Yearly Archives: 2014

I’ve been super blessed this year with some amazing family mini sessions and holiday sessions!  It’s been super hard for me to keep them under wraps while they all are creating their family holiday cards and working their holiday surprises for their own families!

I’m super excited to share this very special session though, even if it’s just a few!  I met Ashley in high school and she’s one of those people that is really dear to my heart!  Ashley is quiet and reserved on the outside.  When you first meet her, she’s laid back and soft spoken.  She’s a wonderful listener and the kind of person that when she does speak up it’s incredibly meaningful and spoken directly from the heart!

Once you do get to know her really well… you realize she is actually pretty goofy and outgoing!  She may come across at first as reserved, but honestly she is really anything BUT reserved!  She’s one of the most fun girls I grew up with and I cherish our days of Applebee’s dates and the nights I spent with both our Ashley’s and our Sarah’s and Jessica’s!

Ashley married her college sweetheart and they now have two of the cutest wee ones EVER!  I love being able to see them when they come in town to visit!

I especially loved having them in front of my camera this time!  I loved seeing how much A has grown and changed! She is such a big girl now… a little lady really and I love that she reminds me of Ash.  She can be that quiet and reserved at first meeting but then blow you away with how silly and spontaneous and care free she can be when she decides to let you see that side!

I also loved meeting C, a man after my own heart and Linc’s too!  If only they lived closer:  he and Linc would be sure to be double trouble BFF’s!

Here are just a few of my favorite images from their session!  Just a few as to not spoil the holiday surprise for anyone 😉

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  • December 2, 2014 - 8:07 pm

    Ashley - You are amazing! Your pictures, your words, YOU! We had a great time and that’s because of you. And we LOVE the pictures!ReplyCancel

  • December 5, 2014 - 2:33 am

    Sarah - I LOVE this! It is so great to see both you, Brooke, and Ashley thriving in your abundant, loving, and happy lives. I love the shout out to our high school days! I miss you both!ReplyCancel

I’ve seen this popping up over pinterest and on my instagram feed and I just love it so much!  I love it because it’s the truth and I think it’s a truth we all need to really embrace and embody more in our every day lives.

I think it’s something that really rings true in the photography industry right now (at least in the cozy little corner of the industry space that I’m occupying!)

I’ve been hearing recently a LOT about how so and so is doing this… and so and so is doing that!  There’s a lot of talk on location these days about what OTHER photographers are doing (or aren’t doing) and this kind of talk makes me sad.

I recently had a chat with a good friend the other day who isn’t in the industry but is surrounded by great friends that are all in the industry (sometimes I feel really badly for her about that!)  She was telling me that it’s hard to navigate because even though some of her friends don’t know one another they don’t even LIKE one another because of the number of likes someone has on their facebook photography page vs. the number of years in photography she has under her belt, or the success she has had, or whether she uses manual settings or not!

It all just seems soo insanely crazy!!!!

We need to start remembering that photography is our ART!  We all started this because we absolutely loved it and desired to do this every  moment of the day.  We never set out to do this as a “job”.  It just happened that way and for that we are all extremely blessed!

We began this wonderful journey in the exact same way… and because of that we are all connected!

Instead of wondering what other photographers are doing… we should be focusing on what WE are doing!  We should be striving to find ourselves in our art and what makes us special and unique and different!  We should be aiming to create something unique and lovely for our clients, and that comes from knowing who WE are in our craft.

We should be confident in who we are as artists!  We should believe in who we are as artists!  If we can do this than we can stop comparing ourselves to each other and support one another.  When we can stop the competition we can really start to SEE one another and appreciate each other.  We can create a community of support and respect!

When we can find the beauty in our own work and our own selves we can start to appreciate the beauty in other’s!

We are all unique.  Our work is all unique and wonderful!

That’s what makes is so incredibly great for clients these days!  Not one photographer is alike and that is AMAZING!  It’s to be celebrated!!

The more we come together and support one another, the more we can start to find the clients that appreciate US and the art we create!  The more we can identify when the clients are a great fit and when they might benefit from another photographer!

We want our clients to be happy and to receive the best kind of service and care possible.  It’s when they do that we can create long time clients that become friends and family.

That’s what I want… it’s what we all want right?!

So when you start feeling like your falling behind or lacking motivation… when you start feeling you aren’t keeping up with the tide or when you worrying about things like blog posts, FB likes and such, just remember this little saying and maybe call on a friend to help you remember that you are special in your own way!

Create some community today instead of competition!

Let’s build each other up!

Filed in:Personal | PhotographyTagged in: | | | | | | |
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  • December 1, 2014 - 5:01 pm

    Joy - Love this!❤️ReplyCancel

Today I’m calling in sick!  It’s a weird thing to do when you are your own boss.

Ever since I was little if I did too much or had too much on my plate, my body would react.  I would become exhausted or get a cold or just become really run down.  My mom always knew when it was going to happen and she would prepare for it.  She would warn me as I got older and ask me to slow down.  Even now, she does the same!  Mom’s always know!

This past weekend was amazing!  I spent all weekend in a gorgeous marshy field with this stunning weather and some families I absolutely love!  I had a blast catching up with them and photographing them and I felt truly blessed and honored.  I came home and thought about how crazy these few months have been and really how crazy this whole year has been!  I thought about how much I’ve been traveling for work and how it’s looking like the traveling isn’t going to stop any time soon.  That’s amazing!  I thought about how my weekends are booked solid with incredible families and that is something that last year I was only dreaming about!

My drives home from my sessions this weekend were filled with such gratitude and overwhelming emotions!

Then I got home yesterday… to a quiet house (Tuck and Linc went grocery shopping).  I ran upstairs to catch a few moments of peace with a new book and BAM… I was asleep (like hard core fast asleep) at 4:30 pm.  Who does that?!

I actually went to sleep last night at 4:30 in the afternoon BEFORE my two year old.  Tuck woke me up to eat dinner and then I went right back to sleep.  I was THAT exhausted and didn’t even realize it.

This morning I woke up and still felt like I could sleep for days.  I feel now the same way I used to feel after attending church or school lock ins.  The way you feel when you just don’t know if you could ever catch up on enough sleep.  Right now I’m coughing from allergies and I have NEVER had allergies before in my life.  I’m so off my game that while cleaning up after making our crock pot dinner for tonight I used a chlorox wipe IN MY EYE!

So I decided that today I’m taking a rest day and just calling in sick.  I hate to do it because I’m really excited to finish up the edits from this past weekends sessions, but I know I have to take care of myself too.  I still have more wonderful clients to see this week and they also deserve my best!

I realized this morning (after the chlorox wipe incident) that I haven’t really been taking care of myself at all lately.  I know my body and I know that I do have to do certain things in order to maintain my health!  Like my mom knows… I’m someone that can get easily overwhelmed when I have a huge plate.  I absolutely HAVE to take good care of myself!  I’ve been so busy lately that I’ve been blowing those things off.  I’ve skipped the doctor’s appointments I’ve set up.  I haven’t been going to the gym (in fact, I’ve ignored this cough for so long I haven’t even been able to teach body flow for several weeks).  I haven’t gone to get a massage (which I pay for a membership to Luxe because it helps my migraines) since April!

Gosh, I haven’t even showered regularly… I know that’s disgusting!  Hey… it’s the truth though!  I’ve been so busy trying to keep up with Linc in the muddy back yard shenanigans he loves, then running out to roll around in the leaves and dirt in my sessions that I just figure I’ll shower later!  SOOO GROSS!!!!

What I find most interesting about all this though is that a year ago I was barely even dreaming about this kind of busy!  This is amazing to me and I’m so beyond grateful that I just don’t have the words.  I love my clients so much!  I love that they believe in me and trust me to capture their memories and moments.  These precious moments of their family and little ones!

I want to make sure that what I do is perfect for them because they aren’t just clients to me!  They are extensions of my own family!  Once I met with these families… it’s just more than client and photographer.  Their faith in me really touches me in a way that I can’t ever explain!

This is why I don’t slow down!  I want to make sure everything is amazing and perfect and fast!

And my incredible family is supporting me in a way that allows me to do that!  Tuck never complains about a late night or a weekend where I’m working in the office.  If there is one thing he understands, it’s work and family balance.  I wish I had been more gracious with him about that!  I always push him to be more family oriented.  Tuck pushes me to see the business side of things.  We balance each other extremely well and we truly are a perfect fit for each other.  He is my driving force in this business.  He supports me to the ends of the earth and he believes in me when I sometimes don’t even believe in myself.  I feel extremely blessed!

This year has been an amazing year and I can’t wait to continue planning all these fun sessions with all these incredible families and stories!

But for today:  I realize I need to pause and slow down a bit.  In order to continue to give my clients and my family everything I have, I have to give some back to myself too!  I have to take a breather and catch up!

So today (just for today) I’m going to step away from the computer and the camera.  I’m going to take an incredibly and ridiculously long shower!  I’m going to curl up on the couch with my 65 lb. pitbull who thinks she’s a newborn baby!  I’m going to read a book and enjoy the silence and stillness of the house while Linc is enjoying his friends at school.

I might get bored even!  And that’s OK!

If you need me today, you are more than welcome to stop by but the rule is you must be in comfortable clothes.  You could also preferably stop by around lunch time maybe with some panera in hand 😉

I’ll be here… just catching up!

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