Life is so precious

It is laying so heavy on my heart that so many wonderful people have left this earth this week. What is going on?? Farrah Fawcett passing away was expected, but none-the-less sad. Michael Jackson?! I wasn't a serious fan like so many of you are, but I had a tremendous appreciation for his music and talent.

I have spent this past weekend jammin' out to some of my favorite songs and watched "Thriller" for the first time ever in my life last night. Then just this morning I heard Billy Mays passed away! Is it the moon?

It's just made me all that much more aware of how precious life is and that we should soak up the blessings of each day. For me, that's a lot easier said than done as I look around my unorganized house and the pile of working on top of my desk.

I urge all of you to love each day as a gift and to thank the Lord for all of his blessings.

Here's a little sneek at Starr and Adam's engagement session:

Kristen + Todd

I am so excited to show off these photos! I have been dying to get them up here but wanted to make sure Kristen had seen them first.

As a photographer there are a couple things that get us super excited: 1. A BEAUTIFUL bride 2: An amazing venue to take pictures. I hit the jack pot with this one. I met Kristen and Todd at a bridal show in January. She came into my booth and said she wanted to sign a contract. I asked her when she was getting married and she said, "may". "Of this year??" I asked...yep, sure was. Thankfully I had the weekend open because this has been by far my favorite wedding. (No offense to all my other lovely couples).

I saw Kristen walking through the bridal show and thought to myself how much I would LOVE to get my camera on her. She's jut one of those stunning women that can't take a bad picture if she tried. When she and Todd decided they wanted me to shoot their wedding I was so stinkin' excited. I KNEW the photographs were going to turn out AMAZING.

Over the last few months I have gotten to know Todd and Kristen, I can't help but adore them as individuals but also as a couple. Todd is the sweetest man (though he has a super sarcastic side too...he nearly gave me a heart attack when I first met him). It has been wonderful getting to know them and I'm positive our friendship will continue, and I'll get to take photos of their babies, whenever that happens.

Sooooooo, *drum roll* please! Here are some of my favorite picturs, which to be honest there is probably about a hundred that I want to put up here. You can go check out their full gallery

HERE!

Just go to "Real Life, Real Love" and view Kristen + Todd's gallery.























Todd and Kristen, thank you so much for trusting me to capture all your special moments of your wedding day. It was amazing to be a part of it!

J

My roomie from college is getting married!

Rachael and I have been friends for about five years (though it seems like we've been friends forever)! We met on the internet...no I'm not joking. I needed a different place to live my junior year and she was looking for a roomate. It was a match made in heaven :) The day I met her it was instant friendship, we liked the same things, had the same style in fashion, same sense of humor....

I was so excited the day she called me in January to tell me she was getting married. She always joked that she was always the bridesmaid never the bride, but I knew someday her prince would come along. I was pretty much a bauling mess when she asked me to be in the wedding (I had just assumed I'd be taking the pictures). So...shooting her and Jeremy's engagement was super special for me. This is the first time I've done photos of a frined getting married. Usually the friendship comes BECAUSE of a wedding and the couple and I just remain friends.

Truth be told, doing pictures for people I already know is a little more nerve wrecking for me than doing photos for strangers. I have a phobia for rejection I guess. Anyway...Rach and Jeremy, I am so happy for you guys and can't wait to be a part of your beautiful wedding day in a few short months. You both are going to look smashing :)

Ashley & Scott Engagement Session

I have so much to say about these two. They are crazy in love, adorable, smart, did I mention in love??

Ashley has got this awesome chic style about her while Scott is just one big ball of funniness. When I first met them I thought, "oh man, he is not going to like getting his picture taken" but actually he was one of the most natural men in front of the camera.

The weather couldn't have been more perfect and the photos turned out amazing. Hope you enjoy!








Ashley and Scott, your wedding day is going to be BEAUTIFUL! I had so much fun photographing the two of you for your engagement session!

J

Chris & Tana

Chris and Tana got married at the end of May. (Yes, I know I'm behind). I hadn't met the two of them before their wedding day and I was BLOWN away by the love they share and how friggin' HOT these two were together :)

Tana's personality is much the same as mine. She has an amazing smile and an awesome sense of humor. Chris, a laid back kind of guy that has no problem smiling and showing how much he loves his woman. Here are my favs from their day :)

Chris had his grandpa's pocket watch with a photo locket in it. Totally sweet idea!



Are you serious? One my all time favorite pictures, ever!



Told you he was good lookin' huh?!


Their bridal party was hilarious. It was obvious they were a dedicated group of friends. And the girls were good sports for jumping in the air!


Been married for about 45 seconds. Can you just see how they are busting at the seams with excitement???


Yet another favorite for me. If I could, I'd have this hanging in my house, but that would be a little weird. Loooove this picture :)



I love me some ring shots! My new macro lens really captures the detail of the diamonds.


I love it when we randomly find a canoe on the beach. How cute is this?? You can't see it very well, but Tana had on some awesome checkered shoes. I thought it was totally hot that she rocked 'em out.


Okay, so I have a lot of favorites. I love this one because it looks like they got married on some quaint little island off the coast of nowhere. Probably would hang this one in my house too.


A beautiful ending to their amazing day!


Chris and Tana thank you so much for letting me be a part of your. It couldn't have turned out more perfect.

J

The Honor of Motherhood (and Fatherhood)

It's funny how being a mother can be the best job in the world, yet be the most challenging, frusterating, emotional job all at the same time. So many times us mommies (daddies too) do things that go un-noticed and we think to ourselves, why in the world am I even bothering? Well for all your parents out there that ask yourself that question, the following really spoke to me, and I hope it speaks to you as well. The author is unknown, my dad gave it to me from a church bulletin a couple weeks ago:

It all began to make sense, the blank stares, the lack of response, the way one of the kid will walk into the room while I'm on the phone and ask to be taken to the store. Inside I'm thinking, "Can't you see I'm on the phone?" Obviously not.

No one can see if I'm on the phone, or cooking, or sweeping the floor, or even standing on my head in the corner, because no one can see me at all. I'm invisible. The invisible Mom. Some days I am only a pair of hands, nothing more: Can you fix this? Can you tie this? Can you open this?

Some days I'm not a pair of hands; I'm not even a human being. I'm a clock to ask, "What time is it?" I'm a satellite guide to answer, "What number is the Disney Channel?" I'm a car to order, "Right aroud 5:30 please."

I was certain that these were the hands that once held books and the eyes that studied history and the mind that graduated summa cum laude-but now they had disappeared into the peanut butter, never to be seen again. She's going; she's going; she is gone!

One night, a group of us were having dinner, celebrating the return of a friend from England...Janice had just gotten back from a fabulous trip, and she was going on and on about the hotel she stayed in. I was sitting there, looking around at the others all put together so well. It was hard not to compare and feel sorry for myself. I was feeling pretty pathetic, when Janice turned to me with a beautifully wrapped package, and said, "I brought you this."

It was a book on the great cathedrals of Europe. I wasn't exactly sure why she'd given it to me until I read her inscription: "To Charlotte, with admiration for the greatness of what you are building when no one sees."

In the days ahead I would read-no-devor-the book. And I would discover what would become for me, four life-changing turths, after which I could pattern my work:

No one can say who built the great cathedrals-we have no record of their names. These builders gave their whole lives for a work they would never see finished. They made great sacrifices and exepcted no credit. The passion of their building was fueled by their faith that the eyes of God saw everything.

A legendary story in the book told of a rich man who came to visit the cathedral while it was being built, and he saw a workman carving a tiny bird on the inside of a beam. He was puzzled and asked the man, "Why are you spending so much time carving that bird into a beam that will be covered by the roof? No one will ever see it." And the workman replied, "Because God sees."

I closed the book, feeling the missing piece fall into place.

It was almost as if I heard God whispering to me, "I see you, Charlotte. I see the sacrificies you make every day, even when no one around you does. No act of kindness you've done, no sequin you've sewn on, no cupcake you've baked, is too small for me to notice and smile over. You are building a great cathedral, but you can't see right now what it will become."

At times, my invisibility feels lik an affliction. But it is not a disease that is erasing my life. It is the cure for the disease of my own self-centeredness. It is the antidote to my strong, stubborn pride. I keep the right perspective when I see myself as a great builder. As one of the people who show up at a job that they will never see finished, to work on something that their name will never be on.

The writer of the book went so far as to say that no cathedrals could ever be built in our lifetime because there are so few pople willing to sacrifice to that degree.

When I really think about it, I don't want my son to tell the friend he's bringing home from college for Thanksgiving, "Mom Mom gets up at 4 in the morning and bakes homemade pies, and then she hand bastes a turkey for three hours and presses all the linens for the table." That would mean I'd built a shrine or a monument to myself. I jut want him to want to come home. And the, if there is anything more to say to his friend, to add, "You're gonna love it there."

As parents, we are building great cathedrals. We cannot be seen if we're doing it right. And one day, it is very possible tat the world will marvel, not only at what we have built, but at the beauty that has been added to the world by the sacrifices of invisible parents.

Reading this really opened my eyes to how important motherhood is. I hope all of you have a wonderful start to your week.

J

Sneeks.....

I am so excited to show all my readers this wedding. The bride and groom haven't seen the pictures yet, well except for the ones I"m going to post here obviously. I met Shauna at the gym a couple years ago. She's a cycle instructor. One of those super sexy but kind of hippee sort of women. Right up my ally basically :) She and Dart are the perfect blend of romanticism and a great sense of humor. :)

So....just two to show you now...more later though :)






Shauna and Dart it was so awesome getting to be a part of your special day. I love you both to pieces!!!

J

Quantity isn't always quality

I have taken the last few months to do a lot of reading, research and soul searching as far as the direction I want my business to go. When I first started in the industry I was convinced that clients wanted as many pictures as possible, even if that meant being stuck looking at 1500+ pictures. As with anyone first starting into a new business venture, I had a lot to learn about what truly is important to clients as well as to the integrity of my company.

The old addage, "bigger doens't always mean better" was certainly true for my photography. Though my clients were more than thrilled with the photographs I was giving them, I wasn't happy at all. I was missing the spark I so desperately was searching for in pictures. I didn't want to be like anyone else in Fort Wayne, I wanted my photos to stand out, to have a different flare than anyone had seen before.

I owe a lot of my knowledge and style to Bobbi + Mike and Scarlett Lillian . Both of them have opened up their hearts and minds to me when I had questions, and just looking at their amazing work has given me such inspiration over the last couple of years.

I read an article the other day on one of my photography sites, (I have many!) and it was talking about how photograhers should only show the images that WOW their clients. To some of you, this may be a "duh" statement, but it spoke to me in a much differen way. The way I had been taught in my early years of photography was to give the clients a ton of images and let them pick what they think is the "wow" image. I totally took this the wrong way at first and basically gave clients a bunch of images, even ones that I was like, "eh...that's not really all that great, but they might think it is."

The last couple of weeks, I have noticed my photos have become so much better as I strive to capture that "wow" moment at the precise moment instead of just holding down my shutter, taking fifteen frames and then choosing in Bridge the best one. In hind sight it gives me a whole lot of respect for the pioneers in our industry that used (or may still use) film. You have got to know your stuff when you don't have the ability to look on your screen and see if you nailed the shot. So...here's a little kudos to all of the amazing photographers out there who paived the way for us.

Why do I bring this up? I can't tell you how many couples I get that ask me, "How many pictures do you take generally?" I used to generalize and say around 1500. But that number is so misleading....1500 totally differet pictures? 1500 files on a DVD? So...to my current and future clients, I can't really say how many pictures I take. It depends on your event, what's going on, how many "wow factors" I come across. You don't want to look at boring pictures anymore than I want to take them. I can tell you I have been shooting far less than I had been as far as number of frames taken. But, I am finding I am SO MUCH happier with the end product.

I can't wait to show all of you the things I have been working on the last couple of weeks...

And of course, no post is complete without a picture...(I know I am terrible about this....)

Here's munchkin this week after getting his hair cut...I can't believe how grown up he looks :(

A I love me some babies :)

Okay, so it's no secret that I am ready for another baby.....but will be forced to wait for just a little while longer I guess. Anyway, my beautiful friend Brianne had a baby boy at the beginning of May, and I couldn't wait to get my camera on him. He is so dang cuuuuute! Don't you agree?



He's such a little GQ man already....and only three weeks old!


This little guy has just captured my heart. It brings back all the memories of when Jaxson was first born. These first few weeks are so precious....and Bri, thanks so much for letting me capture your little man :)



Lots of sneeks coming soon. Three weddings, engagements and some more baby pictures. Stay tuned!