family snapshots

I spent a long time trying to figure out what to call this post but I just kept coming back to the idea of family snapshots. I wasn't trying to get amazing, artistic shots so they're snapshots; I intend to marry Doug someday so his family is (going to be) my family too.

We had a ton of fun out on Mr. Andy's boat...




...especially when we went tubing.








Well, except for me. I fell off the tube and got hurt. I'll stick to photographer, thank you very much.

Ms. Sherry wasn't doing to well on the dock.

It might have had something to do with her brother annoying her.


As usual, Doug hammed it up for my camera.




All the air guitar and video game playing happened while we were stuck in traffic.



I always end up with at least one rearview mirror shot on road trips.



And we came home with a 'new' member of the family: Trebek, Doug's high school SLR.

abandoned Crestview

I'm still working on my 'personal' photos from the Crestview trip but I am just bursting with excitement about the abandoned places I got to check out.

First and foremost is the abandoned gas station. Every single time we passed it--and we passed it often--I wanted to pull over and shoot. So Doug took me, in the rain, to get a few shots on our way out to his grandparents.


Then we hit up the old Amtrak station. I absolutely loved it and am so thankful that Doug decided to bring me out there.


The rust is such an awesome texture.

Once we got to the grandparents out in Freeport, we found my dream home. Well, dream fixer-upper.


On the way back, we went to my favorite place on the entire trip: an abandoned truck stop.




This is my favorite shot from the truck stop.




The best past was seeing Doug waiting in the car to make a quick getaway.


I found this across from Doug's house and just had to fire off a shot, even though the sky was threatening to open up again.

Cassidy [senior portraits]

Now that I've had the shoot and gone through all the photos, it's finally starting to sink it that it's real: my friend Cassidy really did hire me to shoot her senior portraits. I've featured her in a beautiful dress once before when we had a fun shoot before the spring formal but that just did not prepare me for how absolutely stunning she looked.


Do you see this? This is the first shot I took. She just sparkles.


Since Cass knows about my love of the 40s and 50s, she busted out a polka dot dress...




...and had a ton of fun wearing it!




When I saw the boardwalk leading to the beach, I asked her to skip away from me. At first, I'm pretty sure she thought I was crazy but I promise it was worth it. This is my absolutely favorite series. (It doesn't hurt that she's wearing the polka dot dress.)



This is my favorite shot. With her permission, I entered it into the photo contest over at Photo Flavors. Apparently they like it too, since I was a runner up.



After a quick change into a floor-length gown, all eyes were on us: Cassidy because she was wearing a freaking gorgeous gown on the beach, me because I was on my knees in the sand with a camera, following her around.




I have to give her credit, she sure is adventurous. All the outfit changes took place in (on?) this lifeguard stand.



It was her idea, I swear! All I did was count to 3 and trip the shutter.

The windswept hair look is really in this year.


Cassidy, thank you for being an awesome first 'real' portrait session. If you hadn't been so willing to go along with my crazy ideas in the pursuit of an amazing shot, I don't think I'd be plotting what to do next time. I hope when you become a powerful politician that you let me take your campaign photos. In the mean time, we have one more year at the HC and I hope we get to have some fun in between taking classes and writing our theses. Please come with Melinda and I when we blow off stress exploring with my camera--make-up and formal dress are optional.

playtime on the beach [i heart faces]

I know I promised I wouldn't post a sneak peek until I had the disc in the mail but this is an opportunity too good to pass up. The theme over at this week is play and we certainly had a ton of fun on the beach.


I still can't believe Cassidy jumped into the inflatable in her beautiful dress.

twinge of guilt

I made the decision, which I am sticking to, that I want to get Cassidy's senior portraits done and to her before I get to my personal photos. I just feel a little guilty that I haven't blogged anything from the panhandle yet. So here are two shots that I can easily exclude from the cohesive narrative and show you now.


we were having fun on the boat


only Doug would decide to quote Hamlet with fridge magnets

field trip

I started to compose a long, thought-out post to demonstrate how much I learned on the field trip. But then Flickr decided to fight with Firefox and I realized I have so many photos from Crestview to go through--especially Cassidy's senior portraits--so now I'm just going to share a few photos from the field trip and go to bed to recite facts about sedimentary rocks in my sleep.




Nature is pretty wonderful sometimes. These hearts made me count the seconds until I could see Doug.