I feel like I should feel guilty

Last weekend, Nick spent the night with a friend, overslept and missed the bus for his wrestling tournament. He was upset and I was upset for him. HOWEVER...

since we were up early and had nothing else planned for the day, Mike suggested we go to Wichita, go to the camera store and check out flash units.

I thought about friends I hadn't hung out with in a while.

I thought about seeing my sister whom I haven't seen since she moved back to my area.

I thought about the housework that needed doing.

Despite all that, I gave Mike a resounding "Yes!!"

We had a great day. We shopped. We ate. We held hands. We laughed together. Things we hadn't done in a very long time. It was so nice! We don't get to spend much time together these days. I wouldn't trade that for anything.

new blog

Well, I finally decided to do a new blog dedicated to my photography instead of just waiting until David (oldest, genius, son) can design a website for me.

It's at http://tlmimages.blogspot.com

It's a work in progress, but it gives folks a chance to see some of my work. Now I just need to do more "work" and post more images!! :)

Lynn likes to play in the bathtub...this time, grandma got some nice shots of her beautiful eyes!

Some new portraits

Sometimes, I'm satisfied with the way my work turns out. In this case, I'm happy with how her hair and make up came out. I think I'd rather do them myself for someone rather than just show up and work with what they've done. Especially my own teenage daughters!!

Here are a couple new shots of Nina. Hard to believe she's almost 18.

New backdrop

It doesn't take much to make a good photo backdrop. I have some sheets, some lengths of regular fabric, some velvet. This last week, I went to a fabric store and got a few yards of upholstery fabric. It was on sale even! It's not exactly what I want, but it works pretty well. Here are few new shots from yesterday (Nick, Lynn, Jo and Abby, Jo, and Abby).

Snow!

We don't get a lot of snow here in flyover country. We do get some. Just not much. And it rarely stays around very long. So...if it snows on a Monday, it's likely to be gone by the weekend when I'll have time to take pictures of it. If it snows on the weekend, it'll likely be a blizzard until dark or too icy for me to get out and take pictures.

Did I say that there is a VERY small window where me, my camera and the snow can meet?

I managed to snap a few shots in the park the other day. Yes. I did risk life and limb climbing a great sledding hill in tennies just to get a couple of these shots!

Did I do that??

This is so funny. Okay. Maybe it's just funny to me. I like to take pictures. You may have already guessed that by now if you've read any of the last dozen posts on this blog. But it was only to support my other love: scrapbooking. But a real love of photography was sparked. I shared some of my favorites with my co-workers - because they're stuck there in the office with me! - and one day, one of my friends asks me to be the photographer at her wedding next spring.

Once I agreed to do that, within a few weeks, I was a real, honest to God professional photographer. And I love it. I have much more stress about it (that happens when you introduce $$ into the equation) but I still love it.

So I took engagement pictures for my friend and her fiance. It didn't take very long and we had a great deal of fun. I was using my mom's point-and-shoot digital and my film camera. I'd run out of film and discovered that hubby (who was my assistant) had left my camera bag at our last location. He ran back (well, drove, really) to get it. While he was gone, we snapped a few pics with the digital. There's a bridge over a small creek next to the football field in our small town that the football players run across from the locker room to the field. It's also where the graduates gather before commencement. It's one of those small town things. They were standing on the bridge and I noticed that the light was hitting the water just right relative to my position on the bank and I snapped a shot of both them and their reflection. It seemed too small, so I just focused on their reflection. It was remarkably detailed. And they both loved it. I love it. They've talked about using it on their invitations.

So, after we were done, I mentioned to my friend that a glamour portrait of herself might be a fun gift to give her fiance for Christmas. Yes. I had ulterior motives. I want to do glamour photography. She agreed and one eveing I went to her house with all my stuff and we spent a couple of hours making her beautiful and photographing her.

The results were so many great pictures that she couldn't settle on one so we picked twelve and had a calendar made.

This is one of my favorites. In fact, I used a detail from one of the images for my business cards! She looked at the photos and said, "Is that me?"

So a few weeks later, we were at our company Christmas party. My friend went to the restroom and while she was gone, her finace asked me what it would cost to get that reflection image blown up to frame for my friend for Christmas? I just thought it was so funny that they were doing the same thing for Christmas for each other.

So, I ordered a 16x20 of the reflection shot on double weight mattboard. It came yesterday just in time to get to the frame shop before the owner of the frame shop went on vacation for Christmas.

That has been the bright spot for me this Christmas.