Best friends by heart; sisters by soul.

When you come across a picture and think to yourself, "This is just gorgeous". It's not just the pose that draws you in or the editing done to enhance the image, and it's not really even the person in the picture. What brings BEAUTY to any image is substance, real emotion, and "spark" of that image. When it tugs at your heart, that's what draws you to that image. Any photographer can attempt to "recreate" a pose or position. But unless that picture has that special substance of real life emotion, it is simply just another picture.
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These two beauties have been best friends since kindergarten. So, you can imagine all the good and bad's that they have helped each other through. When they look at this imagine they not only will laugh and remember this moment but they will also see each other and will be reminded how close they are still to this day.    

www.rocktheshotforum.com/

Phone cameras

Something I have learned being a photographer is that the one camera you have on you at ALL times is your phone camera. So when I heard the Samsung Galaxy S4 was going to have a 13 megapixel camera vs. the Apple iPhone which still has only 8 megapixels, there was NO hesitation in my decision to switch. Now I want to share with you side by side pictures of the Samsung Galaxy S4 vs. the Apple iPhone 4S and the Apple iPhone 5 so you can see for yourself the difference between the top two phone brands and models.

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Now as you can see the Apple iPhone has improved the quality of photos with their Apple iPhone 5 model but the megapixels are still the same. So if you were to want to print the photo you wouldn't be able to print it larger than a 4x6 before it would start to get distorted. 

SO I hope my comparison's for you have helped you make a decision on a camera that you can fit in your pocket without excess equipment. 

Tyla & her sweet prince!

My dear, dear friend Tyla got married yesterday August 7, 2013. Since I have known Tyla she knew exactly what she wanted and refused to settle for anything less. Over the years I have seen her date a few people and always hoped with each one she would find her prince charming. Now having met Chris Latham her now husband I cannot imagine her with anyone else I am SO happy for them because he is just as happy & lucky to have her as she is to have him. I hope you two are enjoying Jamaica BUT you have to come back to the states you have too many people who love and care for you both to not have you in our lives.

The predo With Brandy Youngblood owner of Abstract Salon 

AND THE DRESS

R and J Studio's Behind The Scenes

As many of you saw in my last post about my trip to Houston, TX I visit my friend Rebecca with R and J Studio's . I probably also mentioned how much I learned from her. Just the littlest things such as ALWAYS ALWAYS take a portrait and landscape angle of each pose you never know what the client will love and want to frame and be limited to which prints they pick based on the angle unless you know ahead of time. See below a photo of Rebecca taking a shot, one portrait and one landscape.

 

The final product, GORGEOUS!

My adventure behind the scenes also included shadowing Rebcca and Justin (her hubby) to a wedding. I say watching these two in action together is awesome they are quite the pair. They compliment each other and work great together. One day I hope to find a partner and he will be one that will have similar interests as mine. One that I can work with as harmoniously as Rebecca and Justin do. Here are some of my behind the scense of them at work and their finial product as well.

 

 

 

 

 

R and J Studio's once again gorgeous images.

 



 

 

 

Now you can see why I chose my friend Rebecca to shadow and be my mentor!

Friend & Mentor

I just returned to Arkansas from Houston, TX visiting my friend and mentor Rebecca Davis of R and J Studio's.
Over the course of my photography journey any time I had a question or needed advise I could always count on her for the right guidance. She is an amazing photographer and over the past week I have learned A LOT from her it's amazing how much I took in from this experience.
During my trip we practiced photographing on each other, she felt awkward being on this side of the camera but I say the camera loves her she is a gorgeous girl.

Here are some she took of me

Orange Beach, AL Part II

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Orange Beach was not only wonderful vacation for me, but I got to work with this awesome family on the beach not something I get to do every day. Did you notice the sky in the background? Beautiful right, I know completely natural except enhancing the colors, I didn’t add clouds or color. The water down there is not the only thing rich and clear.

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If you read about Orange Beach Part I, I mentioned a special sweet little girl well this is that sweet little girl. She has her dad wrapped around her little finger it is so much fun to watch them together. Their relationship is the TRUE “daddy’s little girl” relationship, but by looking at this beautiful smile big brown eyes do you blame him. If I would be guaranteed to have a child half as sweet and well behaved I would have a child TODAY!!!

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When I asked the happy couple to kiss on the beach in front of the sun set I didn’t realize it was going to heat up so quickly and NOT from the sun rays either. The flames between this these two are high! I just hope after being with my man for 9 years our flames are still has hot & steamy like these. Got to keep the love alive to last.

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Orange Beach, AL Part I

I had the fortunate opportunity to go to Orange Beach, AL for a week with my man and another family & share a condo last week. Let me tell you, if you haven’t been to the beach you MUST go, at least once in your life. I have been on carnival cruises a couple of times in my life.  I have been to Jamaica, Grand Caymans, and Cozumel BUT I never got to really enjoy the beaches & just lay out in the sun on the beach OR walk barefoot along the shore.  It is truly romantic.  I have always felt a pull to the ocean and I have been before but not to enjoy it and relax. 

Sorry if you’re not a foot person BUT I had to. Further in the photo is my friend. She & I go way back to elementary and Jr. High School and then she moved to California when she was 14, joined the military and we vaguely kept in touch.  I ran into her couple years back and have kept in touch since.  Over that time we grew closer. In the photo she is holding her daughter who is the most mature, well behaved, polite, respectful, and just downright GOOD child I have every met and if I were promised a child HALF as good as her I would have one!!!  While we were down on the beach we went to Lulu’s restaurant which is mostly seafood. I don’t do seafood…I know, I know, you’re thinking someone who LOVES the beach but doesn’t like seafood?  But I don’t. Lulu’s was a MUST go to.  Lulu is Jimmy buffet’s sister and Jimmy sometimes makes a surprise appearance!  How awesome would that have been?

Jason everyone, everyone meet Jason this is the love of my life we’ve been together 5 & 1/2 yrs.  This was our first REAL vacation. I say real because we have always gone to Branson, MO which is only an hour drive for 2-3 days & once you’ve gone to the same place SO many times you run out of things to do and it’s not exciting anymore. After about the second day I looked at him and said “you realize this was a huge mistake?".  He asked "why?".  I said “because NOW we HAVE to come back!” lol. Ya see, I was worried he wasn’t going to enjoy himself cause he is a go go go all the time person but he really enjoyed himself in fact when we got back home :( he said he was just stopping in to get the rest of his things and moving to the Beach!  Lol, so I am SO SO grateful he enjoyed it!

Designing templates

So I made my first template YAY! I made a facebook timeline template and uploaded it to e-junkie and added a download tab on my facebook page for my fans to download it as a freebie and it was SUPER easy so I kinda wanna start to dabble into that I also want to make my own textures, cards etc.

So here goes gonna try to put that template on here for anyone who reads this and might want it.
Enjoy

Contest Winner announced

I am proud to announce the winner of the 8-12month year old baby girl contest. I purchased a tutu & matching headband to photograph one lucky little girl and this precious baby girl got the most posts, comments & likes on my facebook page I am super excited to take the photos of this little bundle of joy in the cute outfit.



Pinterest, twitter, facebook networking...OOoomy

Have I mention before I am new at this whole blogging thing. I never thought my ramblings would be good for my business, but I logged into My Pinterest account & WOW. I have a board of some of my work and noticed there are a TON of my photo's that have been "liked" or "repined" and they were all pinned from this blog :/ SO I wonder how many people have stopped by my blog and though "blah" boring. I mean yes I feel my photography work speaks for itself but people like to read & learn about the photographer. HA that is ludicrous to me, I have it in my mind no one cares about lil'ole me. I just take the pictures and they speak for themselves lol but I get it, you're about to invest some money in my work and probably spend an hour or two of your life with me so you wanna know if I am crazy wild or mellow yellow laid back. Well if you asked any of my friends they would tell you I know no strangers but actually I can be a little shy, seriously (my friends are laughing right now I can hear them). There is a time and a place to be professional and when no to be. I like to meet my clients and kinda feel them out and their personalities before I feel comfortable letting loose. I have had some clients not willing to do a whole lot out of their comfort zone so hanging their child upside down by their ankle would be too much to ask. I feel like it is my responsibility to push them out of their comfort zone to give them the best session possible but I also don't like it when someone tries to force me to do something I don't want to do and then also it is not natural it's not who they are so I am capturing a "fake" them. Are you getting what I am driving at here?

CONTEST

Happy Valentine’s Day!

So we are having our FIRST contest. We are requesting a photo of an 8-12 month old baby girl once we get all the entries in we will post a contest album of all the entries so our facebook fans can vote on the cutest picture. I bought this SUPER cute tutu & matching headband from Designs by Mollie & would like to have a baby girl to take photos of, wearing the outfit. I know the age restriction is making it very limited but we are trying very hard to get contestants so far we have four no so bad but I would love to have more. So far the winner will receive a free mini photo shoot. I will keep you posted on how well it is going.

Moving forward

As I spoke of making my own textures & templets I do have some and I am itching to start selling and/or offering free downloads but I am waiting on my new blog design before I start so it is easier to find on my blog. I don't like how the basic blogs are set up on here there are NO menu bars so hopefully by next week or so "fingers crosses"

Ugh also what is with facebook's lack of resolution on their uploads. I have a timeline cover photo on my personal page and the pic's look like poop!!! Am I doing something wrong or is it just Facebook?

As you can see from my past posts I haven't been much of a blogger. I didn't know what to blog about. Photographers that I follow have before & after days, some have freebie days, tutorial days of the week but I didn't want to steal one of their ideas and haven’t thought of something for myself to do that is different. Then one day I read other photographers blog talk about what to blog about and they mentioned to blog about your daily life along with your photography so your clients get an idea about the person behind the camera, SO here goes......
I don't know about you but I have been sicker than a dog. Who came up with that saying anyways "sicker than a dog"? What about a dog is sick? Anyways I am trailing off the subject. I haven’t been this sick since I can remember so the last few days have been horrible. Since I was off work sick and confined to my home I figured why not get some work done that I have wanted to do. I have wanted to start making my own textures, digital papers for templates for fellow photographers but I was so easily exhausted so I didn't get much done :( I thought why not start blogging but was brain dead to put a sentence together. I am horrible with English as it is with run on sentences poor grammar etc. who would have thought I'd need it later in my life HA not me! Well until the next time I hope to see you here.

Bobbi expecting baby Spencer...

Bobbi had been wanting a maturnaty shoot since she found out she was pregnate but this was her first child she had more important and excited other things to worry about being a new mom. So Bobbi's mom and sister set this photoshoot as a complete surprise. Bobbi & husband Chance are proud to be expecting a precious baby boy. Bobbi is a beautiful glowing mother to be I can't wait to meet Spencer.

Loren

This little girl is SO cute & knows how to work it!

Tyla

Tyla wanted some fall pictures at a pumpkin patch and let me tell you this was an unexpected fun yet challenging shoot. She is a very beautiful girl she makes photography easy!

Keri

Keri is a beaUtiful girl need I say more! however she doesn't like to smile a lot so I have to make her laugh to get her to smile!