Yesterday was such an amazing day! Marti (from martiaikenphotography.com) and I had the best time capturing Kait and Justin’s big day. Beautiful weather, beautiful families, and a great time was had by all. Here is a sneak peek of one of their bridal portraits taken at Settler’s Cabin. More to come! Enjoy the honeymoon, guys!!
Happy Spring!! Sorry, Phil, you got it wrong this year. Spring has been here for the past two weeks and it’s been frickin’ amazing!! I LOVE this weather!! Actually, it’s felt more like summer. Just without that annoying humidity. Last weekend, I got to enjoy that weather while catching up with old friend and past client Amanda and her sweet daughter Hannah. I took Hannah’s 5 month portraits back in August and it’s always so much fun to see how they’ve grown! She is just a doll! And she made my job SO easy. I was sweating it b/c I’d been taking pics of my own kid for the past week and was coming up with NOTHING! I thought I just couldn’t photograph moving children. Well, obviously my kid just isn’t model material like little Hannah here. Check out this gorgeous sneak peek. More to come!!
Right before Christmas, the whole family went down to Pittsburgh for a sleepover at our good friend, Pete and Laura’s. If you’re a blog follower, you would have seen Pete and Laura’s engagement pics and our trip to their AMAZING wedding! The latest addition to their family is Yogi, a golden retriever pup. He is so stinkin’ cute and just the most loving and well-behaved dog around. He got along with Max famously…especially after he put the food-falls-from-baby pattern together! You’ll see that Yogi isn’t a tiny little puppy…he’s probably equivalent to a kindergartner at this point!:) Getting bigger, but still sometimes awkward and has those over-sized paws!! Love those!! Here are a few snaps of Yogi and his puppy paws!!
Ok, so I’m a little late posting these pics considering I worked at this wedding back in October!:) I was second shooter with Allison Viron Photography. It was a beautiful day…well, it looked beautiful until you went outside. The wind was blowing, like, 60 mph and it wasn’t a nice warm breeze!:) It was a little chilly! Secondly, it took Allison and I about an hour to get from the parkway east to the Fairmont b/c almost every street was closed for the Occupy Pittsburgh demonstration that was taking place that day. And where was it taking place?? In PPG place where we planned to take bridal portraits! GREAT. But luckily, they all cleared by the time we got there (I’m sure they all had to get home and continue scouring the internet for job postings…or maybe they just had to get back to camping…whatever!) and we were able to get the portraits in peace. The reception was held at the Fairmont and it’s a beautiful modern hotel in downtown Pittsburgh. The ballroom was class all the way and with the joining of these two Italian families, you can bet the food was amazing, too! They had a band instead of a DJ, which at first thought sounds really old school, but this band was AWESOME! Philadelphia Funk Authority brought down the house!! It’s a shame they were from Philly…haha. I hate Philly by the way!! In case you haven’t picked up on that by now!:) The night was capped off by the delivery of the largest Primanti Brother’s sandwich I’ve ever seen! And it was delicious!! Best wishes to Dave and Stephanie! 
Happy New Year! I can’t say enough about 2011! It far exceeded my expectations and makes me excited for all the challenges and opportunities that await in 2012! I feel so incredibly blessed in so many aspects of my life. Although we said good bye to my last remaining grandparent this year (Grandma Mary Jaros…92 years old), the rest of my family is healthy and happy and going strong. Each and every day my son Max overflows my cup of love, whether he’s learning something new or throwing an early-onset-terrible-two’s tantrum. My “day job”, as I like to refer to my full-time gig with benefits, has really been quite the rollercoaster. Exciting, scary, fast, upside-down, and full of turns…it never ceases to surprise me, but I think I may have found peace with it after all. And now this photo biz thing…wow! I am so thankful to all my clients for having faith in me and allowing me to capture a special moment in their life. I have learned so much and come so far…it makes me feel more confident that I can keep growing as an artist and learn more about the technical side of things, too. I am so thankful to have this creative outlet in my life. Hey, it’s pretty sweet when your hobbies can help you earn a little extra money!! Forrest isn’t getting paid for playing men’s league hockey, that’s for sure!! But really all of that extra money goes back into the business by way of gear, prints, and business marketing tools, so it’s not like mama’s buyin’ new shoes with your session fees!:) Either way, this business has ignited a passion in me artistically, motivationally, business-ly (haha…if you can’t think of a word, just make one up!!). I love the challenge of maintaining a balance between work, family, and photography. Life is good and I am thankful!
Last year, I made a list of 5 goals I wanted to achieve related to photography. I am proud to say that I achieved 4 of them. They were:
Four out of five…not too shabby! Since this list definitely helped motivate me in 2011, here’s my list for 2012.
So there we go, folks! 5 new goals for 2012! If you actually read this entire post, I’m not sure whether to thank you or feel bad for you…either way, best wishes to all this year! May we all find peace and inspiration and passion in the new year!
So the holidays are over and even I – one of the worst abusers of leaving Christmas decorations up (the lights on my back porch are called “bistro lights” february thru november) – have already removed all evidence of Christmas decor from my home, but I have to share Christmas card I did for the Jones Family. This has got to be my absolute favorite shot from 2011!! I knew the Jones’ were just the right people to pull this off with me and they hit it out of the park. Lindsay hit up the thrift store for the family’s wardrobe, I found the leg lamp at achristmasstoryhouse.com (it even came in a box marked “fragile” and had the option of shipping in a large wooden crate like in the movie for an additional cost), and it just so happens that Mark had a red rider bb gun up in the attic. Everyone had a blast during the shoot…we shot at Mark’s mom’s house over Thanksgiving break, so we had our own “live studio audience” cheering on the Jones’ during the shoot. It was great!
If you’re interested in doing your own A Christmas Story-themed portrait session for next year’s holiday cards, hit me up! The leg lamp needs some more miles on it!!:) So Merry belated-Christmas and Happy New Year!
What a great start to a ridiculously productive day!! I visited the Veilleux family at their home and had the pleasure of capturing some great moments! As per usual, the unplanned moments produced the best results (sorry cookie-baking! good idea in theory!! haha!). I would write more, but the fact that I’m still awake and functioning after all the shopping, baking, and running around I’ve done today is nothing short of a miracle! Enjoy the pics! Can’t wait to share the rest!!
So we are literally days from Christmas and have I even started Christmas shopping yet?? Nooooooo!!! I’m just not feeling it this year. I’m always overly-excited and spending WAY too much on gifts for EVERYONE regardless of any spending limit or an agreement that we’d even be exchanging gifts. I just love finding that perfect gift for my loved ones. Maybe it’s the lack of snow and the unseasonably warm weather that has me down…or maybe it’s that I feel like I’m behind the 8 ball on so many things that I subconsciously decided that picking out Christmas gifts was the least important thing to focus on so my mind purged the thought to make room for all the other tasks I’ve been juggling. Either way, I have less than 72 hours to put something together. So I decided the best course of action would be the old stand by: family portraits. I needed to run some lighting tests anyway, so we killed two birds with one stone. I’ll leave out the image that will be framed and given as a gift just to “save the surprise” for those who will be receiving it. My favorite one is the first one. It was the first frame…natural and relaxed with just a hint of disorganization. That’s us.:) We fit this in right at bedtime, so Max was having moments of excitement followed by moments of complete disobedience quickly followed by moments of tired surrender. And can I just say my husband can NEVER deny Max…look at those two!! And the last thing I’ll say is I typically don’t go black and white unless I feel it looks way better in BW…and it has to almost look BAD in color to go BW in my book…but I’m not a real big fan of our BROWN wall paneling and ugly blue duvet cover, so I went BW. And I’m pretty happy with these results!
So I’m going to be honest here: I’m lazy. It’s my “weakness”. In fact, together with a co-worker, we came up with the best “what are your weaknesses” response for interviews: “Well, I’m lazy. I’m so lazy, in fact, that I will find the fastest, most efficient way to get a task accomplished so I can go back to doing nothing.” Or something like that.:)
My laziness bit me yesterday, however, when the opportunity arose to take a photo for the IUP blog. The university photographer was off and they needed the photo right away. Well! As they approached me, I had terrible flashbacks to earlier that morning as I sized up all of the bags piled up on my kitchen table: laptop bag, lunch bag, clothes to drop at Goodwill, camera bag, diaper bag, bag of cards I need to mail, my purse….seriously A LOT of bags! 
So I grabbed what I could and when my arms could hold no more (because you KNOW I’m not making a second trip! =lazy!!), I made the executive decision to leave the camera bag. I couldn’t think of any reason I’d need it that day. FAIL.
BUT! Thanks to my trusty Droid, I was able to snap a few shots (boy did I feel like a goober…taking their pictures with my phone! ugh!). Here’s a link to the blog: Art in Public
So the answer is YES! ALWAYS take your camera because you NEVER know what opportunity might be knocking. And really, what’s ONE more bag?!
Back in October, I had the pleasure of sharing in Uriah and Kristin’s special day. I met Uriah a few years back through mutual friends, but it also happens that Uriah’s mom is married to Forrest’s cousin, so we’re practically family. But that side of Forrest’s family is related to EVERYONE in Indiana county, so chances are, we could be related to YOU, too. Who knows!:) Anyway, I had not met Kristin before the big day because she was sick the day of our consultation, but as we talked on the phone and she told me her plans, I knew she had it goin’ on! She was super-organized and orchestrated every detail of the wedding herself…no small task, let me tell you! And everything turned out beautiful! The only thing that didn’t go in our favor was the changing of the leaves…God dropped the ball there, but I guess we can give him one since the week before it SNOWED!! And on this day, the weather was absolutely gorgeous! Too gorgeous if you ask me. I was wishing for just ONE cloud. Nope! Not that day!:) But for everyone OTHER than the photographer, that is PERFECT!
Kristin’s theme was fall, so the flower girls threw leaves as they walked down the aisle, the girls carried autumn-colored bouquets, the tables were adorned with autumn leaves, acorns, pumpkins, and even the cake had fondant leaves on the topper. Girl after my own heart! I wanted a fall wedding, but was far too impatient so I settled for spring. Everything was beautiful! Including the setting! Uriah is a painter and worked on the restoration of “the Clementine”, a cabin built in the 1830′s. The owner was nice enough to allow them to have the ceremony onsite, downhill from the cabin, right on the pond. Just gorgeous!
The reception was held at St. John’s Ukrainian Orthodox Church Hall in Clymer, which was decorated in the autumn theme. And man oh man, was the food amazing! I love a good tradition western PA wedding spread and this was one of the best!! I took probably too many pics of the food, but it seriously was delicious…and beautiful! And check out the groom’s cake: deer hunting in a tree stand with the faithful dog. Love it! So many personal and unique touches!! Best wishes to Uriah and Kristin!!
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