Even More Shots of Kelly

OK.... so I took so many photos of Kelly, I just wanted to post a few more of them. These are more traditional "senior" photos than my previous post... I am thinking that I may take a few of my favorites and do some special editing with them. If you have a favorite shot, let me know and that can help me select the ones that I do some extra work on.

I could not believe the weather we had for this shoot... it was just perfect. I am getting excited about the thought of warmer spring weather!
This shoot was so much fun. We had Kelly's mom and sister along for most of the shoot, they were all a pleasure to work with. I hope they enjoy these photos, I cannot wait for them to see the rest!

Five weeks until graduation...

I had such a great time Saturday with Kelly doing her senior photos. I think I may have gotten a little carried away with time. She was just so much fun to photograph, I could have kept shooting all day. Well... actually we did work almost all day!One amazing thing about Kelly is her smile. It goes on and on, and she is just so natural and beautiful when she smiles, no effort needed!

Kelly is headed off to Oregon for college next fall. It was fun to talk to her about what she will experience her first year. It brought back a lot of memories for me about roommate assignments in the dorms, living in a college town where the town revolves around the activities of the university, and the excitement of a new chapter in your life.On one of our stops, we ended up at the University of Puget Sound. We happened upon a huge 4 square competition... if you are forgetting what that is, take yourself back to about 4Th grade, the playground, and a big rubber ball. We all were laughing thinking about the last time we played and the hilarious 80's outfits that the students were wearing during their competition.Check out this fun wall of graffiti we found!

Kelly, thank you so much for a great afternoon. I am so excited for you to start the next chapter of your life. You are going to have so much fun, and I know you will find success in anything you set your mind to. Congratulations on your graduation!

Helping Out Families in Need Through Photography

The more I do photography, the more I love it, and the more I want to do with it. I love to preserve memories for parents, I love to see people smile when they look at their photos, I love to share in the beginning of a couples life.... there is just so much that a photograph can do, so much it can say... it can make a timeless memory.

There are some amazing things available in the world of photography, I want to share information about a few of them with you. Solumination is a wonderful organization here in the Seattle area founded by Lynette Huffman Johnson. The vision of Soulumination is to, "celebrate the lives of children and parents facing life threatening conditions by providing professional photographs--free of charge--of these special individuals and their families. The life-affirming photographs of Soulumination are an enduring, positive record of the child's brief life, and provide a loving legacy for the children of parents lost to terminal illness." Lynette is an amazing photographer, she actually shot my sisters wedding 2 years ago in Seattle, what a great person. I encourage you to look at her site and her organization.

Another wonderful foundation is the Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep foundation. Normally pregnancy and birth is a time of celebration, anticipation, and joy. Sometimes this amazing journey can take a tragic turn. When the unexpected happens, and a new life is taken from a family by death, their world is turned upside down. They are filled with fear, sadness, and sorrow... and this is the time this wonderful organization is there to help. The Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep Foundation "gently provides a helping had for families overcome by grief and pain, the idea of photographing their baby may not immediately occur to them. Offering gentle and beautiful photography services in a compassionate and sensitive manner is the heart of this organization. The beautiful heirloom photographs of these sweet babies are an important part of the healing process. They allow families to honor and cherish their babies, and share the spirits of their lives. Another wonderful thing about this organization is that they have photographers throughout the entire United States and 8 international countries.

I would love to help out in my community through photography. If you know someone in the Seattle/Tacoma area who is in a difficult health situation, hospice care, cancer patient, any terminal illness, etc. I would love to help. I would love to provide these people with a photo session. It would be an honor to help preserve the memories of their lives and their spirits. This makes me think about my own father. He passed away when I was 15 of cancer. We have photos, but not a lot, and even less that were professionally taken. I wish something like this would have been out there for us. It is not something that we would have ever thought about at the time that we went through his illness with him, but I am sure we would have loved to have someone offer it to us. This is where you come in, if you have a friend or family member that might be in need of a service like this, please let me know.

Please take some time and look at these wonderful organizations online, they would love to have your support and donations. Again, help me enrich my own life by allowing me to help those people that you love, think of me if you know someone in need. I would be honored to help.

Senior Photos Down Town

First off I just have to say WOW! Meet Lana... she is an amazing girl. She graduated last year and her mom finally convinced her to have her senior photos taken. I am so glad she did because I had SO much fun on this shoot and we really got some great shots. Lana has an amazing style, it really shows through in her photos. We had a great time finding fun places to take shots...Each stop that we made, I learned more and more about this great girl. She is already a Junior in college, and she is thinking about nursing with an interest in photography... sounds like someone I know!
OK, so isn't this pink door great!?! We found the best place in down town Tacoma that offered up some amazing backgrounds for us. I absolutely love the fact that Lana was willing to head out into the middle of the road and take some shots. The contrast of her formal dress and the industrial road we were on was totally fun!

Lana, I hope you like these shots! I can not wait for you to see the rest of them, there are many many more for you to see! It was a pleasure to spend the afternoon with you, thank you!

Fun in the Spring Sun

The weather over the weekend was totally amazing! It was nearly 80 degrees. Historically it rains every year just in time for the Daffodil parade, so this year we were thrilled to get out there and enjoy the parade without being wet and chilled to the bone.

The girls really had fun. They clutched on to each other as the pirates came by shooting a cannon... but eventually became more adventurous and laid as close to the edge of the road as possible... they really wanted to be part of the action. Olivia even got brave enough to run out into the middle of the road to join one of the marching bands. It would have been a cute photo, too bad I was sprinting out there to drag her back to the side as she snickered at me. She keeps me on my toes.

We came home and just could not get ourselves to go inside... we had lunch outside, Tucker ate what we left on our plates, and then we began our sidewalk art project. It cracks me up, the girls insist on being traced with chalk and then they color themselves in. It ended up looking somewhat like a gingerbread man crime scene when we finished!

Dandelion Bouquets

When we had our first daughter, I waited and waited for the tulips to bloom. I just could not wait to take her there. So, of course, the minute we were invited by our great friends to head up to Mount Vernon for the tulip festival we were out the door. The tulips are something else. It is hard to explain how amazing it is to gaze out onto fields of endless flowers. We put Ava in a little coat and hat that we had purchased for her before she was born. I think that she only wore it this one time! I would say it was a waste of money, but I love the shots of her in it.Ava has been pulling me back to reality these days, and for a 4 year old, she has really gotten me to think about a lot of different things. These days, our family has not been making it to church as regularly as I would like. I use most every excuse in the book, but my main one lately goes something like this..."the kids are too squirmy, I spend too much time trying to prevent the markers from ending up in the Bibles and chasing down Cheerios from three rows ahead of us..." We all leave flustered and I wonder if it was worth the effort (at least that was the experience on Easter).Here is the amazing part... a few days ago, the kids were playing with play dough and Ava brought her masterpiece to me for me to guess what it was. It looked like a giant somewhat flattened mound of play dough with two balls of dough on top of it (one ball bigger than the other). I had no idea what it was, so when I gave up on guesses she said, "Mom, this is Heaven and on top is Jesus behind a stone. God made Jesus alive for me." Then, she just walked back to her table and started another project. WOW... I guess she was listening!From that day, I have just been watching her and listening to her in a different way, it has really been fun. We have been talking about flowers a lot as we notice them popping up around the yard and neighborhood. The girls love to pick flowers and give them to me, mostly dandelions... I suppose we have easiest access to them, and people typically do not care if you pick those out of their yards! As the girls run to them yelling, "Look Sunflowers!" I found myself correcting them, "Nope, those are just dandelions..." Do you know what I realized? Why am I correcting them. Why do they have to look at dandelions like weeds instead of beautiful flowers? There are so many things around us that we do not celebrate and appreciate... These Dandelions are just as beautiful as a tulip to the girls.... they should be celebrated as well.

Happy spring.... enjoy the tulips.... and the dandelions!