Now that the holidays are over I can breathe again and finally get around to post about some of the shoots I went on in October, November, and December. Yay!

Meet, Cari and Scott. They are new to the south, but fitting right in. Cari is as sweet as can be, and Scott (once you break him from his shell and talk about biking or the Oregon Ducks) is just as fun loving as his wife. Originally, we had intended to shoot their session in a cotton field, but we missed the harvest. Don’t worry they were able to get a few shots in a cotton field when they ran out to one for a quick session with a friend one day. I’d never thought to shoot in a cotton field. Such a cute idea. Cari I now blame you for getting that thought stuck in my head. I dream about cotton now, and can’t wait for the fall so I can go take some cotton pickin’ pictures. I had to. I’m sorry.

Anywho, we found a suitable location, and captured some sweet moments. Here’s a few of my favorites.

The pesky town square decorated the barn all harvesty. Is that a word? Harvesty? Oh well. I could have lived without the corn stalks in the shot, but what are ya’ gonna do? I do however love the light in this one.

Look at this girl jumping right on into the southern culture, and sporting her a pair of cowboy boots.

If you are a fan of Bella Vita and/or Itty Bitty Bella you might recognize Cari from shopping there. If not, go there and shop. You won’t regret it. The shops are awesome!

I finally found time to edit the rest of Grayson’s one year photos that I took back in August. Life keeps me busy, but I was determined to get this done. I didn’t quite know when that day would come, but by golly I was gonna do it. As to not totally bore you with photos of my super cute, super squishy, beautiful baby boy. Over the top? Yeah? Sorry. I’ll tone it down a bit.

Let’s try this again. As to not totally bore you with this average, no frills kid I popped out of me 16 months ago. Better? Good.

I am breaking his one year photos into two different posts. These are the “Bow Tie Photos”. You guys should feel lucky. Not even facebook has seen all of these yet.

This first photo was on our Christmas card this year.

So dapper!

Tiny Tom’s. Totally Terrific! (10,000 points to whoever can tell me what show Totally Terrific is from. Derek, you can’t answer.)

Really, could his lashes be any longer? At this point I think they might have been longer than his hair.

The kid still makes this face 4 months later. It’s his super excited/dancing face. He usually emits a high pitched squeal while making it. It’s quite the ear-piercing sound.

 I still have a few more to edit from his cake smashing session, and then I will have those puppies up and oozing with cuteness. See ya soon.

Squishy got to play with Christmas lights. Mainly so I could take some photos.

His sweet eyelashes are so long that they are casting a shadow on his eyelids in this next image. M-E-L-T!

I feel a large canvas of one of these being printed in the near future. I know they are a bit grainy, but that’s half of the charm. You’ve gotta remember it was pitch black in that hallway. So hello, High ISO.

I’m in love with this one. Just. Feet.

And then he attacked me. Which is how most playtimes end.

I think I might get a few more of him tomorrow in his red & white striped Christmas PJs for next year’s Christmas card.

Has anyone else taken these photos? Were you inspired by Pinterest too?

I shoot in manual on my DSLR (Canon 60D). Here are some tips to achieve simular results with your DSLR. The settings I listed below are what most of my images were shot at…

ISO: 1000

exposure: 1/160s

aperture: f/4.0

focal length: 18.0 mm & 21.0 mm 

lens: 18-200mm

NO FLASH!!!!

Each photo varies slightly to adjust for the way he was holding the lights. My suggestion is to start at these settings, in manual mode, and then adjust as needed.

Do y’all remember the newborn I shot about a year ago that had a head full of beautiful brown hair? Well, it’s only gotten more beautiful. I don’t think I had that much hair when I was 5. No joke, folks.

I had the privilege to shoot Ms. P’s 1 year photos recently. And lucky me, we took them in one of my current favorite locations. This little town square is quickly becoming a go-to spot for many of my shoots and many other photographers in town. It’s so quaint and rustic. You can just feel the charm oozing out of it. It’s a shame I live on the other side of town. But since I live like 2 seconds from the interstate it’s just a quick 30 minute zip up ‘old I-40 and I’m there.

Don’t you just love those wood blocks? I picked them up at a local antique mall and just love them. They are great for adding some intrest to a child’s photo shoot. It also helps in entertaining the wee ones. (I spent $10 at the antique mall for about 20 or so blocks and just last week saw some extremely simular ones in the dollar section at Target. Just my luck. All I would have to do is rough them up a touch to get the same look…grrrr! I picked up 2 packs of the new ones to use for shoots and will return the antique ones to Grayson’s shelves.)

Those eye, those curls!!!

I adore this next photo. It’s so whimsical, and dreamlike. Would it be weird to hang a print of this in my house? Probably.

Smash cake cupcake time!!!

Oops…

It was good while it lasted.

This is Megan and Justin. A couple full of fun and personality. And Megz has a belly full of baby. Don’t worry, she didn’t eat a baby. She’s pregnant. And as you might have guessed, these are her maternity pics.

I mean, really? How natural is this girl in front of the camera?

There’s teeny tiny Lyla June. Don’t worry, her newborn pics are coming soon.

I love this old gin distillery. It makes for a kick butt backdrop. Don’t ya think?

Do you see this child’s skin? B-E-A-utiful. Sweet little C has the most perfect creamy, peachy, glowing skin. Seriously, I barely had to touch up these photos. C was the most well behaved 6 month old I’ve ever met. This is another one of those posts that I should have had up months ago, but I am a slacker and I never got around to it. Because sweet little C is almost 9 months old now.

We were certain the trolly driver wouldn’t stop long enough to let us snap a few photos on or by the trolly. We thought he would either make us pay to get on (even though we didn’t intend to ride) or he would say no due to him being on a schedule. Friends have told me sometimes the drivers get annoyed with people asking them to stop so they could take a few pictures.

We totally lucked out! The trolley had just pulled into a stop. The driver said he was going on break, and that we were welcome to hop on the trolly car since no one was on it. I really think we found the perfect time of day for this. Early Saturday morning. No one goes downtown that early on a Saturday. They are all at home recovering from the night before.

The day after I took these photos a major storm hit Memphis. And another the week after, and the week after that, and the week after that. Those storms were just the beginning of a string of bad luck happenings that my family has run into lately. I took these photos in April, and just last week we found out that our credit card was stolen. I mean come on! I thought bad luck was suppose to come in groups of three not multiples of three, because we are on like number 12 here, people. Posting some pics from this shoot just got lost in a big ole pile of chaos.

Anywho, here are a few of my favorites from a family session on an incredibly windy day. When I say windy I mean gusts of winds so forceful the next day all of those pretty tulips you see standing so pretty and tall had a nice 45 degree angle to them. I think the wind speed estimates were somewhere around 60 mph that day. It made for some difficult shooting. Girls you know what I mean. Wind is the enemy when it comes to looking put together. The only girls that can really pull of windy usually are 10 and under, like this sweet little one here…

Here is Joe and his mom. I hope Gray still lets me take sweet pictures with him when he’s all grows up.

I can’t believe this little milk dud is 6 months old now. My my, how time flys. And hair, on a windy day.