Almost famous

We had a little gathering last night at my 'rents in Wichita to celebrate my belated birthday. It was a great time. I held 3 babies and was totally slimed by 1 of them. No tattling on the guilty party, though. ;)

My biz partner, Mike, keeps a blog of his kids' first year. It's a BIG undertaking, and he strolled into the party, baby on one shoulder, camera on the other. I snagged the camera immediately.


Of course, parents of young children have so much in common, so my sis, Robin, was chatting Mike up. They're also sort-of neighbors.

You can SEE THE POST HERE on Tommy's blog.

Mike's kids' blogs have quite a following, so I'm waiting for Theodore to be discovered by a talent agency, because he's so cute and all (his daycare peeps call him "Theodorable" — pretty cute!)).

More to come from the fun + frivolity. Also to come: my taking Theodore to the BIG pool for the first time. It involved at least 4 trips down the water slide. AND no screaming! :)

Oh, and for anyone out there wondering if I'll be doing something similar to a photo a day blog when kids become a part of our life ... the answer is a big fat NO. With kiddos, they'll get their own special tag here on our blog and I think a weekly photo to track growth the first year is probably in order for me, but I'm not sure I could handle the time/commitment to a photo a day for the first year.

Losing my touch? / PHOTO TIP

Hi blog world! I'M ALIVE!!! I promise!

Big baby shower this weekend. Lots of catching up to do here.

I squeezed in a visit to my biz-partenr-in-crime. This is how it went:


Usually Erik has this effect on children, not me. I hope I'm not losing my touch! You can see my appearance on Mike's photo a day project of Nate HERE.

And for those of you who think I might undertake such a project when we have kids, THINK AGAIN!!!! I'm learning from Mike's zeal that it's a lot to bite off and chew.

PHOTO TIP for you mommies out there: notice how Mike took this photo. He's at eye level with his kiddo. With kids, they're lots shorter than we are. Often times in order to get the best photo of them, you gotta get down to their eye level.

I am my own worst client ...

I don't know if any other photographers feel this way ... but sometimes I think to myself "I'm my own worst client."

What do I mean by that?

Well, let's see. erik and I have been married for 16 months, and I only have three ... THREE ... photos from our wedding up. The first one took me a whopping 11 months to get up. And it was a measley 5x7. (I'm SO embarrassed to admit that). And just this last month, I added another TWO photos. Yeah, and they're dinky-small 4x6s. (My head is in my hands right now).


This photo is one of the 4x6 photos I've added to our bedside tables.

And here's the kicker ... I have BEAUTIFUL 20x30 inch framed wall portraits on my wall of other clients and/or fashion sessions.

I suppose I tell myself it's totally vein to have big photos of me up ... and have such beautiful work of our clients, I want to display THAT big. But I DO have plans for some big photos of us ... I know where I want to put them, too ... it's just that I haven't gotten around to it.

So, I guess I can understand my brides taking their sweet time. But I don't like it because I want them to hurry up and decide already. ;)

Maybe this should be a goal of mine for 2010: to get a few big framed wedding photos up. Ok, I can do that!

Blast from the past

Remember in May when I was being all rambly? Well, I didn't want to share photos before the magazine was published .... so here is a photo from my photo shoot:


YOu can CLICK HERE to check out the photos. :)

Crossover — POY

Ok peeps, in case you missed it, I'M STINKIN' BUSY AROUND HERE!!!!! ;)

Yes, Erik and I went to Arizona for about a week and had a spectacular time. I will share photos once things calm down a bit around here.

So in the meantime, please CLICK HERE to check out the work Mike and I have done over the last year. :)

Cooperstorm V

Well, it's fall, which means it's time for Cooperstorm!!!!

This year, Coop asked us to host this year. And since I LOVE having people over, it was perfectly fine with me!

We certainly sat around and chewed the fat for awhile ...


... and then we of course showed photos. :)

If Jess (in CA) is reading this, Chris has asked about a west coast version ..... let us know when you guys want to host! ;)

"A Hungry Heart"

Wow.

So I'm sitting in the Denver airport waiting for a training for a group I volunteer with. But that's neither here nor there.

A month or more ago, I checked out Gordon Parks' memoir, "A Hungry Heart" from the library.


I'm embarrassed to admit I had the book for probably 2 months and hadn't cracked the cover. I extended the matearial from the library ... twice ... and now I'm FINALLY reading it. I read it during the entire flight here, and it's UUUUUUMAAAAAAZING! I'm only about 70 pages in and I've been teary about a half a dozen times. Parks is such a craftsman of words. I remember reading his love poetry and not being enamoroed. But on a trip to Fort Scott, I read his poems about the Kansas landscape .... and they're breathtaking!

As I said, I'm only a short distance into it, but Parks' drive to follow what he is passionate about is just so moving! (Dad, you NEED to read this book!).

For more information about the book, please CLICK HERE!

Workin' it!

The blog's been a bit slow lately ... doing a TON of work behind the scenes here at Heartland. It's good to be busy and have lots to do ... but it isn't always picturesque.

Mike shot me over a few photos from Amber and Bret's wedding.


I had to show Mike (the city kid) how to move a bale of hay. *sigh* ;)~


It was chilly, hence the reason Amber and I are wearing coats.

Maybe I'll find seconds to breathe in a few days, and then have more regular content to contribute here.

Perhaps Erik will contribute in my absence? ;)~

While we're on the topic of words ....

I'm such a WORD NERD!!!!!! I enjoy them so much. In fact, I have a ton of them on the 'fridge. :)


I'm more of a big fan of short word sentences.

These were especially popular with the photo boys when I was in college ... well, just use your imagination. ;)

Crossover — Fr. Josh

I suck.

Ok, I said it .... I've sucked lately at updates. I have a BUNCH of photos to download from our point and shoot, but have not the space on my laptop to do it .... so I'm close to being able to do so. Ok?


But I've been WORKING people! Cruise over to the Heartland blog for some tasty treats.

Crossover — Baby Kara

The last week has been fairly busy. Yay! I'm thankful to have sessions and assignments coming out of my ears. But then it begs the space question on my 'puter and external hard drives. Sheesh!

Anyhow, aren't Baby Kara + Mommy Michelle ADORABLE?!?!?!?? I think so.


And I LOVE it when I go to do a session and the nursery is awesome! I have to say, I've seen quite a few with the baby's name on the wall, and I rather like it.

For more visual treats, head on over to the Heartland blog by CLICKING HERE.

VOTE!!!!!!!!

Ok, so I entered a photo of be being goofy into a contest (well, 2 photos). The idea was to take a photo of you doing a crazy exercise. WELL ....


Photo 1: yoga in the garden. Me doing the side plank. Ok, so truthfully, it was the first time I did the side plank, but the other positions wouldn't look too good in the visual sense, which is why I went w/ this pose. To the left is my strawberry patch. Directly in front of me is the lettuce, and at my feet is the zucchini. :) Oh, the ground is green b/c I mulch w/ grass .... I hug a LOT of trees. ;)


Photo 2: Me weightlifting paint cans atop a chair that is on my "to do" list of projects. So, the can's aren't really full, but it shows painting CAN be a workout! One day, my right arm was all sore and I couldn't figure out why. Well, I remembered I painted walls the day before .... which was probably why I was sore! Interesting, no?

I get a lot of duff from the "Move it Monday" crowd, but my comment is ANYTHING can be exercise. I go mow the lawn, that's 45 minutes worth of pushing/walking. I want to rent a movie? We walk to the Redbox .... anything can be made to move the body in good ways! :)

I realize I might be splitting my vote by having 2 photos, but GO HERE and vote ... I'm voting for Yoga in the Garden!

Random rambling

• I had an AWESOME bridal/fashion shoot yesterday for Kansas Wedding Plan Magazine. It rocked OUT! A massive thank you to Erik who really helped me ... he was just amazing. Even though Erik's not a photographer, per se, he has a visual sense b/c of his work in page design. He commented about how the light kept changing, and how it was probably good b/c it'll give a wider visual variety. I didn't think of it that way, but good ol Erik did! Thanks sweetie. :)

• Also, big props to my boy Coop who came out and helped, too.

• If you're wondering WHERE the photos are from yesterday, I have to download them still ... and besides, I gotta wait till it publishes, so I don't "scoop" the print publication. *sigh* so I have to wait to share.

• I love sleep. I need it. It's not a "want" but a genuine "need." For those of you parents w/ little kiddos out there, i give you many props. For your amusement, check out this blog where my bizzzness partner, Mike, posts a photo a day from his daughter's first year. It's amusing to read, and probably my favorite thus far is THIS ONE :) So, after 10 hours of slwwp Weds night, I was spoiled. Last night, not so much sleep. Ugh.

• Where did all of the space on my 'puter go? Seriously.

• Speaking of photogs and photos, go to THIS SITE and check out Shawn's Landscape Gallery. UUUUUUUH-MAAAAAAAAZING!

• I'm wearing awesome knee-high socks from my mother-in-law and I love them!

• It's been about a month and a half since I started my effort to keep the back seat of my car clean. Wow. A month and a half? Almost half way there! And it's not been too awfully difficult. I just have to remember to take my trash with me.

• I wore long underwear (pants) yesterday to shoot in ... and Erik laughed at me, but when we got to our location, he almost asked to climb in them with me .... because it was CHILLY!

Sitting down on the job?

It happens.

Not often.

But, it happens. :)

I snagged this photo from Mike while working on getting Erin and Shane's wedding images online for their proofing.

Day in the Life ....

Remember when I talked about former K-Stater Pete Souza being Obama's chief photographer?

Well, of course they'd do something awesome like have a photostream from Flikr. To check it out, HERE.

Aaaaah, Mike!

Who said wedding photographers were stiff, crusty old blokes? Not me.

Mike shows Lori how he wants her to sit for her portrait.


I think Lori kicked Mike's butt, though. ;)


I don't think I've EVER seen Mike laugh/clown around so much. Here he was showing Derek how to kneel by his bride.

Mike the Conductor

Check out this image I grabbed of Mike. There were some where he was pointing, and he looked a bit like a conductor. A bit out of place on a planter, but you know .....

Crossover — whirlwind weekend

Whew! It's been a busy weekend. Mike and I headed out to Lawrence for a wedding.

Check out how super-hot our bride, Erin, was on Saturday.


Super beautiful flowers .... and that bracelet was how her hubby proposed to her!


And ... a sweet moment during the ceremony.


I'm working on a TON of stuff right now. Lots of editing, print orders and other tasks to complete.

Mike's working on a blog post for this. Please CLICK HERE to check it out on the Heartland Blog!

Wedding book ....

My friend, Anne, put together this awesome project .... photographing Vegas wedding chapels on Valentine's Day.

CLICK HERE to read her awesome blog post about it. :)

Time to vote!

Ooooooook people.

I stalk a few blogs regularly ... and Davina tries to encourage photogs to get fit + healthy. I enjoy checking in on her blog.

Ok, so I put in a few pieces of advice ... and she used 2 of mine. SO, please GO HERE and vote for me! I voted for #4 ... I don't think I'll get to pool the votes for me. It's either/or. ;)

I wouldn't say I've turned into a health nut (I just ate my tiny raisin cinnamon rolls), but I certainly am motivated to keep my body from falling apart in 50-ish years, that's the ideal.