Roadtrip to Jacksonville. January 29, 2011

My first time driving longer than 2 hours by myself (it’s a 5 hour drive). My first time checking into a hotel, completely by myself. I’ve always had my husband, and before that my family, with me – so its a new adventure. And the reason? A workshop. Yes, another one. Or rather, this one is more like a 1-on-1 mentoring day, with Alexandra Walker from Alex Michelle Photography. Kinda like shadowing her for a day, even with a photoshoot! Oh, and stick in there the many many questions I’ll be asking.

 

You could say I’m pretty stoked for tomorrow :)

 

This is the last workshop for now (though I did just head about one possibly in march with Susan Stripling, which would be amazing…! hmmm). However, next weekend, next Saturday…I’ll be second shooting my first wedding ever, with the lovely couple Jolie & JP Churchill, from Churchill’s Photography! David & I met them for coffee about a month or two ago, and they were so friendly, open, welcoming & wonderful! Jolie is pregnant (possibly twins?) and so I’m coming to help them. I am super excited to work with them in just a week!

So be expecting some pictures coming up on the blog soon! From tomorrow, as well as next weekend.

 

Have a great rest of the weekend, friends! Hopefully you don’t have another 5-hour drive back from Jacksonville to Ft Lauderdale, Sunday night. Not that thats what I’ll be up to  :D

Thankful Thursday. January 27, 2011

Yes, very cliche’. No, I don’t know if I’ll do it every week. (Maybe?)

But I was just feeling very thankful today. Most especially for our new Church.

David & I started going to it around when we got married, back in September last year. And just over the past couple months, have started getting more involved & also really getting to know the people there. I am so glad! We have made some great friends :)

On Wednesday night’s, there is a Bible study at the Church. It starts at 7, ends at 8, and we usually don’t end up leaving till atleast past 10. Last night was one of those nights – and I loved it! I love the fellowship we have, the friendships we’ve made, that can keep us talking for hours after.

Ironically, in the study we were talking unity, helping each other out with needs people have, and the ‘one another’s’ (there was a list of them printed for all of us) that we are all supposed to aim at doing for each other. So it was a great reminder for me. I also left feeling very encouraged that while we are working towards that even more as a Church, I can feel it already! I look forward to Sundays, and Wednesday nights! I enjoy the worship, sermon/lesson, & the fellowship…all of them!

So basically, (if its possible I somehow haven’t been clear enough, even with all my exclamation marks)…I love our Church!

And I’m very thankful for it.

 

I’ll continue the cliche’dness (yes I possibly just made up my own word…don’t mind me) and ask, what are you thankful for today? :)

First time seeing snow. January 26, 2011

David & I went to New Jersey to visit my family last weekend – more of that in this post – and it was his real first time seeing snow (minus when he was a baby & too young to remember). I have some cute videos of his very first reaction & some snowball fights we had, on my point&shoot camera (which I forgot there but am getting soon) that I’ll put up sometime.

David’s thoughts on snow to one of the 9-year-old girls at Church last Sunday, who still hasn’t seen snow either: “It’s way even fluffier than it looks in pictures.”

Or something along that line. It was just very cute the way he said it to her :)

So by my parents house there was this really cool cement crumbling building. So we randomly had some fun – or atleast I did, shooting the pictures! I think David did as well…minus when I made him throw snow up in the air over 12 times  ;)

His smile looks really genuine here…it must’ve still been one of the first couple times he did it:

Isn’t he a cutie?

We had some fun with this building.

a LOT of fun. Especially since I only made him do this twice, and he was most willing:

There were also a ton of icicles hangin’ around. Yes, pun intended. My *ahem* lame attempts at humor are always labeled as ‘so cute’ (and followed by a kiss on the forehead for some reason) by my highly sarcastic husband. Sarcastic, as in his type of humor is full of sarcasm, not as in he was being sarcastic at my trying to be funny – just making sure thats clear. He loves me very much & wouldn’t ever do that. More like, he knows I don’t appreciate negative sarcasm & I probably would never attempt making a joke in front of him again, and he enjoys it waaay too much to discourage me.

Happy wednesday! :)

Leesa + Matt. January 22, 2011

So, the workshop! It was amazing. Such a good, friendly group of photographers. And we all just sat & tried to absorb as much of what Ray Santana & Kenny Kim were telling us, and not miss a bit. I learned so many awesome tips! After, we went out to apply what we’d learned in a model shoot of a bride & groom. Other than the one I already put up in my previous post, following are my favorite pictures.

Meet Leesa & Matt. Models, not really getting married. They were so much fun though together!

We were at the beautiful Biltmore Hotel in Miami.

One of my favorites:

Meet Leesa: so fierce!

Meet Matt:

Okay, I gotta put up more of Leesa…too beautiful!

Another of my favorites:

So, as we were taking the pictures, we would check out each others, and I felt kinda unhappy with what I was getting. It seemed like all the other photographers in the group had better gear: a better camera body & awesome lenses. The photos on their screens looked better than what I was getting.

It also didn’t help that I had the wrong type of lens for the shoot.

I am a bit happier with my photos now…though still far from being pro photographs! :) But I would really, really like to get some better gear! Okay, sorry, I won’t put you through anymore of my pining for amazing yet expensive lenses (#hinttohubby #bdayscomingup). Moving on.

Feel free to leave comments about the photos, whether ya hate or love them, constructive criticism to help me improve, etc. I appreciate it! :)