Thank you Michele

... for making me unbelievably happy with these family pictures. We traveled to Austin one weekend where I ran in the Austin half marathon with one of my besties. That afternoon, we had a family session with the oh-so-brilliant Michele Anderson ... and she gave us the perfect blend of portrait and lifestyle photography with just the right amount of quirkiness and "perfect imperfection" I was looking for.  


This is what I mean by "perfect imperfection." There is a rubberband around my wrist in the pictures. Totally didn't realize it at the time but I'm a mom and that's what we do. We fix our kid's hair and leave the rubberbands around our wrist. I did it without even thinking or realizing it was still around my wrist and now it's in our pictures for all of eternity. But I think its hilarious and LOVE IT.

You see photographers need family pictures too. Maybe more so than others- after all, we live and breath imagery... photographs are our lives!  There are lots... LOT,  of big beautiful canvases, prints, standouts etc. of the kids all over the house.  But there were very few family pictures that showed US. 

But not anymore.

I feel like a lovesick teenager when I look through this gallery. I study the images and can SEE how much this family means to me. Maybe I am being melodramatic, but ...

...they make me smile from ear to ear. 

Remember this picture I took?  Well, Presley remembered it and begged me to allow them to smash ice cream in my face. As you can see, I obliged- the last picture of our session :-)

I hope my clients feel the same way I do when they look at the pictures I take of their family. Makes me feel really truly deep-down-in-my-gut-blessed that I get to make people as HAPPY as she has made me for a living.

Michele- I already cannot WAIT for our next family session! A million, billion, zillion thanks to you!

I bought all of the digital files and this is a large wall display I created from them.  When Michele posted a picture of this display on facebook- my dad called me fifteen minutes later absolutely flabbergasted I would frame a picture of our feet. But it's one of my favorites :)

I get asked often for clothing advice... especially for larger families (like mine!).  This is how I approached the issue and how I suggest my clients approach it. My house is pretty earthy (lots of wood, the walls are kind of a light khaki green), so I knew I wanted a lot of color in the pictures. Jesse is more of a neutral kind of guy and I absolutely crave a LOT of color, so we have to balance out both our tastes. Anywho, there is this lampshade I have in my living room from Anthro that I LOVE. Like I love it so much if my house were on fire, I would probably run back in the house to try to save it.  I used that lamp as my color inspiration for our clothing. I knew I wanted a large wall display, I knew I wanted color, and I wanted everything to coordinate (but not match... big, HUGE, difference).  I learned the color inspiration trick from David Bromstad of Color Splash... he has his clients pick out a favorite piece (whether its a painting, a piece of fabric, etc.), and designs room around the palette in that piece. A nifty little trick if you ask me!  I also tried to mix in different patterns- I did not want everything to be solid. Don't be scared of graphic patterns- they look awesome in photographs!