Merry Christmas!

I wish to send a Merry Christmas wish to all of my clients from 2008 and thank you all for being such wonderful people. Thank you for a great year in portraits!

I'm hoping to be much more active in 2009 in having contests and give aways and also add to my available products line.

Be watching in January for the 2008 Baby Contest where I will award one baby that I photographed in 2008 with a FREE First Birthday Session and complimentary 10x20 storyboard.

I love sleeping babies!

Don't you just want to cuddle up with her?

Ellie

I was so excited to finally get the opportunity today to meet Ellie! She is so sweet. She loved to talk and talk and talk. She's going to be a chatter :) We had a session scheduled a month ago, but she came down sick the day of her session. After that she went through heart surgery, and just like the special miracle she has been since she was born, she came through that with flying colors and so much faster than expected! Thank you Matt and Erin for letting me come by and photograph your sweet little girl.

click to see larger

click to see larger

Happy Anniversary!

Ann and D.L. spent an hour of their 30th wedding anniversary at my home having pictures done, I feel so special! I hope you enjoy your sneak peek!
These are just a couple of images I worked on while uploading their session to my computer.

More Changes Coming

For the last year I have been really struggling with trying to do the kind of photography I like, and having clients hire me for more traditional stuff.I understand wanting what you are used to for your walls. I have some of the same images on my walls.

I started doing photography as an outlet for my creative side. I love art, creating, exploring.I haven't had much opportunity lately for doing that.I've had some really great clients and I am thankful for each one of you. You've helped me in more ways than you know in finding what kind of photography I want to be doing and I hope that you will continue to come back to me for your photography needs!

So, with all that said, I am announcing big changes around here.

First, I have decided to lower my session pricing again. One reason is because of the economy problems, I know times are hard for people and photography quite often falls to the "luxury list". I have always wanted people to be able to have affordable images, and I don't want people to consider pictures of their families on their walls to be a "luxury". A home should be filled with the family in it, even when they are not home. The other reason is because I'm going to be doing photography different than I have been doing it before.

The second set of changes I am making are to how the sessions will be done. Newborn sessions will stay the same. For family portraits- if you are wanting the traditional studio styles of portraits, smiling, facing the camera, uncomfortably posed.... I can recommend another photographer for that. If you want different, unusual, bold, daring, unconventional ... stuff like that... then why haven't you called me yet?

For Seniors, adults and couples I will be breaking away from traditional posing as well. Let's get artistic! Let's have images that show emotions and interactions. Let's do crazy and different things, bring your fun wild side and leave your ideas of staring at my camera while I ask you to smile back at home :)

Wedding coverage will stay the same.

Well No Wonder

So, again I have redone my website and my blog in new colors. I thought it was looking pretty good. A couple of shades of sage green and a brownish red for fonts. Then I was talking to a friend in another state and she said she didn't like it so much.
Today I asked my husband to take a look at it, and YUCK! I can see why my friend wasn't liking it.
On both my, and my husband's laptops the website and blog look like yucky grays and it's hard to tell what color the red/brown shows up as because the gray is so yuck.
I'm not sure what I am going to do at this time. So in the meantime while I try to figure it out, I'm really sorry if you are seeing yucky colors!

{ New Look }

I am playing around with a new look this month.

I loved my old colors, but had been using them for a couple of years. It's time to order new business cards and I really wanted to get into something more classic with a splash of color. I'm still looking for just the right music for my website, and that might take a while.

The splash of red color might change with the seasons.

I went through my galleries and updated them with newer images, which is great because not everyone stops by the blogity blog to see the latest and the greatest that I've been working on.

My next project is to create images of the different products that can be purchased through me with your images.

In January I will be having a contest for the babies I photographed this year to let one of them win a Free First Birthday session by getting the most votes on their cutest baby picture.

This coming spring I have a unique giveaway to announce, so be watching for that as well as a contest to win a lucky mom a free session for MYther's Day.

3 week old cutie!

click to see larger images.

This is little Jeremiah. His mom and me go back a couple of years. I had the privilege of photographing her last pregnancy with baby Ramona and different sessions during their trials of getting Ramona treatment for HLH.
They lost Ramona on September 16.
Shortly after Ramona's passing her little brother came to join the family. I can't help but think about the two, Ramona and Jeremiah, passing each other on their journey. One on the way to Heavenly Father, one on the way to join their family, and the greeting that might have taken place.
I can tell by this little guy's smile that he's going to keep them on their toes!

And now for something a little different...

The other day I got to do some work that was different from the ordinary. This is Kate and the instruments she makes. Her website can be found here. Aren't these so cool!?

Most of these you can click on the image to see a larger version.

Sneak Peek!

please click to see better/larger image.

Some of you may remember me posting about my friend Julie who passed away this last spring while trying to rescue a young girl from a river that had swept her off her feet. Shortly after Julie passed away I was contacted by this couple, who were expecting their first baby soon. They were college friends with Julie, had seen my pictures of her and asked me if I would do their baby's pictures in her place, as she could no longer do this for them. I was both humbled and honored by this.

Thank you for having me out to your place, guys! It was great to meet you and share memories of Julie. She will live on forever in our hearts and memories. Kendall is beautiful and I know Julie would have loved to be the one to capture her in her first weeks.

I hope you like your sneak peek!

| Baby Kendall |

Oh my gosh, I just have to post a teaser for a sneak peek! I started working on baby Kendall's pictures today and came across this one. I knew I HAD to play with it. Look at that face! That tear! Those lips!

SO CUTE!

I'll post a sneak peek later.

| Stephanie & Ty |

Stephanie is the wonderful person who bid on my package at a fundraiser for baby Ramona who needed a bone marrow transplant. The auction was last year in August. It's been a long year since then. Ramona had her transplant in October and in January she was 100% engrafted, but because of some complications during her treatment she was left with severe brain damage. On September 16, this year, because of complications from her brain damage little Ramona passed away.

Shortly after Ramona's passing away, Stephanie and Ty had their session with me. We met at a park in Princeton MN. It was nice for me to get out of the cities and explore some new land. They brought along their two dogs, Penny and Jewel.

They are expecting their first child in December. I hope things go well and that you enjoy this sneak peek of your session! Call me when your little one arrives.

This is Penny, she's so cute! Every man needs a picture of himself with his hunting dog.

{ It's in the mail! }

Since I finally am able to get the images in the mail to this bride, I can finally share with you some of the images from her Extreme Bridal Session. Thank you Jenn for being so patient through my computer crashing, my emails disappearing and just general slowness of me getting work done through the summer with my kids home.

I always hate to share more than a sneak peek when it comes to sessions, until the customer is able to have it in their hands and then their wait isn't so bad (unless you are Jenn, who got more than her share of waiting for this one). So Jenn, watch your mailbox on Tuesday!

I have too many favorites to show just one, so here's the story of Jenn's session.

Jenn took me up on a free Extreme Bridal Session that I offered last spring. We had to put it off for about a month because of the late spring and cold weather. When we first went out, the idea was to play in the water of Nine Mile Creek in Bloomington MN, but then when we were in the neighborhood and saw the construction equipment just sitting there... it begged to be played on!











Then one the way down to the creek we went out and played in the road... check out those red HOT boots! She was getting traffics attention!











And in the end we ended up down in the Nine Mile Creek in Bloomington. The weather couldn't have been more cooperative and the water was a great temperature! Sadly enough, my jeans got soaked enough to put my cell phone out of commission, but hey! Sometimes art needs sacrifice!























A different editing to a similiar image above.


Thanks Jenn for these great images! I hope you like these and the rest on the disk.