DON'T say CHEESE! Please?

As a portrait photographer, I wish there were one message that I could send to the world and shout from the rooftops. But since I'd definitely break my neck if I tried to climb on any rooftops, and shouting makes my throat hurt, I'm going to shout it from my photo blog instead.

To all you parents out there:

Please don't teach your children to say "cheese" whenever you point a camera at them!

thank you.

Wow, it feels good to get that off my chest!

I've taken a lot of family portraits this year and almost every single time, there's a child - or all the children - who have been taught to do the 'cheese rictus' by their well intentioned parents.

Case in point:

(sorry about the quality here folks, this was cropped out of a large family group photo)

Has anyone ever seen this face before? I see it ALL THE TIME. Same smile, different day. And an otherwise adorable child turns into a grimacing little statue! Sometimes it's not quite so severe - often, they just pull back their lips, but their eyes are SO not smiling.

In this extreme case, I was trying to get the little guy to talk to me and interact and laugh at my jokes and he was so frozen in this face that I was afraid he would be stuck that way forever! He couldn't talk, he couldn't move - he just knew there was a camera involved so he went into automatic cheese mode. (And let me just say, that this was a LOVELY family and a good little guy who was just trying to do the right thing.)

So what should you do instead, you might ask? Well, my favorite thing is to say something that the kids are bound to think is extremely funny - translated: anything super-silly, slightly gross, or a combination of both, like "monkey boogers". I've even been known to tickle them, make muscles like Arnold, and do the hokie pokie. What we're goin' for folks is a spontaneous smile - even outrageous laughing is better than the deadly cheese rictus.

So give it a try and let me know how it goes. I'm out to change the world, one grimacing child at a time.

Flower Girl - pick your favortie edit

I love taking photos, I really love taking them. And then I love getting them up on my computer screen (yay digital!) and looking at them - and finding that one amazing image, that treasure of a captured memory that's just beautiful and exceptional and special. That's the reason I take photographs.

But the editing....

The editing is about to kill me (boo digital!). I've gotten to a point in my photography that individually, my images don't usually need much editing, thank goodness. But the sheer volume of the photos waiting to be edited can still be a little overwhelming. And very time consuming.

I need at least one day to get away from my editing, and that day is Sunday, of course. I've decided that if I must get on the computer at all on Sunday that the time should be used to work on my own family's photos, my personal blog and my personal scrapbook pages.

I bought Brynn a darling new dress on GapKids the other day - I just adore it. She wore it to church today and I couldn't resist taking her picture afterward. And I love this photo, it's one of those special ones - to me at least.

I brought it in to Photoshop and performed my standard edit: crop, a little unsharp mask, a smidgen of levels adjustment and a squeaky bit of curves, and this is what I got:


Pretty girl, don't you think?

(oh, and I burned the edges just a tad)

And then, because this image is just for me and I can go a little crazy with it, I decided to play with some of my favorite Florabella actions. Let me know - if anybody's out there - which of the edits you like best. Or maybe you don't like any of the fancy stuff and like the "normal" one best. I'm curious to know.

Ready? Okay.

Edit #1: Primrose ~ soft & feminine with a rosy tint....


Edit #2: Retro Lolipop ~ dramatic & colorful with a bit of 70's feel to it....


Edit #4: B/W Chestnut ~ (I LOVE the Florabella black & white actions, they're so easy and gorgeous! No more muddy black and whites for me.)


Edit #5: Wisteria ~ Dreamy and slightly hazy...

Edit #6: B/W Rain ~ Another lovely black and white action with a cooler tone....


Edit #7: Morning Glory ~ Sunny, bright and warm....


Is that too many to choose from? I actually could have done dozens more. Let me know which ones are your favorite. I'm so immersed in photo editing for so much of my life that I feel like I loose my perspective, so all feedback is greatly appreciated.

For my good friend Katie, because I love ya....

I've been so busy taking photos for people lately that I haven't had time to blog any of them!

My friend Katie had a baby a month ago and I went down and took newborn pics of her gorgeous little girl when she was a couple of weeks old. I told Katie how behind I was on my editing and that it might be a while before I could get the photos to her.

And Katie, being a good friend, totally understood. Except that every time I talk to her she tells me how excited she is to see the pics and that she just can't wait. And then today I talked to Katie on the phone and she said, "Can you pleeeese just send me one? I just want to see one so bad!"

So I stayed up tonight and edited a few to put up on the blog - because Katie's a great friend. So here's a sneak peak for you Katie. Congrats to your great family, you deserve to get such a gorgeous, sweet little girlie, and she's so lucky to have been sent to such an amazing family. Love you guys!





Not only do they have a new human baby, but new puppies as well. This little toot buppy snuggled right down in the basket with little Mayzie and went right to sleep.

My New Camera...... and my best model

To afford it, I've been selling off everything that isn't nailed down, including two lenses and my old camera, but I finally did it: I made the leap to a full frame sensor camera! The Nikon D700, and it's awesome!

My previous camera was a great camera and I'm very happy with so many of the images I've gotten with it over the last year and a half, but I really felt like I was ready to move on.

My friend, Molly, has let me "foster" her nice 80-200mm lens for the last while, but on my old cropped sensor camera body, it just wasn't very usable for me. But with this new camera, the lens is different, closer to the subject - a lot easier to use and the perfect focal length for portraits. Yay, since this is the nicest lens I have.

So I got the new camera on Wed. and played with it yesterday and today, and oh so conveniently, I have the perfect little model living in my house. I always say we're a match made in heaven: I love to take pictures, and she loves to have her picture taken.


I bought this pink hat this spring on a winter clearance sale and I haven't used it yet. Glad I remembered it today - cuuuute!

Taking a rest with some Russian Sage - I love that stuff and it's blooming right now.


One of the things I'm noticing already about the new camera, is that I'm not going to have to edit my photos nearly as much. And that's a HUGE reason to

CEL-E-BRATE!

Maybe I can get some of my life back that normally I spend editing.

Outtake alert!


I got a kick out of that one and wanted to include it.

This girl's so tan, she looks like she lives at the pool! Oh wait, she actually does live at the pool. Or on her horse or on the trampoline.

I think this one's my favorite:


Her hair is several shades lighter than it was 2 months ago. I've been calling her "blondie" lately.


Yep, she's my best model: willing, beautiful and confident in front of the camera.

And here's my second best model:


The last two nights while I've been playing in the yard with the new camera, Fred has climbed up on the kids' play house and watched intently while we shoot. From the exact same spot. I think he thinks he's a panther in a tree.... Good ol' Fred.

Well, good shooting times ahead. I'm looking forward to new adventures with my new partner in crime. Maybe I should give it a name, we're going to be very close from here on out.

Catchlights, babeeee!

I was taking pictures at our town's 4th of July celebration today (we shut the whole place down on and go to church on Sundays) and couldn't resist taking photos of some of the cute little kiddos who crossed my path. As I was looking through the photos tonight, I realized that my favorite shots don't have anything to do with whether or not the subject is smiling, but how good the catchlights in their eyes are. It's all about the catchlights for me.

So here are a few of my favorite catchlight captures of the day:

My friend Rachel's scrumptious little guy, his eyes absolutely have FIREWORKS in them!

(you can see by his spoon that he was helping to judge our soup contest.)

My wonderful and amazing friend Deanna - also judging soup - with her beautiful baby blues.


It's a well known fact in photography that brown eyes are harder to capture catchlights in, but I beg to differ.

(my daughter - right - and one of her BFFs,Tyana.)

Seven year old bathing beauty, Page, sporting catchlights in her cool shades.


And finally, Miss Eva Diva, the darling oldest daughter of my friend, Autumn, with her gorgeous blue eyes:

(I didn't get her eyes as sharp, but I loved this shot so much, I wanted to include it anyway.)

And the title? "Stickem' up!"

I told her, "You can shoot me, but please don't get my camera!"

And may I also say, ISN'T THAT THE CUTEST SWIM SUIT YOU'VE EVER SEEN?!!!

Four Handsome Boys

A while back, I went to St. George and made an evening of it - - 4 photo shoots in one night. I should have put these pics up a long time ago, but I've just been so behind. So sorry guys, here's your postview instead of preview. But I loved the pictures and had to post them.

This family had 4 of the cutest little boys, I could have photographed them all night! We had a great location with lots of fun old stuff and beautiful greenery. We started out on this old wagon...



And ended up with this wonderful shot - - how sweet is this?


Love that!

I have something of a twisted sense of humor and when I saw this sign, I had a stroke of inspiration - thank goodness Mom and Dad were such good sports.


The boys were not only handsome, but super-duper cooperative, which made things easy for me.



*a funny thing to note: their dad told them not to smile with their teeth showing, and so none of them did....



And apparently, sometimes when you've had 4 boys in a row, you can get a little on edge and take your frustrations out on the feller responsible...


Awww, now this is much better....


Thanks guys, for putting up with me and letting me capture your family, I think you should just keep having those boys - at least 3 or 4 more!

Katie's Maternity Shoot

My good friend Katie, is pregnant with her 5th baby. She recently moved about 2 hours away (darn it!) but we've still been wanting to get together and try some maternity photos. Katie has several family members who were also wanting photo sessions, so we scheduled them all for the same evening and managed to squeeze Katie in between 3 other shoots.

Here are a few of my favs of Katie and her "baby bump" ~







I think these with the kids are my very favorite - how adorable are they?!


Cute, bump, baby! I can't wait to meet that little kiddo.

And take her picture, of course!