Las Vegas Baby!

Last weekend my favorite family and I drove to Vegas to celebrate my Dad's 70th birthday. It was a fabulous time and we were very sad to leave. I think it's wonderful to have so much family that I genuinely enjoy being around. There is always food, drink, screaming and yelling, more food, teenagers, children, babies, and a ton of hugging and kissing on everyone.

Of course this is a time when the cameras are all out and everyone is being told to "hold that pose" or to "do that again." This is usually my time to put my camera down and just drink in the happenings as my personal memories. If you know me you may know that I'm a firm believer that there are times in life that a moment occurs that was meant just for us to see.

Ha! My children would probably be wondering when that is being that I always have a camera in their faces.

I like to think of myself as a "blender" blending in and out of the picture until maybe I disappear and then people start acting like themselves. Very handy when taking pictures of children.

Speaking of children, I thought this to be a perfect time to capture all the grand children that belong to my 70 year old Pop.

This picture reminded me of a family photo I once saw on a "weird family photo site." It was titled: "Everyone having their own personal adventure!"

It really was a wonderful time of healing and playing and loving. I thank the Living God for my wonderful family and can't wait till we're all together again!!!

Since I was headed to Vegas my baby sister Michelle and I thought it would be a great time to take some fabulous pictures of her and her business partner Heather. They are the lovely ladies of Inhabit Design!

These women are not only beautiful and talented but they work out of a total passion for design. They both emit this air of design and style in everything they do.

View of the city from behind the scenes

It was a little bit like filming a movie called Barbie goes to the Ghetto. While I was editing these photos I noticed that it appeared as though maybe someone was sleeping on the mattress we were taking pictures near... Hey girls check it out and tell me what you think!

We traveled through the city and across the back allies. I crawled around the railroad tracks and through a homeless guy's living room.

We ended up and Michelle's darling home for our final shots.

We even got to wrangle a giant yellow lab in a beautiful new diamond

studded doggie collar. Go Gg!

Thank you to the ladies at Inhabit!! Good Times!

A New Day!

Hello!  Welcome to my very first blog post!  I'm so happy to have finally gotten my act together to get this blog up and running.  My desire here is to share some photos with you on a weekly basis so you can see what I'm working on.

The last several weeks I have been working old school with film.  I had forgotten how wonderful and peaceful it is. Just to stand in the dark all alone and roll the long curly rolls of film onto the little metal reel.  I love watching the clock and agitating the tanks- oh and the spell of fix that lingers on my hands for the rest of the day!

Not only do I love processing film but I love shooting it too.  I love the sound of a film camera when you take the shot.  It's such a wonderful click that sounds so full of hope and then the winding that gets you ready for the next shot.  You can almost feel the film sliding across the back of the camera. 

The very best thing about working with film is that I am forced to leave the comfort of my home (that contains three lovely ladies who listen to loud music, fight, and need me every two minutes) and venture out to the photo lab where I have to work alone and quietly except for the occasional friend that stops in to work.  I don't even mind the 120 students asking me which way their negatives lay on the paper in order to make a contact sheet.