         

        

     

        

         

Their daughter Jordan and grandson Morgan.        

          

Uncle Ryan and his dad Richard. These two are goofballs to the extreme! haha          

      

          

Camron, Jordan, and Morgan.      

   

        

         

        

        

        

The whole clan.    

         

Back when Ryleigh was little, Uncle Ryan had taken pictures with her in his fire gear (yep, he’s a firefighter!) and they wanted to do the same with Kyndal. I think these came out super cute!        

        

       

      

Then it was just Jordan, Camron and Morgan for some of their family pics. Morgan is just so cute!        

       

        

        

       

        

Today is also my cousin Jacob’s 1st birthday! Happy birthday Jake! Hopefully we will get a family session with them soon!          

Hope everyone has an awesome weekend!       

   

 

Bea | Headshots July 29, 2010

My friend Bea went to Haiti a couple weeks ago. She is there with her church for a few weeks to help with the continued clean up after the awful earthquake that destroyed so many lives. Bea has the kindest heart of anyone I know and her beauty shines from the inside out.

The weekend before she left out of the country, she asked me to take updated headshots of her. She said it had been years since she had had pictures done. We met up by the mountains on a Friday afternoon and had fun just chatting and walking around, watching a beautiful sunset.

I entered this next picture into a contest call “Passion for Light”. The voting starts today, so if it’s not too much trouble, please stop by and vote for my picture! If I win (another one in a million shot here ) the photo would get published on the front cover of Rangefinder Magazine. Please vote here: http://covercontest2010.pictage.com/static/vote.html!

We are all praying for Bea and that she has a safe journey back. She is an inspiration to many!

Mexican Riviera Vacation | Personal July 28, 2010

Back in May, my husband Chris and I went on our very first cruise! We went for total of 7 days with 3 stops – Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan, and Cabo San Lucas. It was SOOOOOOOOOOOOO amazing! No driving, room service, all you can eat food, and really awesome service. Seriously the best vacation I’ve ever taken! I never got around to posting my pics from the trip, I’m sharing them for the very first time with you today!

So I’m pretty sure cruises are the way to go as far as vacationing! If you’ve never been on one, please go, you won’t regret it (even if you get sea-sick the first night on board like I did!). We are already talking about going on our next cruise to Alaska! Not as fun as tropical places, but it’s where Chris really wants to go and it would be really cool to see some whales!

There was this pretty little flower just waiting to have it’s picture taken! I wish there were more pretty plants like this in New Mexico. Ugh, if only I didn’t live in a desert!!!

Chris checking out the view from our room. I think it’s a cool pic.

Walking around and exploring the ship. IT WAS HUUUUUUUUUGE!!!

The inside was cool looking, but most of it was pink…ick! The main elevators were the best.

And here’s what it looked like coming down in that elevator.

Our first stop was Puerto Vallarta. We did a sight seeing, shopping and beach tour. This was from the sight seeing. A really old pretty church.

We saw huge iguanas from the bus. I think these are bigger than the ones we saw in St. Thomas!

Then it was finally time to hit the beach! It was overcast and kinda crummy weather that day, but the water was still good. I got knocked over by a big time wave (not the one in the picture surprisingly) and both Chris and I came out bleeding! haha

The next day it was off to Mazatlan! It was so pretty there and we had a really awesome tour guide. (I always look super funny in pictures, that’s why I’m always taking them but hardly in them!)

There were cliff divers there that did this for tourists all day – according to our tour guide this is the only way they made money.

They had  a very small space to land and they had to wait until the waves were just right so they wouldn’t kill themselves. Pretty scary I must say. I would never do this…well maybe! lol

This is the back of the place where they jumped off of. It was very cool looking and it reminded me of The Little Mermaid.

We went to a Mexican show in Mazatlan and saw a bunch of different cool performances. This was was by far the coolest though! They four guys spun all the way to the floor, it was nuts!

I took a picture with my favorite dancer from the day, she is BEAUTIFUL! I look REALLY funny standing next to her!

We liked to head out on the deck when the ship was leaving ports. The houses here were very colorful.

So dinner was probably my favorite part of the whole day. We had assigned tables and waiters so we got the same people every night. Our waiter’s name was Gede (pronounced G’day) from Indonesia. He was awesome. So was his assistant waiter, Fredo from Peru. I have to admit, I had a slight crush on Mr. Fredo – he reminded us of the little French car from Cars. He was too cute! I had planned to get pictures of our waiters the last night on the ship, but Chris ended up sick so I stayed with him in our cabin. The maitre’d was too funny. Overall the wait staff was the BEST. Every night they did something different to entertain us. A couple of the nights, they had the waiters get up on the serving tables and dance. There was this one guy that danced better than any girl I’ve ever seen! The pictures below they were dancing to Get Low by FloRida and probably one of the funniest things I had ever seen. I can’t even tell you how impressed I was and still am by the service we got on that ship!

He was getting down with his bad self!

We had two formal nights on the cruise and we had our pictures taken.

Our last stop was in Cabo San Lucas. We couldn’t port in this stop to protect the coral, so we had to be ferried to land by little boats. This was our ship anchored out in the sea.

We took a smaller boat tour around the very tip of Cabo, Land’s End. It looked like parts of Pirates of the Caribbean.

The waves were amazing to watch.

Notice anything floating in the water in this one below?

It’s these sea lions just catching some sun and relaxin’! They were on vacation too apparently.

A cool cave.

We chilled at a resort in Cabo. We totally did not get enough time here. We got the most expensive drinks! These little guys cost us $16!!!! But they were good. And of course I spilled mine all over myself…

Then we went to the mall! It was easy making new friends.

This is the outside of the mall! I want one!

Our awesome waiter Gede took this picture. Meet our table mates!

And meet the people at the next table, also taken by Gede lol. The lady totally cracks me up!

Another cool part of the trip was coming in to your cabin every night after dinner. There was always a new little face to greet us!

By far my favorite…

This was definitely an awesome trip. I can’t wait to do it again. Hope everyone enjoyed the pics and sorry it took me so long to get these posted!

Jennifer & Chris | Engaged July 27, 2010

Jennifer and Chris are high school sweethearts. You don’t see that very often anymore. They are getting married this September and I have the privilege of photographing one of the most important days in their lives.

We met up back in May to do their engagement pictures and let me just say, I had a blast hanging out with them! They are such a fun couple and always kept me laughing. We started out at the Albuquerque Botanic Gardens and got some amazing shots.

After the gardens, we drove up to the top of Sandia Peak for some amazing sunset photos.

Jen and Chris, thanks for being yourselves and just having fun. I can’t wait until your wedding, it’s going to be amazing!

Jasmine Star and CreativeLIVE | Workshops July 26, 2010

If you know me or follow me on Facebook, you know that one of my FAVORITE photographers is Jasmine Star. She is a wedding photographer based in Orange County, California and photographs weddings with her husband JD as her second shooter. (How awesome is that?!) She rose up in the business very quickly and is ALWAYS lending a helping hand to anyone that asks for it, including competing photographers. She responds to all questions and comments made to her on her Facebook Fan Page – she’s that dedicated! She blogs pretty much every day and sometimes does FAQ posts which are always helpful. But I think the best thing about her is that she’s completely humble. You can tell from her writing and in any of the videos, interviews, or podcasts you hear her on. Basically, she’s just amazing and I would love any chance to get to attend one of her workshops or see her speak at WPPI or any other convention that she is at.

So imagine my excitement when I see this on her blog: “Yes, that’s right. I’ll be hosting a FREE online seminar over the course of five days–August 25-29, 2010. I can’t wait to have you join me on the web, and if you’d like to attend in person, I’d love to have you! Like the video stated, six photographers will be chosen for the live filming in Seattle, and all you need to do is film a 60 second video and let me know the following:
*Your name
*Where you’re from
*What you shoot
*And ask me a question to answer on CreativeLive. “

Here’s my video that  I submitted in hopes to win this completely awesome opportunity. I know it’s a one in a million shot, but I would have regretted it if I didn’t even try. I’ve been looking at videos that other people have submitted and mine’s not nearly as cool as some of them, but hey, had to work with what I had lol…so here’s my video submission.

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1329251839322&ref=mf

The deadline for videos is July 30 and the workshop is already less than a month away. Keep your fingers crossed for me!!! I REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY WANT TO WIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Even if I don’t win, I can still attend the workshop from home online, but it wouldn’t be nearly as cool as being there in person, learning from and shooting next to one of the most influential wedding photographers EVER.

And because I don’t like to have a post without some kind of picture, here’s just a fun one for you!

I’ll be sure to keep you all updated with all results. Hope everyone starts their week off right and that no one ended up like the picture above lol – Happy Monday!