First Strawberry {Rowan County Baby Photographer}

This is Piper, she is 8 months old.  When coming up with ideas for the photo session her mom thought giving her strawberries for the first time could make for cute photos.  Try hilarious!  She devoured the berries which made for cute but messy photos.  

Look at these eyes!  I could stare at them all day.  

Thanks Piper for being a good sport.

Baby Clara {Rowan County Baby Photographer}

This is Clara, she's 5 & 1/2 weeks old.  Isn't she stunning?  I got the opportunity to photograph her over the weekend.  Look at those gorgeous eyes.  All the innocence of the world is wrapped up in those sweet eyes.  I am thrilled with this shot and had a lot of fun photographing her along with her friend, Piper (8 mo.).  Keep checking back this week for Piper shots; you will not be disappointed. 

Backyard at Sunset

At sunset when the skies are clear, the sun highlights our backyard in a glorious way.  The sunlight is so golden and bright against the darkening nighttime foliage that I swear it looks staged.  We make jokes that the movie studio is back and the Grip just finished lighting our backyard for the next scene.  Last night after the storm, the skies cleared and once again the movie studio was back.  I had to grab my camera.  Of course a photograph can never truly depict the real life beauty but I hope you get the idea.  Let me know if you can see Chip the Grip in the below photo (kidding of course).

Josie Ruth and Jairus [Rowan County Children's Photographer]

What do you get when you cross the DNA of two attractive, adorable adults?  The Gerber Baby and her darling big brother.  I got the opportunity to do a session with 6 month old, Josie Ruth, and because her brother Jairus was hanging around, got a few cute snaps of him too.  I can't wait to get my hands on the eldest, 3 year old brother, J.D., next time around.  Anyway, here are my favorite shots of the session.  I hope they put a smile on your face; they do mine. 

Five Years Ago Today

On my 40th birthday I received the BEST birthday gift of my life!  In 2007, God blessed us with our beautiful Grace Elizabeth Spieler, Gracie to us.  To say she is a joy is an understatement, she is the SUN!  She is the kindest, sweetest, girliest, God-loving, generous little thing you could ever meet.  She's also funny, intelligent, very imaginative and quite the budding artist.  I look forward to her birthday every year because now my attention is on her age and not mine.  Happy 5th Birthday Gracie! 

 I love you all the way to the moon and back.

Gracie's 5th Bday Party

Gracie has been planning her 5th bday party as long as I can remember (literally years) .  On her list of mandatories was: cake, check!  Piñata, check!  Pin-the-tail-game, check!  To add to the awesomeness of this list, our neighbors the Martinez family, loaned us their inflatable water slide saving us literally hundreds of dollars (people are SO nice here in the south).  It was a fun-filled party and I think every kid had a lot of fun, most of all our Gracie.  The hardest part for me was taking off my "photographer" hat and just being mommy, the party planner and coordinator.  However, this coordinator did have her Nikon D40 around her neck the entire party so while there are no "winning" shots from a photography standpoint, there are tons of cute shots of Gracie and her guests enjoying her special day.  I took 167 photos total, but could only post about 14 so I hope you get the jist.  Enjoy.

Nicholas

Happy Saturday!  I'm off to prepare for Gracie's 5th bday party today so this is a brief post.  Here is a shot I took of my nephew Nicholas yesterday.  I love the timing of it.  I snapped it right as his parents drove up; I love his look of awe.  I shot this in manual.  It's getting easier and fun.  I hope to get many great shots at Gracie's party and will post them next week.  

Manual Focus

 I've been working with my Nikon camera since 2008 but have never used manual focus.  It can be a little intimidating working in manual.  Many professionals work with Aperture settings but most, and the photographers that I admire, shoot in manual.  In manual you can have total control over your camera and each shot.  Gracie was playing in her pool today so I snapped some cute shots in "sports" setting only to be disappointed when I downloaded blurry shots.  I was so discouraged.  I Googled some tutorials on shooting in manual and was so encouraged that I grabbed my camera and took Gracie outside around sunset to try my newfound knowledge.  

Here's what I got and I am thrilled!

I barely had to edit this.  The lighting and skin tone came out perfectly because I used my exposure gage on my camera for the first time.  Duh!

I love this one.  I asked Gracie to look up to the sky and it burned her eyes so I got this reaction.  I love that I can see her eyebrow hairs; that's sharp shooting!

I realized after I shot this one that I had the focus set to the right, hence the soft focus on face and sharp detail on her hair.  But I love how ethereal this one looks.  You can really sense the breeze blowing through those golden locks.  

 I'm so excited to shoot in manual on my next several shoots.  I have 3 shoots next week.  All babies; yummy!

Gwen at 1

 So here are some results from my 1-year-old portrait session with Gwen.  I had a lot of fun and some of the time Gwen did too!  It's not easy photographing kids, they are unpredictable and become very shy when the camera comes out.  It's up to the photographer, and the mom, to be silly and creative and to  just snap away trusting that there will be some good shots in there somewhere.  Then its home to arrange and edit the best ones, this can take 6+ hours, but of course that is for 13 shots.  It's so rewarding and I can't wait to see them printed and framed in the family's home someday soon.  

 I love the juxtaposition of the girly sweetness against the rusted ol' truck.  Might be my favorite.  I loved their truck too!

Look at this angelic face.  Isn't she the sweetest?

I loved that Gwen's mom, Krista, had her grandma's antique white wicker furniture out on the front porch.  Score for great props!  

Some parents don't like the "crying" shots, but I love them!  They tell a great story.  This photo is completely unedited.  It was just the perfect lighting and camera setting.  Simpatico!  

This was the last shot of the day.  See how relaxed and relieved Gwen is?  She was saying "Bye-Bye" to the annoying lady with the camera.  I also love that you can see my reflection in the glass.  

So overall, I am very happy with the session and more importantly I gained a new little friend!

Thanks Gwen.

My First Professional Photo Session

Yesterday morning I was hired to do 1-year-old portraits for Gwen.  I will post her tomorrow but for now, check out her cool rock star brother, Grant.  I just love how relaxed he is while his hand is going crazy!

Check back for lots of cuteness.

Coffee and Cutting 2012

No, this is not a morning support group for teenage girls with self-infliction struggles.  This is a wonderful annual event here in Rowan County called Coffee and Cutting.  Jean opens her garden one day each summer for anyone with an empty bucket and $10 to cut as many flowers as their pail can hold.  She also has a beautiful buffet of morning treats and fresh coffee.  All proceeds go to benefit local animal shelters.  This year she chose an animal shelter in Lexington and the event brought in more than $2300!  That will help a lot of animals.  Her gardens are just beautiful and well loved, not a weed in sight.  I was able to gather enough flowers and filler to make 6 arrangements when I got home.  I will certainly attend again next year, it was a blast!

There were fuzzy, chubby bees galore!  Imagine my fortune and timing to get this shot.

Here is Gracie trying to decide which flower to cut.  Once she got a glimpse of all the bees, she was DONE!  Needless to say, I will be attending the event alone next year.  

Gracie at sunset II

Here's one more shot we took at sunset last night.  I decided not to edit it other than cropping.  My goal is to Photoshop as little as possible, that's the sign of a good photographer.  

Gracie at sunset

Last night after a quick summer storm I grabbed Gracie and my Nikon and we went out into the street where the best sunset lighting was.  Gracie is growing very tired of posing for me so I tricked her and made her laugh and fortunately was able to snap this shot.  I'm so happy with it.  I shot in Apeture because I still am not comfortable shooting in manual, and because there was low light, I bumped up the ISO to 800.  I think the shot looks pretty sharp, no graininess from the higher ISO.  

What do you think?  If this was your child, would you be happy with the outcome?  

Test Shots of Gracie

I recently asked a successful family/children's photographer, whom I greatly admire, how she knew when she was ready to start her own photography business.  She told me to practice, practice, practice, and to really learn my camera.  After awhile, I would know when it was time.  I'm not there yet.  I need to practice on kids other than my own family because kids can be tricky.  They squirm.  They're shy with strangers.  They often don't take simple direction.  In the next few months I'm going to shoot as many kids that I can.  I will be posting shots here and would love your feedback.  And hopefully someday very soon I will be announcing my new photography business.  

Here are some results from today's session.  I love this one!  I shot about 64 shots and really only liked about 3.  In this one I edited out her dark circles, removed a few small scabs on her lips, and cropped it.  

Here's one I decided not to edit other than slight cropping.  I love the softness of it.  And her hair?  Wouldn't you just love to have her hair?  Of course Gracie wants stick straight hair.

I love photographing here in North Carolina.  I only have to go out my front door and beauty abounds.  We will try some sunset shots tonight.  Wish me luck!

Claire

This is Claire.  I snapped some shots while we babysat her today.

Isn't a little girl with her baby doll just the cutest thing ever?

I need to change the settings on my camera to get crisper details on the face but I'm pretty happy with them since they were totally spontaneous, organic shots taken on my patio.  

I just love snapping shots of kids!

Fried Green Tomatoes

Before we get started let me just state the obvious, I am no Pioneer Woman and I am no food stylist.  This post is for my west coast family and friends who may have never tried a fried green tomato because we just don't eat fried green tomatoes in California.  In fact, I rarely see them here in North Carolina either.

Look at these gorgeous green globes of goodness.  Aren't they beautiful?

I first fell in love with fried green tomatoes years ago when Rob and I visited Charleston with my folks.  What a foodie town that is!  After that trip my mom would make them for us each summer we visited; 

I always looked forward to this summer delicacy.  

Why green you ask?  Well, green tomatoes are picked before they ripen and turn red.  They are rock hard and very tart.  There is very little liquid in them so they are easy to slice and fry.  

They are pretty easy to make.  Here's how:

First dip your sliced green tomato in egg wash and then into a mixture of 1/2 flour, 1/2 Jiffy cornbread mix.  Add salt and pepper and any other seasoning you'd like.  I would've like to add a bit of cayenne for heat but Gracie was having them too, so no go.  

Place them right into a heated pan of Canola or Vegetable oil, or any oil with a high smoking point. I highly recommend a cast iron pan because cast iron gets so hot it creates a nice crust.   Look at that bubbly, golden goodness?  Can you smell it?  It smells divine.  Cook until golden, then flip that thang and golden up the other side.

Let them rest on a paper towel to absorb excess oil.  

OK, I realize this is not a "pretty" food shot but you get the idea.  We placed our fried green tomatoes on multi-grain toasted bread with mayo.  You can also add bacon, lettuce and sliced onion.  There are many different combos but I wanted the tomato to be the star this time around.  

In SoCal you might need to ask around at the farmer's market for green tomatoes or request them for the next week's market.  Once you buy them, use them within a day or two or they start turning orange, on their way to red.  

Let me know if you try them.

Rub'n Buff Kitchen Hardware DIY

I HATE brass!  And I really hate brass combined with white.

While I love my L-shape white kitchen, it is outdated.  Nothing says 1970 like brass.  Because this was a custom built home (1971), the owner designed her kitchen with TONS of cabinets.  Back then the hardware was installed on the outside.  See all the hinges?  There are 84 BRASS hinges and 70 BRASS knobs.  UGH!  What to do on a shoestring budget?  It would be years before we could update our cabinets.  The photo below almost makes me dizzy with all these hinges.

Because I'm a DIY girl I subscribe to quite a few DIY interior blogs.  Last week I received a post from Hyphen Interiors about the wonders of Rub'n Buff.  It's a product that rubs on and buffs off.  It comes in about 20 colors, mostly metallic.  It is made of carnauba waxes, metallic powders and pigments creating a truly metallic finish, (unlike metallic spray paint which looks like paint), this actually looks like metal.  Just 1/2 oz can cover up to 20 square feet.  I had to try it.  I Googled Rub'n Buff and found many other DIY blogs on this stuff and studied how to use it.  I ordered mine on MisterArt.com because I got each tube for $3.91 but it usually retails for over $5.  I ordered Silver Leaf, Pewter, Antique Gold, Spanish Copper, and Patina, oh, and Ebony which is a high gloss back with no metallic.  It shipped quickly; I couldn't wait to get started.

I decided to use Silver Leaf in the kitchen to match the stainless steel sink and trim on appliances.  Plus I just like silver with white.  I did my first knob and my husband and I were just amazed!  I painted it on very thinly with a dry brush and buffed it off immediately with an old t-shirt.  My old brass hardware now looked like new nickel plated hardware.  My entire kitchen will only cost me $3.91!  Score!  In the last 24 hours I've done over 40 knobs.... 30 to go and at least 40 more hinges.  My back is on fire but it is so worth it to make such a huge impact for so little money.  

What do you think?  It's so soft on the eyes now.  I'll post another photo when the entire kitchen is done.  The hinges actually no longer bother me now that they are silver.  

I can't wait to change all the brass in my home.  I have 5 sconces, a ceramic and brass chandelier, a brass fire place frame, etc, etc, etc.  I will post the transformations as they happen.  Rub'n Buff is my new obsession!