Frank & Katherine | Engagement

I've been sitting on pins and needles waiting to share this beautiful session ever since it ended! :-) It threatened rain and I was pretty sure we'd have to cancel it, but that morning I checked the forecast and it was only a 30% chance of rain until 2pm. We'd planned to meet at 5:30, but by then it was supposed to storm. Frank & Katherine were so flexible and willing to move the shoot up to 12:30 and risk that 30% winning out. It worked in our favor because we had beautiful cloud cover and we had the entire Klehm Arboretum to ourselves!

I love these pictures so much! Katherine & Frank, you two are one incredibly good looking couple. :-) Enjoy some favorites... or rather, a lot of favorites!

So much beauty!

This second set is my favorite - love how their outfits compliment the beautiful garden so perfectly!!

Katherine, you are stunning! And so happy. :-)

We got a kitten... | Personal

Well... barely getting this post up in time. :-) I was driving nearly all day today, so I do have an excuse. Just popping in to share the extreme cuteness of our new KITTEN!!! He's supposed to be an outdoor kitty, given that my sister and dad are extremely allergic, but he has been spending a fair amount of time being cuddled indoors. :-) He is nameless right now, but we're working on it.

I only have phone snaps ready at the moment, so you'll have to wait for some "real" pictures at a later time. Which I am sure you will wait for with baited breath. ;-P It's ok, I know not everyone is cat crazy like me. I will, however, consider you a heartless wretch if some part of you doesn't melt the tinsiest bit over this:

1950's Polka Dot Photoshoot

There's always loads of fun to be had when we get together with Lily & Gretel, and our last visit together was no exception! We did our share of work, but on their last day here we decided to do an all-out 1950's day. We had done a similar thing several years ago, but decided it was high time to reprise the experience - and improve on it. 3 years later we have improved our hair, makeup, styling, and photography skills. :-) This time around we had a bit more of a theme too - all of us had polka dot dresses, with varying sizes of polka dots.

Our first stop was Steak & Shake for lunch. We walked into the restaurant and every. single. person turned and stared at us with gaping mouths. We've never experienced a reaction quite like that before when we have gone out dressed up together. Generally we get some smiles and some little girls pointing, but never have we had all heads turned our way with completely blank expressions. :-) We were starting to think maybe this wasn't such a great idea, but we were hungry so we went ahead and got burgers. By that time I think everyone adjusted and so when we got shakes, we moved up to the bar to take a couple of pictures.

Complete with chef photobomber. :-)

After our fun lunch, we headed out to recreate some 1950's poses. We found some old photos and ads from the 50's on Pinterest, and did our best to copy the poses as exactly as we could. I think we amused some bystanders across the river. :-) I think the copies could be more exact, but they're pretty good for having to put the camera on timer and run back and forth (in heels!)!

Original photo via Pinterest.

Original photo via Pinterest.

Original photo via Pinterest.

Original photo via Pinterest.

After exhausting ourselves with running around, we called it quits and went over to Cruise Night which was just starting. We walked around and admired the old cars; it was Pontiac Night so there was a variety of cars. Come to find out, later this summer they'll have 50's night, as well as Model A/T night and Pre-WWII night! We'll have to go back!
Several car owners wanted to take our picture with their cars. In general we were treated like celebrities, which was kinda fun. :-)

We saw this darling yellow number rolling in and immediately pointed it out - and then it drove by and we recognized a gentleman from our church inside it! His friend owns the car and he was along for the ride. 

All in all it was a smashing afternoon. We're all excited for next time already!

Frank & Katherine | Engagement: Preview

Couldn't have loved today's engagement session more!! Excited to share the rest very soon!

P.S. Make sure you're following my Facebook page and Instagram - I sometimes post extra previews over there, especially on IG. :-)

Then & Now | Personal

In the Q&A, I was asked if I could post some of my early photos, contrasted with my current work and talk about how I improved. I hope you're ready for this. :-) I'm only agreeing to this because everyone has to start somewhere, and I've been encouraged by seeing some old work of my favorite photographers and realizing, "They used to take pictures like that, and look where they are now!"

You could go back in the archives of this blog and find some pretty old work of mine, but I'm going even further back with this post. There aren't too many cringe-worthy shots on the blog; though you can go back to when I didn't really have a consistent editing style and was playing around with vintage filters, etc. I also didn't do a lot of portraits back then; I was still really into nature photography. Here I'm going back to the first time I remember taking portraits and feeling happy with them. This was in 2009, doing updated portraits for my sister (to give to grandparents, etc.). Pretty much any portraits I shot back then were of my sister. She was very patient. :-)

This shot was my "money shot" from the day. I was really proud of this. I liked the setting, the pose, and oddly enough, the light. I'm not sure why, since looking at it now half of her face is underexposed and the other half is blown out. :-)

So how did I go from that... to this?

I think the biggest thing that pushed me forward and helped me to improve was immersion in good photography. I found some photographers I liked and began to follow their work. The first photographer I followed was Jessica Shae - before that, I didn't even know there were photography blogs. :-) After a while there were several blogs I read, and then I found Katelyn James, and her style really clicked with me. She was very similar to what I was going for, but just hadn't perfected yet. So, not to say that I was totally copying other people; but I was constantly exposed to examples of good photography - good composition, white balance, and exposure, consistent editing, analyzing the light. It rubs off on you.

Beyond that, one of the best things that I ever did was to take my camera off auto and put it on manual. I read some articles that helped me to understand the basics (I have linked all those articles on this pinterest board), but mostly it was trial and error, playing with the settings until I had them to my liking. After I had played with manual for a while I tried aperture priority mode, which did work pretty well, but last year I switched back to completely manual all the time and I have not gone back.

I hope you enjoyed (not sure if that's the right word... :-) this peek into my early forays into photography! I am grateful to the Lord for blessing me in developing my skills to where they are today (and hope to keep on improving!).

Pink & Gold Hot Air Balloon Party

For years my sister and I have thought it would be really fun to have a "singles shower" - lots of our friends are getting married and it is so fun seeing them get all this new kitchen and home stuff at their showers. We thought, well, why shouldn't single girls get some fun new stuff for their house too? Besides, we love an excuse to have a party. :-)

We never got around to actually doing it, until Tara and Grace started scheming making the party actually happen. They came up with a hot air balloon theme and a pink & gold color scheme, and ran with it! Grace, baker extraordinaire, made adorable hot air balloon cookies, raspberry macarons, and the beautiful gold-painted cake. They created little hot air balloons out of gold paper lanterns with small pink paper boxes hung from them - SO cute! We spent an exhausting evening draping our entire front room in tulle and gold streamers. Some of our lovely single girlfriends came to the party and each brought a fun gift like you might give at a shower, and we had a gift swap. Delicious food and delightful conversation topped off quite the smashing event! :-)

Alas, I was too busy participating to snap any photos during the actual event, but enjoy the photos of everything untouched!

Source Credits:
Cake, cookies, and macarons: Simply Grace
Tulle: Tablecloths Factory
Gold streamers: Shindigz
Gold paper straws: Amazon
Gold paper lanterns: Oriental Trading Co.

Happy Independence Day!

I hope everyone is having a great day today complete with picnic food, lawn games, and fireworks! We got our plans in the works a bit late in the game but we are planning to have some fun this evening... maybe I'll update this post with a few pictures later!

So... this is a lame post to say that it's a day off! But I'm sticking to my blogging calendar!! ;-) And I still have a fun sneak peek for you. A couple of weeks ago we did another 1950's outing with Lily & Gretel - it was a blast! I'll have another post coming soon with more photos!

Enjoy your day!