Thursday, August 26, 2010

Couple Portraits - In Love - Charleston SC - Day Two

On an unrelated, non-photography, note. I did not have the internet for a week and it was torturous!! I am so spoiled. I find it hard to believe that for the first year and a half of my marriage we did not have any internet. Of course, it doesn't help that I work from home and rely on the internet to keep me connected to the outside world. Add to that most of my bills are paid online and you have a recipe for disaster.

Moving on, I continuously worked on these amazing images while I had the internet outage and am ridiculously excited to share them with you all. I LOVE them! If it wasn't for how sand is ridiculously annoying the way it gets into everything, I would want to shoot at the beach ALL the time.

Whereas I enjoyed stretching my skills by
shooting with them at night, there is nothing
like shooting in beautiful sunset light.
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I love how you can completely change the way an image
looks by changing your position relative to the sun.
Here's the first shot. . .
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. . .and here's the second. . .and all I did was move ever so slightly in order to allow the sun to shine through a bit more.

I love how it accomplishes such a different and more dreamy feel.
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This was my favorite image that I posted on my Facebook page the other day.
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There's something I just love about driftwood on the beach.
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BEAUTIFUL!!
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It is truly a wonderful thing when a couple that has been together for many years are still able to have fun together and be goofy.
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Spencer had a great idea involving these posts. This
was my take on the idea before he explained it better. . .
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However, this is what he meant.
I think I like his idea better than my
interpretation of it.
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I love the difference there is in a photograph when you use only natural light and then the effect using a little bit of flash can have on the effect. 

For example, on the left is natural light and on the right is just a little pop of flash to ensure they were illuminated well.
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Like I said, these guys were fun and up for anything, even
getting completely soaked for the chance of a good picture. . .
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. . .or two. . .
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. . .or three or four or five. 😄
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And since they were already soaking wet we decided
to re-enact the scene from "From Here to Eternity".
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Friday, August 20, 2010

Couples Portraits - In Love - Charleston SC Photography - Day One

A little bit ago, Spencer and I made the journey to Charleston, South Carolina to photograph two of our favorite people. Spencer's oldest brother and his wife. We had already captured the love between his middle brother and his wife so it was only fair that we do the same for them.
We broke our shoot up into two days because we wanted
to get some fun night shots as well as some beach shots.
SO I am breaking the blog post up in two as well.
This one is for day one.

On a previous trip, Lee and Janelle had driven us to
see this train station to see if we agreed that it was the
perfect place to take pictures someday.

We agreed.
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I have this old set of luggage that I saved from my
in-law's garage sale some time back that I love to
bring out for photo shoots. With this one it was
particularly fitting.
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I love she shot, he shot images. The above image on the right is my view. . .

. . .the image below is his view. 
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Here's another. The above image on the right is my view. . .

. . .the image below is his. I love the variety that the far away and close images give in contrast to one another.
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We had some fun playing around with some night shots.
This is me trying to step out of my box a little.
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Then we went to downtown Charleston for a few fun shots.
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Thursday, August 12, 2010

Motherhood :: Covington Georgia Family Photography

Being a mother is hard. Especially when your child is SO much like you in so many ways and not in so many others. My poor boy talks too much just like I did (and do) and has my stomach issues and says the most random unexplainable things out of the blue that makes you wonder just how his mind works and struggles with math. Ask my mom and dad, just like me at his age. . .and sometimes even now.

One way that he is not like me is his timidity in standing up for his religion. This is his first year being the only one of Jehovah's Witnesses in his class. It's a new experience for him and I didn't realize that.

He was telling us about how on the first day of school each student had to tell the others some unique things about themselves. He told his name and that his favorite book was "How to Train Your Dragon" and a few other things. Innocently, I asked him if he told them he was one of Jehovah's Witnesses since that is pretty unique.

"NO! I didn't just want to blurt that out."

"Well, honey, it wouldn't have been blurting it out since you were telling them things about yourself."

"Oh."

After a few more minutes of talking, I realized something.

"Liam, are you scared of telling them?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I'm the only one out of 23 students in the class!"

That's when I really thought about it and realized that this is a whole new experience for him. And it scares him. And that's how he's not like me. I was bold from a very early age about my religion. One of my friends from childhood's favorite memory of me is when she first met me in first grade and she was new in the area and also one of Jehovah's Witnesses. We were in the same class and sitting in a group discussing birthdays and I stood right up and said, "Heidi and I don't do that! We're Jehovah's Witnesses."

That same boldness carried on as I progressed in school. I argued...ahem...debated evolution with my atheist biology substitute teacher and brought my Bible to school as some classmates and I would have lengthy discussions in the school cafeteria. When kids teased me, I took it in stride and never really let it bother me.

Every day Liam talks to me about how awesome Jehovah is for creating the bugs and the flowers and everything so I never thought he would be timid in school. Now, I am just going to have to focus on helping him understand that if he truly believes in what we teach him from the Bible that courage is needed to tell others the things he is learning. That it's okay to be afraid but it's even more important to rely on Jehovah to conquer that fear.

Below is a picture that I found on one of my recent visits home of my friend from childhood whom Facebook has reconnected me with. We stayed close growing up even when we moved physically apart and I was in her wedding but then, as it often goes in life, we drifted apart. Facebook is good for some things. ;)
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Since this last week was my last week before I get braces on for the next two years, I had a last-minute hair-brained scheme and was bound and determined to get some images of me with my loved ones. This started with setting up the tripod at the beach for a few family shots (which I will show you guys soon although they aren't the best) and then the Wednesday before I got them on, Spencer and I took Liam to a local park to practice riding his bike and to also get some fun shots of him and me as mother and son. Not to mention, let Spencer get some practice in. ;)

We started out goofy. . .
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. . .then got really sweet.
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I do believe I am in love with this shot.
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These next two as well, but the top one especially, I absolutely love.
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I think it's pretty safe to say that Spencer did a pretty durn good job, at least in my estimation.
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I couldn't let things go without a little tickle action. :D
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I absolutely love this location, however, it turned out to have quite a number of ants and we found the longer we stayed in a particular spot the more ants gravitated towards us. Very much NOT cool. I still have war wounds.
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Spencer couldn't let things go without getting a few shots of
me by myself so I obliged. . .for once.
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The second shot here is completely unposed.
I was stretching out as I like to do and Spencer still shot.
I think I look kinda funny, but it's one of Spencer's favorites so I included it on here.
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At this point, Liam was very much tired of looking out for and avoiding ants and was ready to be done with the impromptu photo session.
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Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Second Grade or BUST!

Another first day of school has come and gone. I am getting around to posting these a lot sooner than I have in the past. YAY for ME!

When I hunted up pictures from his first day at Kindergarten and First Grade, I realized that I need to get better at taking pictures consistently so as to get a better idea of his height. It looks like he didn't grow a bit from Kindergarten to First Grade. But then when you look at First to Second you see he's shot up. Hmmmm.
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He wanted me to take a picture of his backpack since I added a dragon
AND a (poorly made by me) Darth Vader to his repertoire of backpack decorations from last year.
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"Okay! Liam stand in front of this tree here real quick while I take your picture."
He's so obliging.
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SO! What does a bored mama do while waiting in line for her son when
she has a camera in the car and it's raining?

DUH! Take pictures of raindrops. Sheesh, that's a no-brainer.
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Liam was very proud that he went through his first day without pulling any sticks. As was I once I found out that it wasn't a freebie and that another kid had pulled a stick on his first day of school. (Quick explanation of sticks: Do something bad or disruptive and you pull a popsicle stick and put it in a pocket on the wall with your name on it. Needless to say, we try to avoid pulling sticks.)
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As much as it was pouring rain at the school, as we drove home
we discovered that the rain had not yet reached our house and
it was nice and overcast. So. . .what do you do when you have nice
light and your boy is dressed handsomely for the first day of school?

Another duh! Take him in the backyard for some portraits of course!

THIS is Liam's smile for the camera face. Mind you, I never actually say, "smile for the camera" but he does it anyway. Much to my chagrin.
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I'm a little in love with my son's lashes.
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And he's in love with his prize from the teacher for not pulling any sticks.
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"Okay! Now smile about your prize."

AHHHH! This is a much better smile.
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"Okay, now don't smile but think pleasant thoughts."

Is it just me but do these images make him look a bit too old? I feel
like he has aged right in front of me when looking at these images.
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Pretty much PERFECT!
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So we're walking back to the house and I stop and say, "Wait, I want to get a few shots of you in your full handsome outfit." And this is what he gives me. Are you kidding? I did not teach him this.

My little model in the making.
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He couldn't keep it up for too long without dissolving into giggles.
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And here's how he ended his night. He was watching his dad play the Wii and
Spencer turned around to see him conked out in my arms. Say it with me. . .

"AWWWWWWW!!!"
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