(New) Faces: Bailey

This little sweetheart is Bailey! Her mom and I went to High School together and I was so excited to shoot some shots of her little bundle of joy! Bailey put up with a lot for me, and she handled it like a champ! She is just a couple of weeks younger than my nephew, and I have decided I just love shooting newborns! Here are a couple of my favorites:



I like the simplicity and symmetry of this one, and that she looks so peaceful!



awake. asleep. awake. asleep.


Her momma has pretty blue eyes, and it sure looks like Bailey may have gotten them too!

Ok, I wasn't sure if grunge was acceptable in baby pictures... So I just did one. Don't worry, mom, the rest are normal:-)

Doesn't she look important?!


I sure had fun! Thanks for letting me photograph Bailey!

Faces: Cash

This cute boy belongs to some friends of my sister. His name is Cash! Don't you just love that name? I spent an afternoon with him and his dad last week. It was pretty cold, but he did really well! Sarah and Shane (mom and dad) have great taste. His outfits were super cute all the way down to his awesome shoes! Here are some favorites.

Meet Mr. Cash

We started off inside, where it was warm!



Then we took the party outside for some fun in the leaves... dressed to impress of course! I think this is my favorite shot! Such joy!

Then we headed down to the lake for a change of scenery. Check out those blue eyes!






Gotta love the robot sweater:-)


Finally back to the house for some swing time and reflection. The shot on the left was a happy accident. It is hard to take pictures of a moving swing... you never know what you'll end up with!

Faces: Liz and Casey

I will preface this by saying this post is a little tardy... Liz and Casey tied the knot in Statesville, NC about a month ago! It was a neat situation because I was actually co-shooting this wedding with a good friend of mine, Jonathan, who is getting in to wedding photography. So besides being a happy wedding day, I also got to hang out with a friend all day. You can check his blog out here.

So, back to the wedding...Liz actually told me that she had never been to a wedding before and that her own would be her first! I couldn't believe she was able to plan one without every having been to one! Crazy! But she did a great job and everything went off without any glitches. While I was pulling pictures for this post, I was drawn to a lot that were very documentary in style. So, this post may seem a little odd because it has a lot of black and white (which I feel compliment documentary pictures), but I just liked these best, and that is what the blog is for!

The Girls





The Boys



Havin' a laugh





I always feel sorry for whoever has to set things like this up!

Then I put some rings on them.

Then I put the rings on a payphone receiver. Why? Because there was one.


Haha... ok this was kind of funny. I was photographing away during the toasts and this little guy just appears in my viewfinder and it startled me. I focused on him, snapped the shot, and he was gone.

Because of a tight schedule, all of the fun couple portraits ended up having to be towards the end of the reception. So I took them outside for just a few. You can't really tell it was like 35 degrees. They were troopers!

Ok, and now just because.... The guy on the right is Jonathan, the other photographer. I snapped this picture because I thought it was kind of funny. He is dedicated to the shot! haha. The guy on the left is my friend Kenny from years ago! He was good friends with the bride, and I didn't know he was going to be at the wedding and playing until the day of! What fun:-) Completely unnecessary to post, but fun.

Drive. Click. Create.

Occasionally I find myself needing to get back to what I absolutely love doing, shooting just for me, and processing my heart out! Give me a day to do atypical portraits, and I will eat it up! All too often I get wrapped up in what other photographers are shooting and think that that is somehow what my pictures should be looking like, and that that is what I should be offering. The thing is though, I am not them, and I can't do what they do as well as they do it, so I am always left feeling bummed out about my second rate imitation photos. Fortunately I found the cure: stick to what I enjoy doing the most, even if it is different. Appreciate, learn, but don't duplicate. What I make may not be everyone's idea of a good image, but it is my way of expressing myself in my photography. It is what I like! Wednesday my friend Maren came to town, and per usual, we went out to take some pictures. (You may remember her from a previous post in a pinky-red vintage dress.) This time we traveled far and wide in search of new, fun places to exploit. It was just what I needed! It married my love of exploring with my love of creating images! It revived my independent, creative spirit and the simple pleasures I get from photography. Here are my favorites...cracked-out color and grungy, worn-out processing, Hooray! Also, I shot exclusively with a 50mm. Just for fun!

This first one pretty much embodies what I love... simple forms, unnatural color and grit.











Self-Portrait!