If you’re wondering where I’ve been the last few weeks, we’ve had quite the busy month.  My sister, my daughter & I were all born in August, so we had a month of birthdays! I turned 29 this year, not quite used to that yet, but it’s been a good year. Crystal just turned 9, and both the kids started new schools this month, so we’ve been getting them adjusted.  Last night we picked up Crystal’s first Viola, she’s starting orchestra this year (I’ll have to get some pictures up soon). We also had one of my best friends come up from Arizona to stay with us, so it’s been a bit crazy. I’m happy to get back to some photo shoots!

Those of you who know me might be thinking that this blog tittle is a bald-faced lie, and ordinarily you would be right.  I’m not a morning person at all, it might have been partially because of all the night jobs I’ve had over the year, but regardless, I’m not generally cheerful first thing in the morning.  I think all that might be changing though, we did this cutie’s photo shoot bright and early this morning, and the light was amazing.  So pretty I might be forcing myself out of bed early more often!

I probably posted way too many pictures of this little guy, but I couldn’t help it, he’s so adorable! His little smile was just contagious, and he’s at such a fun age, you start to see a bit of a personality emerging, it’s wonderful!

If the above picture didn’t make you smile, you might be a grump.

Gotta love those raspberries. 😀

Oooh! I love this face!

There’s that pretty light I’m loving!

This little guy is such a momma’s boy, it’s adorable. I love how sweet they look together.

Especially when they’re choking each other, lol. No brides were harmed during this photo session.

Abby & Scott were so much fun, I can’t wait for their wedding next year!

I wanted to share with you the story of how Abby and Scott first met, because it was pretty cute. Abby was going to a Cubs game with some of her family, and Scott was going with quite a few of his friends, and one of them was related to Abby, so it was really just one big group. When they got there, they had a bit of a seating mix up and Scott got stuck sitting next to Abby. Apparently they weren’t too happy about the arrangement (The picture at the top might be a  dramatization of what happened), but it all worked out in the end. So of course when it came time to propose, where else but another Cubs game? I love it!

I shoot in some weird locations, but I’ve never had any weird run-ins with people like we did for this shoot.

First off a friend of mine, Teresa Ousley from Wiz of Oz Photography, was doing a shoot with a bunch of bikers and Sturgis Scooter Girl. I knew about the bikes, but I think we were all a little shocked to turn around and find 10 bikers and a scantily clad scooter girl. Teresa posted some pics on facebook, but they’re definitly not for the timid (and not safe for work).  We did get to borrow a bike for some pictures, so the whole thing worked out great.

After we left Sylvan Island, we headed to some downtown Rock Island areas to use some of the cool buildings. We were there about 5 minutes before someone started shouting out a window to find out what we were doing. A few minutes later, someone walked by & asked to bum a smoke.

Anyways, it all worked out well & we got some great pictures.

That bike was rockin’!

As paybacks for choking her, Abby tried to eat Scott’s nose, tasty!

Catching up some more pictures from two sessions a few weeks ago.

What a cutie!

Carrie & Travis are so sweet together!

Carrie’s got some gorgeous eyes!

I’ve got some crazy stories and more pictures coming soon.

Cory & I got to go shoot little Skyler today at Vanderveer Park in Davenport.  He was one of the winners in my Autism Awareness contest back in March.  Isn’t he just the cutest? He was such a sweetheart!

Cory took this one, I love it! He does so well with kids!  I had to use a new processing style I’m trying out.

More to come…

I had the pleasure of shooting Carrie & Travis’s engagement pictures today, what a cute couple! Carrie’s mom had the most amazing back yard (I so want my yard to look like that) and Travis’s dad has an awesome farm (complete with cute horses & an extra friendly dog).  They look so in love! I can’t wait for their wedding pictures coming up in September on the LeClaire waterfront!

What a crazy weekend, I was planning on posting these Saturday, but we had so much going on it didn’t happen. Saturday I met with an awesome bride at Java Java in downtown davenport (my absolute favorite coffee place, the owners, Darren & Debby, have got to be some of the nicest people I’ve ever met  & the coffee is magically delicious). Darren gave me some free tickets to the Putnam, so I took Crystal & Anakin there to get them out of Cory’s way while he worked on our fence. That was fun, I hadn’t been there since I was probably 10, so pretty cool. The kids loved it, they had a whole kids discovery section & we spent probably a good hour just in that section.

Crystal had been bugging me for weeks to go to Tropical Sno, so afterwards we went there (really good, I’d never been there before, but great flavors!), except it was super cold out & we’re sitting outside shivering eating sno cones, great idea. Then we had to run to the home depot, which now that we have a house, in the last month alone I think we’ve gone to one of the 3 home stores about 5 times a week, ridiculous.

Then I met up with some of my friends from the Quad-City flickr group (and some new photographers) for a photowalk downtown. That was a blast, and I got to meet a few new people, I have a few pictures up here if your curious!

Anyways, last weekend I had the pleasure of shooting the lovely Sydney, a soon-to-be senior at  Clinton High School. She’s going to be getting into Biology after she graduates, she’s got a flair for the dramatic, she’s into music and choir. That’s pretty awesome, I get excited to see high school kids involved in so many things, I was a bit of a slacker back then, so I’m in awe! She picked Vandeveer Park & downtown Davenport for her session.

We found out part of the way through the shoot that she’s also into video games (Resident Evil in particular) & horror movies. So when we saw bloody hands on a building window (um a little concerned what they were doing there), we had to do something fun.  This one turned out better than I thought it would, they weren’t showing up to well when we looked at the LCD during the shoot.

I can’t believe she climbed up on this ledge in those shoes, but she told me she was up for anything!

This wall was fitting for her love of music, I think they just finished painting it a few weeks ago, so perfect timing.

Check out the killer shoes, and the awesome scarf, love it!

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It’s lucky for me that my husband can read my mind, because I said something like “hey, wasn’t there a musical or something where they had people hanging off  lamp posts or something?”  and he knew exactly what I was talking about, I think it was “Singing in the Rain,” but I’m not sure, he’s outside still working on our fence, so I’m not going to go ask, but anyways, it worked out & we got a cute picture out of it.

More to come…

I love, love, love it when I get to try new things! Avory totally inspired me for these, at our meeting she brought in some photos of dancers with light trails. We’ll be doing something similar to that at her wedding, but the pictures made me think of some other images I had seen using “light painting,” which is when you take a really long picture & “paint” with a light source of some kind. (My husband Cory did the actual “painting” for all of the night shots)

(Note to future/current brides, don’t ever hesitate to bring me a picture of something you like, I might not be able to exactly duplicate it, but I could do something of a similar style or be inspired to come up with something else you might love.)

We had such a fun shoot, Avory & Corey are a super fun couple & so meant for each other!

These first few shots are taken in their studio. The both make glass jewelry, tiles & other objects. You can check out some of their work on Myspace here, very cool stuff! Avory’s jewelry is all handmade though, you can see the earrings she made & the necklace he made in the picture below. In some of the images later she has an adorable turtle necklace on that Corey made for her. I love it!

See the cute turtle necklace!

Some more “light painting,” these two were totally their idea. I love how they turned out!