It was so great to see Baby Julia and her sister Mia… They were both absolutely adorable, as always :)

Julia is seriously the most adorable baby ever. I wish I could freeze her just as she is right now… she’s pretty much perfect.

I love these shots of the girls playing that Jan captured… She did so great!

Baby Julia is OBSESSED with playing music (particularly Itsy Bitsy Spider) on her CD player. I love this shot that Jan grabbed as Julia snuck out of the room we were in to turn her CD player back on. Too cute.

Julia has become quite the little acrobat… I’m impressed :)

Julia is currently obsessed with playing with babydolls. She was so serious about trying to get the baby into the blanket… It was hard work :)

One of my favorite shots of the day… a rare quiet moment for both of the girls.

Mia wanted to go outside for a bit, so we headed out into the oppressive Chattanooga humidity. I LOVE this image that Jan captured of Mia blowing a dandelion…

Love both of these… Mia is just beautiful.

And this one makes me laugh… Hopscotch!

Once we headed back inside…it was time for Baby Julia to have a snack. She’s a little bit messy…

Love this shot of Julia and Gavin… don’t you just want to squeeze her cheeks?

While Julia was making a crazy mess with her snack… Mia was cooking in the kitchen. I was VERY impressed with her skills :)

And finally, just because baby bellies are the cutest thing imaginable… one more shot of adorable Baby Julia. Dancing. Just imagine that she’s swaying back and forth while clapping her hands… if you don’t smile, something’s seriously wrong with you :)

Christine and Gavin… Thanks for letting us come and invade your space for the afternoon. You guys are the perfect TAG-A-LONGees :) I hope you love your slideshow!

Jan, thanks so much for coming all the way to Chattanooga to hang out with me… I hope our paths cross again soon!

xoxoxox

-amber

Diana and Todd are wonderful friends. They’re the kind of people that Nathan and I truly enjoy investing time in. This summer, Diana spent countless hours teaching my kiddos to swim (since they weren’t particularly interested in learning from me;)), and each week, I looked forward to the day we spent with her family at the pool.

All that to say… I was very excited about the opportunity to (finally!) photograph Diana and her family. It’s funny, but we photographers are often pretty horrible at making sure our own family gets photographed… and although Diana has LOTS of pictures of her family, she hasn’t had a ton of full-fledged family sessions. I was excited to remedy that.

Introducing-

Diana, Todd, Maddie, Kenna, Parker, and Satchel… one of the cutest families to ever grace this blog :)

One of the things that Diana wanted to make sure we captured, was their nightly ritual of reading devotions together. Then she proceeded to pick out one of the kids favorite stories, and I watched while they thoroughly enjoyed themselves. Seriously, aren’t they adorable?

Diana and Todd are seriously rockstar parents… I’m so exhausted at the end of most of my days that a game of CandyLand feels like an investment, and often, all I want to do is watch a few episodes of Dirty Jobs with the kids, or maybe (just maybe) read a book or two…

But not the Simpsons… no… they use blocks and balls, and they make up games to play together. Each child gets a chance to make up the game, and the rules that go along with the game, and then they play. Too fun.

It was Parker’s game this time… so he made up the rules, and took the first turn.

This made me laugh SO hard… Kenna had to “warm up” before she took her turn :)

And I think Diana would want everyone to know… She *definitely* won the game this time. Look at that form;)

Okay… So I’ve wanted a Lovesac for a long time, but this session seriously solidified my desire. I mean, not only are Lovesacs super comfy cozy chairs… but they’re also the world’s most stylish indoor playground!

Then we headed outside to the “real” playground… The Simpsons have a backyard that any kid would die for. Not only do they have an awesome trampoline, but they also have a ridiculously cool treehouse that Todd is in the process of building for them. (Not that Todd bought from the store and is assembling for them, but that Todd is creating and building. Amazing.)

Trampoline fun :)

After we finished playing outside… Todd had to head off for a meeting, and Diana and the kids and I headed inside to capture some of the stuff that they do together everyday. Diana is an awesome homeschool mom, and it was SO fun to see her interact with her kids in this way. I had a *brief* moment where I thought it might be cool to do this with my kids (and then I snapped back to reality and realized that I’m not the same kind of rockstar as Diana :)).

Seriously, they were this excited about the parts of speech…

I loved seeing her investing one-on-one time with the kids, helping them with individual projects.

Is it hysterical that Parker and Diana are putting together a puzzle of Todd?

And I loved this one :)

Then it was time for the girls to do a bit of piano practice. Diana says she’s not normally this happy during this part of the day, but I have the hardest time believing that.

The boys built some stuff…

And the girls read some books…

And then we were done :) Diana and Todd… I love you guys. I hope you love your slideshow! Let’s hang out soon.

love,

-amber

A brief recap of Baby Ella’s first year…

Session 1- Adorable (screaming) newborn

Session 2- Utterly squeezable 4 month old

Session 3- Gorgeous and smiley 8 month old

And session 4… Beautiful, expressive, and amazing. Ella is one!

I’m not exaggerating when I say this baby is incredibly expressive… check out just a couple of the awesome faces she gave me during the hour and a half that I was hanging out with her.

Annoyed (why is this random person in my space?)

Inquisitive (You can totally tell she is processing what Sara is saying to her)

Excitement

Amusement

Pouting

Utter glee :)

Mischieviousness

Exhaustion (the result of skipping your nap on portrait session day)

She’s amazing, isn’t she?

When I asked Sara about some of the things she never wants to forget about Ella, one of the things she mentioned was Ella’s obsession with playing with curtains and blankets. I love stuff like this… these are the fleeting experiences that would so easily be forgotten…

I love seeing Sara with Ella… She’s such an amazing mom. I love this series… There’s so much happiness in them.

And then there was some tickling… Ella apparently thinks her mother is hysterical.

Being ticked is exhausting :)

You know you’re a big girl when you can crawl all the way up the stairs… Stairs are hard work!

I love the expressions in this… It appears that Ella is unsure of whatever Grant is finding so hysterical.

Grant is completely in love with his girl. It’s so obvious.

We stepped outside in the sweltering heat for a few minutes… I loved these two images of Grant and Ella. I couldn’t decide which I liked better… do you guys have an opinion?

Ella seemed somewhat unsure about the bubbles… There are a couple of other images in the slideshow that show off her expressiveness :)

There’s something very compelling about this quiet moment. It draws me in. I love this one.

The heat and the mosquitos started getting to us pretty quickly… so we headed back inside. I’ll leave you with this final image of Ella “terrorizing” the kitty… again, a fleeting moment that would’ve easily been forgotten. I’m pretty sure this one is going in my favorite favorite favorite folder :)

Grant and Sara… it’s been an awesome year. I feel honored that you guys invited me into your lives the way that you have. I hope we do it again :)

Enjoy your one year slideshow!

xoxo

-amber

I was given a “sleep in late without having to feel bad about it” pass, and I ended up using it. I arrived at the workshop just in time to hear Garrett (the last speaker of the day) finish his presentation, and then all of the speakers took the stage for a Q&A discussion panel.

We then broke for lunch (they served macaroni… and I am convinced that it was just for me:)). Immediately following lunch, we headed back to the house where we had worked the day before, for a second day of shooting sessions.

This day was a different process. There were three different groups, and each group had 4-6 photographers. Each photographer was to have 10-15 minutes to “direct” the shoot while the others watched/waited and I stood by to answer questions/provide instruction. I simultaneously needed to make sure I captured at least *some* images of each family. It was pretty crazy, but again, the Pictage crew managed to keep it completely organized and it ran very smoothly.

Family #1- This mother was a serious rockstar. She and her kids modeled for two different groups… which was about 2 hours of being cooped up in one room. I have never seen a mom engage so well under that sort of pressure. Seriously, she deserves an award.

Family #2- how adorable are these kids?!

We wrapped up the day, said our goodbyes, and I headed back to the Atlanta airport to rejoin my family in MN. It was seriously a whirlwind two days packed with wonderful old friends, fun new people, and lots and lots of learning and sharing!

(By the way, my flight back to Minneapolis? It was delayed, making that round trip one of the most ridiculously messed up flights of my life. The best part of the story was the reason for the delay… I’d never heard this one before. They delayed the flight because they “couldn’t find the flight crew.” Hysterical.)

One last post from the Week of Insanity coming soon… and then about a million client posts!

-amber

So we arrived safe in sound in Minnesota after the kids first flight, and Nathan’s brother and uncle came by the airport to pick everyone up. I said my goodbyes, and headed straight back into the airport. I was to be flying immediately back to Atlanta. The timing had ended up being crazy, and our trip to MN coincided with my opportunity to teach at PictageU.

Unfortunately, when I arrived at the check-in counter, I found out that all flights into Atlanta that evening had been cancelled due to weather. It was 5:00pm, and I was a million miles away from the location in which I was due to be giving my presentation in less than 18 hours. My happy happy day was immediately replaced with slightly elevated stress levels… but thanks to a very friendly Delta counter guy, I arrived at a plan. It was a crazy plan, but it would at least be a way to get myself to Atlanta by 8:00am the following day.

I flew from Minneapolis to Knoxville… and then I rented a car and drove to Atlanta. It was comical… I actually drove directly past my house sometime around midnight. I considered stopping and sleeping there, but realized that I had given my house key to a friend who was checking on the cat for us while we were gone! So I kept on. I didn’t arrive at Rachel & Andrew’s Atlanta home until sometime after 4:00am. The final leg of the trip turned into a complete comedy of errors. I received a speeding ticket just before I arrived in Alanta. I found myself completely lost, 3 different times, in all different areas of the city. The best moment (sarcasm intended) was when I was sitting at a stop sign, trying to figure out where in the world I was, and suddenly this man, who had been talking to himself on the corner, apparently decided I had been sitting there for too long, because he walked over and punched the front of my car! At that moment, I was a little sad that I hadn’t just stayed in Minnesota. Finally, I arrived at the correct location, and crawled into bed with Rachel and Andrew’s hysterically needy cat to grab about an hour and a half of sleep before it was time to be on and ready to go for PictageU.

Whew. I’m really glad to get that story out of my system… thanks for bearing with me :)

So PictageU kicked off with Tuesday morning, jam-packed with teaching. Jim Collins opened up with a short introduction, and then we immediately got started. Three different speakers (including myself) presented about various different aspects of family & children’s photography.

Liana shared her awesome tips concerning pricing and business strategy. She is a financial wizard, and I truly hope everyone who was listening was taking note of her advice.

It was then my turn… I was running on pure adrenaline from the crazy travel day and lack of sleep, and I hope I was coherent :) (Thanks to Shari for this image.)

Alice Park (founder of NAPCAP) shared some of her marketing strategies. I found it to be interesting that all three of us had very different philosophies and strategies for our businesses, yet I feel like we presented a very well rounded overview of the family portraiture world. I really enjoyed hearing the different perspectives.

After the presentations, we broke for lunch, and then we headed to the shooting sessions. I can’t imagine how Pictage managed to work out the logistics for this part of the workshop. There were 30ish photographers, 5 instructors, and enough models to go around. Everyone broke into groups, and then cycled through the photographer “stations”. We weren’t working with professional models (because that’s not helpful to real life shooting in the slightest), and we weren’t in the families natural environments (a kind of big deal for me, I’m sure you all realize ;)), but the amazing Pictage crew managed to keep everyone happy and refreshed and organized. Seemed like a miracle :)

I snagged a couple of images of me shooting/instructing during this time… I don’t get a lot of pictures of me shooting, and it’s entertaining to see how silly I look when I shoot.

Andie sent me this one.

Shari did a ton of photographing during the entire PictageU event. She posted these fun images on facebook.

Here are just a few images of the models from Day 1… you can see more on my facebook page :) What you can’t tell from these images is that we are in a downstairs den (aka, darkest room on the planet), and I am accompanied by about 10 photographers who are watching/asking questions/listening to my “instructions” while I am simultaneously trying to engage with the family. It was pretty tough, but I’m happy with the results.

Family #1

Family #2- Wyatt wasn’t very excited about me at first… but his mom was a serious rockstar, and totally turned him around in record time!

Family #3- LOVED this little guy.

Family #4- Whew… what a day.

Okay, this post has gotten a bit long-winded, so I’m going to wrap it up, and post day two on a separate post.

-amber

That minute has finally arrived :)

I met Shelby in October of 2008, after photographing the wedding of her dear friend Christa in St. Lucia. Christa kept telling me about her friend Shelby who was an amazing aspiring photographer, and that she was going to put us in touch with one another. Since our first meeting, Shelby has photographed along-side of me during two baby TAG-A-LONGs, had a super fun session with her daughter, served as an amazing model for a workshop I was assisting with, taught me to dance (it’s not her fault I’m still terrible), and invited me and my children to her house for hours and hours of pool time and other miscellaneous fun. I’m super thankful that Christa introduced us to each other!

I love watching Shelby with her daughter, Jordan. She’s in love, and it’s obvious in every image.

Shelby had a bit of editing that needed to be done… true reality. This spontaneous hug from Jordan absolutely made my day…

One of my favorites from the day (but don’t be fooled… I had about a dozen favorites :) )

Tickling is evil. I feel like a torturer when I photograph tickling :)

This is Lily. I think Lily is evil… but that’s because she isn’t mine. Shelby and Jordan adore her… and she, well, she tolerates them.

Jake on the other hand is adorable… I love how jealous Lily looks in the background :)

Shelby and Jordan decided to make a few blueberry muffins… in the midst of the mixing, Jordan spilled some milk on the counter and immediately burst out with a loud “CRAP!”. I’m assuming that’s a no-no word, because she quickly covered her mouth and look chagrined. Seriously, one of the funniest moments ever.

Jordan has an occasional pre-teen moment… even though she’s only 6.

Chalk time on the sidewalk quickly deteriorated into a chalk fight… I believe Shelby started it. I just love the message on the sidewalk.

Love this one of Jordan. She looks so grown up.

Bubbles never cease to be fun. You can’t outgrow them, and they always photograph beautifully :)

Then the sprinklers came on, and these girls decided to have some real fun before I headed out. Love the resulting images!

Shelby and Jordan, thanks for sharing a bit of your summer with me. I had a blast! Enjoy your slideshow, and hopefully I’ll see you guys soon!

xoxo

-amber

Isn’t she amazing?

She has graduated onto a “big girl bed”… and she is SO excited about being able to JUMP! (Although, if I’m being completely honest, she would actually say “DUMP!” :) She hasn’t quite nailed the J in jump… and the result was hysterically adorable… to me, at least :))

Keeping barrettes in the fine hair of a toddler is a full-time job.

Tickling is an evil, evil thing.

I laughed out loud at this image… Alana is so excited to show me her new drawing table… she took off running down the hallway. Somehow, I managed to capture her with both of her feet off of the ground! She looks like a deer or a gazelle… bounding down the hallway. Love it.

At her fun new table.

Alana was a teeeeeeny bit on the hyper side during our session. After drawing for just a few minutes, she decided it would be much more fun to run around and around and around in circle… yelling “I’m flying like an airplane!!”

Silly girl.

Then Heather remembered something that would immediately calm Alana… Playing games with Rich on the iPad. Technology rocks :)

From the iPad we transitioned to reading books… and as always, some of my favorite images came from this time.

My fav of the day… I think.

Alana has started a new game… Someone pokes her in the belly, and she freefalls onto the bed. It’s hysterical to watch… and she’s more than happy to do it over and over and over again!

Aunt Pixie came by for a bit… I love all of the expressions in this image.

After we found some appropriate music, the girls busted out their best moves in a living room dance party.

Then… before I knew what was happening… the bribing began. Alana was in such an excited mood that day, that neither Rich nor Heather had really been able to get her to snuggle with them. She’s normally a super snuggly child, but this session was proving to be the exception. I noticed that Heather was telling Alana “secrets”…

Which was followed by a giant hug and loads of laughter…

And then… M&M’s. Hysterical.

Rich managed a giant hug as well… and his bribe was Reese’s Pieces.

Aunt Pixie didn’t have to bribe… and she’ll be rubbing that in her sister and brother-in-law’s faces forever, I’m thinking.

Seems a theme lately… but as my babies are growing up… they’re all potty training, too. Alana is no exception to that :) She got her potty seat out, all by herself, climbed on top of it, and then yelled.. TaDa!!! She’s awesome!

Such a fun session… I’m so thankful for Rich and Heather!

I hope you guys enjoy the slideshow…

much love

-amber

Fun news item #1

Last September, Nathan and I had the opportunity to photograph an absolutely amazing wedding in Key West. Brooke and Harrison and their families were absolutely wonderful to us (not to mention spectacularly beautiful) and we loved being a part of their wedding weekend. I was super excited to hear that the Weddings Unveiled blog had decided to use a few of the images from their day as a featured Real Wedding. It’s always fun to have our work recognized, and this wedding made our “work” easy :)  Everyone should head over the the Weddings Unveiled blog and leave Brooke and Harrison some love :)

Fun news item #2-

I am currently working on the blog images from a newborn session that I photographed on Monday. I think that session is what has me in the wedding frame of mind, because the mom, Morgan (we photographed her wedding last year, so it’s so fun to now be documenting her new baby’s life!), is the owner of Chattanooga’s most awesome event panning company, Soirees. We just happened to photograph a wedding that was planned by Soirees this weekend, and Morgan made a brief appearance with 10 day old Baby Mary McKenna in tow! I thought it would be fun to share just a couple of Beth and Justin’s wedding images… and if you want to see more, you can visit their Facebook album.

Future event planner… you’re getting ready to see a lot more of her :)

Awesome couple… Beth and Justin were super easy to photograph. Seriously, check out the facebook album so you can see more of their story!

And just for fun… a self portrait of Nathan and I from the end of the night. Good times :)

Hopefully I’ll have another fun news item coming soon… I can’t wait to share the new wedding photography website with you guys!

-amber

We’ll start with a couple from Rebirth… where the whole project started…

I happened across this cross during Baby Fin’s session.

And these two crosses when I photographed Baby Maggie and her big brother Will.

This is one of my favorites… I grabbed it while out with my family on a Fun Sunday. I was in the passenger seat, and photographed this in the driver’s rear view mirror. I think Nathan thought I’d lost my mind :)

There is this GIANT cross, right down the road from my house. It is right above where the old McKay’s used to be. I don’t even know what church it belongs to, but the parking lot is always open. Every time I drive by it, it looks different. I force myself to never be too busy to pull into the parking lot and grab a shot or two with my iPhone. These are some of the results (all photographed and edited on my iPhone.)

And here’s one of that same cross that I captured with my “real” camera, en route to a session…

I’ve also seen some amazing steeples at sunset. Seems like they’ve been everywhere I look, lately. (All of these were taken and edited on my iPhone, as well!)

Grabbed these two when I ran to the grocery store the other evening… This “cross” is merely a broken signpost. But it photographed beautifully, I think! (Again, shot and edits on the iPhone)

And just so you don’t think I’m only capable of photographing things at sunset… here are just a few that I grabbed here around my house… again, all with the iPhone.

My bathroom door.

My bathroom window… one of my favorites.

The tile floor (taken with the Hipstamatic ap for the iPhone… one of my favs)

And finally, a simple shadow shot, of my blinds.

I’ll try to post more as I can… but feel free to keep up with the project on my facebook page! Who knows… maybe I’ll have some of these printed some day :)

Personal projects are fun. This one has been no exception.

xoxo

-amber

Jill and her husband Brian have been married for 13 years. They had never been able to get pregnant, and had basically just gotten used to the idea of not having children… so they were VERY excited when they found out the Jill had gotten pregnant!

Jill booked a flight for me to Valdosta, GA, and less than two weeks after Baby Cole was born, I touched down in her hometown. How adorable is this little welcome bag that Jill made for me? It was full of local snack foods… such a nice touch.

Okay, first things first… We can’t go into the story of this awesome family’s life until I talk about how cool Baby Cole’s hair is! Jill has gorgeous red hair, and Cole obviously inherited it from her. I have never seen a newborn with this color hair… and not just is it an awesome color, he also has a ton of it!

Okay, now that you’ve oohed and aahed about the most adorable red-headed newborn ever, I can move onto telling you a bit about the family as a whole :)

When I arrived, Cole had just finished eating, and was enjoying snuggle time with his parents.

Brian had never held a baby before his own baby arrived… Isn’t amazing how natural he looks?

Little baby hands and feet…

Brian likes to torture Jill (who was still dealing with recovery pain from her c-section) with hysterical stories of The Claw. The Claw is really just poor Baby Cole’s hands.. which, of course, he doesn’t quite have control over yet. Sometimes The Claw likes to steal Baby Cole’s pacifier, poke Baby Cole’s eyes, and other evil deeds. This is Brian imitating The Claw…

I love sleeping babies… so peaceful.

(cute nursery details!)

Baby Cole spends his daytime naps in his cribs, but at night, he sleeps in a cradle in his parents room. We wanted to make sure that we captured images of him in both places…

After a good long nap, it was time to wake Baby Cole for his bottle.

He wasn’t thrilled with how quickly he drank it all… He was definitely wanting a bit more :) I love seeing how well this new dad dealt with his crying newborn. Impressive!

Love this little face…

We knew Cole would be getting sleepy again pretty soon, so we decided to make the most of his awake time. Jill has started reading to him, already. I love it!

And then we did a quick bathtime. Love Brian’s inventive bath technique :)

There was time for a few quick snuggles before Baby Cole needed to lay back down. These are some of my favorite images of the day. It is SO obvious how much this family loves each other.

Jill and Brian… thank you guys SO much for bringing me all the way to Valdosta and letting me barge in on your life at this amazing time. I’m so happy for you guys! I hope you enjoy your slideshow…

Let’s do it again sometime! I definitely want to see the new house and the “real” nursery!

hugs,

-amber