My First Feedblitz Subscriber!!!!

I got a notification in my inbox telling me that I had a confirmed subscriber to my blog... it's the first one that has subscribed through feedblitz. So I have no idea if I have others.... I don't know who they are but I was truly very excited to see a subscription!!!! It's a good day!

Coolest Phone Call Tonight

Wes has been urging me to stop taking phone calls after 5pm so that I have "business hours" and only to do business between 9am and 5pm. Well that's next to impossible seeing how I do A LOT of business on MySpace and most people don't get off work and onto myspace until 5pm. So I do try to curb what I do online and on the phone in the evenings so that I can be a "wife" LOL... Tonight around 6:20 I received a phone call from this delightful lady who was calling for her soon to be sister in law. I debated a little on answering and just letting the voice mail get it, but I'm really really glad I didn't!

Apparently her stb sister in law had a really bad experience with a photographer on the phone (which I hear happens a lot, and I don't understand but that's another blog) and was a little tentative about calling wedding vendors afraid of the same result. Which is very understandable... then again I won't go to the grocery store alone unless I absolutely have to!!!

The girl on the phone went on to explain how she had sent her stb sister in law many photographers websites to review, and that her soon to be sister in law only really liked mine! I got teary!!! That just means so much, and it's so humbling, and honoring! I couldn't believe it. We went on to talk for the next little bit. We talked about how we both read Scarlett Lillian's blog and just love her to death. It was a very very good conversation! I felt like I had known this girl my whole life! I can't wait to meet them! Both the caller and the soon to be sister in law!

I'm glad I don't go by those "business hours" rules, but to my hubby's defense they do have their place on some days. :)

Miss Amanda Mae

Sometime late last year Amanda contacted me about photographing her wedding, which was supposed to go down in April.... A few months ago Amanda emailed me telling me what had happened and how things had fallen apart and the wedding is off! Since she had already made her deposit, and deposits are non refundable I offered her a myriad of photography services that would equal her deposit amount. Amanda took me up on a "Proud Single WOMAN!!" photo shoot. AND on her birthday no less..... We came up with a game plan that included San Marco, Mandarin, Downtown, and just the whole day, outfit changes makeup artist the whole nine yards.... Then, it rained on the day of our shoot...

I was pretty well determined to get something done that day so we kept the appointment with the makeup artist, and headed out in the afternoon (when the news said the rain should stop and the weather would be more clear) Boy did the weather clear, her photos came out wonderfully, even though it still looked pretty grey and gloomy outside... I'm posting a few of my favs from our day and we've rescheduled for another day to finish up her single and loving it bash!!!

OH AND a special shout out to NFC Makeup Design... this is the second job we have done together with more to come through the month of Feb... she's amazing I've provided a link to her myspace page.... check her out!!!!

Ever Grateful

God is good... you know that... God is soooo very good!!! I've never had a public forum before where I can shout it out.. but this is my shout out! GOD IS GOOD!!!!

I have some of the best clients a girl could ask for!!! And I'm just blessed beyond measure.... and I just wanted to share that with you!

My Most Favoritest Photography Subject!

I grew up with a lot of older cousins. Me being the first great grandchild of my family meant that all my great aunts children wanted to play with me. Now that I've grown up the same cousins that so lovingly taught me what wedgies were and found all my ticklish spots, the ones that thought it was just sooo cute to make me scream, have now had children. I grew up very close to my cousin Billy who a few years back got married, and two years ago had, pretty much the cutest little girl ever! She has bar none become my favorite photography subject. I went to visit my great aunt this week and had my camera with me from doing a photo shoot and I decided to take it in with me just cause. Well my darling little Sydney happens to love the camera, her mother takes a lot of photos of her so she is very well acquainted with how cameras work these days. As soon as she had seen the camera she started to pose, and I'd snap a photo. She'd then run over to me put her head beside mine and look at the photo we just created, she'd laugh and look at me. Then I would ask her if she wanted to take another and she'd run over to where she was and pose again. This went on for a good 15mins solid!!!!! I think she might just be my protege :D

Here are some shots of Miss. Syd and her things...

God's Watching Over Me

Yesterday I had a group of ladies scheduled to take some Valentines Day photos for their husbands, or future husbands. I've been excited about this since I first decided to run the special. I got a great group of girls thanks to my November bride Heather that decided to tell all the "knotties" about the session. For those of you who don't know, theknot.com provides a message board for brides. Within this message board there are local forums as well as national forums, and the people that post on the forums are called "knotties"

Heather informed all the "knotties" of my special for Valentines Day and a group of great gals contacted me and scheduled their day. A makeup artist friend of mine also joined in on the fun for the day and did the ladies makeup. So, this was a pretty good little event for me. Up until the night before nothing major had gone wrong to foil any plans, and lets face it something always goes wrong when I'm excited about something.

Low and behold the night before the shoot an assistant (another photographer) told me that her husband had surprised her and her son with tickets to the Circus and she was not going to be able to make it. Typically this would not be an issue but she had the STUDIO LIGHTS. I'm primarily an on location photographer so I have very little when it comes to a studio set up. I have back drop stand, some minor lights and a good flash that's about it! My photographer friend offered me many solutions to the issue at hand and the only feasible one seemed to be building diffusion panels, and using some really strong lights.

Saturday morning, Wes and I frantically ran around Jacksonville getting PVC pipe and material to build these panels. By the time we got to JoAnne's we were both already tired and ready for the day to be over. It was around 11AM, my photo shoot was to start at 3PM. I went inside JoAnne's fabrics and asked where I could find my material and told the lady I needed 6 yards, but by the looks of it there wasn't six yards to be had. The woman went on with measuring out the material first there was a one yard remnant, and my heart just sunk! Then she began pulling the material one yard at a time... We got to 4 yards and she was still turning out more material... I couldn't believe my luck there was exactly 6 yards of material after that remnant!!!!! I looked at my husband and said to him God is watching over my project today!!!

Praise Him!

Samantha, San Marco Magazine's Cover Bride!

Back in May I did a bridal expo downtown. At the expo I met Samantha and Robert who are getting married in April of this year. Sam is such an outgoing, funny, beautiful woman. I offered to give them a free "trash the dress" session with their package and they jumped at the chance. Sam was concerned with trashing her own dress but loved the concept. I happened to have a previously worn wedding dress in a size that would fit her so we went to Big Talbot one extremely hot day last year and got trashed!!!

When showing my work to the owner of San Marco Magazine she saw Sam's photos and said that her energetic, and beautiful smile would make a great magazine cover... I told her that I was sure Sam would be happy to have her bridal photos on the cover of a magazine, and I was right. I messaged Sam over MySpace and she jumped at the chance! We went to The Boyer House in San Marco. Since I'm good friends with one of Mr. Boyer's daughters (Kimberly of Once Upon A Memory) I got permission to do photos on the property. We also hit friendship fountain and River City Brewery on our fun day out!! Here are some of my favs from the day. More can be seen on both my website, and the full session in my SmugMug galleries.

Now the issue is how the heck do I choose favorites for the Editor she was 3-5 to choose from... and a collage of them all would just be too busy for the cover... :)

Magazine Cover!!!

Back in December I started advertising in print, I chose a small magazine in Jacksonville called the San Marco Magazine. While sitting down with the owner of the publication I also asked if she ever needed artwork for the magazine and she said yes. So I told her I'd love to help her out just to have my work out there. A few days after our meeting she called me asking if I thought I could do the cover of the magazine she gave me a theme and I ran with it... the result is at www.thesanmarcomagazine.com

The magazine is quarterly, so this cover has run from November till end of January so there will be a new magazine and a new cover in Febuary, so be sure to check back as my bride Samantha will grace the cover of the Feb-Apr issue of San Marco Magazine!

Her bridal session photos are coming either later today or tomorrow!!

My First Flush Mount Album

I'm just starting to realize how much I did not blog about back in the day. So, I'm kinda playing catch up over the next few days to make sure that everything is up to date.

Back in October I had the honor of photographing a Commitment Ceremony I did blog about! (you can read it here) A while after the ceremony they ordered their album, a beautiful flush mount album. Which was the first one I had ever ordered, so I was a little nervous about the company I had chosen and what the final product would look like, and when I received it I was pleasantly surprised... here are a few photos of the album.

I include these type albums in all of my wedding or event packages, I love the way they look. The pages are all nice and shiny!!! Sorry for the small photos, they were the ones I placed on my myspace page...