This week I did Kyle and Michelle’s maternity portraits. I am sooooooo indebted to Kyle… he fixed my computer last summer when it crashed. So, we worked out a trade for their maternity and newborn portraits. I can’t wait to see the baby! Here are some of my favorites from the maternity session:

WOW… is all I can say about this experience. I feel so blessed that Jason and Jill asked me to capture this special time. It was incredible. I am not sure if the images portray the emotion that was felt… so I am going to make a slide show to music with more of the images. But, here are a few of my favorites! Congratulations Jason and Jill!

Well, my friend Jill had her baby, and it is a girl! Her name is Sylvia Marie. I’ll post some pics tomorrow (or should I say later today…) But, right now I am exhausted, and I am going to bed!

I can’t believe that I still have a couple seniors! I did these two girls from Grandville High School this week. It was fun that We got to do some snow pictures! It was cold! So, we only grabbed a few in the snow. Thanks girls for sitting in the cold snow for me!

Here are a few of Emily:And here are some of Paige!
Thanks girls for some fun!

Not me! A lot of you know my friend and photographer Jill Wolfert is due for a baby any day. I am going to photograph her labor and delivery. I have seen other photographs from photographers who specialize in this. I always thought it would be fun… Well, it IS DRIVING ME CRAZY waiting! I think it is way worse then when I was waiting for my own kids! Every time the phone rings, I race to answer it…. in case it is Jill. I left the house the other day without my cell phone, and I made my husband turn the car around to go get it, panicking that she might try to call if I didn’t have my phone. I have my camera bags packed, batteries charged, cards ready…. now I am just waiting…. (meanwhile I am still trying to run a normal life.)

Trevor and Lindsey were married last Sat. It was a beautiful snowy day! The fresh snow made for beautiful snow pictures… (it was a little cold though!) I was able to assist my friend Jill Wolfert on this wedding. Jill is due ANY DAY to deliver a baby, so I was there to help her with the wedding, and to be there in case she went into labor. I love assisting. I get to play around a little more than when I am the lead photographer. Jill did make it through the entire wedding… so we are still waiting for that baby!

Here are some of my favorite ones that I took at the wedding!

By now you all know how much I love to capture expression. I love expressive pictures better than the sit and smile ones, because it shows more personality. Jackson had such cute expressions! I love some of these!

His big brother had some great expressions too!
Here is a casual one of the whole family!

OK… the rest of the story… if you didn’t read the last post, read that one first.

I had to be at church early yesterday morning to set up the PowerPoint presentation. So, my husband dropped me off and went to the hotel to pick up my camera, and was going to meet me back at church after he got the camera.

He went to the hotel, and went to the bell hop desk (where the guy said to pick it up.) My husband told them he was there to pick up a package for me. The bell hop guy said …”was it delivered here?” My husband said no, a guest at the hotel was supposed to leave it for me. The guy at the desk said, we don’t have anything here… my husband said he started to think I was scammed… then my husband pulled the guys business card out and said, “It was from this guy, he is a guest here. Is he still here?” So, the bell hop guy called up to the room, and he still had it but hadn’t brought it down to the desk yet. So, the bell hop went up to get it.I got it back!

I told the other photographer before I left that night, that if he was ever somewhere where someone else needed help, to make sure he helped them. I hope what goes around comes around!

Here is the story…I was hired to do the Gorden Foods Christmas party. This is a HUGE event. I can’t even imagine how many people, or how much this must cost. People fly in from all over the US for the event. The event last all day. It starts with a brunch, then is followed by business meetings, and awards for different regions, and then dinner, then entertainment. There are thousands of people there.

There are a lot of different photographers that cover different parts of the event. My assignment was to cover the awards of one division of the company. (They had probably 15 different meetings like this one going on at the same time as mine…)

Before the scheduled meeting, I was outside in the hallway talking to another photographer. He owned a company (from Florida) that did event photography for events like this. They just had a set up, and would take peoples portraits and print on site. So, we were chit chatting about equipment, printers, computers…etc. We both had Fuji cameras. He was asking if I ever had trouble with mine, because he had been having trouble with some of his… (they were old) He was saying that he had to have some fixed by Fuji and sent to the hotel where we were. He had 10 different stations set up for this. His crew was scheduled to start at 6:00 or so… I was done at 5:30.

Well, just as I was finishing my meeting, he rushed in next to me all panicked asking me if I had another camera. He said that the sensor went out on one of his cameras. He was rather panicked! I said I would come talk to him when I was done… in about 5 minutes. When I was done, he was asking if he could rent a camera… or anything to help! He usually has extra equipment along, but his company had another big job, that same weekend, and some of his cameras were in to be fixed.So, my decision was to either say “no… sorry…. your on your own..”, or to go get him my spare camera (and lens) from the car and let him borrow it… hoping i get it back. I could either stay and hang around for another 5 hours, or come back in the morning and pick it up.

What would you have done?

I did give him a camera. I gave him my back up S3 (not my brand new S5) and a back up lens that I had. Still, a couple thousand dollars…. I helped him get it set up in his system. We had a little issue, because he was shooting tethered to the computer, and he didn’t have a current version of the software, so we had to figure out a go around that…. I spent an hour helping him get it all figured out and working…. and I left.

I am a little worried, and my husband said, “You gave it to him?”

He said he would leave it at the bell hop desk for me to pick up in the morning, and he would have his secretary send me a check to pay for rental. He left me his business card at least! He was very appreciative!So, I will stop there after church in the morning, and pray that it will be there! I’ll let you know what happens! I figure that what goes around comes around. Hopefully if I am ever in a Jam, someone will help me out!

Last night we had our year end banquet for PPWM (Professional Photographers of West Michigan.) It was a fun night, with dinner and awards. I was awarded one of the top 10 photographers of West Michigan! The criteria for being awarded one of the top 10 was an accumulation of points through out the year, mostly involving print competition. I was very honored to accept that award! Thanks to all my customers who always let me play, and “try one shot just for me….”

This is a picture of our president, Ruth Parbel, handing me my certificate for being in the top 1o! Thanks West Michigan!