I don’t know about you, but I’m busy. I barely have time to post my images on Facebook, let alone keep up an active blog whilst working, cleaning, playing, photographing, editing… Oh my goodness, I literally just remembered I had laundry to fold, so left to go do that. How on earth do people blog consistently? But I’m going to try.

I figure I have tons and tons of happy pictures of my kids. I have family photographs of clients, my own family, my kids, my friends. And they are sitting on my hard drive or on Facebook, while my poor blog gets neglected. I need to share more often!

I figured I start off my newfound bloggery (is that a word???) with pictures from a recent weekend adventure where I went to visit my brother, sister-in-law, and the cutest little niece that has ever existed. I knew I had to go visit when I heard my niece was doing something I never in a million years would have thought she would do. When she was little, she was highly anxious. She was scared of a looooot of things, even afraid to go into restaurants and could hardly look you in the eyes. Never ever would I have imagined that one day, as only a 5 year old, that she would decide to stand up on stage at her school’s talent show and sing “Rainbow Connection” to a packed crowd. But that’s exactly what she did. And while she had originally planned to wear an assortment of rainbow colored clothing, in the end, she went with wearing her Halloween Dorothy costume, which clearly, was the right choice.

Every five year old loves to dress up and spin. I’m just the lucky one who got to photograph her!

After a quick photo shoot in their front yard, we were off to the school! We made sure to get there early so we could have front row seats! Look how excited she is!

She was the first solo act. I cannot even believe how amazing she did singing on stage. She sang EVERY verse. Oh my goodness. She’s perfection. Before it started, my sister-in-law whispered to me “I can’t believe this is the same girl that was afraid to go into restaurants.” She was so proud. We all were!

I loved how she waved to her parents as the curtain closed. And that black and white photo? That’s her watching the next act. Look at her faaaaace. I love her!

The next day, we went and played around and ended up back at her school just around when the light was starting to get really pretty. We had a little impromptu family photo session, because, well, because pictures are important. And family pictures are the most important.

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This is my third time photographing this family, and I hope I can do this every year forever, because well, you’ll see. They’re just beautiful people. The little boy has two different colored eyes and the longest lashes and the sweetest little personality and oh my goodness….when he got out of the car and his beautiful mom introduced him to me (I  haven’t seen him in two years), he came right up to me and said “Hello Miss Laura,” and then he wrapped his teeny little arms around my neck and gave me the sweetest hug and gave me the most darling smile. Seriously??? I was in love instantly and if I thought I could have outrun them, I may have just gone and taken him, because because… well, you’ll see.

The interesting thing about this particular family session was how it started. I have to say this is my first photography session where I had to call 911. Yep. That’s right. 911. And it wasn’t because it was an emergency that this family was so beautiful.

When I first got there, I heard some popping and looked over and saw a fire. I honestly thought it was a controlled fire at first, and just kept walking around, just checking out the area and light. And then I hear a guy screaming “Oh my GAH!” and start bolting across a field. He looks at me and asks me to call…well, screams at me to call 911. I was like “um, that’s not a CONTROLLED fire?” And he says “The stairs are on fire!” I look more closely, and sure enough a flight of stairs is on fire with low hanging tree branches getting pretty dang toasty. So, I whip out my phone and call 911 while he goes running to get a hose. Freaking crazy. So, the firefighters came just as my lovely clients were arriving. I fully expected this little five year old Kindergartener to be like “yo, there’s a fire truck and I ain’t goin’ anywhere because, um, THERE’S a FIRE and a FIRETRUCK.” But instead, he was super darling, listened to his parents, and we just walked to an area far away from the firetruck so we could get our photos on.

I did mention he has two different colored eyes, right? Seriously, I’m sure you don’t blame me for being completely enamored by this child.

Look at his eyelashes….. OMG. His eeeeeyyyyyeeeellllassssshesssss…..He loves his mama. It’s really quite adorable.

Did I mention I love his eyelashes? I did? Are you sure? OK. Good, because OMG. Mama had the prettiest hair ever and obviously just adores her son.Seriously? Just… seriously. I love everything about this. His hair, his eyes, his face, his pose, and that cute little bruise on his elbow. I love how he’s doing his own little kissy face watching his parents kiss, and the look that mom and dad were giving each other kind of melted my heart.

Aren’t they gorgeous?

After we had kept our distance from the firetruck for a majority of our session, I realized that the chances of having a shiny firetruck at your disposal, parked in a field, as the sun is getting low in the sky, are pretty much next to nil. So, I smacked my face a little for having almost missed the opportunity and then used that shiny truck as a backdrop. And once I got home and looked at those images, I felt quite strongly that a blue sky with clouds HAD to be added to the photos. So, I did. If you’ve never had good luck adding a fake sky to a blown sky, then you should go check out my Nothin’ But Blue Skies Bundle pack over at my store, an excellent resource for photographers.  

Thank you so much, beautiful C, S, and C! You guys are awesome. Next time, let’s avoid me calling 911…. Or not.

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The holidays have ended and things have simmered back down. I finally have a little time to blog some recent favorites.

First, my family. My insane, crazy, chaotic, annoying, hilarious, perfect perfect family. This Christmas the entire Morita family converged upon the same area all at once, for the first time ever. We have never gotten a family picture that included every member of our family…until now. And this was no easy task. We had to figure out a color scheme. We needed to coordinate without appearing matchy matchy. We needed a location that accommodate our big family. We needed a miracle. And um, yeah, it helped to have someone who just so happens to know how to photoshop, as multiple head swaps were in order. Go me!

The favorite family member is on the far left, in case you were wondering.

Dang, I love those people. Every single one of them. I am beyond blessed to have such an amazing (and beautiful) family. They make me whole.

Getting pictures of my kids lately has been entirely tricky. They know all my tricks, and simply aren’t interested in supporting my photographer obsession. Shame on them. So, I get what I can get, and sometimes I get lucky.

If it looks like my son is enjoying being hugged by his sister, trust me when I tell you, he does not. Lol. He’s more cringing with a smile on his face. And since I like to show off my picture editing, here’s a little before and after. The grass was a little icky, seeing that it hasn’t rained here in, oh, I don’t know, forever.

 Here’s how my son really feels about holding his sister’s hand. The pure torture I put him through.

And another before and after. This was mostly edited using Adobe Lightroom. I love how easy it is to edit one image, getting the color how I want it, and then syncing all my other images with the click of a button. Lightroom has sped up my workflow tremendously! I only brought this one into Photoshop to add the tree on the right. I just felt like it helped frame them better.

How about a couple pictures of my family? I’ll be back later to post more. But for now:

My brother and his daughter. Father and daughter. Perfection.

When he blew the bubble, I was expecting it to be much much bigger. My niece’s reaction simply didn’t seem appropriate for the size of the bubble. See what I mean? I think my Photoshop tricks payed off here, wouldn’t you say?

My beautiful nephew:

My handsome nephew:

His beautiful twin sister:

And one of my kids where for whatever reason, they just cooperated. Wait…was I begging? Threatening? Bribing? Yeah… probably.

I’m hoping to be better at blogging this year. We’ll see how that goes, seeing that my kids have ALMOST put an entire boycott on me and my camera.

If you are looking at these images and wanting to get color like I do, then you should definitely check out my SHINE workshop. You’ll learn how to better use adobe photoshop and lightroom. I promise. For more information, CHECK IT OUT RIGHT HERE.

And just in case I don’t get better at blogging, you can always follow me on Facebook! …