Ever see a photographer who starts out with a 365 day project, or even a 52 week project and never finishes? Yeah, me too.  Well, I recently joined a group of a few other busy photographers who decided to commit to a 12 month project! Wish us luck!

The best part is that it will be totally candid, lifestyle shots of each of our own families/lives.  This is a challenge for us to capture our every day worlds and hopefully make us and everyone aware that our “ordinary” is actually “extraordinary.”  We’re calling the series “The Story of ________” and we’ll each be filling in our own blanks. At the end of this post is a link to another photographer who participated and she’ll be linking to someone else. It’s a whole big circle of stories in pictures. Click through and enjoy!

I decided to start with our annual trip to Joan’s Farm and Pumpkin Patch in Livermore, CA. We have gone here almost every year since we first discovered it, and it’s always so much fun.  This was a huge challenge for me, as these were shot in full sun in the middle of the day.  Photographers know what a challenge light can be at this time of day, so I did my best to just go for it, and enjoy capturing my family just doing what they do.

One of the things that the kids love about this place is all the cool trees.

This cracked me up watching my daughter try to make it up the tree.  When I saw that little hand make it’s way up the branch, I knew she was on her way!

Three years ago, I took a picture of my daughter on this tree, and this year I tried to recreate it.  It’s strange how much these images make me feel.  Proud for the wonderful person my daughter is becoming, and sad for the fact that three years flew by so quickly.  I am so very happy that I have this gift of photography to capture my children at this moment in time.

Time is so fleeting.

But while we loved playing in the trees, we were here for the pumpkins!  He loved seeing how strong he was!   haha!  I love that little man.

Some of my favorite shots of the day.  I stole borrowed my dad’s fisheye.  This lens is a lot of fun.  Cracks me up that you can see my finger on the pumpkin in the second shot.

And dang oh man, do I ever love these ones.

Leaving the farm!  We’ll be back next year!

And no trip to Livermore would be complete without a trip to In-N-Out Burgers!  Love that place!

Well, this was fun for me!  I hope you enjoyed it too.

Next up is Arna Photography by Rachel.  Enjoy!  And come back next month for a whole new story!…

It’s been so long since I’ve done a blog post, I’ve almost forgotten how.  It was a weird summer with my mom being re-diagnosed with brain cancer.  Life doesn’t seem right when she is ill.  If you are reading this, please feel free to take a moment to send good thoughts and healing prayers my mom’s direction.  I really would appreciate it.

This is just going to be a hodge podge of images I’ve taken in the past several months.  I just felt like sharing, and I hope you enjoy.  Comments are always appreciated!  Thanks for looking.

I was playing with doing macro but without a macro lens.  These macro shots were all taken with my 50mm lens, taken off the body of my camera, and then just flipped and held to my camera.  Hard to do, but I like a challenge.

…

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.…