I’m sooo happy for spring, I get pretty antsy during the winter waiting to start shooting again! Today was absolutely gorgeous, blue sky and some lovely golden sunlight.

I got to meet up with Caitlin and her mom for her senior pictures today. Caitlin gets some bonus points today because she wasn’t feeling well & she still put up with us. On top of that I found out she was an “America’s next top model” fan too and I put her through the worst Tyra Banks impression that’s ever been done. The poor girl still managed to look gorgeous!

Here’s a quick preview.

It’s the beginning of a new year, so I thought I’d share with you some of my favorite pictures from 2009.

It’s hard to pick my most favorite, but the one at the top of this post certainly makes me smile!

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday season & I hope you all have a 2010 that’s jam packed with awesomey-goodness!

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 was hoping to get these posted by  Monday because I think Lynsey’s session turned out really great, but I’ve been pretty sick since Sunday night. Actually the whole family has sort of passed it around. Anakin was sick Friday after school & had to miss out on the Juvenile Diabetes Walk on Saturday, and by Sunday night Crystal & I were both feeling awful. Anakin got over it by Monday, and Crystal & I are starting to feel better.  So that was no fun.

Ok, back to the shoot, I met up Lynsey & her boyfriend Eric on Sunday for pictures at one of my favorite spots.  While we were shooting a dog was running around without a leash,  he was really cute, I’m not sure what kind of dog he was (I’m more of a cat person), but Eric went to check on the situation, and when the owners caught him, they were beating the dog! He asked them to stop & the woman looked at him & started whipping the dog.  How awful was that, poor dog.  So he saved the day by calling the police, and a little while later we saw the police come & take care of things thankfully, and hopefully the dog will be placed with better owners.  I get really upset about animal abuse.

On a brighter note, I think we had an awesome senior portrait shoot, Lynsey is really sweet & so pretty. She has tried so many different things in her life. I think that’s an admirable trait.

This picture makes me feel like “summer”

Doesn’t Lynsey have some gorgeous eyes going on?

This image above & the one at the top of the post were the result of over 30 seperate images combined for some wild lighting effects. The light is a bit more subtle in this picture than in the one at the top of the post.  Thanks for letting me experiment Lynsey!

I’m loving those shades with her dress!

What a crazy weekend, on Saturday I got to tag along with Teresa of Wiz of Oz Photography for a wedding, we had a blast. The most entertaining part was chasing down a particularly adorable camera shy flower girl. Great time.

Then today was such gorgeous day! I’m so happy that spring is finally showing it’s face. I was so sick of being stuck indoors. Cory & I got a chance to shoot the fabulous Melissa today for her senior pictures. It was great getting outside for a shoot, and it doesn’t hurt having someone as fun & pretty as Melissa to shoot. Afterwords Cory’s parent’s took us out for dinner for Cory’s birthday, which is coming up Tuesday (yep St. Patricks day). So a pretty great day.

Here are some of my favorite shots from today’s session.

Look at those gorgeous eyes.

Her parents made us put her behind bars, lol.

Cory took this one, I love it.

That was probably my favorite picture from the senior portrait session I did with Desiree on Sunday. Her eyes are just gorgeous!

This session was a total blast, I got to catch up with an old friend of mine who was friends with the family, who I hadn’t seen in ages. These ladies were a lot of fun, what can you say when the portrait session starts out with this…

She totally did that all on her own, which is great! I love when people can be themselves and let that come across in their photos. Um, which brings me to this one…

Ok, that was all Desiree, well and maybe a bit of Heather coaxing.
That was like the hardest picture I’ve ever had to edit, I have like this total eye thing. Ha, ha, but I so had too. Ok, here’s some more from the shoot, enjoy.

Yeah, I know I have a total shoe issue, but I had too.

Props to Mom for pointing out this cool truck we climbed into! Awesome location spotting!

More to come….