When I arrived, I was greeted at the gate by my client’s daughter, mother and nephew.  They welcomed me in and showed me around so I could get ideas as to where to photograph.  Their home was so beautiful and there were so many options as to where to shoot.  I love that.

First we started out on the balcony.  It was a beautiful balcony with lots of trees and grass behind them.  There was even a pond off to the left of the house.  Because the lighting wasn’t what I wanted, I brought my strobe onto the balcony to help.  After I got it set up and was testing the light, a gust of wind came and knocked my light over!  Oh no!  My poor bulb burst into a million pieces and put a hole in my umbrella.  Yikes!  I cleaned up the mess and proceeded to set up my external flash with portable light box because I didn’t bring an extra bulb with me.

Throughout it all, they were very patient (which I truly appreciated) and were quite ready once I was all set up.  After taking images on the balcony, we moved into the living room. Mr. Watson decided it would be rather interesting to take more portraits in front of the fireplace, so he started a fire.

Once we finished shooting in front of the fireplace, we took pictures on the staircase.  The staircase was beautiful!  There was a window that had lots of sunshine flooding in, which was glorious to view, but not much  fun to shoot.  At any rate, we did it and I was glad.  Next, portraits in the foyer and then out on the front steps of the house.  I’m not sure what it is, but I love photographing people on stairs, especially graceful looking stairs.

Considering the session was around 1pm or 2pm, the sun was rather high in the sky.  It was a beautiful sunny day, without a cloud in the sky.  I had to position them so that they weren’t squinting into the sun, but trying to keep their faces from being put in shadow.  I’m so glad it was a gorgeous day!  We finished up the session with portraits in front of the water fountain.

After that session, my family got together at my dad’s house to bring the new year in.  What fun!  Believe it or not, I didn’t even have my camera.  Glad to have survived another year and am looking forward to what 2012 will bring.

We (my good friend and fellow photog Kim, who flew down and met me there) stayed in a small, historical hotel in the Garden District, not too far from the conference center.  Every morning we would wake up and walk to the convention center.  Talk about getting the blood flowing!  The workshops started at 7:00 a.m., so we were up and out early.  We also walked to lunch and walked back to the hotel at the end of each day.  Boy did we get our exercise in!  One night while walking back to the hotel after the convention party, we witnessed an interesting (for lack of a better word) sight.  I can’t really go into it since this is a PG post, but I will tell you it was of an adult nature.  I’m sure you can come up with an idea of what we saw.

The workshops were fabulous and have given me so many new ideas that have re-energized me.  I can’t wait to share my ideas with you in the coming weeks and months.  I’ll have special offers and brand new products.  If you are signed up for my monthly newsletter or “like” my page on FaceBook, you’ll be receiving some information this week.  If you are not, then maybe you should.  I’d love to connect with you.

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Have you made a New Year’s resolution?  I did, but mine is the same every year.  My resolution is to be happy.  That’s it.  No, I don’t need to lose weight.  I don’t need to find a new job, I just want to continue to be happy.  I think that’s pretty simple and if you know how, easy to do as well.  I already do what I love for a living.  I have a wonderful son and husband and yes, we even have a great dog.  All of our needs are met and even some of our wants and my family and friends are happy and healthy, as are we.  What more could I ask for?

So, do you have any resolutions for this year?  If so, I’d like to read them.   Just drop me a line on this blog or on my Facebook page.  My next blog will be of one of my last sessions, so stay tuned.

Yesterday I decided to take the day off, which is always hard for me to do, but I did it.  I spent more time with my family and doing things that I needed to do.  Today I am working and I realized that this would be my last blog of the year, so of course I had to say something.

I just want to wish everyone a very Happy New Year filled with much success, joy and love.  Learn from your mistakes and try to be the best person you can possibly be.  That doesn’t mean try to be perfect, it just means do the best you can.  Help those who need help and make sure to take care of yourself and your family to the best of your ability.  Thank you all so much for allowing me to share my experiences and thoughts with you.  Below are some of my favorite images from this year and I look forward to creating more great images!

As a child photographer I have learned that my schedule is not necessarily my schedule when dealing with children and especially with babies.  Many parents like to take pictures with their newborns while they are awake; however I prefer to photograph them while they are sleep.  Considering that many of the babies do not want to go to sleep while I am there, I tire them out by photographing them awake with their parents.  One of the things I have to be careful about when they are awake is their eyes.  Since they can’t see very well yet and don’t have control of their eyes, they very rarely “look” in your direction.  Other times when they do look, their eyes may be crossed.  I’m sorry, but not matter how cute your baby is, crossed eyes are not cute.

As I was saying, I prefer to photograph babies while they are sleep.  That way there is no worry about crossed eyes or jerky movements which inevitably cause the baby’s hand to be in their face just as I snap the shutter.  Even with all of this, I love photographing babies.  This last session I had was wonderful, even though she wouldn’t go to sleep after two feedings and a diaper change.  She was determined to say awake, but she kept yawning signaling that we had to keep working to make her tired.  Her parents took this time to get a little something to eat and relax a bit while I tried to rock her to sleep.  Finally she went to sleep!  And when she went to sleep, she really went to sleep.

I was able to move her from prop to prop without her stirring too much.  It was great!  No, I didn’t go crazy with the posing, but I wanted to get a good variety of shots.  Mission accomplished! What a great session!  What really made my day was when the parents told me they didn’t want the pictures that were taken in the hospital because they had their own personal photographer to take them.  Wasn’t that sweet?  I certainly thought so!  In case you’re wondering why I called this post “My Little Fuzzy Wuzzy” is because her father nicknamed her fuzzy because of all of the hair that she as a newborn had on her body.  He’s such a guy!  Anyway, below are some of the images from the session.

This year’s Holiday Cake competition was a blast!  All of the wonderful professional, faux and down home cakes, cookies, cupcakes and other delectable sweets were beautiful and irresistible.  Whenever I go to photograph these wonderful events, I must make sure that I eat first because after it’s all over, you can taste whatever you want!  Anyone who loves sweets would enjoy that part.

The contestants are so warm and helpful.  They take the time to answer any questions you have about their desserts, even how long it took them to make it.  I spoke to one of the contestants and she said it took her about 82 hours.  Could you imagine working on one cake for 82 hours?  Of course they weren’t consecutive, but that’s still a lot of time.

Walking through the ballroom capturing images, I couldn’t help but be amazed at the artistry and talent of everyone there.  First to come up with the elaborate ideas and second to be able to make that idea come to fruition.  All I can say is “bravo”.  It reminds me of the first time I saw Cake Boss on TLC.  I was like “Wow!”.  It truly is incredible.  If you haven’t seen any of these cakes or the shows they have on TLC, then boy do I have a treat for you.  Enjoy the images below and try not to drool on your keyboard.

After a while, Elizabeth finally woke up.  Yaaay!  Her mom fed her and then it was on! She had two outfits.  One was a Christmas outfit and the other  was just plain cute.  While Elizabeth had on the Christmas outfit, she wouldn’t smile much.  She seemed to be in a good mood, but we don’t think she was feeling the frilliness of the dress or the red, sparkly stockings.  At any rate, I was able to get some really sweet shots.

Next came the soft pink outfit.  No frills, just nice and comfortable.  She smiled much more and was rather mobile.  She would roll over or try to crawl somewhere.  I don’t know how many times her mother had to catch her from falling over.  I even have an image where she has a smile on her face as she is falling to the side.

We had such fun that day.  It took a while to get started, but it was well worth it.  I love photographing the babies!  I have another session with a newborn today and I am so excited about it!  Can’t wait to share those images either! Anyway, below are some images of Elizabeth and her mommy.  Enjoy!

My assistant and I met them in the Village of Stone Mountain in front of the gazebo.  Not sure how I knew, but when I saw them coming, I just knew it was them.  We all hit it off immediately and began getting to know one another.  Then we drove down the road to Stone Mountain Park to a few of my favorite spots to shoot.  It was a little after 4:30, so we didn’t have too much time before the sun started setting.  Fortunately it was a lovely day, about 74 degrees F, but we still had to hurry since we were moving from place to place.

One place I wanted to take them was to the covered bridge.  Unfortunately construction was being done down that road, so we couldn’t drive down there.  That was a bummer, so I had to think quickly.  Sunset was at 5:29 pm and at the time of our discovery, it was already 5:20!  Bruce told me that he had played golf there and I remembered that there was a lovely spot near the golf course, the only problem was that I left my park map at home and couldn’t quite remember where the course was.

So I drove hoping to find a sign that would lead me in the right direction and my instincts told me to make a right turn.  I followed the road to see where it led and low and behold, I remembered how to get to the course!  We parked, walked briskly to the location and began shooting.  We were able to get a few shots before it got dark, so everyone was happy. We even had a shot with the geese that were hanging out there.  What a great time we had and I feel like I made some new friends.  Below are some of the images from the session.

This year my sister who lives in Arizona and owns The Painted Pretzel and her family are coming.  I haven’t seen her in about 3 or 4 years.  Both of my brothers and their families are coming as well. One from California and the other from North Carolina.  Then I have sisters that are here and cousins as well.  This will be the first time in a long time that all of my sibling have been together.  Yaaaaay!

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.  Family of course is the best part of it, but then there’s the food!  I love to eat!  My mom is hosting this year and all of the guests are bringing the side dishes.  I can hardly wait!

At any rate, I hope you all have a wonderful and safe holiday!  Until next week…

Don’t get me wrong, Christmas is a great time of year, but it has become so commercialized.  Everyone is so worried about what to get Aunt Besty or Uncle Joe and not that concerned about the meaning of Christmas.  Besides, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.    With Thanksgiving, it’s a bit different.  People think about what foods they can cook (and eat) to share with family and friends.  Of course there’s also the Thanksgiving Day football game too!

I don’t know about you, but I’m so looking forward to Thanksgiving this year.  It’s going to be epic!  On my next blog I will go into this year’s celebration further and let you know what I’m thankful for.  I’d also like to know what you are thankful for.  If you have a moment, please leave a comment as to what you are thankful for and why.  I love reading happy stuff!