More Vegas

Photos Lori of Mystique Photography took of me on Freemont Street. Our last night in Vegas at about 3 am. One special proposal from Lance....too funny ;-)

Vegas 2008

I went to Las Vegas over spring break. Despite being sick, I forced myself to get outta bed and go have fun! Lori is the best room mate ever and an AMAZING photographer (mystique photography in WA). I ran into several folks from Arkansas on my trip. I ran into Amelia's old teacher from her old school. Then I ran into Matt & Megan (Aus10 photography - Siloam Springs) and then some random stranger "Lance" from Siloam. He proposed to me...all nice and drunk while I was wearing an 80's wedding dress with hot pink shoes & veil. Oh yea. I says "let me ask my husband 1st! ha!" Pictures will come soon!


Photo of me from Red Rock. Taken by J. Scott Photography. Love it!

Aradia being photographed.

Aradia - beautiful model from Vegas.

The big tradeshow. I had my little crapamera with me. Over 10,000 photographers were in town!

Photographers climbing part of red rock .... too high for me! lol

Best room mate ever! Lori! We had so much fun!!

80's baby

Doug took me to the totally 80's dance party at the OPO on Saturday night for my birthday! YAY! Sara went along and then Diana showed up as well! It was a BLAST and dressing up was such a hoot!!

I am 33 today.

I am blessed. Truly. I have learned so much in life and have been way more than blessed with everything that I have today.

My family didn't have a lot growing up. We were poor but I never knew we were "poor" until I got older. Our family life was fun and mom always made sure we were happy.

Today I am blessed to have made it to 33 years old. I have a sweet 8 year old daughter, a supportive and loving husband and a roof over my head. We have a dog and 2 cats. I have food in my tummy, a bicycle to ride around the neighborhood and car that has been very good to me. I am pursuing my education and have learned how to do investments so I can retire when I'm 55.

I've traveled. I've been published. I've won awards. I've experienced so many neat things.

But the most important thing to me is my family. The love, the support, the encouragment that I receive from them is priceless. To have a husband that is my #1 fan and supporter is priceless.

Thank you to everyone who has sent me birthday wishes. I cannot wait to see what is in store for the future. Everything thrown at me is a blessing - good or bad.

33 in 3

The big 33 is creeping towards me....3 more days to be exact. I'm a bit excited and blah about it. I'm thankful that I still look young but when I look closely in the mirror I see the beginnings of some .... shall I say it? Wrinkles! I am starting to realize that I need to embrace my ever changing body. It's a pretty neat thing. I went from this really skinny 100 lbs. to my healthy looking weight. Finally! After YEARS of being anorexically skinny, I have finally put on weight that makes me look good. I always joke with Doug that this happy thing ain't working for me. Years of sadness from a previously bad marriage was not good for me - but is it good for anyone? No, not really. It's interesting how life takes you in many directions and makes its rounds. I'm in an intersting place in my life and I can finally say that I have finally found out what romance, love, & giddiness is. I've been like this since 2006 and it struck me today how lucky I am to have found Doug. Well I already knew all of this but it has really been on my mind today. He has really been such an inspiration to me. I really don't know if I could have gone through everything that I went through without him. He keeps me level headed, strong, optimistic, makes me laugh until my stomach hurts and brought the Lena back to Lena.

I'm guessing that I am thinking about all of this because of the recent murder of a gal from UA. She was friends with Chris. You can read his blog: http://zenandjuice.com/word/ I didn't know her. I had seen her in the hallways of the art department many times. Chris spoke highly of her. Everything that I have read about her seems to really tell about a charismatic lady. I wished I had known her. It's too unfortunate that her psycho ex-boyfriend killed her. What a lunatic. He was in my world literature class this semester. This tragic event has really had me thinking all day. One, I feel so bad for her and her family. Two, I feel bad for Chris - he's had too many losses recently. Three, it's a reminder of how fragile life is. We take it for granted every day. This gal Katie didn't even get a chance to get past graduation or the age of 30. The whole story makes me sick. Life is so short.

I don't want to think about it but I need to work on a living will. As I prepare for a out of state spring break trip on Monday, I think of all of the "what if's" and I know you can't live your life like that. But what if there's no tomorrow? I just want to make sure that my loved ones are taken care of.

33 in 3 days. I'm getting older but it makes me realize so much about life. And it's true - the older you get, the more you don't worry about the little crap. You worry about your child, your spouse and your family.

NEW website coming!

www.glamgirlphotography.com

I am making a website with information just about boudoir photography and nothing else. Since my main focus is on boudoir work, I wanted a website dedicated to just that! I am working on choosing a template that I want to use and from who. I have so many choices! My www.photosbylena.com website will be more of my personal work and stuff that I like or whatever I want to put on there! :-)

It's in the works! Coming soon! In the meantime, excuse the "mess" on both websites. I'm still shooting lots of boudoir, so ladies - send me a message and book a shoot!!

Eureka Springs.

I went to Eureka on Saturday with my sis, Amelia, and Jer. We went to just fiddle-fart around and do nothing. The weather was in the upper 60's/low 70's and we wanted to enjoy that! We just drove around and we also walked around. It was fun!


I got a couple of emails from people wanting to know where this couch is at. I found it at National Home Centers in Bentonville.

Blown away by the wind.

Random art in Eureka.

Random-ness.

Random thing.

Me and my sis acting silly!

Me and my sweets at the Crescent, hanging out.

Amelia and Jer at the train depot.

Me, my sis, and Amelia.

ONDA OK Magazine

JP asked me to be the guest model for the March issue. I finally said ok. So we ended up using Dan Murphy's photos. I like the layout. Now I'm La Chica de Marzo in ONDA OK. Habla Espanol?

My new studio lights came in!

Amelia and her best friend played dress up and modeled for me while I tested all my lights and tried all kinds of settings. The 2 of them had so much fun! I think my favorite new purchase is the huge softbox!

Belly Dancing and Parties!

These are images from a party I did in Fayetteville. The gal hosting did a fun theme of tarot card readers, henna artist and me - the belly dancer! It was really neat!




These are the photos from Kelly's open house of Amani Dance Studios. Lots of fun!

The New Studio

I am now officially in the new studio! 1100 square feet of shooting space! Sara and I went in last night to shoot some fun headshots using all the silly hats and wigs that I have.

Yummy Couch

I did a bunch of freelance work for Citiscapes last week. They are working on their home and garden issue and I had to go around photographing different furniture stores. I ran across this couch as I was leaving the store and fell in love. I grabbed a quickie snapshot ...I had already put my flash and tripod away but grabbed this shot on the way out the door. Doug and I are seriously considering purchasing this couch. It looks perfect.

Boudoir!

I am currently working on some sample boudoir albums to keep at the studio. As I was working on some images for the book, I thought I'd go ahead and post a few more before/after images. The images show how I've corrected coloring, smoothed skin, de-wrinkled, got rid of dirt spots and cropped!

I've booked more boudoir shoots for February and have them booked into March! Give me a call ladies! You won't be disappointed! :-)

All over the place

I shot the centerfold for ONDA OK magazine again. Lots of fun!

Booked 2 more boudoir shoots today...I'm so excited to photograph these in the next coming weeks! It will be fun!

Today I spent all day photographing different furniture stores from Rogers to Fayetteville. I was shooting for Citiscapes magazine.

I booked another wedding with Janet.

AND.......we finally moved into the new studio space in Fayetteville. 1100 square feet of yummy space! Hardwood floors, track lighting, new paint and furniture! I have a big shipment of some awesome lights coming in. My way cool metallic backdrops just arrived! I can't wait to play with all the new goodies!