Of More Apologies, Love and Owl City

By order of the title, Let me begin by saying I'm sorry.
I apologize profusely for being such a terrible blog updater... :hangs head:

[I am ashamed.]

Summer was crazy, fall was crazy, and now it's December and ... well, you guessed it. Life is still crazy. I suppose it's not going to get any better, so strap your helmet on and hang on tight, yeah?

Second on today's agenda is love... Let me just confess that I am terribly, hopelessly and somewhat pathetically in love.
Which brings us to the third item:

>Owl City<

More specifically the creator of this lovely little project: Adam Young.

Good heavens.

He's terribly darling and talented and I've decided to marry him.
It's true.
I may or may not have driven 11 hours to Minneapolis to take an opportunity with IPS to photograph a recent concert of his with the hope of meeting him and professing my most ardent love.
Sadly, this was not meant to be. :sigh:
Though the people I was working under tried their best to gain me audience with the most adorable creature known to me.
I had a present for him and everything! :cries:

I did get a smile. :blushes:

And select photographs of mine will be given to him. Metadata love-note code anyone?

Adam-Love, if you ever read this --know that I will love you always. I'll wait multiple lifetimes for you, if necessary.


So, there you have it. I've apologized and confessed. What more could an extremely over due blog post aspire to be?

Oh, yeah a picture...

Here's one of my favorites from the evening.

Adam Young of Owl City performs at PULSE 2011 - University of Minnesota

This darling man puts so much emotion into 'Lonely Lullaby'...

Look at that face! I mean come ON! Doesn't it just break your heart?
(I admit.. I teared up just a bit during this song.)

More to come later (with or without more confessions) including some of GRITS and Family Force 5.

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The event I worked: PULSE impacts more than 250,000 people annually through events, festivals, and conferences. PULSE exists to awaken culture to the reality of Jesus. For more information, visit http://PULSEmovement.com

Of Apologies, New & Favorite Things and Lens Flopping

First, let me apologize profusely for having not update since... December???
Allow me to give a decent excuse:





Yeah, that's what my planner looked like for January-March. I'm thankful that April (so far) is not nearly so crowded!

Secondly, I have a new design on the blog. What do you all think?



Two weeks ago I shot a wedding in Baton Rouge, LA with Megan Decoteau of MRae | Photography. It was a long day but we had so much fun and I loved the shots that I got.


Here's a few of my favorites:

Julia's dress was absolutely beautiful and the tenth floor of the Hilton was perfect!

I am in love with:

This shot
Julia's shoes
Window light
The 50mm and I am convinced more than ever that I now need one!

Something else I'm in love with.... ;-)

The above macro shot was done with the Lens Flipping technique, or more affectionately known as 'Flopping' (as coined by the great IPS instructor, John McPherson of JM|Imagery).
The Lens 'Flopping' technique is an awesomely simple (and inexpensive) way of getting macro (up-close) shots, especially helpful in getting those detail shots for weddings. Or any other miniature subjects.
All you have to do is take a lens such as a 50mm (I use my kit 18-55mm), flip (or flop) it around backwards and hold it tight up against the lens mount. To focus, simply move your camera (and lens) back and forth. True manual focus, right there!
As a side note, if the lens you are using has a aperture lever (such as the 18-55mm), you'll want to hold that open for more light.

So, I challenge you to try it! Upload your own Lens Flopping shots and post the link here!

Of Christmas, Photoshop and Bokeh

Friday afternoon my mom called while I was at my church. She was in great distress because the Christmas cards she had ordered hadn't arrived yet (And ALWAYS gets them in the mail the first week of December).

After much confusion and several calls between her and the company, she found out that they were out of stock. She REALLY liked the card and the Bible verse on the front and could I maybe find time that weekend to MAKE her a card?

I reminded her that I wouldn't be home that evening and was going to Chicago for the day on Saturday and wasn't sure how soon I could get it done.

Anyways... this is the card she wanted:



Mom bought 'snow' and sparkly Christmas ornaments and I went to work on Tuesday morning.
My sister was afraid that it would look like we were copying their cards.

I think it's safe to say that I did not.

I really wanted some bokeh in the back ground of the picture but just couldn't seem to get the right effect and then I thought... Heh... why don't I just make some?
It was SO much fun. I ::love:: Photoshop. =)

It's a flat card and this is the front:




And this is the back (with room for everyone to sign it!):




And this http://abduzeedo.com/awesome-digital-bokeh-effect-photoshop is the link for the Photoshop tutorial on making freakin' sweet bokeh.

Have some fun making your own Christmas bokeh. ;-)
(c'mon, don't you just like that word??)

Kayla, Birthday Dates and Pink Elephants

Today is my niece Kayla's third birthday.
She's been so. so. so. excited about her birthday for... mm.. about 6 months now. haha!
Kayla been telling people that she's 'almost 3' since August. My sister said last night that she was having trouble getting her to go to sleep, Kayla who was too excited to sleep was laying in bed singing 'Joy to the World'.

I asked her a couple of weeks ago what she wanted for her birthday. Her list was very precise.
A 'capooter' (computer), a tooter (scooter), a trike, a 'silly tree' (red maple) and a black baby.

Kayla also informed me last night that she had added another item to her Birthday List: a pink elephant. That doesn't talk. (apparently this is a stuffed animal. Not the kind that talk. lol)

I have a tradition where I take each of my nieces for their birthdays. They get to choose which meal and the restaurant. (Usually McDonalds or Dairy DeLite).
Kayla chose breakfast so Dairy DeLite was out of the question. So the options were McDonalds or Yoder's Restaurant (no, my family does not own it, though my sister does make the pies and cinnamon rolls.)
Kayla chose Yoder's and then later come to find out, she thought I meant 'Grandma' Yoder's. lol

I convinced her that McDonald's had pancakes and reassured her that they also had chocolate milk.

I picked her up this morning and after checking out her new 'capooter' we headed back into town. She asked if she could have ice cream with her pancakes. haha. I said probably not and that we could get a fruit smoothie instead.
She was quite overjoyed at this compromise, especially if we could get Wildberry which is her 'favorite'.

She thoroughly enjoyed her pancakes and sausage AND the fact that she had chocolate milk AND a wildberry smoothie. She kept exclaiming over how 'yum-may' everything was and 'You have to taste this!' She is more like me than her mother wishes, I'm sure. ;-)

After we finished up breakfast and packed up her leftovers we went to 'The Froggy Park', which is a usual stop on Birthday Dates with the nieces. It was a bit chilly, but we were the only ones there and I let Kayla wear my gloves.
We had fun playing and taking pictures. She's quite the little model. And loves to take pictures. She couldn't understand why she could take pictures with my new lens (Oh, yes. I in fact DID buy a 70-200mm f2.8 II!).

Here are some of the product from today's Birthday Date shoot. =)










This is Kayla and she is beautiful. Inside and out and I'm SO proud to be her Aunt. =)
Happy Birthday, Kayla. I love you soooooo much!!!

Of Flowers, Light and Years Gone By

Yep, I have officially dug into the 'archives' for this post.
Well, it's just then I recently re-discovered this shot and it's never been posted for the world to see...


This was taken at Garden of the God's while I was in Colorado for some classes with the Institute of Photographic Studies in September of 2008. Isn't it pretty??? =)
I just loved the light coming down through the trees to light up the black eyed susans.
And it's probably one of the last of my shoots before I switched to shooting in RAW. ;-)

Of Sunrises, Sunsets and God's Goodness & Love

Wow, hello world!

First off, let me apologize for leaving you (all 7 of my readers!) for so long.
Whew, as probably most of you know, shortly after my last post I, with my youth group took a 10 day missions trip to Ecuador.
It was an absolutely incredible trip, I (again with my youth group) had taken another missions trip to Ecuador 4 years ago in 2006. So it was so, so good to see all of my friends and 'family' there. Someday, I'll have to dedicate a couple of posts to my trip so you all can see some pictures and hear (read) some of the stories from the trip!

Tonight's post is featuring some of God's most beautiful paintings (at least this week!)
I'm not usually a fan of sunrises, unless you're at the beach. Eh, I can do without them. Some friends & I were discussing the differences between sunrises and sunsets a few weeks ago. We were on the road at a very un-godly hour of like 5:30 a.m. And we decided that while sunrises are pretty, sunsets have them beat, hands-down. For some reason they just seem cooler. AND as one of my friends pointed out, "You're not so tired."
Maybe that's why we enjoy them more. We can be more relaxed at the end of a busy day, rather than being up too early after not-nearly-enough sleep about to begin a long day.

This was taken on Sunday morning on my way to church a little before 8 a.m.

Fall mornings are so, so very beautiful. They seem quieter than summer, maybe not as quiet as winter mornings but definitely right up there (and not as cold!). Maybe it's the fog... I don't mind a little fog in the mornings, as long as it's not thick I don't have to drive in it.

This is a 10-shot panorama of tonight's sunset. My sister called me to say that the sunset was beautiful and told me to go out and see it. I completely trust her opinion and grabbed my camera on my way out.
Wow. God. =)

For awhile now, I've been contemplating and basically just being overwhelmed by God's goodness. In any and every situation, good and bad. God is still good. He can't help, but be good.
It's because He loves us that He is a judge over man. And because He loves us and is a judge, He created the plan of salvation to save us, because He is good.

I was reminded on Sunday morning of a song by the band, The After's.
In an interview, singer/songwriter Josh from the band shares this about the song:

"Every morning when you see the dark give way to the light of the sun
-that's a reminder that we live in God's world."

Of Little Girls, Tea Parties and Dress-Up

This week I was babysitting for a little girl named Teanna for a couple of days... I invited my nieces out to play with her. Today we had a tea party and pool party (NOT at the same time)

I got out my play jewelry box and they got all dressed up. Little girls are so fun. =)

















Tonight I'm doing Teanna's portraits! =) I did portraits for her about a year and a half ago.












Te asked me the other day "Do you remember the LAST time we took pictures? And it was SO cold and it was raining and we got hot chocolate??" haha! I love this girl...