Alyssa's Senior Photos

I had the opportunity yesterday to take Alyssa's senior photos. I've been friends with Alyssa's whole family for about as long as I can remember so it was great to spend part of the day with her and her mom yesterday. This was my very first shot at a senior portrait session and I think it turned out pretty well!

Lesson learned from this shoot: if you're taking pictures on a really windy day, find a location that's well-guarded by lots of trees!

A Day In the Life of Avery

Just a quick little video to shamelessly show off my daughter. This is how Avery spends much of her time these days - standing, dancing, and rolling around on the floor...she also tends to make a lot of noise, but I guess I'll have to save that for a future post!

Desktop Still Life

Every once in a while something that I'd generally consider ordinary catches my eye and seems for a moment to encapsulate some form of simple beauty. A groundhog making a visit above ground to look for food, the long shadows of chair legs cast by the setting sun through a window, drops of water falling from a showerhead... I don't know if these little moments of visual serenity happen to other people or not, but I love it when they happen to me. I think they help ground me, reminding me that there is beauty even in the midst of the busyness of daily life. This happened last night as I was working on a wedding video. My desk was a bit cluttered and nothing had been placed anywhere for an aesthetic purpose, but warmed by light of my desk lamp, this scene of my work space struck me as a picture of peace, in the midst of my long-work-hour day. Generally, it seems to me that if you try to take a picture of these moments, you can never do them justice, because for some reason, a camera lens just doesn't let you "feel" a scene the way your eyes can. But I tried to capture this one anyway.

Amy & Dennis Engagement Photos

Amy and Dennis will be getting married this summer and this last weekend, I took them out for an engagement shoot along with Dennis' two sons, Clay and Chase. As you can see, the four of them make a beautiful family! We had some great weather and some great locations and I'm excited about how their pictures turned out!

These guys were real troopers - Amy was wearing raised-heel shoes with slippery soles and she and Dennis still made it out onto the rocks in the middle of this pond. And the boys, of course, were willing to go anywhere.

Sword-fighting never gets old.

Thanks for the great photo shoot, Dennis & Amy (and Clay & Chase). I'm looking forward to seeing you again at the wedding!

Spring is Here!

We are so blessed to have a backyard. It's so amazing to be able to walk outside and have a little square of nature to enjoy on a nice sunny day. Since our new house was vacant for the last couple years, the lawn is a wild mixture of grass, dandelions, little purple weeds, thistles, mushrooms, violets, and a whole lot of rabbits. The funny thing is, I actually enjoy the wildness of our backyard. It feels real.

Avery's latest trick is being able to stand all by herself. She gets so proud of herself and she gets so excited about taking it to the next level by trying to walk. Meanwhile, she still hasn't really crawled, and doesn't really care to.