This week I entered my first photographic competition. It was pretty scary! I had another photographer help me pick out my images, and help me with the presentation on them. This is quite a process…. taking a good image is not what it is all about! The judges look at all the elements combined, the title, the image, the printing, the editing, EVERYTHING! Well, I entered 4 images into the competition. The first 3 all scored “above average”. This is a score name based on a numerical score. I did average out the scores of the night, and they were actually “above average”. Then, my last one was scored as a merit print, and I won a blue ribbon! It was so exciting! Out of 49 prints in the competition, only 9 scored a merit or higher. Here are the prints… The image that received a merit was the last one, American Vintage 1928.

First Visit:

Day Break

Mighty Mac:

American Vintage 1928:

Haylie and her mom came over today for me to take some baby portraits. Haylie is a little older than a brand new newborn, but she is still tiny! She is 6 weeks old. I was playing around with her pictures today to create a “storyboard”. I am going to offer these to all my clients. I love them. I am going to have some done of my kids!

Riley used to be on my daughter’s gymnastic team. He was taking gymnastics to help him with his Dancing, because that was his first love. He is a competitive dancer, and now is focusing only on dance. Makayla is his best friend and Dance partner. They are like brother and sister, since neither one have any siblings. So, when Riley’s mom wanted his picture taken, it seemed natural to have Makayla come too!

I just love this one! I told Riley to lift Makayla up, and I told Makayla to bend her knees and kick her feet back. I did not expect it to look so graceful and beautiful! I can definitely tell they are dancers, and are used to this! Isn’t it beautiful?

This week I did Cathy’s maternity portraits. She looks FANTASTIC for having her third child! I can’t believe how great she looks! She had a beautiful round “ball” for a tummy. She brought her two boys who were full of energy! We captured some wonderful maternity images of her with they boys.

Yesterday I Photographed Laird’s newborn portraits. He was such a good baby. He didn’t hardly cry at all… which is unusual for a newborn session. I had two in a row now that didn’t cry too much! Yeah! I am getting spoiled. Every newborn session I do this image. Sometimes I think I am getting into a rut, but I LOVE IT! It is one of my favorite newborn poses, so I always want to do it. So, here are a few from this cutie’s session.


After Larid’s newborn session, I did Luke and Mindi’s engagement session. We scheduled an indoor session, because it IS JANUARY ya know…. Well, the weather was beautiful, so we headed out in the field behind my house to catch a few outdoor images too! (I have never shot just out in the field behind my house before…. It was kind of fun!)



Then today I did a large family session for the Pothoven’s. It is always a challenge on where to do a large family this time of year. My studio area is not big enough for a large family, so we need another alternative. The weather is unpredictable this time of year, and today was no exception. It was windy and cold. So, we did the session at their church. It was Ridgepoint Community Church. It was a beautiful building, and there were a few options on where to take the pictures. We ended up choosing this wall, we liked the brick work. The chairs were great too! We did the whole family group, and then broke down and did each family. It was a fun afternoon!