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Pass this along to family and friends. Wives hint to your hubbies, friends hint to your friends... any kind of shoot (kids, babies, dogs, friends, couples)... this is the perfect opportunity to nab some fun shots! Limited availability and only from Feb. 1-14th.
I'm bursting at the seams with photo goodies to share...ah! Back to editing so I can share ASAP!
... this is the photo of the day.
Tiny preview from my session yesterday with pups Cody and Luna.
Priceless.
Okay, okay and because I can't resist here are a couple more. Well, just because :)
Lots of goodies to come... everything from new gear, updates on my new site, and some crazy fun shoots. Can't wait to share!!!
As I have said before and I will say again, the more I learn about photography the more I realize I need/want to learn. This truth keeps me looking to all genres of photography for inspiration and knowledge.... which I am excited to share the following with you....
Scott Foster is a nature and lifestyle photographer that we have gotten to know up here in Davidson through our little church, and although I've not shot alongside Scott yet, I have seen his work and its breathtaking. So I wanted him to share a little bit about his philosophy on photography, and I'm so glad he did. His work has a certain ethereal quality that is beautifully intriguing.
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Communicating What The Heart Sees: by Scott Foster
Effective visual communication requires the same element any successful communication includes: the heart. Gaining an understanding of how to communicate what it is saying is the key to becoming a capable communicator. Don’t think you have the heart for it? Read on.
I believe your heart, like mine, is always speaking; it has a story to tell. If you listen and focus on hearing the voice of your heart, you will be on the path to recognizing what is being said. Shortly, you will be communicating with others the story your heart has always yearned to reveal.
To start, focus on a theme or topic. Photographing within the structure of a theme or topic allows you to tell a story. The story unfolds as the viewer scans from image to image. Just like the writer who writes and re-writes crucial editing will need to occur within the storyline. Be patient with yourself during this process. It takes time.
For me, the theme is shapes. I love the task of reducing a chaotic nature scene into a few simple shapes. While walking around a possible subject, I begin to see order in the chaos; it's like turning the focus knob on a projector. During these times, I look for what my heart dreams for in life: repetition, balance and rhythm.
Look around. What does your heart see?
Title: Connected Color
Title: Out of Warranty (remember this truck from my shoot with the Dillingham Sisters?)
Title: No Air Bag
Title: Walk this Way
Title: Simply Fall
This was a special shoot for me because this family is one of the first I shot last year. Getting to see them again and see how much Evan has grown and changes since I last "met" him reminds me of how rich these past 9 months have been. How's that for nostalgia? I'm simply thankful for the opportunity to visit with the awesome Schmidt family - thank you Ginny and Andy for just being a joy to hang out with!
I just can't help it... there is something about kiddos in B/W that makes them look so classic. Love it.
Yesterday I had the privilege of meeting fellow photographer Candice Lanning of The Beautiful Mess. I had seen on her blog that she is wanting to build more of a network of sharing and learning with local photogs so I jumped at the chance to hang out... chat about life, love, and or course workflow (among other fun technical things). What I thought might be a 30 minute meet and greet, turning in a 2.5 hour-long awesome conversation! I just appreciated someone being willing to lay out what she has learned and simply share with me. What a gift. I'm looking forward to some fun concepting shooting that we will be doing together and hopefully lots more learning and laughing along the way too.
Be sure you click on her link to check out some shots from our time together! She insisted that I need some shots of MYSELF on my site (especially on the new site that will be launching in a few weeks!) so despite my squirminess she snagged a few of me :)
These are the women who have inspired and encouraged me by participating in the Believe project last week. They opened their hearts to me and, for that, I don't even have words that can appropriately convey my gratitude. I believe there was a Divine orchestration in the timing of these shoots.
I hope these images give you a taste of their brilliant beauty. I'm still working on the best way to share their stories, but until then, I will let these frames tell the story.
Heidi:
Christy:
Claudine:
Lica:
Laura:
Natalia:
Laura:
Annye:
Just a preview of the sweetness from my shoot with little Mr. Evan.
Oh-me-oh-my. Those eyes will melt me every time.
As I alluded earlier, this week has been full of Believe shoots thanks to a incredible woman named Lica Acosta. She wrote to me last December about wanting her small group/Bible study to participate in the project. We reconnected early in January and she masterfully worked with my schedule (and theirs) to wrangle 9 girls for shoots all in one week - amazing. My week has been filled with encouraging emails, inspiring conversations, and of course lots of laughter as we have been shooting.
After posting Valerie's story and photos, Lica and I talked about holding off and waiting to reveal the rest of the images until they were ALL done, then having all the girls meet together and see them for the first time... together. So that is the plan! I'm shooting the last set of girls today and then will be preparing a DVD of all the final images along with quotes from the stories they have submitted to me. They've invited me to be there when they see everything for the first time and goodness gracious I'm bringing my own box of tissues because, I tell you what... these images tell some INCREDIBLE stories. I'm still blown away at how the lives of these women - who are all so different - have been perfectly woven together in this group.
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So all that being said, I promise that I will share all the images next week, but until then I wanted to at least share some tidbits from these women to give you a teaser of what I have been blessed with sharing in this week, and let me assure you that each of these excerpts have a story of truth and light in the end.
"Participating in the project is a big step for me; it is a stretch as picture taking is not part of my comfort zone. I am not good with cameras and suffer from picture-phobia. I go out of my way to not have people taking pictures of me, and the thought of having to stare at myself on glossy paper send shivers to my back. The reason? A life long struggle with beauty."
"Being a woman is hard. However, I believe once we learn that we aren't about what is only on the outside and start believing what is on the inside, our lives turn toward the Light, our souls feel free, and our beauty is unveiled."
"Over the past 7 months, I have made giant leaps towards finding peace within myself; I'm discovering my inner beauty and I feel more alive and spirited than ever. Like many women, I've struggled with my body image and depression for a good portion of my life. I thought that to be beautiful, you needed to look like the cover girl model. I was so critical of myself and wanted to be accepted so badly. I went through phases of anorexia, bulimia and over-exercising, constantly striving for perfection. I continued, however, to see a fat person staring back at me in the mirror. I was not overweight - I had a distorted body image and a twisted concept of beauty. I was broken."
"Over the past 10 months I have become disabled (due to illness) and with this, my entire body image has changed (gaining over 80 lbs in 3 mths due to medication & still gaining). I am FINALLY feeling like myself INSIDE - this took a long time...I have been struggling with this because of what my mind knows (the old me) and seeing the new me ... I am just very blessed that I have God to reflect back to me and that others around me can see me through God's eyes as well. "
Okay and because I'm horrible at being patient I at the very least had to give visual teaser... and because our belief comes from the heart, I felt like it was appropriate!
Happy FRIDAY!
It's Andi's birthday on Saturday.
What better way to celebrate than with a rock-your-socks-off photo shoot? Really, more birthdays should be celebrated this way because its just SO much fun.... well for me at least. I was squealing with delight because let's be honest, it was about 17 degree and Andi was kicking it in a short sleeve top. How awesome is that? This girl knows how to work it and my camera was eating it up. Plus they just painted this new mural/graffiti wall in Southend and I've been waiting for just the right shoot... this was definitely worth the wait.
Happy Birthday Andi!
I love the play of the light and the mist. Gorgeous.
Hellllooo rockstar.
Lots more to come this week!
Val is the first in a series of very special girls participating in the BELIEVE project. They are all very different, but they are unified in their friendship and their faith. It's an overwhelming blessing to share life with these women. They inspire me.
Here is Val's story. I cherish her honesty, its truly beautiful.
"The aspect of the believe project that
appeals to me most is that it is simply about being a woman and how beautiful
that is in itself. Lately I have had some great discussions with some of the
girls in my lifegroup at church about the difference between “doing”
and “being.” I (like a lot of other women, I think) have always
defined myself by what I do. I was a good student in high school, but when I
first got to college, I struggled a lot with the transition. I wasn’t
good at “doing” school anymore. I was really frustrated. I had
trouble making friends and really didn’t feel as if I fit in. Still, I
felt like I couldn’t leave because my parents had sacrificed so much to
let me go to school, loaning me money that I feared I’d never be able to
repay and letting me move from Grand Rapids, Michigan to Nashville, 9 hours
away. I was constantly stressed out and depressed. I was on the cross
country/track team at school, which is what kept me going. I really did like
my teammates, though I never really felt worthy of being on the team. I wasn’t
good enough at “doing” running either.
At the end of my freshman year, I met a wonderful man (to whom I am getting married this May) who told me I was beautiful and talented and worth it. It was still not enough at first. I didn’t truly believe him and continued to struggle in my depression. I still loved my teammates, but the eating disorders that were so rampant in college running began to drag on me as well. I did not develop an eating disorder, but instead became even more depressed as I felt like I was too fat to be a runner and should quit the team. I hated myself for lacking the control of the other girls who hardly ate anything and were not healthy. I knew that it was not what I wanted to be doing, but I was still insanely jealous of how small they became. At the beginning of my junior year, I decided to seek counseling to see if I could pull myself out of the slump. It was a slow process and even though I was doing better when I graduated, I was very ready to begin life after college. Everyone seemed to love college and I was just ready to get away.
My fiancé and I moved to Charlotte this past June and I started a new job at a small investment bank here. Things are going really well here. I still run for fun, but without the pressure of competition. I love my job and even in these times when everyone is nervous and bonuses that used to be in the 10s of thousands are almost non-existent, I have a sense of peace. I am truly doing a career that I like. I get along great with my co-workers. I have found wonderful new friends here at work, church and through running who accept me just as I am. I still struggle with anxiety and am not very good at relaxing when I get spare time, but things are much better. I am not sure what I am anymore. I am no longer a student. I am not really a runner in the sense that it’s the top priority in my life. I enjoy my job, but it’s hard to identify yourself by something you’ve been doing less than a year. Still, as so many of the girls in the group have told me-I am significant, just because I am. God has created us not as robots or slaves to the world, but as a creation that brings joy. I have both wrestled with and taken comfort in that thought recently. It’s not only ok to “just be”, it’s exactly what we were created to do! I’d love to capture that simplicity in a photo."
I love the energy and joy in these 2 images. They remind me of the Eric Liddell quote from Chariots of Fire, " "I believe that God made me for a purpose... and when I run, I feel His pleasure."
Plus, what made this shoot so much fun was that there were 3 girls... here is the teaser until I get to post their stories....
