| Photo Walk |

I am wanting to start doing a Photo Walk once a month and invite anyone who wants to come along. I'll pick a spot, or someone could even make a suggestion by emailing me at jennifer@jensportraits.com and we'll just do an hour or two walk taking pictures of what we see. Textures, angles, DOF, in camera crops, etc. Just for fun to get out and photograph things we don't normally shoot. Then we can share our shots on a Flickr forum.
I'm thinking I'll start it on the third Monday evening of the month. (This may change after July, if another night accommodates people better). I've started a list of some fun places to visit, not all are within the twin cities metro area, so it should be fun to get out to new places and see new faces!
Drop me an email if you are interested! The first Photo Walk will be on July 21.
You don't have to be a pro to join in!

| Toss Out Tossing the Boquet! |

And trade it in for a fun idea!

A custom popular in Finland- The bride is blindfolded, and the unmarried women form a circle around her. While music plays, the bride slowly turns in place in one direction and the women walk, arms linked, the other way. Everyone stops when the music ends, and the bride walks forward to hand off her flowers to the person directly in front of her.

I like that idea it's much more dignified and lady like. I'm still a sucker for etiquette and manners. ;)

| Goodbye to a sweet friend |

Yesterday I learned the tragic news that a sweet friend and colleague had passed away in a horrible and violent accident. However she also died a hero, risking her life to save another's.

Julie Steiskal and I met for the first time when I got up enough courage to go to a get together a message board was having. I was new to the board. She didn't know me, but by the end of the day we were friends. We were there for two days doing discussions and shooting models. In the afternoon of the second day we split up and did an Avatar Shootout. I was so thrilled when Julie chose me to be her partner! She was fun and fresh and full of life and ideas and laughter. She was a nut. I immediately just adored her. We laughed so much that afternoon. Being silly and goofing off was never so fun.

There are tributes to her all over the Internet that I've read, and one thing is very clear, that no matter how small of a time a person spent with Julie their lives have been blessed/touched/ or changed. We will all feel a hole in our hearts and lives where she belongs. She was loved by many and a blessing to all.She was simple and wholesome and real. She was generous with her time, talent, love.Just the other week she sent me an email asking me where I'd been. Summer has come and I've become so busy, and she missed me. Wow, I was not expecting that. She was so sweet to write and check up on me. That still amazes me.

These are the words she wrote about herself on her blog, and I know with a surety that there were no pretenses put on in these words, they are genuine, they are Julie-

"we need a renaissance of wonder. we need to renew, in our hearts & in our souls, the deathless dream, the eternal poetry, the perennial sense that life is miracle & magic." e. merrill root

when i was six, i walked into the empty kitchen, looked behind me, stretched my arm as far as i could and borrowed my mother's camera for the first time. and when i was done with it, i quietly slipped it back on the counter and went back to my book with a smile on my face. today, as then, i find beauty in the eyes of those i love, in the details of God's creation, in laughter, in light, in wonder.

i like my garden. i like my front porch and my little old house. i like knowing my neighbors and i like crossing my street to get the mail. i like a good book, a movie that makes me laugh, a song that makes me sing. i like food. i like thai restaurants, good pasta and the tacos that come out of my kitchen. i like the smell of the grill on a warm summer night and i like my mother's cheesecake. i like the water. i like the smell of rain, the sound of a creek, the infinite possibility of a lake and the dampness of dew. i like falling asleep and waking up to thunderstorms. i like the sound of my nephew's giggle and the feel of his brother's hand in mine. i like that my family includes some of my best friends.

my life is both simple and complicated. it is a peaceful spring morning, it is a commute surrounded by people i don't know. it is finding the quiet in the chaos, it is knowing how to be alone in a crowd.

i think you, your child, your dreams are beautiful. i know that time is quickly passing. i want to help you capture the moments of your life that you never want to forget.

this is what i bring. this is who i am.

A woman with many talents and not only a phenomenal photographer but an enchanting writer as well.

Here are a few pictures I've taken of this dear friend. I will miss her terribly. Get togethers with other photographers will never be the same, there will always be an empty space where our friend could have been.

Julie pining over her imaginary boyfriend "Bill" on the other side of the door.

Laughing about it because she was so silly.

Then her serious look with the steel blue eyes.
Beautiful woman.
But a little slow.I love the picture she took of me under the sign, "good times, good times" as she wrote about our shoot out together.
These next two have horrible color, but I wanted to include them. This is from our last get together in April. I was so honored when she called me to ask me to be on the OSP committee for the GTG. The first was taken when I was mindlessly aiming my camera at her trying to adjust my exposure, I then noticed her making this face and quickly snapped off a shot before she stopped. Nut.

It was during that planning phase that we met and I had my first real taste of Mongolian food. I thought I had before, but not really. I couldn't bare to tell her the truth that I thought it was gross. I admired her steel stomach.
And here she is working it with the camera.


I will miss this beautiful smile.

And quirky sense of humor.

Goodbye my friend. God be with you 'till we meet again.

| Whew! |

This last week has been a whirlwind of sessions and a wedding. I know people are looking forward to seeing some sneak peeks, and I promise to get to them very soon!

I am still looking for more brides for trash the dress sessions, however I think from now on I will refer to them as Extreme Bridals, because I think in most cases we won't be ruining the dresses. There's only a few more days to get ahold of me for a FREE SESSION! Tell all your newly married friends about it. Contact me for the free session using the email of giveaways@jensportraits.com .

Keep watching for one Extreme Bridal I had this last week where this bride climbed on construction equipment and waded into the middle of a creek!

(Click on image for a larger view)

Daring brides wanted!

chiao~ Jen

| T-ball season! |

My kids love to play t-ball. My younger son has now moved onto coache's pitch. I'll get pictures of him soon.
This is my oldest daughter taking her first swing in her first game... what form! It was an awesome hit. *All of these can be viewed bigger by clicking on them*
Here she is eyeing up the ball... she's got her "Ball watch out!" face on.

Taking her first swing!


Woo Hoo! It's good! Run girl!


Here's the obligatory kid playing in the sand, not caring about the game.

Here's Jaeden and another girl in way cute glasses.

| A Play With Texture |

So I haven't experimented much with textures, but I'd like to start. I don't know if this will be something customers would be interested in, but I know that I enjoy looking at it, so I'm going to keep playing with it.

This image has two textures and a frame. The textures are a rubber glove and cracked cement from Johnny's Fine Art Textures Vol. 1 That link will take you to some of his other items for sale.

I like how the cement added texture to the cloudy sky. It didn't have texture it's self, so the cement helped. I also liked how the rubber glove added to it. I added contrast to both, and I also added a blur to the rubber glove. The frame I used is a brush, and I erased the flowers it had in the middle, but I like how it darkened the corners.

This is another try at textures. I can't remember which ones I used, I think they came with my PSCS2. In the original the parents were too dark, had harsh shadows on them, but I wanted to keep them in the image. So I was hoping the textures would help bring out the little girl, and have your eyes drawn to her, while keeping the parents as a presence in the image.

| Cuties |

These are my neighbors little boys. They are so cute. Duky and Supha. I know their names because one day they wrote them all over my driveway in sidewalk chalk. They love to play H-O-R-S-E with me and my oldest son. We have to often call them to come back and finish playing because we will get 8 of us playing and they lost interest in between their turns, but they won't give up! They like to try my tricky shots that I do.... left handed, eyes closed, over the head..... or bounced off of the ground into the hoop.... or backwards over the head shots. I like to make it interesting.




They have some awesome bikes.

| My Favorite Studio |

Well, it's not really a studio, per se. Because I'm a natural light photographer I shoot outdoors for the main part and I love shooting at Long Lake Regional Park in New Brighton Minnesota. It has so much to offer! There's fields, hills, grassy lands, woods, train tracks, red caboose, lake, marsh, playground, old stone foundations, walkways, bridge, benches and wildlife. It's conveniently close to the Twin Cities metro area and easy to access off of Hwy 35W.