This is so exciting!!! Your chance to earn up to $5000 from my images! I am so excited this year to participate in this annual contest. The lab I use to print all of my images, Miller’s Professional Imaging, sponsors this contest every year. This is the first year I am actively going to participate in it. The process is pretty simple:1. You contact me and schedule your personal portrait session between now and June 21st.2. I take fabulous photos of your beautiful child/children3. I select the one I think is the best from the session and enter it into the contest!4. Each month, photographers from across the country will vote online for their favorite images that were entered that month.5. The finalists are voted on by photographers in July and, hopefully, one of my clients comes away with some cold hard cash! Prizes range from $500-$5000 in cash!NO STRINGS ATTACHED! Schedule a session and let me take care of the rest! See you soon!

Read the complete contest details here: http://www.millerslab.com/BabyChildContest/bc_howitworks.aspx

So, just as I say I’m going to post every day, my life gets really crazy for a few weeks.  Boy, those robo spammers were on to me!  It’s uncanny the amount of spam an idle blog will attract!  

While I’ve been away, I have been working hard on my graphic design skills! I’ve become committed to removing the cd purchasing option of my package and have worked very hard to design a good system for viewing proofs and ordering prints. Over the holiday season I designed several greeting cards, I’ve designed several collages and even one huge mural that I’ll show you soon.

Here is an example of the new proof book cover. Each client gets a personally designed cover for their proof book full of images. And YES! you get to keep the proof book! It’s all a part of the package.

Okay, I hear you.  I know.  I am a terrible blogger!  I’m sure anyone who was reading this has given up on me by now!  SO, in an effort to stop the spam comments from coming in (the robospammers like it when I don’t blog regularly) I am going to post something today… and hopefully every day or at least more regularly.  The “pre-Christmas-we-need-our-family-pictures-now” rush hit me hard (yay!) this year and I finally feel like I’m mostly caught up.  I’ll try to post some of those fun images for everyone to see in the next few days.  For today: I opened my photo editing software to get caught up on some images I made of friends’ children (these always end up at the bottom of the stack of things to do… sorry friends!) I opened to this image.  I just love it.  In fact, I love it so much it inspired me to get onto this blog and post!

Wow!  What a morning!  I was so excited to get to my job today.  I had the opportunity to handle and photograph sheets of money printed in the early 1900’s.  I had no idea that before the Great Depression, banks printed their own money.  It was signed by the president of the bank and the cashier.

Check out these scissors! They were used to cut the money. They were at least 18 inches long!

Check this out: the piece of paper on the top is a check from 1890…and that’s a stamp in the top right corner. They just put a stamp on the check and put it in the mail!

I have never been more proud to be a photographer as I was last Sunday.  I was honored to be a part of Hold That Hug a drop in family photo/play-date at the park in honor of Sarah E.M. Becking Six local photographers (and about a dozen other supporters!) donated time and energy to create this amazing event.  To see All of the AMAZING photos (and photos by Sarah that are for sale) go to www.becking.zenfolio.com  A slideshow of the event should be up soon at the Hold that Hug blog.

I think this photo of Ashley Turner and Kim Wade is a great example of what the day was like. (Thanks to Abbie Brown for taking pictures of the whole event for us!)

As I’m re-reading this…I’m just seeing that this doesn’t really express what I want it to. The day was so big, the event so big and so important. I met some amazing people who told me their personal stories and reasons for being there. It was so much bigger than me. It was so much bigger than what I can say here. Isaac (my 4 year old) called it a miracle…and in a way, it really was. I photographed a family with a teenage son who had never had a family picture made, I photographed a family who had lost their dad just 2 months ago, I photographed two little boys with their sticks that “gave them power”. Kim Wade took my family picture (look under hold that hug, silverbox photographers: kim wade–we’re the first one in her folder) and we LOVE it…you know, photographers are pretty hard to photograph.

There’s not really a good reason to call this post red letter day.  No big realizations occurred, it wasn’t even a particularly fantastic day.  I did, however, listen to ani difranco’s new cd, “Red Letter Year” the entire time I finished editing images from the Patek family’s annual photo session.  A great album and a really FUN family!  

This year, Heather, Jewel and two year old Mazie moved into their new, beautiful, stunning and wonderful new home and this summer welcomed baby sister, Emmerie “Emmie” to the family. I couldn’t wait to meet Emmie and see the new digs. (complete with pond, bounce house in the basement and the best bathroom ever!) My only regret from the photo session is that I didn’t spend more time taking pictures of the house to compliment the images of the girls.

I did manage to get these images of the girls’ rooms. I just loved these cool names on the walls:

As I edited images today…I just kept smiling…crying….smiling…that’s just how it is with me some days while editing. These images of Emmie really had me doing a bit of both:

The next greatest thing I noticed while editing these images….Mazie rarely holds still. Actually, this did not go unnoticed during the session. I just LOVE a two-year-old’s energy, joy, exuberance! I love it when I get a chance to capture that instead of trying to harness it in a static-hold-still-look-at-the-camera-picture. Although Mazie is beautiful, my favorite image might be the one where her head is actually OUT of the image because she was jumping up and down!

okay, just two more. This was hard…there were so many images I LOVED from this session. I love the relationship between siblings. These two are going to be fun to watch growing up together. The first one I love because it’s so cool when babies first realize that thing floating in front of their face is…connected to them! I was so tickled when I saw that I caught a picture of Emmie doing just that! And the last one…well, that’s just the bond between sisters, isn’t it?

I say it with almost every post, I love my job. And since Ani’s album has accompanied this whole day of editing, I think it is fitting to conclude with a quote from one of the new songs: “I’ve got myself a new mantra. It says, ‘don’t forget to have a good time!’” You can say that again!

One of my favorite exhibitions/contests/sales every year is sponsored by First National Bank in Columbia, MO. It occurs during the Columbia Festival of the Arts every Fall. I think it is so important to me personally because when I won first place in the Non-Professional division the first year I entered, it really gave me the motivation and encouragement I needed to find my way back to photography. The process I go through every year in selecting my images for entry gives me valuable insight into my progress as an artist. The first year I entered, I printed out 5 or 6 8×10’s on my home printer and hung them up in our home daycare-asking our clients to help me choose which ones to enter. (You can enter up to 2 images) They chose a different image than the one I would have picked but I went with their decision…and it won! So every year, I select 6 images from the past year and get as many people as I can to vote on their 2 favorites.

One great thing about the Visions contest is their ability to find quality judges every year. This year was no exception. I found this year’s judge, Gloria Baker-Feinstein, particularly impressive. If you have some time to sit with a cup of tea or coffee, visit her site. I found her words on the “convergence” gallery to be particularly moving. They really explain how I feel about photography and that moment when I stop time.

I am very pleased to announce that my entry titled, “The Birthday Tree” was awarded 2nd place in the Professional Division.

This entry is pretty special to me. It was taken using my toy camera, a Diana, and it shows the tree in our front yard. We tie ribbons to it to celebrate the birthdays of our family. I remember the morning I took it–It was my birthday, early February. It was cold and the light was coming through just perfectly. I thought it would translate well into black and white so I loaded my Diana up with actual black and white film and took one shot of it. When I finally processed the roll of film, most of it wasn’t any good….but this first shot took my breath away. Enjoy!

A big thank you goes out to the most fabulous on-line printing company:  Printing for Less without whom, this image would not have been created! First of all, they are just a fantastic company. They have done all of my brochure, business card printing. Recently, I had them do a job for The Marc Salon–a really cool card with their group photo on the front and the salon menu on the back. Printing for Less always gives me a call after the job is completed to make sure I am happy with the outcome. (Did I mention that aside from their superb printing, it’s their customer service that separates them from the crowd of online printers) They called yesterday afternoon and I looked out my studio window (something I often do when on the phone) and saw this great, crazy car sitting outside at the bank. As I was talking to the representative from THE ASPEN TEAM (The best team at PfL) I was taking pictures of this cool car.

SO, Aspen Team….this one’s for you! Enjoy!

So….first of all, let me apologize for not updating the blog more regularly. Who knew there were so many of you actually reading this! I have wanted to buy a lensbaby for quite some time. It’s this totally cool lens you can put on your SLR camera to selectively focus different parts of the frame. Check out the website for a more complete explanation. This weekend while at the judge’s lecture for the Visions Photography Exhibition, fellow photographer Lea Lichty, mentioned she had one for sale. After speaking with her about it, she surprised me by bringing it to the awards reception to let me borrow it and play around with it before making my decision to buy it. Well, Lea….if you’re reading this….better contact me quick—I’m hooked! Here are a few images I shot just looking out my studio window. If you know me, you know I’m a VW enthusiast–that explains the first one. The next one is of “my” gingko tree outside the studio window. I’m looking forward to watching the leaves change and fall this season-I’ve heard it’s magical! Keep checking in, I promise to post more this week!

I know, I know…I say it all the time….but I LOVE my job!!  A few nights ago I had the distinct pleasure of working with the stylists from The Marc Salon ON TOP OF THE GUITAR BUILDING!!  That’s right, we were on the rooftop at sunset.  I had been looking forward to this for weeks ever since the idea was brought up.  What a FUN group of people!  I also need to say an ENORMOUS and HUGE thanks to my good friend and sometimes assistant, Annie Parsons, who schlepped all the bulky and heavy equipment up the sort of scary flight of stairs to the roof, lent me her second opinion on the design of the shot, and shot these great pictures of me on the ladder on the roof.  Another big thanks to mother nature for providing a cool evening in August (!) with a slight breeze coming from the right direction!

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