That's HOT!

I got to shoot 3 gorgeous models yesterday. These are quick picks....fast photoshop but.......I just had to post a few before going thru them and really picking my favs. All 3 girls were great! We got to shoot at the Legacy building in the lobby and we got to see the penthouse - wow! Clothing was from Lola boutique in Faytteville. 2 models from Stage 28. Some makeup done by me! Good times!

life!

My booda booda bear gave me a ring for our anniversary present. He gave me a better wedding band then what I had. It's so pretty! Look at all the diamonds! awwww!

Stopped by mom's house to photograph some of her amazing minature works. Check it out!







I'm a busy girl. Yes.....I am!

I'm 90% done with Christmas shopping. I am glad .... I've been shopping all year long and have gotten some neat stuff over the year. Can you believe Christmas is around the corner? Planning Amelia's bday party, too.

So I finally got a new phone. I've been wanting to get a new phone for MONTHS but time is an issue. Doug's phone finally croaked over. So we went with Alltel and so far we like it. Much better than our old phones. I even got Amelia a pink phone. Crazy to think my 7 year old has a phone but she kept tying up my phone talking to her friends and I was missing calls! So her pink phone is now like our "home" phone. Thank goodness. ;-) The girl can talk!

Doug and I looked at some couches today. Couch shopping is annoying. I don't like it much. Too many choices. I hate making a decision in colors, shape, size, etc. Just give me a couch! Really, I don't like shopping. It's one of those annoying things that you do but I hate it.

Did a boudoir shoot today. The lady I photographed was so great! Totally amazing, too! She was a lot of fun to photograph and had tons of ideas. I love people who are full of ideas!

Scored a 98% on my world lit test. I was so proud! All the study group visits paid off! I just had to miss 2 things on it - dang it! Oh well....an A is an A afterall!

Tomorrow is the ONDA OK photoshoot. We will be shooting in a penthouse. Oh baby! I'm shooting November & Decemeber tomorrow. I'm really excited because we are getting the clothing from Lola boutique. I'm working for 3 magazines now. Just little projects but it's so much fun!

I booked my 1st wedding with Janet Hudson-Shroeder Photography! Janet is so cool. Love her! I love all the photographers I work for. All of them are so danged nice and too cool!

Well this week in my continuing saga called Photo I ... we are taking photos of space. Yup. Space. Kimberlea and I are getting a dark room for the studio. It's too much fun. My goal is to now shoot 1-2 rolls of film at each wedding. I have infrared film in the fridge that is screaming "shoot me!!!!"

Youkta Rest in Peace

Rest in Peace - Youkta.

http://www.youkta.org/

Youkta was an amazing dancer. She had a beautiful soul. She performed at shimmyfest in the past.

RIP

Wedding in Frisco

Kimberlea Bass (Kimberlea Bass Photography) asked me to join her in photographing a wedding in Frisco, TX this past weekend. She told me that the wedding would be featured in a 6 page spread in "The Knot" magazine. I thought that was way cool! Anyways, I just love Kimberlea so anytime I get to work with her it always ends up being so much fun. Kimberlea told me this wedding was going to be a huge wedding. Well.....huge is an understatement! Just look at the pics! WOW! It took my breath away.
Overall, the weekend was great! We had P.F. Chang's on Friday night. We got to see the reception hall transform into this wonderland of 10,000 roses! Oh the smell! The smell was wonderous! The entire night was perfect.
I also shot some film. One roll of film will be cross-processed - meaning the colors will be all "crazy" and fun!

Anyways I did get a chance to shop at IKEA while I was in Frisco. Love that store! I bought a bunch of Christmas presents at Ikea. Doug & I want to make a trip down there to shop!

The light was constantly changing:






Check out the dance floor!


That's a lotta shrimp!


The lighting "god" - he was the mastermind behind the lighting. His nickname is "Oz" - makes sense!! ;-)


This is the mom of the groom. Love the light!


The wedding guests were having a blast!


One of the lead singers in the band got down with the crowd and really got them excited! Love this capture.


Some of the wedding guests got on stage with the band "Icehouse" - yes some of the wedding guests were a little "happy" lol!


Kimberlea and I cannot be at a wedding and not have fun! We are doing the "water sprinkler." Yes, we are nerdy photographers but do we care? Nope! We are having fun!!


I love this pic!


This is the furniture for the cocktail hour. It was custom made for the event.


All of the tables had huge floral arrangements!


Look at all these food signs!! That gives you an idea on how much food they had!


The bathroom stalls!


More bathroom decor!


Even the towel holder was decorated!


Bride & Groom - just married!

Homework.

Sometimes it's hard to get homework done when you have kids. One of my friends from school, Duane, asked me for some help with "finding light" for our photo I class' homework. So.....I told him we could run to my studio and just play with all the lights in there. Since we both have kids and going to Dickson street is out of the question - we goofed at the studio. I took out my alien bee and we used the honeycomb grid and just played with the power on it, etc. We also found my little Lowe's clamp on lights and goofed with those. The kids were SO hyper so we dressed them up as angels. Good and bad angel. HA! Anyways, Duane took those for his class project. I had my digital camera so I snapped a few. Too cute! I love the light!

Sexy shoot, updates, life!

So I did some sexy Halloween photos on Friday night. It was a blast! I love the red wall at the studio - sooooo hot!!! hot hot hot!!!

My eye is healed.......FINALLY! I thought it would never heal up!

Today was a wild day! I went to class, worked on an article for a local magazine. Meeting with another magazine tomorrow to work on more photo projects.

Booked another wedding through Janet Hudson-Schroeder for May 17th in Ft. Smith. I'm all excited! Love shooting weddings but love working for other photographers :-)

I'm changing my entire website to feature boudoir work only. I may have a miscellaneous section on the site. I photographed a boudoir this last Sunday and booked another one. I've had 2 more inquiries as well. Word of mouth is great! Keep passing my name along ladies & gents! I LOVE to photograph the boudoir and I have such a blast photographing it! Too much fun!! YAY!

This week has been hectic already and it's only Monday! Midterms this week and next. I have more dark room stuff to do. This week I'm making 8x10's of the texture project that we did. I'm having a hard time with this "basic" stuff but it's teaching me patience and making me re-think shooting and the process it goes through. Thank God for digital because if the world was still entirely film - I might scream! lol!

My sweets took me out to eat tonight and I had deep fried corn nuggets that were so out of the world, I'm ready for more!

I'm FINALLY getting my hair done next week with Missy. She's an amazing stylist and my hair needs help!!! We're doing color and cut. I love & hate my curly hair so she's gonna help it! She gave me an awesome consult. She waxed my eyebrows today and that needed to be done, too! Whew - I'm so behind on everything! :-)

Showed my sweets his other anniversary present that is in the making and he loves it! I'm designing a wedding album for us and he loves it!

This thing called life.

I was looking thru old photos. I have found all kinds of stuff! Here is one of my friend Kristen. Crazy what you find when looking thru old folders and discs.

I need to print up several huge prints for the eye doctor. I told him he needed something to hang on his wall - there's nothing on his waiting room walls!

Tonight is the ONDA photoshoot. Sexy Halloween chick. Should be fun! I can't wait! It's been a whole month since the last shoot. This is down to the wire - last minute!

My eye is about 85% better. It's almost completely healed.

I have to do dark room stuff tomorrow. I guess I'll be on campus for awhile. I also have to study for World Lit and Geology lab mid-terms. Sigh.....

Dog needs to get to the groomer tomorrow before I start spraying Febreeze on her! HA HA!!

I got to see Doug for lunch today. I brought him Braum's. He was so happy to see the food and to see me!

I went to David Adams jewelers today to get my wedding band and engagement ring saudered (how do you spell that?!?) together. I'm thinking of having stones out of some old jewelry of mine placed into other jewelry. I may bring my old stuff for the jeweler to look at and give me estimates and ideas on new jewelry from the old stuff!

I need to get my ears pierced. I did some trade out with Dustin at Brainstorm Tattoos and I need my ears pierced. There's some diamond earrings I want for Christmas. *hint hint* Doug! he he he he.......well actually Doug was showing them to me.

Amelia gets to celebrate Antonio's birthday today at his bday party. Oh my gosh - I need to go buy a present! lol! I gotta run and do that!

Anniversary & more.

Colleen & I at Strutt for a Mutt

Strutt for a Mutt

Strutt for a Mutt


So Doug and I will celebrate our 1 year anniversay on October 7th.....we exchanged anniversary gifts already! I have to be out of town for our anniversay, shooting a wedding that will be featured in the Knot - cool huh?

So I bought Doug a Kenneth Cole leather jacket. It's nice. Now I want one! HA HA! Doug got me a diamond wedding band with 7 diamonds in it - almost 1 carat. It's gorgeous! So I'm wearing it and dancing around the house. I can't wait to take a picture of it and post it. I'm still working on another present for him but it may turn into a Christmas present instead. My sweets & me have had a great year. Too much fun!

Colleen and I shot some photos for "Strutt for a Mutt" last week. It was really fun to see. The lighting was very difficult.

My eye is healing. I had to miss school today but I'm getting used to using 1 eye. My left eye is almost back to normal so I thought I'd jump on the computer and throw a blog up!

I didn't do much today but sleep, trying to heal this eye and seemed to have worked along with the eye steroid and antibiotic. My eye doctor is needing photos/artwork for his wall so I'm going to print some stuff to hang in the waiting room since it's empty.

I'm taking some portraits this weekend for a couple in love and a fun boudoir shoot. I'm so excited to shoot some different stuff this weekend!

Amelia's cousin is having his 8th birthday party this weekend so she's excited about going. I need to buy him a birthday present!

Things.

Colleen took this at Farmer's Market.


Picture Colleen took at Farmer's market.


Me & Colleeeeeen!


Left eye - top layer of cornea has been torn. OUCH OUCH OUCH! Thank God I am married to an optician because he helped me getmy eye fixed.

Amelia cooked dinner.....and it was AWESOME! Doug helped her with the stove but she measured and poured everything. I was asleep in bed because my eye HURT so bad!! So I had to sleep a bit because of my pounding headache!

Nikon presents 28th annual college photo contest. I've asked one of my clients permission to use her image in the contest. Winner gets $1000 scholarship and brand new camera. It would be a great addition to my resume - Nikon's Emerging Photographers hall of fame!

I devoloped 2 rolls of B&W film at school today. It's such a LONG tedious project. Got an A on my pinhole photos.

I'm in the sculpture club. I love art! I saw the poster for "Art in Rome next summer" again. I want to go so badly but I just cannot fathom being away from Amelia for 4 weeks in a row!

I got a ride from Haley & Jing Ying today. They saw me waiting for the bus, they picked me up. Thank you!!!!!!!!

Duane made me laugh in class again. Turd butt.

Colleen liked the dracula towel! YAY! I can't wait to find her more spooky & ghoulish Halloween things! YAY!

I need a vacation. I don't see it happening until spring break! I'm ready to graduate already. But nooooooo.....I have to major in something that will take me forever to do, that's ok! lol!

I have a lot on my mind. Too much lately. Feel like my mind may be on overload - BIG TIME.

Communication can be a powerful thing.

I’ve done a lot of reflection in the last several months. I’ve done a lot more today then ever before. Things happened today that were weird to me. I think I probably experienced most emotions a person can experience all at once. I was truly sad, happy, anxious, nervous, upset, angry, and relieved. It is amazing how a person can go through all of those emotions at the same time. The human mind and body never ceases to amaze me.
Something happened today that made me cry. I’m unsure as to why I cried. I do not know if it was because I felt that there was a chapter closing in my past. Maybe it was seeing someone being hurt, but I didn’t cause that hurt, they caused it on themselves. Maybe it was a lot of memories that surged back all at once and it was overwhelming. Seeing someone that was helpless in their situation and reflecting back to the past was hard. I don’t know if I can say the person was helpless because they could have helped themselves with the powerful way that communication works.
I do not want to go into details on a public blog because I really have pity for someone right now. I have this pity but at the same time I can’t stop saying “you reap what you sow.” When you do something wrong, it will come back to bite you in the ass. It’s a life lesson some people learn and some people never learn.
I want to say that communication is so important & vital in life. It is the one thing that I have probably learned the most in my last 32 years of life. Communication is key to everything. I want to learn communication even more but I have a pretty darned good grasp as to what it is nowadays. It is what keeps Doug & I together and strong. I still screw up with some communication but I learn from every single time I screw up communicating. It’s such a hard thing to learn and to perfect!
If people would communicate they may not get themselves into certain situations. I’m a very reasonable person and would have loved the opportunity to speak to the person that was hurt today. It would have been so simple to have a phone conversation to work out a resolution to the original problem. I offered many times but to no avail. Sometimes people may want to communicate but then they have outside influences that will prevent them from making a mature and smart communication decision.
Another point I’d like to make to those that read my blog, is to always listen and believe in yourself. Don’t listen to others and make decisions based on them. Get opinions, listen to your friends & family but YOU have to ultimately make a decisions regarding communication.
It is unfortunate that this person has refused communication and let it get to the point that it has hurt him. Honestly, I do not want to see anyone get hurt. It’s not fun to see. It’s not nice. It’s quite sad.

More old photos - grade school/high school

1985. That would make me 10 years old in this pic. We had a fantastic garden. My hair was ROCKING out! yeah baby!

I think this is 1992. This was a "going out" outfit. Check out those shorts! HA!!


1993. Senior year. I had 3 dates because we were all good friends. My dress was a size 3.....sigh.....I remember those days! And the dress was so big on me! Look at my stockings - I was so way ahead of my time. LOL!


1993. The day we got our caps & gowns.


Halloween. 1992 or 93. I am the clown wearing white.

I worked at the local grocery store - Twiggs IGA. Started there when I was 16 years old. I worked there for 5 years.


1993. Poodle hair. Me & Beth Nix.....we pushed the senior float.


Oh my. 1992. Look at that dress. Look at that hair! I was so little back then. Size 8 dress - GIRLS - not junior, not misses....GIRL. I will never forget being so upset about that. Now....I've gained a lotta weight. Eeek....but ya know....I would never trade in my "fat" for anything because my "fat" is from being happy!!! I need to go back to the gym.