{photos in your home}

I shoot this beautiful family last summer. Dani, the mom, emailed me a photo of how she hung her photos. Don't they look great?

{Laura's graduation open house card}

Here are some more designs for cards that I do. If you are interested in thank you cards, save the date, birth announcements, grad cards, Christmas cards or any thing else please give me a call.

{baby Lucian}

I totally love this little family. They are some of the sweetest people. I actually went to high school with both Kevin and Jamie. Jamie and I went to Bethel college together and that is were we became friends. There were six of us that lived on the same floor and got pretty close. I had the privilege of photographing their wedding then their maternity photos and now their little guy. I absolutely love it when I am chosen as someone's life long photographer. And it is always a bonus when they go and have the cutest little baby. Congratulations Book family, I look forward to the many more photo sessions with you.

{photo girls gone wild}

My photo girl's group set aside business for an evening and had some fun. We first met at Sally's for some wine and apps and then headed over to this div bar in Richfield. We were definitely the center of attention with our big camera and pretty faces. Everyone had to take a photo by the end of the evening and here are some of the results.

This one is taken by some random bar guy.
This one is by Eliesa
Here is mine
Melissa's
Here is another one I took.
These last two are by Sally.To my girls, thanks for the wonderful evening!

{sara + nora}

Well there was at least one nice day in Minnesota which inspired me to take the girls out for some photos. A friend told me about this great antique shop, although I think it could be called a junk yard. It was a great place to bring the girls and get some photos.

Engagement Session :: Joanna & Ben

Joanna and Ben drove down from the Twin Cities to have their engagement session last weekend. It was the first time meeting the pair in person because they booked me for their July wedding over the phone after seeing my website.

The weather the morning of the shoot was cold and rainy. Luckily by the time the arrived the rain subsided. Our session started at High Cliff State Park. About 45min into the session and after learning more about the couple we decided to head downtown Appleton to do even more photos with an urban feel.

We took a break at a coffee house and chatted about their interests, their jobs and their wedding day. I love getting to know my couples!!! Joanna and Ben love life and love living in Minneapolis. One fun fact about each: Joanna is fluent in Spanish and Ben was a golf pro - he asked her to marry him in Spanish on the beach in Mexico - Awe!

Here are some of my favorite shots from the day. I cannot wait to shoot their July wedding!

I've been blogged!!!!!!!

Offbeat Bride (www.offbeatbride.com) blogged a few photos of mine from the wedding I helped shoot in San Francisco. It makes me excited to have my photos featured!!!!

Check it out for yourself!

WPPI :: Last blog entry

Day 6

The next morning came way to quickly! But I was up early enough to get my coffee and a good seat in Michael and Anna Costa's platform class. I absolutely LOVED this pair!!! The information I soaked up in this class is going to be so very useful to me this season.

Today was the first full day of the trade show. I visited so many booths....some of the vendors I researched included: KISS, Forbeyon, Jill•e Bags, Canon, DNL Photo Packaging, Studio Cloud, Triple Scoop Music and much more! After a few hours at the trade show my roommates and I decided to venture to the MAC Cosmetics store to have our makeup done for that evening's party hosted by Photo LoveCat and PIF photography. We had a lot of fun and even squeezed in a mini photo session at the store. The MAC Cosmetics professional store in Las Vegas is the largest in the world!!!

The last class of the evening featured Jesh de Rox. We arrived early so we could get good seats... we got there over an hour and a half early and scored 4 first row seats. Jesh's talk was amazing. He talked more about being a good person - being there in the moment. He had us do a visualization - he had us close our eyes and think of someone who we love and who loves us. He asked if we felt any kind of tingling sensation when we were imagining that person. That feeling of love and exhileration is free, real and love... that is how we should live our lives and approach our photography. It was really inspirational - especially when Amy Seely performed - she is AMAZING! I felt like I left that class with a clear mind and a better understanding of why I do what I do.

Check out these videos!






As if the night couldn't get any better.... we were invited to the Pay It Forward / Anne Ruthmann / PhotoLoveCat party at the Palms I-Bar. We arrived a little early so we could help Anne with some last minute preparations. While were were enjoying the open bar I met Michael and Heather Krakora from Madison. They were a neat couple and look forward to meeting up with them again.

One awesome thing about this party was that they were giving away a ton of prizes!!! I won a 16x20 gallery wrap, but decided to PIF (pay it forward) to someone who could really use it. Other awesome prizes that were given away by many great sponsors - to read more about it visit the PIF blog.

Day 7
We slept in a little... after coming home at 3:00am I needed to sleep at least until 8:00am - but Kelly and I woke up early enough to sneak into the end of one class. After that is was more trade show - Tradeshow sooo many booths!!! So little time! Got to meet Jessica Claire, Mathew Jordon Smith and while walking around the booths! I signed with the album company Forbeyon and am very happy to bring this high end album to my clients. Later that evening we attended a platform class by Jared Bauman. He is only 27 years old and is speaking on running a successful wedding photography business. I was lucky to be a part of a "dance off" and won a instructional dvd from Me Re Koh ;-)

After the last class of the night we headed to In and Out Burger. This restaurants concept is to have everything fresh - never frozen. They make the french fries from real potatoes right in front of your eyes. They pride themselves on high quality meats and great service with a retro feel.

This was our last night in Vegas so we decided to have some fun jumping on the bed. We were inspired by a photo we saw in class that day and HAD to do it ourselves - see more fantastic bed jumping photos at bedjump.com

Day 8
Kelly and I woke up early and headed to the airport. We were happy to be "leaving Las Vegas". It was a long trip home - I was happy to see my family after 8 days away!

{flowers in mexico}

I went to Mexico back in February with my sister and I took these two photos there. We had a lovely time staying with her aunt and uncle. I hope to post some more photos from the trip soon.

{rachael + chris}

I could not have asked for a better first wedding of the season then Rachael and Chris'. The lighting was just perfect in the church and Rachael was stunning. We got some amazing shooting in downtown Waconia with the rustic buildings. then we headed over to the Waconia Ballroom for the reception. Congratulations and thanks again for letting us share in your day.