now for a little hodge-podge

I'm trying to avoid making posts with only one image in them, because then it would make the catching up process darn near impossible. Because of that, not all the images will relate to one another so well, other then the fact I took them all. Sorry about that!

253 of 365: her fathers daughter
Olivia is a clone of me, and Claire strongly resembles Tim. But she's not an exact duplicate of Tim the way Olivia is with me. But Claire has mannerisms that are just so Tim. I was taking her photo for something else when she made this face to me... a face Tim makes ALL the time. It kinda weirded me out!


254 of 365: endless
I wanted to take an image of a pattern... try to be abstract. (its the speaker to my mp3 player)


255 of 365: Let them eat cake!
Alicia is a client of mine, but I consider her mom a friend. So for Alicia's baby shower, I made her a diaper cake. I love those things!


256 of 365: with these hands
The next day was Aiden and Nikos session. Olivia came along, and behaved very nicely. I tried to get a shot like this with Aiden, but he was far more interested in putting his face in the water LOL!

best session with these two to date! {Columbus Children Photographer: Purple Platpus Pictures}

I always say that my kids are the hardest kids to photograph. And I still stand by that. But my nephews notoriously have been the next worst. Until yesterday! Wendy called me up to see if I was free to do a quick session with her youngest Aiden, and it turned out I was. Sure Olivia had to tag along, but she loves her cousins (and her Uncle Eric!) so she did really well. I haven't had a chance to go through all the images yet, because I saw this one and had to work on it that second. I just love it!

Our little men!

oh the bad choices we make...

Sunday was not the brightest of days in my household. I went to the gym for leg day, which tends to leave me sore for so so many days after its done. I wasn't sure if I was doing a photoshoot when I got home, and was kinda relieved to find out I wasn't. I mean, I was way sore. But when Olivia woke up begging to go to the park, good mom that I am told her yes. So many reasons that was a bad idea....

1. It totally and completely looked like it was going to downpour.
2. The park is at least 3/4 of a mile away, if not a full mile.
3. The kids don't walk there... I pull them there in a wagon.
4. Probably all combined, its 60 lbs of crap.
5. Oh yeah, I just minutes earlier got home from the gym from LEG DAY!

So I load the girls up. Of course I take my camera... I take it everywhere remember!

So here's the one photo of the girls I took right before we left


Olivia's obviously geared up to go... Claire is indifferent, but if one wants to do something, they both do something at this age.

So we walk. And walk. And walk. The good thing about the walk is half of it is through a very wooded area. I like those types of walks, which is why I'm fine with walking to the park. I am not so fine, however, when I see water droplets on the ground around me. Of course we are within probably 2 minutes of being at the park... and Olivia knows it. She could have cared less that the sky opened up and just downpoured upon us - she wanted to go to the freakin park!! And she cried about it the entire way back. (In an effort to preserve my camera, I did what any photographer would do... I shoved the thing down the front of my shirt, so that I had some weird protruding tumor thing from my stomach)

Poor Claire in all of this was a good sport. No crying. No freaking out. She did wave to the gaggles of neighbors who were on their front porch watching us when we turned down our street. Oh yeah, it was a shining moment for me, truly.

144 of 365: My poor little drowned rat




I never did get an after photo of Olivia... she was too busy throwing fits about the park *shakes head*

if Claire does it, Olivia will too

So we discovered the key to get Olivia to do anything.... have Claire do it first. Olivia is hesitant to try anything new... even things she talks about wanting to do for days (like slides and baths.) But if Claire does it in front of Olivia, its like she's suddenly the bravest kid on earth, and jumps right in.

We went to Easton yesterday to burn some energy before bed. There's a water fountain there that spurts water, and lots of parents bring their kids to let them run through it. Every time we've gone, Olivia has hung back, and stayed around the edges. Once Claire was comfortable enough with her surroundings for me to set her down, she ran right up to the thing. We kept thinking she was going to run straight through it!

This is the closest she ever got, though... and she hightailed it out of there once she felt the water spurts... so cute!


But with Claire getting so close to the water, Olivia felt like she could to.

137 of 365: Liquid courage?


When Olivia got brave, she actually made a friend. Her and Claire and this little girl just ran the joint for a good half hour. And the little girl... her moms a photographer too! So we got to chat it up while the kids were playing. Got to love that!

Lets go to the park!!

If Olivia had her way, we would go to the park every single day of the week. She loves the park. These were all taken the same day as the hovering photo...

Haley and Me

I can finally show off these photos!! I think my little sister is gorgeous, and have wanted to 'seriously' photograph her for a while. I say seriously, because her idea of me photographing her, and my idea of photographing her are much different.

Mine: some great close ups of her gorgeous face... maybe some pull backs that are fun and goofy...ect.

Haleys: Purse my lips and hold up a peace sign... I'm hanging upside down!! ect...

For Karen's birthday, I got in cohoots with Aunt Sue to get Haley out of the house, and into a park like setting where I could photograph her. I 'broke' into my parents house to get Haley some nicer clothes, and we were off on our secret mission. Haley did really well for me! I went with the 'lets do my idea, then we'll do yours, then we'll do mine again' approach with her, and it seemed to work out great! I love the photos we got, and Karen did too! (YAY!)

Five girls, oh my!

Jeni and her family were the first "strangers" I ever photographed. So when Jeni approached me at work about another shoot with just her daughters and her neices, I jumped at the chance. The girls ranged in ages from 11-18, and were crazy gorgeous! They braved the cold in short sleeved shirts for me... Thank you ladies!!

My first engagement session

I work with Amber at my 'real job', and she's getting married! We went to a local park by their house to shoot some engagement pictures, and it was just a blast. They're such a pretty couple!

Amber is significantly shorter than Brian, and wore what looked like 4 inch heels to the session. We did a lot of walking, and when we were walking back to our cars, Amber decided she wanted nothing else to do with her shoes. Brian insisted on carrying her to the car. So sweet!

And one last shot before we called it a day. Thanks Amber and Brian!