If you follow my blog at all, you know I love my job.  I just feel so utterly lucky to get to spend my days doing the thing I love the most.  Monday was no exception.  It was a beautiful day, weather-wise.  (What’s with this lovely, coolish weather in late July??!!)  I got to go for a drive in the country and meet up with a really wonderful family.  I hadn’t seen them sense their second child, Mae, was 2 months old.  Baby number three, Sophia, was just 10 days old and ready to go for her first photo shoot.  I hate to tell you, Sophia, but you were totally upstaged by your big brother, Henry, and big sister!  Those two stole my hearts.  Henry could have talked to me all day, I think.  Well, we headed outside for some family photos and the first thing I saw was a cute little snake slithering up the tree!  After we all examined it, we took some fun family photos and then the two big kids got on the ground (because I was on the ground) and came slithering over to me.  I captured them the whole way and then they jumped on me and wrestled me to the ground.  Luckily, the whole family - including grandparents and children- seemed to have a camera going so someone captured this great image of us on the ground:

Sometimes (well, actually… lots of the time) I get to meet some extraordinary people. Last week I had the opportunity to meet a woman who turned 101 years old today. My mom helps take care of her so she brought her down to the studio to be a part of my SnapRAGEous event. (more images to see from that coming soon!) I was so impressed with Ms. Lucy. To be 101 and so active and full of spice! She was so full of stories to tell. I wish I had all day to listen to them! I was mostly excited she was willing (and happy to) don a funny hat and be a part of the SnapRAGEous experience!

Recently a family came to one of the events here at Orr St. and fell in love with this photograph I have on display.  Evidently, their family doctor has a collection of photos and paintings depicting Harley Davidson motorcycles with babies and children.  Wondering if he might like to add it to his collection, I was asked to display it so they could check it out.  I hope everyone enjoys it!  I sure have for years.  This was one of my great families I worked with early on.  This ‘tough’ guy teaches high school english.  The baby was a premie and if I remember correctly, was actually 5 weeks old at the time of this session.

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!

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!

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