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.