Maternity Photography

I photographed Jamie and Wes's wedding back in 2008 (here is their amazing wedding) and now guess what?!! They are expecting a baby! I had a wonderful evening photographing Jamie's growing belly. Girl you are truly beautiful, and I cant wait to meet your little guy, hopefully you will get to see him in just a few weeks. Thank you both Jamie and Wes for having me out, for allowing me to photograph you, for sharing the beauty of your love, for showing patience with my little Athena, for delicious pizza, and best of all for being great friends. You guys really are the best!

Twin Newborns

I posted a few photos earlier, but as promised here is the full post. It was a challenge to get these little guys to both sleep at the same time. But we finally had success and got some beautiful pictures of the two of them. They are just 11 days old here, so teeny tiny. Enjoy.

Samantha and David's Story

Samantha (lovingly called Sami by her family and friends) and David got married April 9th at Braham Evangelical Lutheran Church and had their Beautiful Reception at the Hinckley Casino ballroom. They are such an amazing couple and you can tell that their family and friends agree! I have never seen such an animated wedding, the second the music started at the reception everyone was out there dancing! And not just dancing but really getting their groove on. Samantha is going to school to become a pastry chef and David for Child phycology. I loved the pastor he joked that they were going to have the perfect marriage because they would be rolling in the dough and have perfect children :) hahaha. I really had a great time at this wedding and I am so thankful that samantha, her mom, and her aunt picked me to be part of their big day. Here are the photos to tell the rest of the story.

Newborn Twins photography in St. Paul

Awwwwwwwww - twin newborns!

I wish I had more time to post a full post, but this week has been so very busy for me. I am sorry but all you get is a sneak peak of what is to come. I will have the full shoot and post ready next week, but just to tide you (and me) over here are 2 images from my newborn twins shoot.

awwwwww babies, I love babies!!!!

Before and After & info on Photoshop Actions

Before (straight out of the camera)

and After

I will post more before and afters as I go along this year. I will try to cover a wide range of issues, and style choices. In this one I wanted to show an artistic black and white. So my process on this photo was to create the black and white with an action, then added some sepia tone, some grain (or noise) and then add a vignette and a little burning in photoshop. Now I know this sounds like a lot, but with the help of photoshop actions it really only takes me about a minute. The action set that I purchased is from Kubota actions http://kubotaimagetools.com/ and a great place to get freebies is deviant art http://browse.deviantart.com/resources/applications/psactions/?alltime=yes&order=9

And all you do is download your purchased or free action go into photoshop, select your action pallet under Window > actions then go to the corner drop down menu and select "load action" go find the action you downloaded and say ok, then you have the action in your window. Then open a photo, select the action and push the arrow to play and sit back and watch the magic :)

I love them. One of my favorite freebies is the action on deviant called custom Vignette Action (just do a search) and the Holga Remix Square BW (this one adds some very artistic grain) So there you go - happy Action hunting. It will change the way you work with photos.

Samantha and David's Wedding

This is just a quick preview of the wedding that I shoot on April 9th at the Braham Evangelical Lutheran Church and reception at the Hinckley Grand Casino ball room. I am just starting the edit but a few photos just stood out and I felt like I really needed to share them. Their will be a full post to come with all sorts of details about the day and this beautiful, unique couple. Also I need to do a shout out to my awesome assistant Sherry. She did a FAB job on Saturday! Thanks girl! Before and after post to follow tomorrow. Enjoy everyone.