Merry Christmas...and then some

What a month December has been. It seems winter has officially stopped in to visit.  With the rain we've had in Vegas and the drop in temperature I would definitely say it's official tank tops days are out of site and out of mind for a while...or maybe a week or two. :)  I must say though I have enjoyed the weather.  It made the days leading up to Christmas feel more winter like and thankfully the rain stopped just in time for Christmas day.   This Christmas felt a lot busier than last year.  With waiting until 3 days before Christmas to do my shopping and even doing the last finishing touches of shopping on Christmas Eve, waking up at 5am on Christmas Eve to drive up to Utah to surprise my gram cracker and ask her if she was feeling well enough to let us take her home with us so that she could spend Christmas with us this year instead of being alone, then of course late night wrapping of presents and glasses of wine, only to wake up a few hours later to open gifts.  Last but not least Christmas dinner at my step mom's mother's house, where we all get together and eat good food and karaoke.  I would have to say it was a very eventful few days, ending with waking up Sunday the 26th and making the drive back to Utah with my grandma and then driving back home that same day, I was ready for my weekend at that point, unfortunately my weekend was over.  So my hip young self is going to take this up coming weekend and relax with a glass of wine while ringing in the new year.  I know...you're totally jealous. ha

Well this month has sure flown by,  I had two awesome sessions this month.  One session was of a month old newborn named Tyler, he is absolutely precious.  My other session was of 4 beautiful women for their family portrait at Red Rock.  It was such a fun shoot, hiking and climbing on rocks to get the perfect angle.  I will be posting 2 up and coming blogs with images from both sessions.

In other news for Christmas I received new photography equipment. So awesome!

I am beyond excited for the new year to come along.  So far 2011 is looking promising and I am hoping that my business continues to grow and that I continue to build relationships with my awesome clients.  I am beyond grateful for all of the awesome opportunities I have been allowed to capture.  For new years I am trying to set more meaningful goals, I use to always make resolutions about losing weight, going on vacation, etc.  This year my resolutions are simple I want to attend church more on a regular basis, continue building my business, volunteer more at church, continue to produce great quality work for my clients and simply just continue to live my life in the moment and stop worrying so much about "what if."

Happy New Year Loves <3 

New Friends & New Beginnings

Two graduation shoots, two gorgeous girls, two new friends, two new futures...that is a perfect way to describe these past 2 shoots that I have done and where these two wonderful women are headed.

I'll be the first person to admit that I pretty much haven't kept in that great of contact with people I went to high school with, which brings me to Jessica.  Jessica and I knew each other in high school, but we were more acquaintances than actual friends.  Once high school was over we still remained in contact, we'd comment each other randomly on Myspace , (when Myspace was the "cool" social network), and then of course everyone switched to Facebook, so then we'd comment each other on Facebook and we'd always say, "We have to get together and have lunch."  Well 4 years out of high school and 4 years of saying let's get lunch, we finally did. Jess and I sat down for a lunch/dinner to catch up and discuss her graduation shoot.  Which then resulted in Khaye (who I have known since middle school) and I getting in contact to book her  graduation shoot and then that evolved into ME breaking out of my little bubble of my little world that only consisted of Work,School,Family & my boyfriend, to actually making new friends who are beautiful down to earth genuine women.  Now that I have explained the "evolution" of how I came to photograph and become friends with these two lovely ladies here are some of my favorite images from their awesome sessions that we did.

Khaye was an absolute gem to work with, she is so easy going and is definitely a natural model.  We had the pleasure of shooting her session at the UNLV campus and it was such a perfect location.  There were so many different areas to shoot at and the weather was absolutely perfect.  Khaye, her friend Taylor and I were all shocked at how hot it actually was during the shoot, but this is Vegas and one day it's

cold the next day it's hot.

Then there was Ms. Wilde aka: Jessica.  I like to refer to her as Ms. Wilde, because it suits her perfectly. Jess is simply wild, but with an "e" attached.  Jessica's shoot was a blast, from the random people around the UNLV campus photographing plants, to contemplating "borrowing" the admin cart so we could drive around campus instead of walking, the little boys in choir watching us as we staged her card shot, and of course to the countless "Kbyeee's."

The weather was a little dramatic with us, with the wind and chance of rain I was a bit stressed, but in the end her images came out perfect.  The lighting was spot on because of the clouds over head and we wrapped up just in time before the storm clouds rolled in.  Out of the entire shoot, my two favorite shots are where Jessica is sitting barefoot and where she threw a deck of cards in the air.  The barefoot photo is just so natural and effortless, and the deck of cards shot was one of the funniest shots we did because it was a tad windy so we only had a limited amount of time to try and get the shot.  So we started out with her throwing leaves to make sure everything was set up perfectly and then on the first try with the cards we succeeded.

 

Both of these women were awesome to work with. I feel so blessed to be able to have friends like them and to be able to be apart of their celebration.

Congratulations to you both on becoming a part of UNLV's Graduating Class of 2010!

POP-corn & Baby Dal

First of all I am once again behind on my updates. I have been slammed with work, school and of course photography. I have done some awesome shoots this past month and a half. One of my favorite sessions that I had was with baby Dal. The term POP-corn was used a lot and I'm sure Dallas kept thinking, "What's with this lady and saying POP-corn." ha ha 

It was such an enjoyable shoot, and I decided that my nickname for Dallas was going to be Dal. :)

Dallas is unbelievably adorable and the love that Brandon and Jessica share for him was truly captured in each photo I took of them. Dallas is so blessed to have a mother and father like Jessica and Brandon. Watching them interact with Dallas is so fun and touching, his little laugh and of course the sticking out of his tongue were simply priceless.  Here are a few of the images from the Schneck's Family Portrait Session.

Also, after wrapping up the family portrait session, we had another portrait session of just Dallas.  He was very entertained while I was setting up the backdrop and the lights.  I was introduced to "Baby Mozart" which is a cartoon or a DVD, which was the cutest little cartoon I've seen for a baby, and I learned that it's Dallas's favorite.  When Baby Mozart was on the TV that kid's eyes were glued and he would just watch the little baby compose his little concert. So cute!!