Laura and Phil had a beautiful and intimate wedding with family and friends last month.  It took place in the back yard of Phil’s parents’ house, under a covering of tall trees right next to the river.  What a great setting!!

Here are a couple of my favorites from during the ceremony.  (Laura, you are stunning!!)

Laura and Phil were so great to work with every step of the way.  They were laid back and so flexible.  I really wanted to capture some candid moments that would show the beautiful way they interacted with each other.  After the ceremony, we headed down to the river for some photos and I think we came away with some great moments between them.  I love this shot!

Sometimes one of the best ways to get people relaxed in front of the camera is to try to get them to forget (even just for a second!) that the camera is there.  These next two shots were taken of Phil and Laura at moments when they weren’t focused on taking pictures!  Instead, they were just looking at each other.  I love the way that they came out because you can see so much in their expressions as they’re looking at one another.

And now for a few details…

The favors were beautiful little soaps that they handmade for everyone!

Laura and her sister, Sara, share a moment together.

Sara’s little boy, Henry, absolutely stole the show.  Oh my gosh.  He is adorable.  Here he is with his mommy.

And here he is completely thrilled at the possibility of actually reaching high enough to touch one of the paper lanterns (thanks to Uncle Phil’s help!)!!

To close, I’ll leave you with this shot of Laura and Phil making their exit with sparklers!

Laura and Phil, thank you so much for allowing me to photograph your wedding.  You made my job so easy!!  It was a perfect day and I felt privileged to share in it.  I wish you all the best as you settle into your new home in Oregon!!

Filed under: Weddings on August 31st, 2009 | No Comments »

I’ve known Mariah’s family for years, so I was so excited to have the chance to do her senior pictures!  When the day came, Mariah, her mom, Lisa (who just happens to be a good friend of mine!), and I packed up the car and headed all over looking for fun spots to shoot!

We started out by Muncie’s own White River, where I tried to be quite the acrobat to get to the angles I wanted to shoot from without falling in the water!!  I have waded in the White River before to get shots (and was happy to do so!!), but I just didn’t want to FALL in unexpectedly!! 

Next we made a stop at this wall that was covered with ivy.  I had just seen it the day before while I was out driving and I immediately thought, “I need to bring Mariah here!”  I love the texture it brought to the background.

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this next one!!

After the ivy-covered wall stop, we headed downtown.

The next one is another favorite!!  I brought this chair along, thinking we’d definitely find a place to use it and we ended up using it in two great spots!  The great thing about this chair is that it is so lightweight, and the legs are removable!!  Talk about being perfect for on-location settings!  Who knew a chair that looks like this would be so easy to take on-the-go?

Downtown is such a great place to shoot.  I wanted to get a few of Mariah with the city in the background.

I had a little fun with the post processing color on this one.

After a few on the sidewalk, we decided to actually head out into the street and have some fun with the fisheye lens!  I really liked what we came away with.

But we couldn’t stop there!!  We decided that we definitely needed to pull the chair we’d used earlier back out and head into the street with it.  Mariah and I would wait for the light down the street to turn red, then run out, set the chair up and shoot while Lisa stood guard and yelled for us to get out of the street when a car was coming!  Fortunately, Muncie’s downtown streets weren’t TOO busy that evening.  We got some really fun shots that were a perfect way to end the session, and just as we were ready to finish up, it started pouring down rain!!  Perfect timing!!

Thanks, Mariah, for letting me photograph you and thanks Lisa, for coming along for the session!!  I had a great time and I hope you did as well!

Filed under: Portraits, Seniors on August 27th, 2009 | 1 Comment »