vol.25

My brother and his wifey...

Happy Wednesday! I hope your week is going great. :) I've finally finished editing the pictures I took of my brother and his wife last saturday. After doing that I was inspired to finally create a few photo collage templates for the blog... making it much easier to share a bunch of photos in a creative fun way. :)

I've been sketching for the new photography based art series... mainly cameras. The two you see above were created for that series... but at the last minute I thought they would make cute props. So I printed and cut them out. Roman and Shaela humoured me... they are always so good about doing that. :)

  I have even more to still share, and I've been writing this post for the last 3 days now. :) I'm afraid I am going to have to cut it short though... Jaydon and I are leaving for Seattle in the next hour! :) Yay for that! Thank you SO much for all the recommendations for touristy things to do in Seattle, I have a HUGE list. Hopefully we can check a few things off the list! ;)

I hope everyone has a great weekend. I'll be back next week with some pictures. :)

 

my saturday...

...was spent taking pictures of these two. :) My brother and his wife came to visit for the weekend, and we had been planning to take they're photos for awhile... so we were pretty bummed when we woke saturday to rain. We decided to be brave and drove around town looking for dry places...

...with umbrellas in tow! :) We still managed to have fun, and finished off with a salted caramel hot chocolate from Starbucks. Definitely not in my diet plan, but it tasted good nonetheless. :)

I have sooo many more pictures to edit and share, and I'll probably be getting to them in the next couple of days. I've been wondering though, do you have any tips for doing a session in the rain? Shaela (my sister in law) had said that when her senior pictures were taken the photographer packed some garbage bags and set those down on the wet ground and tucked them under her so they wouldnt be visible. I thought that was a great idea! I tried it in the first photo, but part of the bag peeked out while I was snapping pictures... :)

p.s. the cloud overlay in the top picture is from the feeling cloudy overlay set. Which happens to be 50% off right now. :)

my cousin Amanda- part one!

So my beautiful cousin Amanda came to visit us last weekend, we left the girls with Jaydon and headed off to take these pictures... we didnt go far, we took all these locally... but it was SO much fun.

I dusted off my fish eye lens and played with it for most of these shots, and I am SO glad I did.... I think I may have rekindled my relationship with the fisheye. :)

We braved the pigeons for these shots!! We could hear them flying above us, and no joke... we heard one drop a bomb not too far away, and it sounded SO loud. Made a nice splat sound as it hit the ground. ;) But anyway... a little too much information there....

I made the above duaflex camera out of cardboard and a sharpie... and Amanda totally rocked it. :)

"Jim" the TV also made an appearance.
Can you tell by these pictures that she is a fun person to be around? Her laugh is contagious! :)

Hope you enjoyed the pictures! I do have more to post....SOON! :) Happy Tuesday! I realized I missed monday's quote... so maybe I can get that in later today!

I love it when brothers think of you before hauling off old treasures...

Isnt this little t.v. just the sweetest thing? My brother saved it from an uncles scrap pile for ME. :) He called me a couple weeks ago, asking if I would be interested... I have to admit, at first I hesitated... where would I store it, along with the other two vintage portable radio/t.v.s I had picked up awhile back?  But he assured me it was small, and I have to say it really is the perfect size. I could not have found a better sized t.v. It also has just the right amount of retro-ness to it. :) It is SO much fun playing around with the overlays on the T.V. Although considering I am not a professional photographer and only take the occasional family/friend session I really have a hard time justifying my current addiction with retro props.

As some of you know, my brother lives in Oregon so I had to wait awhile to meet "jim" (I just decided that was the t.v.'s name) Unfortunate circumstances came up, and we needed to travel there for a funeral this last weekend. We actually left Thursday night, and spent a few days there before coming home Sunday night. It was nice spending time with family and friends. Saturday was spent relaxing at my brother and sister-in-law's. The weather really was gorgeous... and I was able to let the girls play in they're back yard, while the guys tinkered in the shop with Roman's Land Cruiser. The girls ate they're PB&Jelly sandwiches outside on they're new patio set:

Until Saturday I hadnt really considered how awesome of a location it was take pictures around they're house...  

Aunt Shaela had offered that morning to curl BOTH of the girls' hair so I was definitely okay with that! :) Although I wish I had planned they're outfits a little better... but I guess you could say this session was pretty natural.

I've been experimenting with the settings on my camera, and even bought an extended manual specifically for my camera from Amazon. I hope to maybe get back into taking pictures on a regular basis, I've been sticking with my photo a day project. Although, I really hoped to have had some of them scrapbooked by now... maybe I can get started on that in the next couple days. I've been taking a picture every day since July, so I have a bit to take care of. I'm planning to design a simple template that will focus on my images, and then I can have blurb print the book for me next year. :) Maybe I'll do it in 6 month time-lines instead of the year... it definitely makes it seem more attainable. :)

Do any of you photographers have a lensbaby? Or a tilt shift lens of another variety?

I've been wanting one for SO long now... and I am considering purchasing one again, do you like yours? Use it that often?

another sour photo shoot....

Hah!! :) The props may have been sour, but the kiddos... they had a blast! I think this second take on my first lemonade stand session nailed more of what I had envisioned the first time around. The weather was perfect (if not a little hot) and we caught that magical just before sunset lighting. :)

The super cute kids are my cousin's. You may remember them from this photo shoot taken last august.

  Although it was alot of work... it was so worth it. The kids had fun, but I think my cousin and I had a little more fun then they did. It was such a fun shoot. :) I have to give a HUGE thank you to my husband, Jaydon. He was not exactly thrilled at the thought of putting this all together. He worked outside in the heat (of 100+ temp) came home cleaned up, ate dinner suuuper quick, loaded up the table, the trikes drove us out there, helped with the kids then smiled real big for some family shots! :) I really appreciate my hubby and how supportive he is of my craAAzy ideas. :)

p.s. My cousin Shannon was also a BIG help, and even took some pictures of our family. :) I'll be back to post more of those tomorrow! I fear I may have already given you picture overload... well, here is one that I absolutely love...

... and there is another one up top under my blog banner! :) Okay, I am going to resist the urge to share more... I'll be back tomorrow. :)

Have a great tuesday!

-jess

 

kinda lemony....

Well, here is the mock up lemonade stand I mentioned putting together last week. :) It didn't really turn out quite like I had expected.  Different circumstances came up so we ended up taking these pictures a little later then I had hoped. I think we were past that magical lighting moment that happens at sunset. :)

I had borrowed 2 vintage tricycles from kelli, my photographer friend... and completely forgot to use them. I was soo sick after I realized that... the 2 year olds were all over the place, and the tricycles were supposed to keep them in one place. I do think I will be able to work them into another session later this week though...

Right from the start we lost 2 balloons... and that was not cool.

Can you believe I actually had to "coax" a sour face out of these two!!?

kisses are sweet, even with lemon seeds on your cheek... :) The flowers in they're hair are from bubba lou bands. Lisa was suuper fun to talk to, and she had them out in the mail suuper quick. The girls just love wearing them... even Journey keeps them in her hair for LONG periods of time.

my sister's boy in a rare moment... he actually sat still for a few seconds. :)

gotta love those curls...

...as journey would say "ta-dah!"

Hope you enjoyed the pictures! It is definitely lemonade stand season... ;)

a pirates life for me!

Do pirates wear bright pink sandals? Probably not... so I just may have failed there.... but I do think the rest of the session came together really well! :) I took these at my mom and dad's house last night in front of they're garage. This picture is just a teaser.... I am still editing some, and I'll be back to share more then! I used the whimsicalness cloud overlay, and drew in the waves, used the paint bucket and a texture I created awhile back... which ironically happens to be from a picture I took of my parents' cement driveway. :) I am wondering if maybe I should create a nautical themed overlay set with waves and birds?

Rock Star Photo shoot!!

 

  
  

How is that for picture overload? :) We had SOO much fun taking these... and I have waay too many good ones. I am super anxious to work in some overlays into these photos, so don't be surprised to see them show up in a future blog post. Keisha went home today and we are already missing her. I can't remember when the last time was that I seen Trinity look so bummed...

She was definitely Aunt Keisha's shadow the entire weekend. :) I have camping pictures to edit too...and pictures from the coast last weekend. But, I knew you guys would enjoy these so I wanted to share! :) It has definitely been a busy couple of weeks... and I think I am done vacation-ing for the rest of the year. ;)

Tomorrow I have a new print to post! Remember the one I was working on that was inspired by a vintage airstream? Well, I finished it! I'll share tomorrow. :) Did you have a good weekend?

the oregon coast....

Here are a *few* more pictures taken at the coast last weekend. I havent had time to edit them all... in fact I've only gotten to about 10... but I wanted to share a few more. Jaydon's sister is flying in from OK tomorrow night and we are going camping for the weekend. It will be so much fun having her here. Trinity looks so much like her aunt Keisha and I think it will be fun to take pictures of her with the girls. But I am busy busy... Trying to get orders out, and doing laundry from the trip last weekend... and cleaning house! :)

 

Jaydon, grandma and pa pa helped the girls build a sand castle...
 

I took some pictures of my brother and sister-in-law....

... they humored me, and let me try out my new "prop," an old portable tv/radio. :) I actually picked two of these up at Value Village with Steph last week. I think they will be PERFECT for overlays. :)

neato huh!? I might have felt a little awkward packing around a little tv down on the beach... but it was totally worth the fun. :) Well, I gotta run!!

gotta love a happy baby

that will smile like nobody's business, and show all kinds of love to the camera. :) I really enjoyed having my cousin Stephanie here these last few days. It is always nice to have friends/family that you can be away from for months at a time, and then feel like when the opportunity finally arises for you to see each other again, you pick up right where you left off. :)  Her little guy Kobe is soo sweet, and it is amazing how big he made our 2 year old "baby" seem. Well, happy Friday. I hope you have fun plans for the weekend!