A friend called this morning and asked that I do a little editing to some pictures they had taken this summer (by another photographer) so they could get a family Christmas card printed. I showed her the Christmas card I designed for our family last year and asked if she just wanted me to add the text and graphics. Here's the final result:
It took a while to find a time to take a couple self-portrait. The hubby usually gets home after dark, and I wanted to use the same window light I had for the girls' pictures. With Seth taking the day off, I finally had my chance.
I tried to have us do closed-mouth smiles (again, to match the girls' pictures), but I just can't do it! Every time I attempted it, my teeth showed anyway. Oh, well.
Once upon a time, I had a picture frame on our entry way wall. It had three B&W 4x6s of the family: one of Seth and Andrea together, one of Rebekah and one of Analee. But then one day, I had to borrow the mat from that frame for one of my entries to the state fair.
After the fair, I tried putting the frame back in its home on the wall, only to have it fall on the ground and break into itsy bitsy pieces. I tried to buy a replacement frame, but I couldn't find the exact one. Instead, I found and purchased a slightly bigger frame that has a mat that holds four 4x6s.
The frame has been hanging on the wall sans photos, glass and back for a few days now. My camera has been sitting out for a couple of days now, so I decided to pick it up and takes pictures of my girls by the window. Here are my favorites:
Now all I've got to do is get Seth around here while there's still some daylight and take a picture with him; then I'll have all four spots in our mat ready to be occupied.
The involved persons haven't even had a chance to look through these yet, but I HAVE to post one of the images I shot last night. Ashley is such an adorable girl!
I bought frames for our bedroom and painted them to match the furniture. So I HAD to have new pictures of my beautiful girls to go in them. I love how you can see their little personalities in the images.
I'm a little slow to get these edited/posted. I'll blame it on the fair, hunting season, the beginning of school and being a stay-at-home mom in general. Better late than never!
I have good news and bad news. The good news is I won one more ribbon than last year. The bad news is none of my ribbons were of the blue hue.
I received a red ribbon for Kent and Melissa's wedding portrait:
I received a pink ribbon for Kent and Melissa's engagement picture ("body parts"):
I received a pink ribbon for Kent and Melissa's engagement picture ("water scene"):
All I can say is, thank goodness for Kent and Melissa!
Here are this year's entries to the fair. It's a good thing Kent and Melissa asked me to shoot so many of their pictures, because several of my entries come from their engagement, pre-wedding and wedding shoots. I'll know if any of my entries are ribbon-winners in a week or so.
Action
Water scenePortrait, weddingBody parts
Portrait, child
Series
Nature
Religious
Candid wedding
Still lifeBefore their big day, Kent and Melissa asked if I would take pictures of them in their wedding attire. Melissa chose the spots: windmills, cliffs, fences and fields east of town.
Kent and Melissa dated in high school, and they attended several school dances. At those dances, Melissa always wore silver Converse sneakers. Since purple was her primary color at the reception, Kent bought her purple Converses to wear with her wedding dress. 
This is where Kent proposed to Melissa. We recreated the moment.Patty had all her kids in town (which is saying something because they're spread out pretty far, geographically speaking) and wanted family pictures. I was happy to oblige.
The only editing I had to do was to switch Aaron's head (left top) with another picture because he was looking away in this shot, and to slightly alter the color of Kate's cardigan (middle bottom) because it was a little to salmon-y.
I'm not biased, but I think my baby is gorgeous. Even though she wore this dress almost two months ago when she was blessed, I didn't get around to doing a legitimate shoot with her until recently. (To see all my favorites, click here.)
This is actually a composite of five or six photographs. (Don't you just love Photoshop?) We knew that shooting a complete Grover picture would require a little bit of post-production because nobody would be standing behind the camera. (Don't you just love remote-control shutter release?) But between the dozens of takes and a little computer magic, I think we got a pretty nice group photo. Too bad this will be out-of-date as soon as Kent gets married.
When I married the oldest child of the Grover clan, I inherited three younger siblings. Each has been gracious enough to allow me to shoot pictures of their special events. So when Kent called and asked if I would shoot engagement pictures of him and his new fiancée, Melissa, I was ecstatic. Not only would I get to do something I love, I would get to do it in a new location. I had never been to Monkey Rock before, but it proved to be an awesome place for photo ops.
