farewell to summer...

I always look forward to sessions with older siblings. It seems to open the door to some creative opportunities that can be harder when you're chasing little ones around. I absolutely loved this session with the Adams' kiddos. We shot these pictures on the afternoon before school started. I'm not sure it was their ideal way to end their summer vacation but I can tell you that I for one had a total blast. And they were promised ten bucks each by their grandmother if they cooperated so all in all, I think everyone won.


I love these pictures of McKenzie and Ethan. They are very close in age and clearly have the love/hate thing going on. I did not prompt any of this sequence at all other than asking him to stand by his sister. Ethan is one photogenic kiddo. I love his serious face. Such a doll. And I don't even have to tell you how sweet she is...doesn't her smile just say it all?

One day they will all love each other and enjoy being close to one another. This day has not yet arrived. I think the ten dollars was necessary for these next couple. :)

Doesn't she look like a little surfer model? It's amazing how much people will pay for these kind of highlights...I love the way they all three have the same sparkle in those brown eyes. You can really see it in these next three.



I mean, seriously, could they GET any cuter than this? I think this would look awesome as a big canvas. I love their serious expressions...I can't believe I managed to get any without McKenzie smiling!
Thanks for a super fun shoot, guys!

Matt & Julie

Matt and Julie's wedding earlier this summer was awesome. Seriously beautiful. From the location to the colors to the flowers to the gorgeous bride, everything just seemed to come together. I know there was a lot of work behind all of that but they made it seem so effortless!

Matt and Julie are high school sweethearts. That made for some awesome pictures in their rehearsal dinner slideshow but much more important than that, their ease and comfort with one another could not be more apparent. Though it is clear they are madly in love, there is no doubt that it is grounded by a deep and lasting friendship. Matt and Julie, thanks for letting us be a part of your wedding day! We had a blast.


Aren't these bridesmaid's dresses awesome? I love the way that they pop in the pictures. A little pre-wedding prep. Is Julie a picture-perfect bride or what?


This was our first wedding reception to shoot at Vulcan and it was an incredible venue. The sun set on their first dance overlooking the city and it could not have been more perfect. We were so excited to go up to the top of the statue once it got dark to take a few more pictures. The excitement was limited to the taking picture part because I have to admit that I am very scared to ride up that elevator and walk on that grated floor up there! Still, it was very worth it. I love love love these shots on the stairs.

new babies...

Newborn shoots seem to come in spurts. It's like I'll go weeks without any and then all of a sudden, there are all these new babies to photograph! Last month it seemed that it was all boys being born...everyone who called me was having a boy. But August seems to be the time for girls. Hooray!

Sweet little Avery was only a week old when we did these pictures last week. She was an absolute angel (though a hungry one at times) through the whole session. Isn't her hat the cutest thing ever? She seemed so tiny to me...

getting cuter all the time...

If this isn't the cutest thing you've seen all day...

These pictures are actually a few weeks old but we have had so much fun with these first smiles. I am amazed at the amount of time we can spend just staring at him! Things in our life have definitely changed over the past couple of months but it's really true that I cannot imagine our world without him here. These were just some snapshots on his changing table one morning. For whatever reason, no matter how tired or hungry he is, the second he lays on that changing table, he just lights up. It is so much fun!

Everyone continues to tell us that he is going to be the most photographed baby in the world. I am here to (sadly) tell you that this is not true! We're working on it, though.

grayson

Grayson is another sweet kiddo that I have been privileged to photograph since he was just days old. Not a baby any longer, we took these pictures the other day in a race to beat a quickly arriving thunderstorm. I'm not sure if it was the thunderstorm or his 18-month-old energy that was the real cause of the race but I can tell you that we all spent the whole session running! As always, my hope is that these pictures would capture this time in life and in doing so, somehow celebrate the gift Grayson is to all those who love him.

Also, I should mention that this was the first time I have used this particular spot for pictures! I kind of happened upon it but thought that it was a great spot. Let me know if you're interested in this kind of location!

bears and bubbles

I'm not even sure I need to write anything to tell you what a delight and joy little Sophie is. If you've been a long time blog faithful, you'll know that I've been photographing this sweet girl for awhile now and even I can't believe how much she's changed just since last fall! As her mama told me after seeing the pictures, her baby face is gone and she is such a big girl now!

Jenna and Garrett

It feels like we have been looking forward to Garrett and Jenna's wedding forever! Over the past year, we shot engagement and bridal pictures in preparation for the big event. During that time, I feel like I got to know Jenna pretty well and really see her sweet and joyful spirit. When I told her about our baby coming home, she celebrated with us like we'd been friends forever. That is an unspeakable gift to me! I knew that when we photographed their wedding, that joyful spirit would be overflowing.

I have to say that it was suffocatingly hot on the day of their wedding. Seriously. I cannot even convey to you the amount of humidity in the air. Seriously. Jenna and Garrett were great sports about it and I love the shots that we got. We had to race outside before a huge thunderstorm to get pictures of the wedding party and barely made it in as the raindrops began to fall. Talk about a crazy day! We had a great time, though, and were so thankful to be there to capture such a beautiful day!

Jenna and Garrett opted to see each other before the ceremony. We are always so excited when that happens! They had one of the sweetest first looks that I have ever seen.

It was so cool that Jenna and the girls could see everyone arriving for the ceremony!

The golf theme was all over the groom's cake at the reception! It was super cute.

travels...

A couple of weeks ago, we took our first family road trip to see some friends. On the way there, we stopped for this photo shoot with the McKnatt family. It was one of those things that just kind of fell together at the last minute but because of that, it was really fun and natural. These pictures were taken in a town called Leiper's Fork and it is truly one of my favorite places in the world. I love the interaction between this brother and sister...the perfect mix of loving each other one second and pushing away the next. And talk about amazing blue eyes.

life...

So...from time to time, my mom likes to send me packages in the mail. It's really awesome. Apparently she saved all of the pictures we drew, crafts we made, and notes my brother and I wrote when we were little. For the past couple of years, she will include one of these creations in with a package that she sends to me. The one that I got yesterday made Corey and I both laugh out loud. From the print, I am guessing I was about 6 or 7 at the time of composure. All that it said was this (in all caps and purple crayon):

"No one cares about me. Just my dumb brother."

This confirms two things for me, both strangely comforting. One, I love my brother. There is nothing like the connection, friendship, and laughter we share. Two, I tend to be a bit on the dramatic side. I guess that I always have been. I like to make extreme statements; sometimes this is because I really believe them. At times--okay, a lot of the time--this makes me feel like a crazy person. My emotions tend to take over the rational part of me and it's often hard to reel that back in. Sometimes though, I feel like it helps me to just really experience life. To soak it in and feel it really deeply.

There seems to be a lot of emotion to feel these days. Our life feels really full right now. Really joyful and new. Laughter feels deeper and connections to other people feel more authentic than before. I also feel stretched in new ways and some of those make me feel really tired and also very scared. It also feels like there are a lot of really hard things happening around us right now, too. A lot of things that don't seem to make any sense, that seem to be in direct contradiction to what seems so true in our own lives right now. I have been able to photograph some families lately who have been vulnerable with me in ways that have made me connect anew to what I want to do and be as a photographer. For these things, I am very grateful.

My shoot with the Edwards family was one of my favorites that I've shot in awhile. I was able to just let them be themselves and then work to capture that. For many families that I photograph, I think that this is harder than showing up for what they consider to be a typical photo shoot geared up to smile and pose. And yet it is truly my heart as a photographer. I long for families to see the beauty in their children, in their families, in their story together.

Also on that note, we had the chance to watch Steven Curtis Chapman and his family on CNN tonight talking about the dark days their family has walked through this summer. There are really no words but I can promise you that it is worth watching.