Sloane Part Duex

Here are a few more pictures from a seperate modeling shoot with Sloane, my girlfriends' daughter. She is just gorgeous. Part 1 is just a couple of posts below....

Amy and Jeremy's Engagement Session

Amy and Jeremy are getting married this fall at Troon Golf Club, and the coolest story is that I know them because I photographed her Mom's (Barbara) wedding to Barry last fall. They called me after Amy got engaged and said they couldn't imagine anyone else photographing their familys' wedding, so I was so flattered and excited, since their entire family was so fun -- and Amy and Jeremy are just so cute!

They met at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, so we decided to do their engagement session up there, which was fantastic. I love photographing couples in that town! We had a great time, spent a couple hours walking around town and campus and all enjoyed the much cooler weather. There was a monsoon storm that rolled out as I arrived in Flag so the weather was wonderful. It was 110 degrees when I left Phoenix and 67 degrees when I arrived! You have to love that difference for only being two hours north.

Here are a few pictures from our shoot this past Sunday.

I'll start with my new favorite image!

I love everything about this image. First, its pure serendipity that two trains passed each other as we were standing there waiting to cross, and second, I love how Jeremy has his hand in her back pocket like this, and how she is laughing and hanging on to him. I'm sure you can imagine the noise and wind effect from two trains like this.

Jerry Ghionis/Bambi Cantrell Seminar

Today I attended a wonderful seminar put on by two of the worlds Top 10 Wedding Photographers, Jerry Ghionis and Bambi Cantrell. It was a really, really great workshop that touched on almost all issues that affect wedding photographers, including:

• Photographers are business people first, and have to have business skills to survive this industry. It's wonderful to wear your artistic hat and take great photos, but if you cannot effectively run a business, you will not survive. The both pointed out how photography is one of those rare industries where the business owner feels the need to wear and manage all hats, including: photographer, designer, marketer, color editor, sales person, accountant, receptionist, cleaner, personal assistant and more -- and how this eventually burns us out completely. Isn't this relatable photographers?? We don't like giving up creative control at all, but we must if we are to achieve any sense of balance whatsoever.

• Establish an impressive brand if you want to stand out and rise above the competition - and they shared tips on how they have both accomplished this.

• Jerry spoke in great length about training your eye to make the absolute ordinary extraordinary. It was pretty impressive to witness his abilities of walking into a very mundane, or even overly messy house, and see the portraits that he creates out of nothingness. Its wonderful to see this type of work, because I have always felt the backdrop matters very little compared to subject you are capturing, and he raises this concept to a whole new level for me. His work is so inspiring.

They also both spoke in great length about advertising, marketing, creating assignments for your self at every wedding, posing techniques, album design, outsourcing, lighting techniques and so much more.

All in all, I walked away inspired and with some very tangible techniques that I think will help me to continue to evolve in my craft. Plus I got to spend time with my photog buds Kim and Melissa, who are both always wonderful to hang with. Since I didnt bring a camera with me today, they will have pictures from our day on their blogs.

Beautiful Rainbow Tonight

Tonight Jordan and I were out front after dinner playing with the wide angle lens and looking at the storm clouds when all of a sudden this beauty appeared out of nowhere. And beauty it was since I havent seen one this bright in a long time. Jordan's first "real life" rainbow and I've never been so excited to share it with her!

Princess Project Update

You may remember I posted awhile back about this great organization called The Princess Project (part of a larger org called AZHOPE.) Well, today is the big ball for these girls (The Princess Event) and I'm leaving for Payson in about an hour to spend the day helping to document the occassion. I'm not sure what to expect, but I'm looking forward to being a part of this. I'll share more this week about my time up there.

Beautiful Girls

So one of my 101 goals has been to go to Colorado to see my friend Veronica and take pictures of her three beautiful daughters while out there. She used to live here in Arizona before moving a couple years ago, and we worked together about 10 years ago and have been friends ever since. While I havent yet made it to Denver to visit her (I think I'll coordinate this with ski season...), she and her family came back to AZ this past week for a long visit, so we were finally able to take some pictures.

Yesterday was a full fledged "girls day" with her three, Marie's 2 girls, and my daughter, not to mention more friends who popped in and out all day at Marie's. It was great, because it was such a relaxed day and we didnt really prep the girls for any sort of "photo shoot" - we just let them play and be them. The timing was great as they discovered all the dress up clothes and had a blast, while we Mom's all caught up over glasses of wine.

So down they came all dressed up, so I grabbed the camera and out we went...

Veronica's oldest Sloane is about 8 and absolutely beautiful and I think may pursue modeling -- which she absolutely should!





Here is Gabrielle, V's also beautiful middle daughter, 6 going on 16

And Chloe, her beautiful baby.... though she is no longer a baby at 4 (almost 4).

...And let's not forget beautiful Bianca, Marie's neighbor friends' daughter

And finally beautiful Sydney (Marie's daughter) with her out of this world blue eyes.

Little Delaney and Jordan eluded us while we were taking these outside.... hmmm, no Mom's in the house, so time to play!

I should also say that while these girls are all beautiful on the outside, they are equally as beautiful on the inside.

Lucky 7

Julie and Dave were married this past Saturday, 7-7-7, reportedly the most popular wedding date ever. They had a small, intimate ceremony and reception that was very sincere, warm, and a lot of fun. I met them though Julie's brother Clint, because I am photographing his wedding to Lisa this fall. Julie and Dave are just a very cool couple, down to earth and very real with one another and their families, so it was really a pleasure to spend the day with them. Thank you Julie and Dave! I look forward to seeing you again this fall - if not sooner.

They were so much fun during our bride and groom time and loved being silly with each other so we got some fun images of them.

I still have about 400+ reception images to process, but I did want to post this one as it kind of sums up the latter part of the night, where the dancing and festivities got VERY fun. Their friend Nick was hilarious -- he and his girlfriend were awesome dancers. He at first did not realize the significance of the drink he ordered all night 7 & 7's, so we documented his 7th of the night :)