Dryw's Senior Portraits in Little Italy and La Jolla Cove

I am in the process of finishing up Dryw's Senior Portraits and I wanted to give you a little sneak peek. I am so excited about them!

More coming soon!

Taylor's Senior Portraits

People often laugh at some of the locations I choose to do portraits. Where "urban" sessions and grungy city scenes are quite the norm among photographers, I sometimes forget that my locations are new, and somewhat surprising, to my clients. Taylor's session was no exception. A couple of times he looked at me like, "Really? You want me to sit over there?" But in the end, I think my background selections were so worth it.

My Beautiful Devyn

It's about that time of year where Devyn is growing out of her old clothes and I realize that another year of her life is passing us by. My little girl is going to be turning 6 pretty soon, and I can't quite believe it. Didn't she just take her first steps not that long ago? How can she be scoring goals and hitting line drives and diving into the swimming pool when she just started walking??!!?? Ahhh . . . I'm getting old.

Anyways, when I realized her birthday was looming, I took her out to take some photographs to capture the last few moments of 5 years old. Everyday she grows more and more gorgeous. I love my little Devyn.

Happy Easter!

I hope everyone had a fantastic Easter. Between getting the house and yard and kids ready for our family Easter party, going to church, enjoying the festivities, having an egg hunt, re-cleaning the backyard and house, and getting the kids ready for bed, I am completely exhausted!

But I didn't want to go to bed before sharing my miracle picture. I'll preface this by saying that I don't photograph my kids together very often -- if at all. It's usually too stressful for me, someone's always griping or not cooperating, and my kids don't listen to me at all. I think if you ask most photographers, we'll all agree that it's a lot easier to hire our friends to photograph our kids for us. In fact, when my friend Ken photographs Devyn, she does exactly what he tells her. It's so annoying because she never does what I tell her! haha!

Anyways, the twins are getting older and slightly more cooperative, so I thought I'd give it a try before we headed out the door to church. And it was perfect! The kids all went over to the spot I picked out and as luck would have it, the dogs even joined in. I couldn't believe it! So . . . here are all 5 of my kids: Jordyn, Devyn, Tyler, Hayden & Cordelia.

Happy Easter, Everyone!

Hannah Montana Opened Today

This week I haven't been working very much (or blogging) because we did one of the hardest things I've ever had to do in my entire life--literally. We moved my gram into an assisted living facility. It just breaks my heart. To top it off, she's not adjusting well at all, so it's been extra tough. So, every spare moment of time has been spent visiting her, walking her around the facility, distracting her from her own heartache (she misses her dog), arguing with her that she can't leave the facility and go get a job!, and then once again trying to distract her. It's been an awful, awful week.

Despite the pain and heartache of this transition, we have been trying to make it a very fun week for Devyn. This was her first Easter Vacation from school! She went to Zoo Camp, had a bunch of playdates, visited great-grandma, and had a blast. Today we picked Gram up and took her with us to see the Hannah Montana movie that just opened. I have to admit . . . I think the TV show is super cute and I love what they did with Hannah in this movie. I saw some 3 and 4 year olds at the theater and, honestly, I don't know how they were following it. But for 6 year olds and older, it was perfect.

I think Devyn could have used a little less complicated plot and a lot more singing, but she loved it nonetheless. So fun! [FYI, the picture was taken with the really bad camera on my phone--sorry! And, yes, that is a Hannah Montana sweatshirt . . . you should see her REAL Hannah Montana guitar!]

Some Old Portraits of My Dog

I have been working on album edits this evening and doing some hard-drive organization, and in my attempts at getting organized once again - haha - I found myself reminiscing over some old photos. These were so cute, I just had to share them.

This is Cordelia when she was just 3 years old. (We call her Cordy for short, but one of my 2-year-old daughters calls her Corlia.) It's hard to believe that she is 7 years old now. Cordy is my first baby. She looks like such a puppy here!

My New Anthology Brochures are Here!

Walter and Paul at Copy Post Printing finished my Senior brochures this week and I am so excited because they look fabulous! Some of the seniors took them to school with them today to give to their friends. I'm just super happy because they turned out so pretty!

Makenzie's 6-Month Portraits

One of the best things about my job is getting to meet incredibly warm, caring, and genuinely nice people. For some reason, it seems like all of these nice and caring people have that special kind of two-fold beauty: inner and outward beauty. Grace and her daughter Makenzie are no exception. In fact, when I photographed little Makenzie for her 6-month photo session, I got to not only meet Makenzie and her mom, but I also got to meet auntie and uncle and grandma and grandpa and they were all so welcoming and inviting. I'm very fortunate!

Makenzie wasn't too entirely sure why we were making such a fuss over her, but she warmed up to the camera quite nicely. With a little teasing and playing with her binky, we even got some laughing ones in the bunny ears. So much fun!