Photography Challenge Week 52 || Extremely Mobile Toddlers

We didn't get to do our big family Christmas until this week, and it was something else to hold/handle/watch/wrangle three super-movers under three years old. This year my oldest niece really got the hang of opening presents. For her gift this year, I made her two Frozen-inspired dress-up aprons. And she (seemed to, at least) LOVED it. Once she understood that you could pretend to be Anna or Elsa, she really got into it.

At one point, she had Uncle Caleb put the Elsa apron on her. He said, "Would you like to prepare for the ball, Queen Elsa?" and Rana said yes. Then he asked her if she would like to invite Auntie. She said yes again, and headed over to me.

"Auntie, would you like to basketball?"

Her dad was proud.

Photography Challenge Week 51 || Wedding at Fairlane Station

This Sunday I had the opportunity to shoot my first wedding, and it was surprisingly not as scary as I had originally thought! It was time-consuming, as any wedding is, but once I started shooting the time flew by. Suddenly we had been there six hours and didn't even realize it. Not only that, but the bride was so sweet that it felt like I was shooting the wedding with friends.

The wedding was at Fairlane Station in Springdale, a cute little venue right next to the train station, which made for some fantastic photos. In a few weeks, when all the photos are edited, I will do a bigger blog with a lot of photos so you can see more of my work!

Also, things to look out for in 2016: a new website for my photography! Things are getting real!

Photography Challenge Week 50 || Friends and Christmas

Wow how did I make it to week 50 already?! This past week a friend and I went out to visit my sister-in-law in Oklahoma, and we knew before we left we had to at least take one Christmas photo of us. It was late and we were sleepy, but we got it done.

 There we are, in all our pre-Christmas glory.

Photography Challenge Week 49 || More showers

With the impending family wedding, there are showers abounding. So, yet again, here is a shower shot. I liked this one a lot because of the hand positioning. It's delicate.

Photography Challenge Week 48 || Tidbits

Most of this week I edited photos instead of actually taking them. I also did a little birding (I'm at 93/100 as of right now! Only seven more birds to see!) Aaaand I did a little prepping for the business. Pretty hectic but exciting all at once. So, with my sweet little phone, I took a few photos of tidbits of my life.

A dock on the lake where I picked up two new birds: Winter Wren and Hermit Thrush.

A little piece of my Christmas decorations.

Taking care of a family dog, watching football diligently.

Photography Challenge Week 47 || Family

Boy, does Caleb have a big family. I only had one brother growing up, so adjusting to holidays with all of his siblings has been entertaining to say the least. Over Thanksgiving I had the chance to take some family photos, so without further ado, the photos:

Photography Challenge Week 46 || Rehearsal Dinner

One of my friends got married over the weekend and I had the pleasure of taking some candid photos during their rehearsal evening. It was really sweet to watch them prepare for the next day together.

Though I've not actually started editing them, as I've been somewhat busy (we hosted a friendsgiving feast the other day!) I will graciously allow you to view a few of the photos, unedited.

Just kidding. I typed that and then I went and edited the photos.

They are just happy happy happy.

I think this exemplifies her personality.

Photography Challenge Week 45 || Wedding Showers

It's not like I was trying to be professional, but here are some shots from last weekend when we went down for Caleb's brother's wedding showers!

Technically I didn't take this one. But here are all the ladies (and future lady!) of the family.

College Senior Photos NWA || Photography Challenge Week 44

This past weekend I had the delight of taking senior photos for a friend, who by no means made this a hard job. She basically should be a model. It also didn't hurt that campus was bringing its A-game with fall colors and pretty architecture. Thanks to Alexis for letting me do this!

Too gorgeous.

Personal update: I'm getting closer and closer to starting a real-life-big-kid photography business. It is taking a lot of time to get to where I want to be, but thankfully in all that time I've gotten the chance to become more experienced! It's exciting and scary all at once.

Photography Challenge Week 43 || Flash

In the land of taking baby steps in the direction of going pro, we decided to get a nice little speedlite for my camera. On the first day, of course, I had to learn how to use it and you'll see the results below. I'm glad I have such cooperative subjects like my husband and a cup to help me out.

Had no idea what I was doing.

Thaaaat's better.

Not too bad...but we can do better.

Maybe a liiiittle too bright but if I edited it it might not be too bad.

Speaking of the speedlite, I used it for a college senior session yesterday that will be up on the blog next week! It might be some of my best work so far. :)

Photography Challenge Week 42 || Football

Back in my college days, I took my camera in a purse to football games. The purse line always got you in faster, so you got to get to a seat quicker. But this weekend, when offered some tickets to go see the game (in NOT the student section) I decided I'd try out the no-purse-or-real-camera route in favor of using my phone's camera.

Well, we won the game after four overtimes, so my hands were very shaky at the end when I really started taking photos. But there you have it. Shaky photos are better than no photos!

The team singing the victory song.

The score and fireworks smoke.

Being happy that the game was finally over...and that we won.

Photography Challenge Week 41 || Corn Maze

This week we went to the local corn maze with my family. Judging by my blogs, you've probably already realized that I think my nieces and nephew are the cutest ever. So out at a corn maze, feeding cows, seeing flowers, and hearing my niece say, "Auntie, Auntie! Da sheep! Baaaa!" was a very, very cute experience.

Taking pictures of kids is always the hardest, because they aren't still. But it also makes for cuter photos.

"It's so TALL!"

Photography Challenge Week 40 || Family

Wow, only 12 weeks left in the challenge? That seems crazy. This week is pretty packed, including a 5K Caleb and I are going to run on Saturday. Maybe I'll talk about that in another non-photo challenge post, because it is pretty important to me. But on today's topic...my parents came in over the weekend to, let's be honest, see their adorable grandkids.

And here are those photos.

How do you resist that face?

Playing with Mema

Yeah, there are two other grandkids, but they aren't quite as active as this one.

Photography Challenge Week 39 || Engagements

This past weekend I got to photograph two of the happiest people who are doing one of the happiest things--getting married! They made the whole experience fun and easy, and they were pretty easy on the eyes too. Here are just a few shots, though I wish I could share every single photo with you!

Congratulations to Kelsey and Kyle!