The "R" family Wedding

So here it is. My first wedding shoot. It's funny how looking back at these I do really feel like it was a good job for my first one, and at the same time I know how much my work has improved since then. I guess practice really does make perfect. Allow me to let you in on a little secret. Most times when I get home from a photo session, I want to look at the pictures right away. This is really a bad idea honestly but I do it anyway. Why is it a bad idea? Because I critique myself to death and am so hard on myself when I look through them. Most times I walk away from them saying....man I suck, or I just couldn't get the lighting right, blah blah blah. I do much better if I mentally give myself a break after the session and go look at them later on.

Anyway, without further ado, I present to you, Mr and Mrs. "R":

The "R" Family

So you know how a few days ago I mentioned I would be sharing some of my photography hobby with you, well allow me to introduce to you:

The "R" family

Family...err couple. Oddly enough the photos I took of my friends the "E" family were viewed by the "R" couple, and thus I was asked. "Have you ever considered shooting a wedding?" Umm no. Well I didn't say that out loud, but in my mind I said HA! No! I didn't even own a digital SLR. The pictures I had taken of the E's were just taken by a nice digital point and shoot. Instead of saying no, I considered the opportunity. She wouldn't have approached me (she meaning bride, meaning....all brides want their day to go perfectly....) if she didn't like my work right? So I set to work making a photography contract and deciding on a price. Shooting a wedding is no easy task. There is a lot involved not to mention hours of editing. Once all was said and done, I had booked my first wedding photography contract. Included in my wedding package for the couple was their engagement photos. These were still taken with a point and shoot, but for Christmas that year (before their wedding) my hubby bought me one of my loves...my Canon Digital SLR...Love. It. and someday when I have more money I will hopefully have an insanely nice one, but for now, I like what I have and I purchased a new lens for it last year that I love even more!

Let me share with you a few from our day:

Teething Cookies

So I kind of have this thing....I am against a lot of different baby marketing spiels and thus have set out to find ways to basically do a lot of things myself. I make my own baby food, cloth diaper, make my own diaper rash cream remedies, etc. Some of them have worked some of them haven't, but I must say its been fun, and I enjoy doing it. Mostly because I am trying to save money and it is definitely nice to know exactly what is going into my daughters food.

For awhile I was on a kick of giving my daughter her purees only and froze a bunch of those and it was fun...for a short while, but it got old really fast. I could tell she was getting bored, and I mistakenly thought she had to have teeth in order to give her bits and pieces of food right? Wrong! I still use some purees (hardly any anymore) and she still doesn't have any teeth (which is fine with this nursing mama!) but we've started giving her pretty much whatever we eat. Thanks to my friend Erin who introduced me to Baby Led Weaning we are actually all enjoying eating meals as a family, and my daughter is loving experiencing all different kinds of foods. I actually enjoy watching her eat now. Of course we aren't hardcore, and we are still her parents so we pick and choose how we want to use this method but it has been great thus far.

I'll share some more about Baby Led Weaning another time, but for now I wanted to share with you one of my latest concoctions....Teething Cookies. I wanted to give Abbie something to gnaw on, to occupy her, a snack if you will....and so I started looking for something that wouldn't crumble in large chunks that she could choke on, and thus found these. I was a little skeptical before making them, but couldn't have been happier with the results. I hope you enjoy! (I know they have eggs and sugar in them so if you are against that...don't make them!)

Teething Cookies

2 eggs
1 cup of sugar
2- 2 1/2cups flour


Break eggs into bowl and stir until creamy. Add sugar and continue to stir. Gradually add enough flour to make a stiff dough. Roll out between two sheets of lightly floured wax paper to about ¼ inch thickness.
Cut into shapes. Place on a lightly greased cookie sheet. Let it stand overnight (10-12 hours). Bake at 325 degrees until browned and hard, approximately 15 minutes. This will make about 12 durable and almost crumb free teething biscuits.



A few notes post baking this recipe....

• The dough seemed too dry to me so I added more water, but then I ended up having to bake them a lot longer so don’t be afraid to get your hands in their to really work the dough together and bring it into one solid dough mass- I think it would have worked out fine had I just left it alone and was patient with the dough.
• Use cute cookie cutters if you want to to make it more fun. I used hearts :)
• The dough reminds me of a sugar cookie dough so it does seem more crumbly when rolling it out.
• Don’t be afraid to cut these into smaller shapes. Mine are pretty big when you think about the size of the 8 month old who is actually eating them!
• These should keep at room temperature for a week, but you can freeze the rest of them. Once you take them out of the freezer they should be good for 3 days.

Oh and PS....Abbie absolutely loves them!!

The 'E' family

My first photography shoot ever.

I must say I laughed as I looked back at these. Sometimes when I take photos now I am so hard on myself, but to all you photographers out there.....I handed these photos to my soon to be bride unedited....unedited??? Something I wouldn't dream of doing now! In my defense, I really had no intention of this photography shoot turning into anything. I took them for my friend who at the time was not going to get any engagement photos. She was trying to cut corners in planning for her wedding, and decided she didn't need engagement photos. Well this photography loving girl just wouldn't have any of that! I said basically "over my dead body you won't...I'm taking some for you. They may not be good, but they are better than nothing and every girl should have some engagement photos!" And thus....it began. I had fun that day. A lot of fun actually, and the funny thing is, because her husband is in the military they had to plan quickly for their wedding and planning quickly meant planning the wedding before she was actually officially engaged. Time came for engagement pictures, and still no ring, but lo and behold I was there to capture their photos of his actual proposal as he got down on one knee and asked her to spend the rest of his life with him....melt. my. heart. Love it! He just got home from Afghanistan last weekend after being away for a year. So reliving these pictures was all that more enjoyable. Love you guys and am so blessed to see the two of you together again!

What a blessed moment! So lucky to have witnessed it!

Photography

Although I am not a professional photographer, photography is a part of my heart. I've always loved having a camera in my hands. Even to the point that some of my friends teased me and would always say "Wait everyone! Hold on Bridget needs to take a picture!" when we were all hanging out regardless of whether my camera was in tow or not.

Fortunately today's technology allows me to snap pictures to my hearts content without waiting until my film is developed to select my favorite. I will admit, there are few photographers around anymore it seems that really and truly understand technical information about taking pictures. To be able to understand settings on today's digital cameras to use it to work with lighting to capture the picture you want the moment you take it rather than have to edit the lighting in your picture later seems to be some sort of art. To know what ISO, aperture, and other photography terms mean seem to be becoming less and less respected.

As I started to take pictures of people upon request, I struggled. I struggled with knowing I didn't have the education that a professional photographer has. Education and knowledge of something is really important to me. I didn't want to devalue the education these professionals had worked so hard to receive by over saturating their client base with more options for competition when really, the true photographers deserved to be held at a higher value. Reality is though, for the everyday person, I cannot afford to spend $200 every few months to get my daughters photos updated. We all know how much babies change in their first year of life and my heart ached to know that I couldn't afford to capture that, but duh Bridget! You take photos for people of other things so take them of her. No they aren't taken by a photographer who graduated with a photography degree, but they are free. They are still really good and so slowly but surely I let my guard down a bit. I realize my God given gift of capturing moments on camera is an act of service. My fees are far less than most would charge because I like blessing people with something that is reasonable and affordable. I don't advertise. I don't want to start a business, I just do it upon request. By word of mouth. I like it that way. It means that when someone comes to me asking me to take their photos that they saw other photos I had taken and they liked them, or that the person who had their photos taken by me like them so much they recommended me. So occasionally I wanted the excuse to blog about my photography endeavors so don't be surprised if you see one on occasion. Writing about them here, gives me a chance to share a bit of my heart, and I like sharing my heart.

So without further ado.....allow me to catch up on my photography life just a bit. It may take me a few days, but I do want to share :)