This was my last session of the year, and it sure was a spec ial one!  One of my very best friends from high school, Stephanie, and her beautiful family were in town all the way from California and asked me to take their family portraits.  I could not have been more thrilled!  Between the two of us we have three more kids than since the last time we saw each other, so we had lots of fun goofing off and catching up.  It was a little colder than we would have liked (especially right by the lake, brrrr!), so it was a little harder to keep everyone happy and smiling, but we still managed to get some really great shots.  I’ve also been experimenting some more with textures and decided to show some here.  Let me know what you think!   Thanks for being so patient Steph and Matt, and I hope you enjoy your sneak peek!  I so enjoyed spending time with you guys in person, and I hope we can make it out to CA soon!

More from this session coming soon!

Yes, this was a family session, but as you can see, it was definitely all about little Ellie!    I got to photograph 3 generations of this awesome family in what turned out to be a very interesting session.  When our outdoor shoot plans went south along with the plunging temperatures, we decided to try shooting indoors at Northpark Mall.  Since natural light is my thing, this was a fun challenge!  Luckily, Northpark also has a beautiful courtyard and my subjects were willing to brave the cold for a few minutes for some outdoor shots as well.  While we managed to get some good natural light inside, I think I will have to get over my horrible distaste for all things flash-related and get a good flash for backup situations like these.  Thanks for being so flexible!  Enjoy your sneak peek! 

Drew and I met up last week on a very chilly afternoon for a really fun senior session.  We actually were at the location where I had my very own senior portraits taken, so that was kind of fun too.  I’m not sure I ever fully convinced Drew of this, but as you can see by the pictures, he was a natural!  He was so laid back and fun to work with – we shared quite a few laughs over our mutual love for the NBC Thursday night TV line-up.    It’s good to know there’s someone else out there who will be sad if Community gets cancelled!  Oh well, there’s always the Office and 30 Rock, right?  I had such a great time with you Drew, thanks for sticking it out in the very cold weather – I told you it would be worth it!

Just before the Thanksgiving holiday, I met this lovely family out at the train depot for some special “senior” pictures.  Wade is a senior in high school, and Brooks is a senior in college!  While I’m not sure that this is what they had hoped to do on their day off of school, they were troopers and stuck it out for a good hour and a half at a very busy location.  I almost had a heart attack when I arrived because what had only been a few Christmas decorations just a few days earlier had exploded into “Christmas Land.”  Gulp.  Luckily, they left most of the best spots in the back untouched, so we were all right.  Boy, did it give me a scare though!    Mom and Dad jumped in for a few shots to wrap up the session as well.  Thanks for spending your holiday with me, and I hope you enjoy your photos! 

A couple of weeks ago I had the honor of photographing my very talented photog friend Erica and her beautiful family.  Luckily for me, Erica understands how crazy busy this holiday season has been and has been very patient.  You can definitely tell she is a photographer because their outfits totally rocked!    Their very precious son was such a trooper with his big smiles and goofy faces … the only real challenges (thanks to grandma) were keeping him from playing with mom’s hair and eating all of the delicious looking acorns on the ground.    I had a blast guys, and I can’t wait to get ours done too!