Rachel ♥ Dale {Montgomery, AL Engagement Photography}

I felt like I'd truly "arrived" as a wedding photographer when I got a call from this beautiful young lady and she wanted to check my availability before finalizing her wedding date!! WOW! What an honor!!

We met for one of my favorite ever e-sessions at the beautiful Jasmine Hill Gardens and Outdoor Museum in Wetumpka. They are so gracious to open this beautiful location to photographers each year.



Rachel's ring is beautiful! And the wrought-iron gate reminded her of one at her grandmother's house. I did cheat a little. I told Rachel I was just taking photos of the hands. But when I glanced up and saw the emotion as she was looking at her ring and their hands I had to pull back with the lens and capture that moment.



We had beautiful late-afternoon lighting and pleasant weather.



Not to mention I felt like I was working with professional models! It is going to be so much fun to capture the special moments of their wedding day.






The full gallery of images from the e-session is uploading now. I hope friends and family will enjoy this little sneak peek of what's coming!

Enjoy Nolan {1 year}

It's Nolan's first birthday! And to celebrate this important milestone we met at Jasmine Hill Gardens and Outdoor Museums. It was a beautiful day and I'm so happy with what we were able to capture for Mom & Dad.



This is one of my favorite interactions between a dad and his child that I've ever captured! I can't help but smile every time I look at it:



And I just fell in love with his beautiful mom the first time I met her, which was actually Nolan's newborn session. Such a lovely lady! And I hope Dad will enjoy a print of this on his desk:



Many, many thanks to Jasmine Hill Garden and Outdoor Museum for allowing us this beautiful venue as our backdrop.



And Happy Birthday, Nolan!



Mom and Dad, your full gallery of images is uploading and should be available to view later today. Enjoy these until your gallery is released!

Enjoy Mary Mason {6 months}

What a wonderful way to start a day: meeting sweet little Mary Mason and her family at Jasmine Hill to celebrate her 6 months milestone!



The flowers were beautiful and the lighting was perfect for our morning appointment.



Daddy was great at getting Mary Mason to smile and laugh.







And mom had everyone perfectly coordinated.



This is a very special family to me in many ways. I was so honored to be there with them on this day to celebrate their blessings.



And, seriously, have you ever seen anything cuter than this in your life!?! I just have a big ol' grin on my face every time I look at this!



Mom and Dad, your full gallery of images is uploading and should be available to view later tonight. Please enjoy these and share with friends and family.

Enjoy Millie {Montgomery, AL Pet Portraits}

Sweet little Millie came by recently for her portrait session. She is a precious 13-year-old Havanese who provides lots of love and companionship for her mommy, Linda.







Molly's full gallery of images will upload tonight.

Thank you, Molly and Linda!

Enjoy Giving

Wynlakes Country Club provided the perfect venue for The Course of Hope Dinner and Auction 2011 to benefit MANE (Montgomery Area Nontraditional Equestrians). After an enjoyable golf tournament the guests moved into the silent auction area where many generous artists and businesses had donated services and products.




The silent auction was followed by a delicious steak dinner prepared and served by the excellent Wynlakes staff.




After a welcome speech by Mayor Strange and presentations of the awards to the tournament winners, everyone enjoyed the live auction led by Jack Granger of Granger Thagard from Birmingham, Al (www.gtauctions.com).




Everyone had a great time for a worthy cause. Funds raised at this event will assist the area special needs population, their families, pre-professionals learning to serve this population, MANE's horses, and MANE's volunteers.

To learn more about MANE, please visit their website at http://www.maneweb.org/.

Enjoy Kade {Montgomery, AL Children's Photography}

This handsome fella recently celebrated his third birthday!



And after a morning of golf with his dad ...



...we met on the grounds of Huntingdon College for his "official" birthday portraits. The location was special for his dad who is a Huntingdon graduate.



The late afternoon lighting was beautiful.




Just a little sneak peek for mom & dad while Kade's fully gallery of images is uploading.

Enjoy!

Enjoy AK & AP {Montgomery, AL baby photography}

We had this portrait session scheduled for a beautiful location. I got there (thankfully) ahead of the family as I always try to do. I like to walk the venue - make sure nothing has changed - check the lighting and the other people who may be there - plan out the session. Enter the security guard... "you can't photograph here." What? Seriously? I was just here 4 days ago!? Had a long conversation with the person in charge... Took some beautiful portraits... You're kidding, right? Wrong! Frantic phone call to the mom in route. "We've got to go somewhere else!" "Where?" "Shakespeare's Garden or Huntingdon College?" "Shakespeare's Garden." Mom took it better than I did. I hate disappointing clients.

But all's well that ends well, right? And this ended well, I think:



The daffodils were in full bloom - but I promise I didn't let them pick these. I brought these from home.



And these two sweeties are an instant party!



"Here, sis, let me fix that bow for you."





I love, love, love to hear a mom say I was able to capture the child's personality during a session. And we did here. Can't you see it in those eyes?!?






Wow! What a treat! Can't wait to see what their cake-smashing first birthday portrait session yields :D

I'm running a little behind on the blog post as the gallery has already been uploaded. Still wanted to offer this little summary of our session for mom & dad to share.

Enjoy!

Enjoy Smoothies

I do not like fruit. I know it's good for you, but I just don't like it.

Last year my son and daughter-in-law introduced me to Smoothies. YUM. Finally a way I could eat fruit. But who could drive out to the smoothie store each day?

My daughter showed me the secret to making them. YUM again. But I soon tired of dragging the blender out of the cabinet and washing it out after I'd finished.

Enter the Magic Bullet!!! I got one for my birthday and now I have a fruit smoothie every day for breakfast.

Here's the way I do it:

I chop 1/2 banana in first. It can be fresh or frozen (Banana skins turn brown in the freezer but the fruit inside doesn't. If I use a frozen banana I just take the peeling off with a knife and chop it frozen into the container.)

Add any frozen fruit to fill the container about 2/3 full. The key is frozen. It doesn't matter if you add one fruit or 4 different ones. My favorites are peaches, strawberries, raspberries and blueberries. I honestly haven't ventured beyond these four.



Almost cover the fruit with Vanilla Soymilk - my personal favorite is Soy Slender.



Let the Magic Bullet do its magic (pun intended):



Put on the little "to go" top and voila!



Fruit I can enjoy.

What To Wear 2 {Montgomery, AL Photography}

Another installment in the "What to Wear" section. I hope these suggestions will give you a good starting place for planning your spring family portrait sessions.

As of today, the following dates and times are available for spring:
- one morning spot available for Friday, March 18 (Jasmine Hill)
- one afternoon slot on Sunday, March 27th (Jasmine Hill)
- Wednesday, May 23 (location of your choice)
- Tuesday, May 31 (location of your choice)

What To Wear {Montgomery, AL Photography}

One of my daughters-in-law recently encouraged me to add a "what to wear" section to the blog. So here's the first installment just in time for the Spring Portrait Sessions.



Also just in time for spring, I have one morning spot available for Friday, March 18 and one afternoon slot on Sunday, March 27th. Both slots are at Jasmine Hill. Please email if interested.

Enjoy Validation {Montgomery AL Photographer}

One of my goals for 2011 is to pass a certification process through the Professional Photographic Certification Commission. It consists of two parts -- written exam and image submission. I submitted my images for review in February and received a letter of congratulations for passing the review today! YAY! I like my images ... but validation is certainly nice :)

The requirements were to submit 20 images that represented your body of work. They had to reflect your business. So, I submitted half of the images from my portrait sessions and half from weddings. They had to come from 20 different clients. The judges were looking for technique -- lighting, color balance, exposure, etc.

Some of my portraits are "studio" style, so I submitted the following images to reflect that portion of my work.





The majority of my portrait sessions are on-location so I selected seven images to reflect that portion of my business:






I made sure to include several different ages.





The wedding selections included engagement, bridal and wedding day:






Wedding-day images were to include a mixture of formal and candid.






I was particularly pleased that my black-and-white images passed the review. I'd heard they were particularly picky about those. But I love b & w images so I wanted to include them.




So I am super excited this evening and now need to start studying for the written portion of the exam. I don't remember the last time I had to pass a written exam!! I'm so not looking forward to that! I will have to travel out-of-state later in the year to take the exam and complete the certification process.

So, thank you to my wonderful clients for providing me with such gorgeous images to submit!! And thank you to anyone who has actually finished reading this blog post and allowed me a little time to bask in the accomplishment.