Jess & Parker's Wedding

I had so much with these guys on their wedding day! I seriously could not have asked for a better couple to shoot my first wedding. They are gorgeous, fun, laid back, and super-duper nice. It was such a good experience, and I love the way their pictures turned out. Welcome back from your honeymoon J&P, here's your preview! Oh, and be warned. There's a lot because I couldn't narrow it down!







And from the reception...






My cute husband shot this one of them on the tramp, and most of the food. Thanks for coming with to second shoot babes! You're the best!

Andrew's Many Faces

I love this boy! He cracks me up! We sat out on the lawn yesterday and just made faces at each other for about 20 minutes. Rachel wasn't content to sit on the sidelines. She had to get in on the action as well....

The Bells

This is my cousin, her husband, and their adorable two daughters! I grew up playing with her, but now they live a fair distance away, so we don't get to see each other much. I had a great time with these guys, and their oldest was so cute for the camera! She loved that I brought her a "princess dress" to wear. Thanks again guys, it was great to see you!

Mini Photo Sessions

**If there's enough interest I may add additional times/days. Thanks!

Gimme Some Flare

Practicing a new technique! I shot this at the wedding I did last Friday and was sooo excited! For my photo blog-stalker friends that know how to do some sweet flare- how'd I do? Any tips or suggestions?


I have lots more to post from this wedding, so stay tuned!

Mesa Verde

This is a National Park located in SW Colorado. Sooo cool. I remember going there as a little kid and thinking that it was better than Disneyland. Yup. That awesome. There are some cliff dwellings that you can take guided tours into, other ruins that you can climb all over, and some great scenery! This park should definitely be on your "must see" list at some point in your life!

Cliff Palace. Our tour guide was great. She had awesome stories to tell about the Native Americans who used to live here. Apparently the cliff dwellings were used more for ceremonies/rituals as well as for food storage. Most of the tribe lived and farmed on top of the mesas.

View into one of the kivas.

Inside Cliff Palace and our tour guide.

Playing around at the Far View sites.

See... I am in pictures occasionally. :)

Looking for a fresh face!

I've noticed that my gallery seems to be lacking cute baby girls. So, I'm looking for a baby girl ages 6-12 months to be a model for me. The only other requirement is that you must be new to Picturememine photography! I must never have photographed your little one before, and you can't have a session already booked. :) As compensation, I will waive your sitting fee ($50 minimum print order still applies). Send me an email if you are interested!

Happy Birthday to Me!

Yes. It is my birthday. How exciting. :) I turn a 1/4 of a century today. Don't really feel much different though. I would think that 25 would be a bigger deal. I'm not super in to birthdays, but we are going to have cake & balloons with the kids this afternoon (more for Rachel's benefit than mine, I think) and then my cute husband is taking me on a date tonight. Ahhh... best birthday present of all. My cute family surprised me with a scrumptious cookies and cream ice cream cake from DQ while we were in Colorado. Seriously my favorite cakes ever. It was great! So here's a shout out to one year older!

Jeep Tour & Steam Train

Our first full day in Durango, CO we took a jeep tour from the town of Silverton to the ghost town of Animas Forks. Prospectors arrived in there in 1873 looking for silver and gold hoping to strike it rich. They still had some pretty cool buildings left. After wandering around the old town, we drove back to Silverton, had lunch at this sweet hotel restaurant (complete with an old-time bar pianist) and hopped the steam train back to Durango. I never knew that steam trains were so dirty. We were all covered in coal dust by the time we got back.

Here's some fun shots I took during the day:

Our jeep was a Swiss Army, 6-wheel drive, all-terrain vehicle. Pretty nice, huh?

Lamp at the hotel restaurant. The place was really vintage looking. I loved it.

The town of Animas Forks.
Durango-Silverton steam train

Models at Utah Lake

I went to another photog get together right before we left for vacation (as in the night before we left. I left early to go home and pack the car!). It was awesome! We met at Chili's in AF for dinner, and then went out to the lake to shoot some pictures. It's so great to see how everyone has such a different eye. I'm probably the slowest to post these, but I thought I'd get 'em out there anyway. Oh- and I hate that the color is so different on here than when I edit. *sigh* Oh well.

On Vacation

I have taken some awesome pictures in the last couple of days, but I'm on vacation, right? Yup. You'll see those when I get back. I'm sure i'll make a few posts of it. For now, you get my favorite one of Rachel in her cute new sunglasses (taken with my new point and shoot in the car!!). We bought these a few days before we left and then I wouldn't give them to her until we were in the car driving away. She was sooo excited to finally get to wear them. I don't know if they've left her face the whole trip!

Great article on exposure & stops

I follow the Digital Photography School blog, and one of their writers, Neil Creek, just posted a great tutorial on exposure and stops. He does a great job of breaking it down and explaining the terms and how to use them with your camera. Check it out!

Sessions Open

We just had a trip canceled for the end of June, so I now have some more availability if anyone is interested in scheduling a session. The weather has been fantastic for outdoor kids sessions! I'm loving it!

Fun in the Sun: Saturdays are awesome!

So I thought I'd post something personal for those of you who just humor my photography fetish but really want to know what's going on in our lives. Haven't done that in awhile. We have had some awesome Saturdays over the last few months and yesterday was no exception. I think that because I have shoots so often, that when we get a Saturday free we pack as much in as possible.

We started off with a hike in Provo Canyon. It was WINDY. Is the canyon always like that in the mornings? We started up the Provo River trail, branched off onto the Great Western Trail, mozied our way along the mountain, connected to the Provo Race Loop and back to our car. It was a total of about 6.25 miles. I love that our kids love hiking. Apparently there was also a marathon happening along the same trail at the same time. Let's just say that we usually don't like a crowd when we're hiking, but it turned out okay anyway. *click to enlarge*




After some yummy JDawgs (the BEST hotdog ever) for lunch, the kids went down for a nap and I scooted off to Costco to check out a new point and shoot camera. I've been in this month long debate over whether or not to actually get one, would I really use it, would I just miss my "real" camera, would it take good enough pictures, etc. Total dilemma. But, I finally decided on the Canon SD890. It's a 10 megapixel with a pretty good censor and zoom and it's little. Fit in my pocket kind of little. I'm excited. No more hauling around my heavy/big lens and camera to take snapshots of the kids. Plus, I think there's an art to taking really awesome pictures with a P&S. Something I'd love to learn. Now I just have to suck it up and actually go buy it. Probably on Monday. Wish me luck.

Then we went to Veteran's Pool to do some lounging around in the water. Total relaxation. Well, not total, but it felt really nice especially after our hike. Rachel was totally comfortable (even going down the big "tunnel" slides) and Andrew even got in on the water action.





Lastly we ended the day with an awesome BBQ get-together at our Stake President's house. He invited the ward leaderships from our stake (bishoprics mostly) and since Sam was just released two weeks ago, we got to join in as well. Fantastic food, good company, and some fun games. It was great.

Well, congrats for making it this far. :) I don't have many shoots coming up this week so there might be a lack of pictures in the near future, but we are headed on an awesome vacation to CO which I'm sure I will document in full force.