How many times have y’all checked in today to see if we’ve posted the results? There have been so many people who worked hard to have as many entries as possible. And every time one of them would turn their money in, I’d say “oh, I hope they win!”… because I could tell they really wanted it! It was fun for me to see how many people, from all over the place, were jumping at the chance for one of our parties! I feel so popular!! I guess we’ll have to do more of these things! ANYWAY… you don’t care about my little preamble… I bet you even skipped it, didn’t you?

*drum roll please*

Tara Whitman (Raleigh)

Nita Bullard (Clemmons)

Dina Holton (Livermore, CA)

Congratulations to each of you! I’m pumped to see what themes and fun things we can come up with to make each of your kid’s day special! Remember, you have a year from today… so if their birthday happens to fall in January to April, you’ll be able to wait until then. But if it’s soon, call me quick!

Our great friends, Clay & Kellie, just had their second daughter, Bailey! It’s at this point that I should point out that, even though Clay & Kellie don’t tell people the names they pick out for their babies, I was able to “name that name in one guess”. It’s seriously my current claim to fame. My previous claim was being able to go in and meet their first daughter before certain close family members (read: new aunt and uncles). Yep, I left them in a cloud of photography dust the second the grandmother came for me. All they could call out was “but we’re the uncles!”. So in keeping with tradition, it was only right that I still got SOMETHING before them. Eat your hearts out Corey, Lindsay and John.

Dayla Jane with Bailey Michelle

Our two March brides (thank you, Jesus, for easing me into the wedding season!) were fierce! I love them to death. Their personalities are so close to mine… sarcasm reigned supreme with these two… and that made me feel right at home. God bless their lovely husbands for what’s in store… ask Jeff… HE knows.

I tell people that I don’t need much in order to come away with creative shots. But sometimes they don’t  believe me. Meghan DID… and she had already informed me of the lovely red wall behind their church. Then there was this metal building that gave us such GREAT fun. Both of them were texture DREAMS! Around the corner, we found a wall with a circus mural painted on it… not necessarily what one would envision putting in their wedding album, but get the right angle and you can hide the “theme” while still getting the feel of something cool going on.

Lesley had a great dramatic face… and wasn’t afraid to use it. Don’t worry, we got plenty of smiles! But these were just “her”. Jason was just doing what he was told… my kind of groom. After the wedding, we were able to steal away to Town Common in Greenville for some bridge shots. We would have gone out on the pier had it not been submerged under water. Maybe we’ll come back to that later… Lesley is just the kind of girl to get a kick out of a Trash the Dress session.

I love my website. I love that I had input (far too much if you ask our designer, Chris). I love that I designed it as a Photoshop file and he recreated it in flash for me. I love that he didn’t give up on me when I made the one millionth tweak. I even love that he had a recording made of a guitarist playing the “feel” that I hummed and be-popped over the phone to him. Chris is just amazing.

But Chris is also busy.

So rather than constantly e-mailing him about updates to the regular site that I can’t do from here, he’s helped me locate a place that specializes in templates for photographers. Lots of people use them, but there’s a reason why. They work. You’ll be able to see bigger images (to better judge our quality), and I’ll be able to update those images from our studio (so you don’t have to keep looking at the same ten things from three years ago). It’s a match made in heaven! Well, a match made in cyber-space.

So stay-tuned for the new duds coming in a couple of weeks! Maybe you or your friends will be one of our featured images! I can’t wait! Thanks for encouraging and supporting us! We couldn’t do this without you!

I’m putting the finishing touches on my two March weddings, and was reminded of these fun images that I wanted to post! Lesley’s mom is a scrapbooker and dedicated herself to covering every aspect of her daughter’s wedding preparations. That included her bridal shoot! So there were TWO photographers covering that event. While I took my shots of Lesley, her mom took shots of ME! On the day of the wedding, the completed book was sitting out at the entry to the reception… along with the portraits I took. I was excited to be a PART of the whole… and not just capturing it all.

Here’s our favorite shot. The composition is great! She’s got Jeff in the foreground, watching me in the background.

What does a one year old love more than a playground??? Almost nothing! So we took little Caleb to the Nature Center for some fun and a beautiful Spring day! He is so super expressive and there were tons I could have posted on here. But these three show his glee just fine. I especially love the first one, where you can see his Mama just as happy behind him.

A couple of years ago, a friend told me that I should get this particular family he met to come sit for me… he said they would make a great “model” family for promos or anything I wanted to do like that. Then, later I actually MET the family… and they began attending my church… and they became our friends. So I was excited when they told me that they won the charity auction session I donated for the Young Life fund-raiser.

They let me dress them in whatever I wanted… they let me DO whatever I wanted.

I hesitate to even post these because I know we don’t offer maternity shoots anymore. But Courtney and Bryan are too cute NOT to post. Well, Courtney is. These are friends of ours that we’re hosting a baby shower for. And I wanted to get an image of them to use for the invitation I’m making to send out. These were two of my favorites. They showcase the kind of style I’d like to move toward… cleaner, crisper and more contemporary. Eventually, you’ll be seeing a lot more images like this.

Parker and Peyton each received a medal of excellence last night at the Classical Conversations program. Peyton’s was for Geography and Parker’s was for science. To get these medals, you had to answer a series of questions that covered every tiny bit of material that was covered this year in the subject of your choice. You couldn’t miss anything… in fact, according to the director, you had to give your responses “correctly and without hesitation”.

For Peyton, that meant locating over 100 geographical features… countries, mountain ranges, rivers and oceans. And let me tell you that I wouldn’t have been able cover a tenth of those things. It wasn’t easy stuff like Canada and Mexico. Parker’s questions covered things like the laws of Thermodynamics, the seven biomes, stuff about electricity and space and light and heat and a myriad of other things. I was really proud of them for doing it!

Here they are with their prize possessions:

When Jeff and I made the decision to open the downtown studio, it was a leap of faith. Keeping a business above water when you don’t have any overhead is one thing… keeping it above water when you’ve signed a five year contract on a newly restored and renovated building is quite another. There was only so much planning we could do… we finally had to say, “Okay, we’re in”. And that’s what we did.

It’s been three months since the initial transfer to the new space, and our calendar is booked solid through November for family and children. We’re also only three wedding dates away from closing out the 2008 wedding season. God is good. We are grateful to you all for making this move as easy a transition as possible. Sure, there have been some struggles (as any business will have), but I keep reminding myself that we’re here because of His blessing and not our own doing… and as long as we keep that in the forefront of our minds, I won’t have to fear for the future.

So if you have a Fall wedding planned and have been putting off getting in touch, now is the time! We set a limit this year on how many we’d accept and we’re stickin’ to it! Give the office a call and let’s talk!

If you’re a Mom who didn’t get an appointment for Spring, Summer or early Autumn, then jump on the late Fall bandwagon and book with us in November or early December! Those who have “Grow with Me” babies should look ahead for the six month and one year shoots and not wait! We don’t want to miss out on any of you!