I am blessed. Very very very very blessed. I have a wonderful family, wonderful children, a loving husband, and a passion for photography that brings me a lot of joy. And I just got even more blessed by being the recipient of an incredibly generous gift.

My mom’s friend recently saw a blog post about my mom. If you missed it, you can read it HERE. Well, he liked what he saw and thought I had a good eye and ability to capture true emotion.  SUCH a compliment and something I definitely strive for in my images.  Well, this guy liked it so much, he decided to give me his studio lights that he no longer uses.  He gave me 3 alien bees (those are lights), 3 light stands, a case to carry all the lights, a backdrop stand, triggers, lots of backdrops, and a new belief in the kindness and generosity of mankind.  I was floored, honored, and a bit scared that I wouldn’t be able to do anything very special with these lights.

I have been a natural light girl.  Only.  I didn’t even own a flash until very recently and still need to tackle how to use that thing.  What was a natural light photographer going to do with studio lights?

Well, I certainly didn’t want to disappoint the guy by not putting the lights to work, so I got started.

And here we have it.  My first image.  And can you believe it?  It’s my OPUS.

Bwahahahhaaaaaaaaa!!!!  Get it?  My Opus?  Teeeee heeeeee heeeee…..  There’s problems with this picture, for sure.  The first one being that my shutter speed was too high and I didn’t even expose the bottom half of the image, hence the loss of Opus’ feet.  But, I still love it.  Cuz it’s my first picture.

And then, later in that session, I got this of my husband.  My hunkahunka husband. 

This was gonna be fun.

Next try, I got close to what I wanted, but not exactly.  Note to self: black stool on black background makes child float.

So, I tried again.  BINGO!

And, so the journey has begun.  I still have a lot to learn, but I am determined to make my friend’s mom proud.

I am determined to not waste the gift.

None of us should waste the gift.  Whatever that gift may be.

And if I can not waste the gift at the same time that I have some fun, then hey, I’m doing something right.

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I am about to bombard you with images.  I can’t help it.  I LOVED this shoot.  Like, maybe more than any session ever.  Yes, they’re my kids, and I’m super duper very very muchly fond of them, so there could be a case of mommy goggles goin’ on here.  I will admit that.  But I also loved this shoot because I had an idea and was able to make it happen.  And for me, it happened better than I could have ever expected.  Maybe it was fate.  Maybe it was luck.

Maybe it’s because of the gigantic amount of love I have coursing through my veins for my boy.

My boy.

Turning five years old.

My little baby boy, who melts me with just one sweet look with his brown eyes.

My boy, whose voice really should be bottled and given to all those that are hurting, because, I’m telling you, his voice fills me heart with just crazy, shaky, can-hardly-stand it, type of joy.

My boy, who tells me with sweet and clear conviction every.single.day that he loves me.  He loves me the best.  And he’ll ALWAYS love me.  And he’ll ALWAYS want to snuggle me.  And I can call him my baby even when he’s bigger than me. Sigh…. I love that bugger.

Just so it’s clear, I love my girl with crazy deep love too.  This session, though, was for my son because he’s turning five.

And that’s how many fingers you have on one hand.

I love my boy.  And I kinda think that after seeing these pics of him and his sweet sister, that you too, may be feelin’ a little bit of the love I have for them.  Enjoy!  And I love blog comments, so feel free to gush about how cute my kids are and to leave my little man some happy birthday wishes, mmm-kay?

I love how the balloons look like a smile here.    Five balloons for the five years we have been blessed with his presence in our lives.

Oh, this one is one of my favorites!  He was dancing around and just doing what he does.  I can just picture what his face would look like.  He’s being silly and fabulous. At the time, I so wanted him to be looking at me, but really, this shot is one of my favorites of the whole series.  Just goes to show that forcing a kid to do what you want doesn’t always get you the pictures you’ll end up loving.

My sweetie girl had to join in the fun.

Mommy, can you make me look higher in Photoshop?

Yes, dear. 

Me too, Mommy!  Me too!

Yes, dear.

I just love the simplicity of this one.

I love how her hair turns golden in the sun….

As a photographer, I am very often FIRMLY planted BEHIND the camera.  I am hoping to rectify that this year and will be doing my best to get myself in more pictures with my family.  I  had the forethought to bring my tripod and remote trigger, set to a two second delay, so that I had time to trigger it, and hide it.

I am crazy about these shots.  My son is growing up.  There will come a time when I cannot pick him up, and despite all the sweet things he tells me about always wanting to snuggle up with me, I know there will come a time when I won’t be cool, and he’ll want and need his space.  When that happens, I will wipe a tear from my eye and go and look at these pictures.

And then I’ll go and wrestle my boy to the ground and DEMAND that he snuggle with me or I’m taking the keys to his car and he’ll be GROUNDED, YOUNG MAN.  Hahhhaaaa….

And this one.  This one.  The very first one I edited when I got home.  This one fills me with that INSANE kind of happy happy woot woot holla kind of feeling.  This one’s getting printed big.

If the sun hadn’t set, I don’t think I ever would have left….

Thank you for looking.

And Happy Birthday to my boy who made my family whole.…

My poor neglected blog. 

If you’re anything like me, you’ve been busy.  Busy with holiday preparations.  Busy with every day life.  Busy with being busy.

I’m so busy sometimes that I prioritize the most important stuff.  Groceries make it into the house, but for the moment, I’ll just put away the stuff that needs to be refrigerated.  The other stuff can wait.  Laundry can get washed and put into the drier.  And then it can sit there for a while.  Perhaps several days.  And who needs to brush their teeth?

Kidding.  Everyone should brush their teeth.  Let’s not get crazy now.

So, anyway.  time is slipping away from me, and I figgered it was time for a blog post. I thought I’d share one of my most recent shoots with my muses.  I have been wanting to do a session with their drum set for a while and insanely decided that what better day to do a shoot than on the day after Thanksgiving?  We would be at my brother’s, so heck, why not cart the drum set in the car?  And pack all the possible clothing options too?  And gee, it just so happened to be BITTER COLD that morning, but hey, we’ll just layer the bajeezus out of them.  They’ll be fine!

Why yes, she IS wearing her pajamas under her outfit. hee hee….

So, here we go….

The dude was INTO it.  Rock it, little man!

This one reminds me of American Gothic.  Tee hee heeeeeee…..

He just makes me laugh.  Dang it all.

Ah, rock and ROLL, brother!

The band takes a minute for some press shots.  Thanks kids. 😉

Sometimes rock stars just need a minute by themselves to collect their thoughts.

But, then it’s right back to doin’ it for the fans.

Some shots with their manager.

A little down time with the manager.

Something about this one, just makes me pause.

And this one just makes me smile.

The resultant Christmas card:

And since I realize I am sadly missing from all these shots, a little Christmas self portrait just for you:

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