There's a First Time for Everything.

This past week was a little nervewracking for me. I was hired to do my first baby pictures and senior portraits. I've had offers before, but this was the first time I felt confident enough to accept. It was a different experience having people pose, but I found that my natural shots were the best (of course).
Erin West, my friend Andy's little sister. But she's not so little anymore!

Meghan Ledden and her little girl, Ayden Rochelle. This child was pretty much perfect. She hardly fussed, and loved to give hugs and kisses.



I went on a frantic tutu hunt because I had a vision that I could not get out of my head. Thank goodness that my friend Beth's aunt had one.

Family Ties.

My aunts from Texas and Arizona were in town for the weekend, so it was great to have the whole family together. I think they have a love/hate relationship with my camera though...they urged me to take pictures of everyone together, but if I took a picture of one of them, they would insist upon seeing it, then trying to delete it. Needless to say, I ended up with more portrait photos than I wanted, but I did get some natural expressions.

One of the best parts of the weekend was getting to spend some time with my little cousins, Abby and Emma. This is Emma, being all cute.

My mom is one of the most beautiful people I know.

My cousin Jordan. He has a really amazing story, and he is doing all he can to tell it. He's been sober for a couple of years now, and we are all so proud of him.

Jordan and Nolan...mid-day light...arghh....

Hunter was a sweetie...but he had the dirtiest hands. This is Jordan trying to clean him off a bit.

In other news, I have some appointments to do portraits on the weekends, and I am excited and nervous all at once. I really want to do a good job and escape the typical cheesy senior portraits, but sometimes my lack of confidence gets to me.

Dallas.

I go to Dallas every year to visit my amazing aunt Dianna. I couldn't last year because I somehow managed to tear my esophagus, so this was the first time I had been down in two years. Beth and I went, and it was such a nice break before I had to start my summer job at the school district.

This is my aunt's best friend, Melody, singing the song "Samson" with Beth. The piano was super out of key, but they made it work.

Hannah, one of Melody's daughters. She has the coolest sense of style.

This is Barb, the yoga instructor we had a private session with. If I could go back, I would change the framing in this photo...and I really wish that plant wasn't there, but what can you do?

We went to the Dallas World Aquarium which was really fun, but super humid. Flamingo is one of my nicknames by the way.

The Final Countdown.

I hope an image of Gob Bluth prancing during his magic show appeared in your mind. If it wasn't, it is now.

I am finally finished with J2100H, a class that did more than try my patience. I thought I was a decent writer before I took this course, but I learned otherwise. The entire semester led me to question why I was even doing journalism in the first place.

Then during the last project, I got to take photos, and while I was editing them, I remembered why I was in this major. It just felt so good!

Anyway, here are a few photos I took for my convergence group. We were on the religion beat, so I went to Missouri United Methodist Church, one of the churches we surveyed. I knew that I did not have the greatest camera, but it was so dim that I had to shoot at 1600 ISO, so the photos are super noisy. The class really liked them though, so that is what matters.

The beginning of the 11 a.m. service at Missouri United Methodist

Derek Smith and Dave Jones share a quick laugh Sunday morning (this photo wasn't used for our project, but I just like the moment).

And...for a little change of pace:
The lights on the second floor of the art department were covered in different colorful materials...one has gummi bears, and I have no idea what this is. I just liked the colors, I guess.

Toy Cameras.

I just received some 120 film I bought off of Ebay in the mail, and I was pretty excited about it. That is, I was excited until I realized that it was $12 to process each roll, and that I needed to travel to Kansas City to even get it processed at all. There used to be a camera shop in my town, but it closed down, and now the Republican headquarters are there. Ugh.

Anyway...here are a couple of shots from my Holga and my Fisheye that are kind of fun.

This reminds me of walking on the moon.

Derek is such a sweetie.

Derek's friend, Wes Musser, had a really awesome large format camera that he borrowed from his school for the week. And these are from January...which explains the snow, haha.

I also figured out how to adjust my margins (look at me, makin' myself all marketable and teaching myself DIGITAL SKILLS). So...expect my next pictures to be BIG! These looked really awful large...mostly because my poor scanner has seen better days.

Baker Farm

My friends William Toney and Chris Olsen are making a short movie for the Silver Screen Film Festival at Mizzou, so I offered to take some photos of their progress. It was the first time all semester that I had taken serious photos instead of just snapshots of my friends, so I am pretty excited about this opportunity.

That's William...underneath the William sign. I was pretty happy about that, haha

Chris adjusts the key lighting.

Another shot of William under his sign while Derek acts as a stand-in. I prefer the first one, though.

Miles unsuccessfully tries not to laugh as Will proclaims that he "brings home the gouda."

An important part of the filming process.

Spike Lee?

Hahaha...real cool, Will.

They aren't done shooting yet, so I hope to make some more/better photos and maybe make a little essay about it. What do you guys think?

Beth.

Just a fun little snapshot.