Baby *L*

Me????  A mentor???  

Those were my thoughts when I was asked...A friend of mine had a girl in her church who needed a photography mentor for her senior thesis.  I didn't know if I could be much help...but I was totally willing to give any advice I could.  Tiffany, the senior who I've been mentoring, wanted me to come along for a session she had scheduled with our mutual friend. 

Subject:  adorable 6 month old baby boy 

I could just eat him up!!!  His little legs were so chunky :)

I couldn't resist not taking his picture so it was a good thing that Tiffany said she learned alot by watching me be a crazy woman with my camera...we were like paparazzi shooting away. 

Good times...

Nash

My first senior session for this year could not have been better.  I was blessed to meet Nash through his buddies that were clients of mine last year.  We had to reschedule due to the weather last week...but Tuesday was the perfect day to shoot!  I have to brag on Nash a little because well...I'm cool like that.  This guy is the flippin' state champion for his class/weight in wrestling!!! He also happens to be a big "Office" fan.  After quenching our thirst with Squirt Soda mid session, (it was 83 degrees that day) and "biting into a Slim Jim (a scrumptious forgotten snack we both agreed)," we headed downtown reminiscing on the best Office episodes.   Filled with one liners and laughs this session was so refreshing!  It totally jump started me for the year.  Thanks Nash for the laughs! 

"MINT CHOCOLATE CHIP!!!"

One of my faves...

I love laughing

Last night as I was editing, I heard my husband laughing...hard.  Wondering what he was watching, I proceeded to the living room and I remembered.  America's Funniest Home Videos.  The last time I had watched this show was many moons ago...on Friday nights with my family.  When Bob Saget hosted and graced the nation with his many voices.  While there's a different host now, the videos still make me roll.  My favorite from the night was this man on a fishing boat.  You see fish jumping out of the water behind him when suddenly, one jumps up slapping him in the face...HILARIOUS!  My sides hurt I was laughing so hard.  I searched everywhere to find the video to show you with no luck.

So instead, here's a senior that likes to laugh too...more to come from this awesome session!

Yuck...

I am desperately trying to figure out this blog header slideshow thing...thankfully I have someone to help me so that this dotti-ness won't hurt your eyes anymore...ugh...sooner than later.  I hope.  

Under construction!

I have to apologize in advance for the white wording and busy background whatever craziness is going on right now.  I'm working on creating a snazzy new blog look...but HTML can be a B!T@H...I know ya'll know what I'm talking about.  At least Tambi does ;)  You go girl for figuring it out.  So, until it's done...a thousand apologies.  And here's something fun coming up...again my sister rocked Aperture Priority for me :)

We miss you Glathar fam!!!

It took me a little bit to get to blogging this.  As soon as I got home I was greeted by a very happy/sappy/"don't ever leave me for that long again" husband, a surprisingly tidy house (thanks Honey) and a slew of messages and phone calls for sessions and orders.  Woo hoo!!  

I'm trying to catch up from the crazy time we had getting home.  

Buddy Passes + Spring Break =

a worn out mamma and two restless munchkins tired of getting bumped off flights.  

Thank goodness we made it home!  If you can imagine Robin Williams in "Hook" on the airplane...that's me.  I never used to be like that until my near death plane ride...taking off in an impromptu freakish blizzard...on my way to Canada this last December.  It's good to be home :)

Oh Katie...how I wish I had the option of calling you up for coffee.  I had a ball spending time with you and your little ones during this session.  I'm so glad that we were able to fit it in before you left...I can't wait to see your "bump" out in the world!  Thanks for all the warm memories and I'll see ya when you get back :)

You have fun in England for me..."Mind the Gap."    

Look at that glow :)

Little brother didn't wanna kiss...too cute not to post

A more whimsy feel:

Birds from: Deviant Art

Sky from: ZaysMom

Texture from: JoesSistah

Because I love rad stuff...

I'm back from Florida...talk about a crazy trip...more on that later.  Really quick I wanted to share something(s) I found yesterday...some amazing textures that I'm excited to play with!  This woman is so amazing...Her name is Diana of Unik Photography.  She has a beautiful vision for capturing new life and I am in awe of the images she has on her blog!  She also has talent for creating textures...see them here.  I have been looking for some cool vintage fabrics for my baby sessions and can't seem to find what I want...it also was going to be very expensive...I stumble across this on flickr and loved what I saw!  I love how this rad mom has used Photoshop to give her those vintage background looks.  I have had this is my mind for my babies but thought I would have to truck around heavy loads of fabrics to my sessions.  Not anymore!  I've dabbled with textures a little but didn't realize the potential they had to completely change the mood of an image.   Now I've been on a shopping spree of textures...I am so excited about pursuing this!  

I am finding MY voice in photography and it is so liberating.  I'm an eclectic person.  My home may never meet the standard of a Martha Stewart Magazine (I think Martha's great BTW :), but it's me...my home is a collection of things that have stories...that make me feel happy.  If you go to my house you will see old and new.  Clean and rusty.  Retro and Vintage and in some places a little more modern.  I am finding that as I look inside myself to see what I truly am attracted to...it's coming out in my photography.  So if I see something and I love it...I may take a note and give my interpretation of it later.  I didn't create this style of photography and most of my peers didn't either...and that's ok.  Maybe one day I'll come up with some amazingly brilliant discovery...but for now, I'm content with doing what I'm drawn to.  If just one person is inspired by my interpretation of the "treasures" I have found...I would be honored.  Take what you like and give your twist on it...every person is different.  Wonderfully different.  

I couldn't help pulling out some past images and playing.  Of course this kind of editing isn't for every single image...but it's exciting that I know it's available and ready...especially for my babies.  Here's some ways to use textures:

Before - (notice my ghetto fabulous watermark...hey...we all start somewhere ;)

With some of Diana's textures:

Here's another one I thought was cool:

Hope my little rant helped someone...

My 100th post!!!

Hey Ya'll! I just realized that this is my 100th post since switching over to this blog! Rad huh? I promised some beach pics and since I am heading home Tuesday, I figured I better "git" to it. Southern accent compliments of being around my Daddy for two weeks.

We went to HoneyMoon Island...it's about a 10 minute drive from my folks house and it's where part of "The Punisher" was filmed. I knew I wouldn't have any pictures of myself if I didn't ask someone to brave my camera. Thankfully my sister took a stab at it. She was very quick in learning how to focus, recompose, frame...all the yummy lighting stuff and everything. From the looks of her shots she could have a future in this field too.

I wanted to share how I set up the shots for some of the cool rim lighting images. I used to be afraid of shooting without shade...not anymore! I now see it as an opportunity to get a beautiful highlight around the subjects hair and profile...I think it's cool anyway. I'm not perfect at it...but I'm trying to learn the trick...so far I've learned that as long as the back of your subjects head is facing the sun, so that their face is shaded, and your exposure is nailed, you can get that pretty rim lighting effect. I bumped up the meter through the viewfinder a couple of notches to experiment with it...this is one of my faves:

Isn't it fun?!?!?! I'm so excited about learning this more and gaining confidence with my rim lighting shots :) Enough blabbing...I edited on two separate days so that's why some are big and small...I'm eclectic anyway so it works :) Here's some more of my faves...

My mom and the kids playin' in the sand...

My lovely sister

As my sister and I were walking, I was wondering what this homeless man was doing...turns out...it was my dad...whoops! I laughed so hard when I saw that it was him.

He was picking up these...

I love the colors you find at the beach!

Frolicking in the sand = awesome calve workout

It burns!

I am STILL recovering from the sunburn on my back from a couple of days ago...Yours truly neglected to ask for help in slabbin' down the ole back with SPF 50...So now, I am lobster red after protecting my back since then from the evil C rays of the sun. The fam took the boys to the pool...I have been so careful for them not to burn. They haven't. Since I was stuck here alone I thought it would be a good time to fill ya'll in. Here's some pictures from take-off to the 28th. I still have to poke through the beach pictures that we took...the image on the post below is of me pre-skin fry...that was from the 29th...those I hope to post soon too. So here ya go:

My son insisted that we "read the instructions" before we took off on EVERY flight (it took four planes for us to get down here...don't you just love stand-by flying ;) ???) The funniest question that he asked was, "Mommy? Why is the plane in the water?" ....."Uhhhhhhh...."

My dad has the gift of hospitality...EVERY morning we wake up to the smell of southern breakfasts...and he makes us "Princess Coffee." He says it has to be good enough for his 3 princesses...he's loving having all of us girls home to spoil :)

So after I get my coffee in the mornings...I get to sit out on the back patio and watch the sun come up over my dad's beloved Palms...they are so beautiful. He has done such a wonderful job landscaping the yard...he even has his own banana tree with some baby bananas budding!!!

*Sorry about the pixelation on that one...I desperately need to get the MCP Magic Blog Board action set...they make life SO much easier! Here's a freebie they gave me...I used it to make a blog board of our time picking fresh oranges....

If I had access to these babies all year then I would be oober happy. They are like candy!!!

My parents have this monkey sanctuary close to their house. You can go down this bike trail and be about 15 feet away from them. This one was really active and funny. My sister and I would make monkey noises and jump around...we could have been taped for the Discover Channel our monkey performance was so good. Anyhoo, the monkey liked it I guess..he would clap for us. Then I stuck my face through the fence that we were behind and smiled and what do you know? He mimicked me :)

I'm trying to get my kids to learn how to swim. I used to be a swimming instructor/coach when I was in high school. Parker will do good blowing his bubbles under water for awhile, but then he forgets that he can't inhale and will swallow water. Poor guy.

So until we can get them swimming...arm floaties will have to do...

Hope ya'll enjoyed the little peek into the first few days of my trip...more fun beach pictures to come!!! Have a great Wednesday!!!