Thursday, November 29, 2012

Abby | Fort Defiance High School Senior | 2013


Long ago, Gabe needed a bus buddy.  A sweet & energetic young girl named Abby volunteered and thus began a long friendship.  I was excited two weeks ago to return to the valley and take Abby's senior portraits.  It was a beautiful warm day and downtown Staunton provided a wonderful backdrop for some beautiful images.  Gabe tagged along and loved spending a few hours with his good friend!  Abby, I hope you like your sneak peek.  Talk to you soon...


Saturday, May 26, 2012

It's Prom Night for Gabe!


One of our goals for Gabe this school year was for him to attend the prom with his classmates.  As a junior, this was his first opportunity to dress up and boogie his heart out on the dance floor.  His teacher was on board so all it took was a bit of coaching (including the reminder that girls are not impressed when he calls them "Chica") combined with some serious tailoring at the tuxedo shop ("Sir, he has some very interesting proportions!") and Gabe was all ready for his big night. We dropped him off out in front of the dance where he was met by a classmate and his teacher.  After reluctantly allowing us to photograph his magnificence, he strutted into the building ready to wow his adoring public.  In the picture above, Jay thinks he is contemplating which dance move he should use to start the night; I think he may be considering how many girls will be mesmerized by his Venezuelan mojo.  Either way, we are confident the Fort Defiance High School Prom will never be quite the same!






Friday, May 25, 2012

MishMo in the City


I am posting these with the humblest of apologies to my daughter, Michelle and her sweetie Mo.  While I had completed the editing some time ago, I have not been good about posting any of my sessions to this blog.  Maybe I should have made "use blog more" to my list of New Year's resolutions; however, since 2012 is already half over, it appears I missed out on that incentive.  I shall just have to resolve to do better and hope for the best!  Enjoy these adorable engagement photos we took in Washington DC.  





Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Minji | Harrisonburg Senior Portrait Photographer

Wow! Who knew Harrisonburg had so many fun places to take senior portraits? I had only photographed in that area a few times before Minji and I decided it would be a good place to take her senior portraits. In my mind, I had already thought of a few locations, but decided to scout a few more once I knew what type of images she wanted. I particularly love these railroad images. There are a quite a few others, but my blog server would have crashed if I had posted all the fantastic images of this fun girl :-)







Monday, November 14, 2011

Daniel | Harrisonburg Senior Portrait Photographer

I had never taken senior portraits with a violin as a prop. Let me assure you, this violin was no prop! Daniel treated his mom & me to some beautiful music as we moved around Staunton taking his portraits. I love using Staunton's downtown area for portrait sessions. There are so many interesting walls, natural backdrops and cubby holes to choose from and each time the results look different. Daniel, I hope you like your sneak peek. I love the textured image at the bottom. It was my favorite of the week :-)





Friday, November 11, 2011

Trevor | Waynesboro Virginia Senior Photographer

I am so happy to finally have gotten the opportunity to finish Trevor's senior portraits! Nasty weather interrupted our first meeting, but the make-up day was perfect. Beautiful weather for November and the sunset was incredible. He had some fun ideas and even the dog cooperated for some great images...





Thursday, November 10, 2011

Allison | Harrisonburg Senior Portrait Photographer

After several weather delays, I am so happy I finally got to meet Allison! It was especially fun for me as her mom is an old high school friend of mine. We took some beautiful images. Allison braved a chilly and very windy afternoon to create some seriously fun portraits in her favorite homecoming dress. My Canon truly loved this girl :-)




Friday, October 14, 2011

Nan, are we done yet? | Harrisonburg Newborn Photographer

My first grandchild was born last Friday and I have been having so much fun helping out this first week. She is a beautiful little girl and I have to say that Kelly and Taylor are rocking this new parent stuff! To celebrate the one week mark, I am sharing a few newborn portraits of Miss Riley. She was really quite tolerant of her Nan messing around taking these images. As my daughters say, this will be one of the most photographed babies in the world. Though I am positive her four young uncles will teach the fine art of running from my camera as soon as it appears ;-)




Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Super Man | High School Senior Photography Waynesboro, Virginia


Just for you, Nick! I think you make a great Superman :-) Click on the image for better view.

I will publish a few of your more "Clark Kent" moments in the next few days for you & your mom to see....enjoy!

Credits: Great Superman Template from Matty DeCesare on the Deviant Art website

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Vintage Senior| Waynesboro Senior Photographer

This week was vintage week and Emily got to be the first senior to have portraits finished with these filters. I was excited to play with some photoshop filters I hadn't previously used and create a vintage look to the finished portraits. Emily had a great location and some fantastic clothes for her session that I thought would really flow with the look I was trying to create. To be honest, there is a great deal of time and creativity that goes into creating portraits that are non-traditional. It isn't too difficult to simply adjust lighting, contrast and simple color. Most photo editing programs will allow those changes. Its getting beyond that is great fun. Professional cameras differ from your point & shoot cameras in quite a few ways, but one important way is that they allow us to create images in a RAW format. That is mumbo-jumbo for humongous digital files with lots of pieces of individual data ;-) The reason I use this format is so that I have lots of room to play with the images in the editing phase. This week, I tweaked the data to give Emily's portraits a fun, retro or vintage look. I happen to like this look, but have no fear....I can always use that same data to transform these same images to a totally different look! We'll have to wait and see what Emily and her mom like best :-D

Thursday, September 8, 2011

5 weeks and counting...

till our little princess makes her appearance :-) I am not sure I can adequately describe the level of excitement in our house as we approach this awesome event. From the youngest boy "Unka Ched" to my husband, Jay "aka MoDaddy" (You really need to find a better grandpa name, Babe), we are all 0n pins & needles and ready to meet her! I had the priviledge of taking maternity images for Kelly and her husband Taylor this weekend. I know she is my daughter and that makes me incredibly biased, but she is just beautiful with that baby belly and Taylor is so sweet as he helps her through this last few weeks. Watching these two together makes me happy :-) Here's just a few of my favorite images...