Soldiers Angels Portraits of L♥ve Photo shoot! 12~03~09

On Thursday, December 03, 2009, I was blessed to have met Talathia Knight, A local Military wife who contacted me in response to my PMDA and Soldiers' Angels Portraits of Love Promotion. Her Husband Jeff is currently deployed to Iraqfor the Army National Guard.

The purpose of this Project is to provide 10,000 U.S. Soldiers around the world with portraits of their families and loved ones this holiday season. I was thrilled to sign up as a participating photographer in September. Talathia has been my first and only client as part of this special promotion. When I signed up for the project, I had hoped I could have the satisfaction of giving back to at least one family. It was a wonderful feeling to help Talathia and her husband make the visual link between them even stronger than ever.

Talathia and I met at the River Walk in Milton on the most perfect night. Although it was a little chilly, the setting was so beautifully lit and decorated for Christmas.

We strolled around to the Veterans Memorial which added an awe-inspiring feeling to the purpose of the shoot!

Jeff is in the Army National Guard, for Louisiana. He has been in the military service for the past 14 years and was active duty for five years at Fort Rucker, AL. Jeff is in an Aviation unit out of Hammond, LA, and he is in charge of maintaining the Air Traffic Control Radar. When he left this past June, This counted as Jeff's second deployment to Iraq, but he has deployed to other countries before when stationed out of Ft. Rucker.

When asked about the kind of person her husband is, Talathia replied, “Jeff is a very special person; he never has meet a stranger and will help everyone, friend or other wise. His heart is huge and is as pure as gold. He works long and hard hours, without complaint. Everyone who knows him, knows that he will make things happen, even when it is impossible to do! He always has a positive outlook on everything. He is a wonderful husband and step-father.”

Jeff and Talathia met in Nashville about eight years ago and have been together ever sense. They were married January 12, 2008. Talathia’s daughter, Tierra, is also in the Army National Guard. She just returned from in April and currently attends Louisiana Tech University in Ruston, LA. When Jeff returns home to Talathia this June, I will be honored to take their couples portraits free of charge as another small token of my appreciation to him and his family for his dedicated service and tremendous sacrifice for being away from his family for so long to help protect our freedom!

I want to thank Soldiers Angels Volunteer Organization, and the PMDA for teaming up to create this wonderful project which allowed me to have the opportunity to meet Talathia and learn about her and her family and also to create a great friendship. Special mentions to Sponsors like SeeHere.com and FugiFilm for the help in printing and mailing the free 5x7 to both Jeff and Talathia!

Also Thank You to Santa Rosa County everyone on the Veteran's Memorial Committee, and the community for creating such a wonderful Veterans Memorial. (Click here to learn more about the memorial) A place where we can all go to reflect upon our loved ones to whom we are missing whether it be our soldiers lost in battle or any deployed in the military who are waiting to come home to us . Please take a moment to Pray for and thank all of our Veterans.

View the Slideshow below for more of our great session together. Thank you for reading.

My First Wedding Album by Pictage

Oh how sweet it is to have a wonderful product like this showcasing my work in such an elegant and Romantic Design. The Wedding I have featured here is James and Jill - August 15th 2009A beautiful 10x10 soft leather bound cover with 20 sides of exceptional print and phenomenal lay-flat binding! This is my first Studio Sample of the albums I will be offering in my wedding packages. I'm thrilled that I made the choice to start my business with Pictage and am so thankful for their free album design service! What an incredible time saver! This album gives me an awesome seance of pride and I cant wait to show it to my future clients! Thank you Pictage I BIG PUFFY ♥ YOU! I'm positive my Brides will be excited to receive an album of their own and totally fall in love with it when they do!

Portraits in the Park

On November 14th. My long time friend and fellow photographer, Tiffany Vaughan, asked me along for family sessions in the park as part of her promotional fund raiser for (M.O.P.S) Mothers of Preschoolers. She Organized 18 family sessions that day! It was a fantastic turnout and the weather was fabulous! Here are some shots of mine that I would like to share. These kids were Awesome! Thank you to Tiffany for having me along and to the families for coming out that day to support a wonderful event!

I ♥ Faces Week 46 - “Sun Flare” Photo Challenge!

I ♥ Sun Flare! I try to capture it somewhere in almost every photo shoot! With so many to choose from, I decided on this one taken for Cortney and Dustin In July. This was their engagement session. They are to be married on June 26th 2010 in Destin Florida! You can find their original Blog post here. Thank you for reading.

Be sure to check out I ♥ faces for all of the other awesome entries!

Happy Birthday Bryce! You are 1 !!!

On November 8th My friends Holly and April took me to Fairhope to shoot Aprils son Bryce. This little sweetie turned 1 on Friday the 20th and today I am so excited to go to his Birthday party "I gotta Feeling that its gonna be a good good Day" !!!!!

He is just a doll. He was so well behaved and just loved having his picture taken. Enjoy some of the great moments of our exploration of the park in Fairhope and some cake in the face. He loved that part especially! Click the slideshow for more. Thanks for reading.

Beth + Nathan = Engaged 2nd shoot for Tiffany Vaughan

On November 1st I was given the Awesome opportunity by my long time friend Tiffany Vaughan to second shoot her Engagement Session of Beth and Nathan. This adorable Couple is to be Married on November 28th and I am so Jazzed that I will be a part of that as well! I was thrilled to shoot at Eden Gardens and Especially Seaside where I was just blown away by all of the natural beauty! And to incorporate Beth and Nathan into it made it all of a thousand times more beautiful! The weather was so perfect for this session. In fact, I believe we saw so many other fellow Photographers out that day. Who can resist going out with a camera and their favorite subjects on a day like that?
Here is a feel of all the flirting that was going on between these two love birds during the day! Enjoy! Please view the Slideshow below for more!

The Kiddos in My Family!

In October I was able to meet my new niece for the very first time. Her name is Lillian and she was born on April 1st 09. It was an exciting time to hold her and love up on her cuteness! Her and her Brother Colbey, who just happens to have been born on Christmas eve and shares a Birthday with my son Dylan, were here for only a few days. It is amazing that he is already going to be 2 and my son Dylan will turn 10 this Dec 24th! Lindsay enjoyed playing little mommy and Colbey couldn't get enough of her. Dylan was overjoyed to have all of them together.

I am looking forward to Thanksgiving when hopefully they can be here again. Here are a few Photos of my time with the kids and a bit of an example of what happened when one wasn't too happy to take a picture for me. First it was Lillian then went Carly. You can only imagine how it was to hear all three small ones going. LOL

For Halloween I put my little Pumpkin Out in the Cotton Field Literally in our back yard and she was thrilled to go walking in it. I wanted to share some of those photos here as well.

Those Halloween Pics inspired me to do another shoot for I ♥ faces. In my previous post I submitted a photo of Lindsay for the Balloons theme. All three of my kids were involved in that fun time and It was so hard to pic a photo to enter. I was excited about all of them! Here is Dylan, Lindsay and Carly helping me get some fun and exciting shots in the middle of the "snowy field". This particular photo just cracks me up because two elements within it cause some major time management problems for me. I suppose its obvious what they are. However, No complaints whatsoever, I love being at home with my kids and thank God everyday for the blessing. This photo ended up taking the cake for me only after I had all ready posted my entry for the I ♥ faces competition. I should have entered this one because I think her expression on her face is so natural and fun as she is running through the field and excited to get to play with balloons! This is my little stud muffin Dylan. I'm so happy I was able to find an opportunity to take pictures of him where hes not board to death and only lets me take one or two. Ok so I have a infatuation with the cotton field next to me. It is just so beautiful and I get so excited for this time of year. But its only every other year that they grow the cotton to the west of our house which makes for stunning sunsets. When they rotate the crop it is grown across the street and we get peanuts! Anywho... Photographing my beautiful kids in the beautiful field with a touch of bright colors was very fun! Enjoy! I have placed a slideshow of Octobers photos with the kids at the bottom. Thanks for reading.