Minji | Harrisonburg Senior Portrait Photographer

Wow! Who knew Harrisonburg had so many fun places to take senior portraits? I had only photographed in that area a few times before Minji and I decided it would be a good place to take her senior portraits. In my mind, I had already thought of a few locations, but decided to scout a few more once I knew what type of images she wanted. I particularly love these railroad images. There are a quite a few others, but my blog server would have crashed if I had posted all the fantastic images of this fun girl :-)

Daniel | Harrisonburg Senior Portrait Photographer

I had never taken senior portraits with a violin as a prop. Let me assure you, this violin was no prop! Daniel treated his mom & me to some beautiful music as we moved around Staunton taking his portraits. I love using Staunton's downtown area for portrait sessions. There are so many interesting walls, natural backdrops and cubby holes to choose from and each time the results look different. Daniel, I hope you like your sneak peek. I love the textured image at the bottom. It was my favorite of the week :-)

Trevor | Waynesboro Virginia Senior Photographer

I am so happy to finally have gotten the opportunity to finish Trevor's senior portraits! Nasty weather interrupted our first meeting, but the make-up day was perfect. Beautiful weather for November and the sunset was incredible. He had some fun ideas and even the dog cooperated for some great images...

Allison | Harrisonburg Senior Portrait Photographer

After several weather delays, I am so happy I finally got to meet Allison! It was especially fun for me as her mom is an old high school friend of mine. We took some beautiful images. Allison braved a chilly and very windy afternoon to create some seriously fun portraits in her favorite homecoming dress. My Canon truly loved this girl :-)

Nan, are we done yet? | Harrisonburg Newborn Photographer

My first grandchild was born last Friday and I have been having so much fun helping out this first week. She is a beautiful little girl and I have to say that Kelly and Taylor are rocking this new parent stuff! To celebrate the one week mark, I am sharing a few newborn portraits of Miss Riley. She was really quite tolerant of her Nan messing around taking these images. As my daughters say, this will be one of the most photographed babies in the world. Though I am positive her four young uncles will teach the fine art of running from my camera as soon as it appears ;-)

And now for Clark Kent...

Super Man | High School Senior Photography Waynesboro, Virginia

Just for you, Nick! I think you make a great Superman :-) Click on the image for better view.

I will publish a few of your more "Clark Kent" moments in the next few days for you & your mom to see....enjoy!

Credits: Great Superman Template from Matty DeCesare on the Deviant Art website

Vintage Senior| Waynesboro Senior Photographer

This week was vintage week and Emily got to be the first senior to have portraits finished with these filters. I was excited to play with some photoshop filters I hadn't previously used and create a vintage look to the finished portraits. Emily had a great location and some fantastic clothes for her session that I thought would really flow with the look I was trying to create. To be honest, there is a great deal of time and creativity that goes into creating portraits that are non-traditional. It isn't too difficult to simply adjust lighting, contrast and simple color. Most photo editing programs will allow those changes. Its getting beyond that is great fun. Professional cameras differ from your point & shoot cameras in quite a few ways, but one important way is that they allow us to create images in a RAW format. That is mumbo-jumbo for humongous digital files with lots of pieces of individual data ;-) The reason I use this format is so that I have lots of room to play with the images in the editing phase. This week, I tweaked the data to give Emily's portraits a fun, retro or vintage look. I happen to like this look, but have no fear....I can always use that same data to transform these same images to a totally different look! We'll have to wait and see what Emily and her mom like best :-D

5 weeks and counting...

till our little princess makes her appearance :-) I am not sure I can adequately describe the level of excitement in our house as we approach this awesome event. From the youngest boy "Unka Ched" to my husband, Jay "aka MoDaddy" (You really need to find a better grandpa name, Babe), we are all 0n pins & needles and ready to meet her! I had the priviledge of taking maternity images for Kelly and her husband Taylor this weekend. I know she is my daughter and that makes me incredibly biased, but she is just beautiful with that baby belly and Taylor is so sweet as he helps her through this last few weeks. Watching these two together makes me happy :-) Here's just a few of my favorite images...

Kacy | Senior Portrait Photographer Waynesboro, Virginia

After being rained out once and then a hurricane creeping up the coast, I was wondering when we would get to finish Kacey's senior session! Of course, the sun always seems to shine brightest after a storm and we definitely enjoyed the beautiful afternoon. I am really happy with the images we created and thought I would post a few for Kacy to enjoy. Now, we just have to get her brother Trevor in front of the camera....

Prop Crazy

I have a closet in my studio that is full of different props. I don't use props for all my pictures. I think they should enhance an image and not all images call for a little bit of something extra. Some of the props are for little guys and some for big guys. The newborn props are soft, sweet and fluffy. The girl props are...well girly. But that doesn't matter to Pierre. He loves rifling through all the props. Although there aren't new things in there all that often, it is like he finds something else fun to play with each and every time he opens the door. The overflowing shelves are like a treasure trove. He is very creative and finds something new & different to do with them most times, but returns to his favorites like old friends. I love watching his imagination and often wonder how I didn't think of some of those ideas???

Best of all for me, Pierre loves to have his photo taken. His billion dollar smile could be packaged to sell just about anything and his handsome face and beautiful eyes light up in front of the camera. This willingness to pose for me doesn't extend to most of his siblings, so I am happy that this guy is a camera happy, prop crazy person just like me :-)

Ben | Harrisonburg Family & HS Senior Photographer

Great weather this week for a senior photo session. Ben said he definitely used up several months worth of smiles during this session, but I have to say that I think his mom will be happy with the results! There are lots of great images, but these were a few of my favorites...

Simply Sweet| Harrisonburg Newborn and Child Photographer

I have been inconsistent about posting sneak peeks this summer. Four boys at home have a way of getting my workflow seriously off-track! However, this little one was so sweet, I couldn't wait to edit a few of my favorites and post them on the blog for her parents and grandma :-)