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  • A REAL LIFE DREAM {COME TRUE} | Grayson, KY Children Portrait Photographer
  • GOOD TIMES AND MUD BATHS | Mud Mini Sessions Grayson, KY
  • IT’S JUST A DIFFERENT PLACE | Grayson, KY Children Photographer
  • PUPPY LOVE | Pet Photography Grayson, KY
  • ANNA & AVA | Child Photographer Grayson, KY
  • J* WORKSHOP WRAP-UP | Wedding Photographer Grayson, KY
  • THE BRIDE | Grayson, KY Wedding Photographer
  • RHIANNA | Grayson, KY Senior Photography
  • JASMINE STAR WORKSHOP | Photography At It’s Finest, Grayson, KY
  • BIRTH DAY | Grayson, KY Birth Photographer
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Some people long for a “normal” life. Happy healthy kids. A great family. Maybe not prim and proper house with white picket fence, but somewhere along those lines.

The parents of this sweet little girl probably wouldn’t use “normal”  as a description of their path to now. They have been through a lot of ups and downs, to say the least. I believe that they had settled with the fact they wouldn’t have children together. But isn’t that how the story always seems to roll…once they accept what they believe to be their fate, things change.

Fast forward to the sweetest, cutest, most precious bundle of love wrapped up into a tiny little body than you could ever imagine! I’m happy to say that I was there for mom and dad’s wedding and now I am privileged to say that I was the photographer they chose to take the first professional portraits of their new life, all wrapped up in this lovely little girl.

I probably wouldn’t have posted this next one except for the fact that mom mentioned she loved this face. Because it is an expression that she may or may not make as she grows I thought I’d put it up and we’ll wait and see.

To see more of Katie, click HERE to view a slide show!

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There is something to be said about the sheer joy brought to a child by the presence of mud. Allow them to jump in and get really, really dirty and you will never be without genuine smiles.

I have been tossing around some mini session ideas lately and several people have suggested a “Mud Pies” theme. While this session wasn’t necessarily mud pies, it sure was filled with lots of mud! Followed by a hike in the stream. Followed by me…falling on the very slippery rocks, my camera bashing into the rocks, my elbow bloody and bruised, and finally, crossing the path of black snake slithering through the grass! (I just got a cold chill from typing those words!)

We started in a corner of the garden that tends to hold water after heavy rains. Lenzi was lectured the entire time we were getting suits on about her cast and the importance of keeping it clean and dry. Emphasis on d.r.y.

Then it was time to move on to the water and try to wash some of the funk off. Another challenge to keep Lenzi’s cast dry. Logan was like THEE outdoorsman climbing the little stream and the slippery rocks all the while stopping to pose for her swimsuit poses.

This is probably my favorite pose of the day, from a mom’s perspective.

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A little over 7 years ago I was working with my best friend. She was pregnant. I was pregnant. We both worked at the same place. A place where we got to see a lot of crazy medical conditions in all forms and variations. We worked in the pathology lab.

I remember the day she got the call, at work, from a specialist because some things about her unborn baby just weren’t “normal.” I remember the look on her face. The devastation. Because no one wants to hear their baby’s life may be threatened or that she isn’t going to be what most people think of as normal.

While I cried with her it still didn’t seem like a big deal to me because I had a sister that had lived with the same condition that her baby would have. Down Syndrome. And all I can really remember saying was that her baby would still be HER baby. She’d have her. She’d watch her grow and learn and be a kid. It just might be a different experience for her.

But nothing could say the words I felt for her like Emily Perl Kingsley in her account of raising a child with a disability. And since Riley was born, my friend and I have changed the term “normal” to “typical.” Because really, what IS normal?

Here are the words written by E. Kingsley:

“I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability – to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It’s like this……

When you’re going to have a baby, it’s like planning a fabulous vacation trip – to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It’s all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, “Welcome to Holland.”

“Holland?!?” you say. “What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I’m supposed to be in Italy. All my life I’ve dreamed of going to Italy.”

But there’s been a change in the flight plan. They’ve landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven’t taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It’s just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It’s just a different place. It’s slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you’ve been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around…. and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills….and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy… and they’re all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say “Yes, that’s where I was supposed to go. That’s what I had planned.”

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away… because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.

But… if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn’t get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things … about Holland.”

So now I introduce you to Miss Riley Jean. She will be seven years old at the end of this month, and if you ask her mom and dad I bet they’ll tell you that Holland couldn’t be more perfect!!! And just so you don’t pass judgment on her momma, this was not a planned session so we didn’t talk about Riley’s attire. Our session was just some girls having fun after a short shopping trip.

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We saw her laying on the side of the road just a hop, skip, and jump from our house. I thought maybe she had been struck by a car. We slowed down, I rolled Logan’s window down, and I asked Logan to talk to her.

“She’s alive, Mommy!”

I really just wanted to make sure she was okay. Apparently she wanted to make sure we were okay, too, as she followed us home and never left. She stayed in or near our front yard for a week or so and, of course, I had to feed her. She was pregnant.

Fast forward to May 27, 2010. I had screwed up the dates/times of the girls’ soccer games and we made a trip to the fields to realize we missed Lenzi’s game and Logan didn’t even have one. By the time we got home one puppy had been born…on our couch. It was one of the few times we left her in our house alone because of the heat. The girls had to be at their outdoor dance performance so we left her with 3 puppies born and by the time we got home there were 6.

She had one more puppy, for a grand total of 7, before the night was over. We found a very fancy cardboard whelping box and set up for the long haul. Since then I’ve been doing a load of laundry a day and keeping Clorox in business.

While we are having fun watching them grow and I am thankful the girls got to experience the birthing process I am not happy to have 7 more dogs in an area saturated with strays. I think we may have found the mom, Dolphin, a home, but we will be looking for some families to adopt these puppies.

Please forward this on to anyone you know who may be interested in adopting a puppy in about 6 weeks. I’ll include their own puppy portrait with each adoption! The only stipulation is that whoever adopts must agree to have the animal spayed/neutered.

Here is Dolphin, the mom.

This puppy is a boy…

This puppy is a boy…

This puppy is a girl…

This puppy is a girl…

This puppy is a boy…

This puppy is a girl…

This puppy is a boy…

Thanks for reading!!!

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To be completely honest, I always get a little nervous when preparing for a photo session with young children. As a mom I realize that they are as unpredictable as you can imagine. You just never know how good or bad the session will go, how frantic the mom or parents will be, or how cooperative or uncooperative the children will be. And whatever mom and photographer have in mind going into the session will certainly not transpire through the kids’ actions. That’s just life.

And this session was no different with regard to my nerves, especially since Rebecca had complimented me over and over on my photography skills long before we ever scheduled a session. So, yes, I was a little nervous. Plus the only time that worked for her was not a time of day I would normally like to schedule for a portrait session.

This session turned out to be so delightful. While Anna didn’t have the same kind of session in mind that mom and I had, she showed her true colors. She danced for us and hunted for flowers. She made silly faces when mom asked her to smile, even a fake smile. A fake, forced smile was not going to fall across this little girls face. No way. She was too busy being a kid and enjoying nature…her own way! Perfect! We captured her soul. Even if we didn’t get a lot of shots where she was looking directly at me, we got the shots of her dancing and being a little girl.

Little sister Ava, well, she’s just cute and she sure knows it. She followed in big sisters footsteps and kept up the best she could considering she had to take two to three steps to every one of Anna’s. She explored her world and handed over all kinds of expressions. I could have picked her up and hugged her just as easy as I could have taken her photograph…but at that age there just isn’t time for photographer luvs with so much ground to cover!

Thank you, Rebecca, for sharing your girls with me. It was such a fun session and your calm energy made my job so much easier! I hope you enjoy your photos!

Thanks for reading!

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I wasn’t sure how I wanted to sum up my thoughts on the workshop. Maybe you are sick of hearing it, maybe not. So I thought I would transcribe my thoughts as I wrote them on my Jasmine Star: The Workshop tablet that came as a little added bonus. Along with a pen! I wrote these words from the airplane the day after the workshop as I flew back across the country to my side of the world.

On a personal level I realized that I have something very strong brewing inside of me. My passion for photography has been deeply hidden and somewhat smoldering while I did what people thought was “right” instead of following my heart. Lack of confidence and fear of total rejection on top of the financial aspect kept me from obtaining true happiness. Personal words, at the very end of my J* experience, as we were leaving the restaurant, lit a fire in me.

On a professional level I walked away with something different than maybe a lot of my fellow photographers who sat next to me at the workshop. I realized how much I not only want to rock the industry as I grow, but also that I want to help other photographers along the way.

Isn’t that weird? I mean, here I was paying a lot of money to be near Jasmine Star and now I think I’ve got something that others might want. It’s almost laughable. But I remember how it was when I picked up my camera as a hobby and how long it took me to figure it all out on my own. I’ve realized a lot of stuff I could or should have skimmed over while concentrating on what matters most.

So, while I learned a lot to progress my own skills I also learned how deeply I agree with Jasmine’s philosophy of helping others. And like her, I am pretty much an open book. One more thing I love about that girl.

I believe in the saying “what goes around comes around.”

That being said here the final photos from the workshop session…

Thanks for reading!

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I am going through my photos from the workshop in what seems to be slow motion. Since returning from California I have shot 3 or 4 different events for my kids so I’ve had to push the workshop photos somewhat to the back burner while we wrap up several commitments from the girls’ lives.

Today I decided to share some photos concentrating mostly on the bride for the photo shoot, Carlie. Carlie is one half to the whole of Gabriel and Carlie. Check out their blog, you’ll fall in love with them. It’s easy.

In the meantime, check out the beautiful Carlie…

At times I found it hard to compete for the perfect angle when shooting with 20 other photographers, so I often would just stand back, watch, and listen to everyone. The photos were taken full sun, partial sun, and in complete shade of trees. We all had fun experimenting with the different lighting situations.

It was definitely a learning lesson…more to come in a day or two. The photos progressively get better, and that tells me it was money well spent.

Thanks for reading!

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I have a confession. It’s pathetic, really. But for some reason the entire look of my blog editor changed to some archaic looking layout. Normally change doesn’t bother me, but this time I was thrown for a loop. Freaked me out. For that reason I stopped blogging and sought out help. I was actually never able to figure out what was wrong so I just gave up and thought I would tackle it after my workshop.

Fast forward. I came home from the J* workshop and was excited to share. That’s when I realized I had to face the blog monster. But when I logged on…IT WAS FIXED! I would not lie to you. Just like that, back to normal. So here is what I was going to blog before my blog got attitude (keep in mind this was all previously typed out and Rhianna graduated last week):

After meeting with a friend and former coworker and her family to capture images of her daughter I was inspired to blog again.

This session is way past due since Rhianna graduates in less than a month. The circumstances are too personal to reveal to you, dear Internet, but let us just say this family has suffered substantial loss over the past year.

So there we were in Chillicothe, OH. We had an idea of where we were going to meet but the location was gated and locked up for the evening. Since none of us knew the area (we met there because it was kind of middle ground between our two homes) we followed Chuck’s lead and ended up in a beautiful little park.

This was such a fun and relaxing session. Seniors usually scare me. Because I’m kind of a dork and they are so cool…how could I ever hang with them? But Rhianna was amazing. A natural in front of the camera and not at all picky. She did her thing naturally and the time passed very quickly!

What do you think, isn’t she a doll? Rhianna, thanks for allowing me to capture your images. Barb, Chuck, Ross, and Rhys, thanks for tagging along and making it even more memorable.

This seemed to be the family favorite.

Thanks for reading!

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The workshop is over. I am back at home.

The Workshop left me longing for more. More interaction with amazing photographers. More time learning. More time being inspired. More time to morph.

I am still trying to put into words what an amazing experience I had at the Jasmine Star workshop. Also known as THEE Workshop! Or at least it should be. As a photographer aspiring to be the best I can be as a person and photographer I would recommend this to every photographer entertaining the idea of attending the workshop: GO. I say that as if it were easy, but I found out that Jasmine and JD only host 4 workshops a year. That’s only room for 80 photographers. And now I feel even more blessed.

And let’s just say that Jasmine will captivate you not only by her fabulous writing style on her blog, but I am strangely drawn to her OCD ways. I chuckled to myself at the workshop when she asked JD to take her collection of empty bottles and wrappers away because she can’t think clearly when there is clutter in front of her! Amen, sister!!! If given the chance I think we’d be pretty good friends. Because we are a lot alike as far as I can tell. She’s just WAY more “fresh, fun and fabulous.”

I’m more “mom, simple and perfectly imperfect.”

Here are a few shots from the day. There WILL be more to come. But first, a huge thank you to the gorgeous models (and photographers) Carlie and Gabriel of Gabriel Ryan Photographers. And Jaclyne from Heavenly Blooms provided the awesome bouquet and apparently surprised Jasmine with the table decor for the workshop. Rock on!

Here is Gabriel holding that beautiful bouquet.

Jasmine rocking her boots with that awesome dress.

Jasmine giving Carlie and Gabriel’s baby a big smooch before handing him over.

I forgot to tell you that it was an honored surprise of mine to meet Jasmine’s mom! You can catch up on that story at Jasmine’s blog…I’ll move forward.

If there ever was a moment captured proving a woman’s longing for grandchildren, this is the shot. Look at how Jasmine’s mom completely engulfed this baby as JD handed him over! She felt very blessed to babysit while we went out to photograph his mom and dad.

Now, meet Carlie and Gabriel. Dang, they are naturals! I will post more from the photo shoot in a later post. But I wanted to give you a glimpse into my amazing day.

Thanks for reading!

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I’ve tried and tried to put my emotions into words since Tuesday, March 30, 2010.

I have failed. Miserably.

It is my hope that these photos will help portray my emotions along side the parents and family of baby E.

The parents of E invited me to photograph the birth of their baby girl. She was the fourth child born to this couple and is the completion of their family: one mom, one dad, two boys, and now two girls. And she is just perfect, don’t you think?

If you would like to view a slide show of the photos please click HERE.

Please let me know what you think of the slide show. I would really appreciate it.

LUVS!

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