Mother's Day on Portra 800

The night before Mothers Day I put out a call on our neighborhood FB page to anyone open to having a free portrait. I’ve been seeing all these posts by photographers for “porch-traits” and well in our military duplexes we don’t really have porches. So I thought if people were willing to come out to their driveways or side walks, I’d hop on my bike, throw on a mask and snag some family portraits for folks in my hood. Plus I had a roll of Portra 800 burning a hole in my pocket.

As I started I only anticipated taking a quick two shots of each family, but as I had a few participants drop out last minute toward the end I had may more spare frames than I planned for which in the end was okay because the last couple of families had something up their sleeves.

And for the finale, two moms whose kids didn’t see this coming.

And lastly, thank you to Becky who snagged a couple shots of my crew minus the husband. Mothers Day was weird but not bad, could be coming around to the new normal.

Thank you to those families who shared your mothers day with me.

Photo info:

Portra 800 (35mm) on Nikon F100, most shot a 3.3-4

Images were shot on cloudy evening between 6:30-7:30pm

Dev/Scan: Safelight Labs (medium resolution)

Fall Maternity Session- Susquehannock State Park

A few weeks back I was stoked to hop in the car for a quick day trip to Pennsylvania to be with family friends, The Zook's. We had met the family when we lived in South Carolina, and shortly after they moved north, we followed. We get together from time-to-time to celebrate birthdays and just kind of make it through this life. So when Tahlor (mom of three) was soon to become mom of four, I was really excited she had asked me to shoot her maternity photos. They had gone location scouting a few weeks before and stumbled upon this beautiful waterfall right off of the Susquehanna River. This became the perfect autumn backdrop for our session.

Now as Tahlor approaches her due date, we send a warm congrats to her expanding family. We look forward to meeting the new baby girl!

Throwing Paint in Colorado Springs, CO

Over this past weekend I flew in to Denver and headed to Colorado Springs with a girlfriend I had met when we lived in Lemoore, California. We caught up on how our lives have changed and what directions we are heading. I got to meet her fiance and his son and see how much her kids have grown. Blending a family is tricky. Much like a masterpiece it takes time, patience, understanding of the the craft, and technique. With blended families everyone has their own color, their own personality but its how they come together to create a whole image that is truly beautiful. No one gets to see how messy things are during the process, they only see the framed image on the wall.

This shoot was mostly unplanned and a huge mess that resulted in wild smiles and laughs. How often do kids get to throw paint... and on their parents or their siblings? I want to do more shoots like this for sure! And more shoots with this family!

The Mall In Columbia with Candice & Ava

The military lifestyle has some benefits. One benefit being that it can make the world seem like a much smaller place. You meet so many people and are shuffled around so often you are bound to meet again. Thanks to one of my friends I met while modeling in Savannah Ga (because my husband was stationed in SC), I got to meet Candice and her daughter Ava.

Candice is also in the military. Right now her husband is working over seas while she is stateside.

She asked if we could get together and shoot the two of them for her husband as a Fathers Day gift. This was special to me because I did the same thing for my husband was he was deployed.

We started at Wilde Lake park.

So when asked what mother and daughter enjoying doing together, the answer was shopping! I remembered a mall that had a carousel that I had visited a few weeks prior that I thought could be a lot of fun. To the mall!

It was fun getting to hang with these girls! They know how to have a good time, and do it in style.