Q&A with Trevor

There is an instrumental part of my business that needs to be properly introduced to all of you. He is not only the love of my life, but also my best friend, my support, my sounding board, my encouragement, and my second shooter. My husband, Trevor, has been a part of my business before it was a business. He was the first person there when it was still just a "someday when I'm all grown up crazy dream" of mine. He was there through every step, and he was the one to believe in me when I didn't even believe in myself.

I always had the dream of him becoming a bigger part of my business, wanting him to become my second shooter as I started doing weddings on my own, yet I kept this little secret to myself. He loves photography because he is surrounded by it because of me, but it is not his passion the same as it is mine. I knew I had some convincing to do, and when the time came to finally persuade him it wasn't as hard as I had imagined.

I love working with my husband! He makes everything more fun! It is so great to have the love of your life by your side as you are doing a job that you absolutely love. What could be better? The best part though...having him there to look at in those moments of true love at a wedding. There is always a moment, when the love of the bride and groom just makes my heart flutter, and I get to glance at my husband knowing we have that love too. I love it!

So, I wanted you to get to know him a little better. We did a short interview last night, and he even surprised me with some of the answers. I hope you will enjoy!

If you could change one thing about me, what would it be?

Your lists! You have lists about lists that you need to do each day. Just get it done!!! I LOVE how organized you are, but come on... you don't need ALL of those lists!

What are you passionate about?

I am so passionate about the Buckeyes! They are on my mind in some form every day. I also am a huge fan of Country music, especially Kenny Chesney. He is the man! I love my puppy Willie and my family is my world. But most of all my wife. I never knew you could possibly love someone so much! I only thought love this passionate was in the movies.

Where do you see our lives in five years?

Well, number one is children. (Yes future Grandparents, I am hoping for children (plural) in the next five years!) I also see Leah growing her dream into a successful business that provides lasting moments that families can cherish for many years to come.

Have you ever thought my dreams were or are crazy?

Every day! You have some of the most off the wall ideas that one could even think of, but I know how determined you are. There is no dream that I do not think you can accomplish. I only wish I had 1/2 the determination you show every day.

How do you feel when you are working for "your wife"?

I think it is great! It is really pretty easy...she is the boss. That applies to every day life as well. The faster I learned that, the better off my life has become!

Was it hard for you to learn the camera?

It was totally different than I have ever done before. I was always told to fit the people in the screen, hold the button half way down, wait for the beep, and then push the button to capture the image. Now I live in a world of ISO and shutter speeds. Shooting manual was something that was not easy to pick up at first, but I had a fantastic teacher with a lot of patience to help me through the entire process. Thanks babe!

On the day of the wedding, it seems you always know what I need or want you to do before I ask, how?

It is called marriage. We have been together for over nine years now. I better know what you want before you ask by now, or we have bigger issues.

Did you ever dream that you would be doing this with me?

Not in a million years! I always pictured you doing a wedding on Saturday afternoon in the July while I was playing a round of golf and enjoying the summer sunshine. Look at me now...I can't hit the ball straight, but I can capture some pretty darn good images on the wedding day!

What do you like most about working with me?

I just love being with you. I am so proud of you. I love to watch the way you interact with the Bride and Groom, and how you include the families in the special day. You are so professional, yet somehow get so comfortable with the couple that your images capture moments words can't explain.

What is your favorite part of the wedding day?

Hands down my favorite part of the wedding day is the couple's first dance. Not only do I love to capture the special moment, but I love to catch my wife's eye and fall in love all over again.

Also, there is ALWAYS a moment where my wife cries while shooting a wedding. At that moment, I know my wife is living out her dreams and I am so proud of what she has accomplished. I love you so much babe!

Here is Trevor in action at our last wedding:

And here are a few of the images that he captured throughout the day:

Showit Best of 2009

Yesterday was one of those days...where I questioned everything that I have been striving for, wondering if it ever was going to be worth it...just plain struggling. There was no particular reason for the bad day, it just was. Life sneaks up on us sometimes.

But for whatever reason, it seems that when you just don't know how you are going to pick yourself back up, someone does it for you. Last night, they announced the Showit Best of 2009 nominations. I did not expect my name to be there, but it was. I have been nominated for "Brand Boost" which is described as the "coolest brand integration using Showit's share feature". After taking a minute to do a little happy dance around my office, I sat back down in shock. There are photographers that have been nominated that I admire and am just amazed how my name could even be listed next to their's. So, I am thankful for where I am at in life, and it has inspired me to do even more. I am thrilled to see what the future holds for my business!

If you are so inclined, please go vote for me! I'd appreciate it so much!

And you definitely need to go check out Showit Sites! It's awesome! You can even build a free site with their program! Check it out.

Blog List

I am a complete list person, so there is no surprise that I would have a list of ideas for blog entries. Many times though, they never develop because there is simply not enough to write about the subject. I would compare it to the way I think of the iPad right now. It is not completely a laptop, but it is more than an iphone. Just like these notes are not quite an entire blog entry, but yet they deserve much more than the 140 characters that Twitter can give to them. So, here are some random things that are on my blog list this week.

1. My husband got me this awesome necklace for Christmas! I love it so much! On the little circle it says, "Vous etes mon destin" which means " You are my destiny."



2. I am so excited about my new Diana Lens. It's a plastic lens that goes right on my digital camera - so I get the ease of use that my digital camera provides, but I get the look of the old plastic cameras. I have not got to test it out a whole lot yet, but I can't wait to get outside with it. Here is a picture of Willie in the snow I took the first day I got it.



3. Ok, this is very hard to actually say out loud, especially to a large audience. I think I have to bite the bullet though. I am training for a half-marathon. There, I said it. I have been terrified to actually admit this to anyone because honestly, I don't know if I can do it. I have never ran a race in my life, but I have always wanted to do a half-marathon. Want may be the wrong word. I just thought it would be an awesome accomplishment. I am sure I will have many struggles along the way, and I will definitely keep you updated on my training. What's the worst that could happen? I guess quitting the entire training early, or not being able to finish the race. I sure hope neither of those things happen.

4. Because I am training for a half-marathon, my entire body hurts. (I thought exercise was suppose to make you feel good) The best thing that I have found to help with my aches is yoga. And I love the Namaste Yoga on FitTv! I had a bunch of episodes DVRed until my husband decided to switch cable companies. I just thought that I would have to rerecord them all. No big deal, right? Then I realized that our new cable company does not offer FitTv at all. I was very angry about this! So I have been searching everywhere to see if they were offered on DVD, and after searching for four months I found them today! I am pumped! You can get them here. So on those days when I know I will not be able to run without a great stretch, I will be popping in this DVD.

5. I am reminded over and over again that to be successful in my photography business (or most businesses for that matter) I have got to be myself. But there are so many times that I am looking at other photographers' blogs that I wish I could be like them, or take pictures like them, or be as successful as them. We all do it in every area of life. We can remind ourselves that life works best when you are you, but sometimes it takes something special for the advice to set in. Last night, watching the Grammy Awards it sunk in for me. The Michael Jackson tribute was unbelievable, and I kept thinking about how big Jennifer Hudson's voice is. Just absolutely gorgeous! And then when Jennifer Nettles performed with Bon Jovi I was reminded how distinct her voice is and beautiful. But Jennifer Nettles could never sing like Jennifer Hudson. The same as Jennifer Hudson could never sing like Jennifer Nettles. I will never be anybody but me. Being completely myself is what can make me distinct and help me stand out from the crowd because I know there is no one out there exactly like me.

6. And if you read my last blog post, here is a picture of the meal that I made about a week ago. It looks pretty, and it was good but not great.

Dinner for Two

"The discovery of a new dish does more for the happiness of mankind than the discovery of a star." -Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Food brings so much happiness to my life in so many different ways. Almost every event I can think of in my life has been surrounded by food in some way, or even the food is sometimes the entire reason for the event.

I create events completely surrounded by food all the time. When Trevor and I want to do something but just don't know what to do (one of the problems of living in a small town), I'll think up this great evening filled with cooking, eating a wonderful meal, and enjoying each other's company with laughter and conversation. How can food create an entire evening? I don't know, but it does.

I really do enjoy cooking. At the beginning of our marriage I was always trying new recipes, but they were all new because I had never really cooked before that. I always said that I didn't cook because I didn't have to - my mom was and is a great cook. I was anxious and a little nervous about cooking when we got married. I was so afraid that I would be horrible at it and that we would never have a home cooked meal again. I'll never forget (maybe I shouldn't admit to this) but we were on our honeymoon, sitting on the beach, and of course I had my notebook along to make lists - I am such a list maker. I was asking Trevor to name every meal he could think of, and I would write it down because I thought that for sure, once we got home, I would not be able to think of even one thing to make.

I've come a long way from that, but lately I have not taken the time to try very many new recipes. Whether it has been because I've been busy or because I just haven't put the effort into it, I don't know. But one of my goals this year is to try one new recipe a week. I am sure we will find both good and bad recipes along the way (some probably ending with us ordering pizza), but it will also give Trevor and I one night a week where we can turn off the tv and computers, and just cook, talk, and enjoy one another.

Food is so much more than just food. And a new dish will definitely make me happier than a new star.

This is what I am going to be making tonight. (Now I feel like I am in the movie Julia & Julia) Maybe it should be Rachel & Leah because this recipe is from Rachel Ray. I love a lot of her recipes. This one is called " Teriyaki Chicken Legs" CLICK HERE to get the recipe. I will let you all know how it is, and if it is worth making either on my blog or twitter (follow me HERE). And if you have any good recipes that I should try, let me know in the comments. I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Here's to Three Years

Our story. It is not only a story about love but mostly about faith. We always had love, from the very beginning, but faith is what kept us going; faith in each other held us together. Faith in you, faith in me, faith in love itself. Faith that God was holding us together for a reason.

I wrote this to Trevor three years ago. Three years ago we made a commitment to love each other forever, to have faith in each other for a lifetime. Every single day, I love him more than the last. I never knew it was possible to love someone so much. I am so thankful to have him by my side in this world.

He is my best friend. He believes in me when no one else does. He supported me before we even knew if this business would work. He thinks all of my crazy ideas aren't so crazy. I don't know what I would ever do without him. So, here's to three years with many, many more to come! Filled with laughter, stories, and love.

I love you Trevor!

A Better Story in the New Year

There is nothing that I would love more this year than to work on making my story better. The story of my life, my everyday. I am reading a book right now that unexpectedly is the absolute perfect book to read at the beginning of a fresh new year. It is called, " A Million Miles in a Thousand Years" by Donald Miller.

If you look back on your life so far, are you living a great story? Great, not just average. Living a great story encompasses my entire list of resolutions or goals for 2010. But it is much more that that to me. I have been trying to figure out for the past three days how I would write about this, how to explain it. I have all these big ideas in my head of how to live a better story daily, but my mind spins so fast that it is hard to explain it into words. And then this morning, I read this quote from the book that described exactly what I've been trying to say the whole time.

... he didn't think we should be afraid to embrace whimsy. I asked him what he meant by whimsy, and he struggled to define it. He said it's that nagging idea that life could be magical; it could be special if we were only willing to take a few risks.

We all feel it, that idea that just keeps coming into our head. Some ideas are small like you should be helping that person that is struggling, or that you could be reading a great book but it's easier to just watch some mindless tv. Or the ideas could be huge like a trip that you have always wanted to take, or a race that you would love to challenge yourself to train for, or even a career that you would much rather be in than the one you are in now. Every single day we get these little (or big) thoughts in our head. I know many times, I ignore it. I push it back and tell myself that someday I'll do it. But when is someday? Why not now? I want to be able to look back at my life and know that I lived it to its fullest, no excuses.

So, while I sit here with a long list of goals for the new year in front of me, I know they all will help me live a better story. It will not be easy. I cringe just reading some of them knowing I will be completely out of my comfort zone. But, I am going to embrace a little whimsy into my life.

And because I want to have something pretty for you to look at too, I was trying to think of an image to show you and thought of this moment last year that describes this all perfectly. All fall, I would drive past these absolutely beautiful corn fields that would just glow in the fall sunlight. I kept saying in my head that I needed to stop sometime and photograph them, but I never had the time or was too busy to get where I was going. It was finally the middle of October, and I still had not done it. I was on my way home from an early Saturday morning photo session, when the voice kept telling me to stop at a corn field to take some pictures. I had my camera already in the back seat and the sun that day was gorgeous. But I wanted to get home so badly to spend the rest of my Saturday with Trevor so I kept ignoring it. Finally, all of a sudden I just pulled off onto a country road and took these images. Now, honestly, it took me less than five minutes to do this. Why hadn't I done it sooner? Why can things like this be so hard sometimes? Why don't we just do it? I am so glad I finally did. Now, I don't have to say, "I'll make sure to do that next fall", and I have these beautiful images to look at. Enjoy!

A Christmas Gift for Myself

For years I have wanted my very own copy of the book "Family Pictures" photographs by Nicholas Nixon. Walking through the aisles at the Otterbein College Library, I found many wonderful art books to be inspired by, but this book changed my life. And any book that makes an impact on me, opens my mind, or changes the way I think about something in life needs to be on my book shelf. I love to see these books on a daily basis to remember the way I felt, the time in life when I read it, the way the pages felt, and how they changed me. How I became a different person because of the words on each page.

Nicholas Nixon's "Family Pictures" is one of these life changing books. This book found me while I was in my Sophomore year of college. We were assigned a photography project called "In the style of". We had to choose a photographer and complete a series of photographs that were in the style of that photographer's work. I don't think I had ever really known who Nicholas Nixon was until I started roaming the art section in the library for this project. I found this book, this tiny little paperback book. It was not like most art books that are large and extremely heavy. The images attracted me because they were different, natural. Nixon did a series on his family at home, his wife and two children. It was filled with photographs of simple, everyday moments. Moments that were not anything particularly special, just moments in the life.

That weekend I went home to photograph my family, specifically my four little brothers. Nothing happened the way I wanted it to happen. My brothers didn't want their picture taken, then they didn't want to stand next to each other, and then a few cried. I was upset, but I just kept capturing the moment. When I returned to school and got in the darkroom, I never wanted to leave. I spent hour upon extra hour making print after print. I had found my direction. I always knew I wanted to focus on photographing people, but this book showed me how I wanted to photograph people.

I have hinted to Trevor for years that this book would be a very special gift. Finally I decided that I was not going to wait any longer. I bought it for an early Christmas gift to myself. And I love looking at it everyday. It gives me inspiration, and when the craziness of my business takes over, it reminds me what I truly love about photography. I love capturing people's lives, the real moments.

Here is some of the work that developed throughout the final 3 years of my college career all stemming from the single project based on this book. I apologize for the quality of these images. They are all from slides.

I Am My Business, My Business is Me

I love to write. When I have something really weighing on my mind, I journal, because I never want to forget where I have been - happy or sad. I was encouraged in college by one of my professors to take a writing class because I enjoyed integrating writing into my art so much. It was a creative writing class, where there are no rules, and I loved it!

Blogging is another outlet for my love of writing, but I feel like I have been holding back. And the thing is I never hold back with anything, what you see is what you get. I talk about my images, my clients, my business announcements, but I rarely have talked about me and my life. And really, I cannot define where I begin and my business ends. The line is completely blurred. I am my business and my business is me.

So, with that being said, I am going to start saying more. Saying more without holding a whole lot back. It is not going to be easy. My stomach is in knots just saying it because when you put yourself out there like this, it is easy for others to judge you. But I want you to know me because when you schedule a session, me is exactly what you are going to get. I want my blog to be a journal of my life, loves, art, photography, and my business. Maybe not exactly like my seventh grade journal, but just as personal without so many juicy details.

And because a post is nothing without a picture, here is a couple of personal images from October. Trevor and I took two of my brothers, Sam and Gabe, to an apple orchard. It was so much fun! It was the first time I had ever picked my own apples. And boy were they delicious. I wish I had one right now!

Our Home

This blog post has been a long time coming. Finally, my house feels like it is in order. And, actually, I feel kind of lost without any projects to be working on in the evenings. Knowing me though, I will begin another project soon enough.

I'll never forget the day we got the keys to our first home because it was my birthday, August 23rd. From that moment until the last week of September we were working on the house 24/7. There was always someone here. It was a form of exhaustion that I have never felt before, and it seemed like the longest month of my life. But we made it, and like everyone told us along the way, it was definitely worth it.

To fully appreciate this post, make sure to go back and look at the before pictures. This is by far the longest post I have ever done. I thought about splitting it up into two, but I have promised this to you for so long that I decided to package it up as one big present! So grab a cup of coffee and enjoy a tour of our house!

Living Room:

I love these birds. Everything about them makes me happy. I got them at Green Awning Gallery in Stryker, OH.

Luckily, we had all of this furniture somehow squeezed into our apartment.

This print hanging on the wall was given to me from a fellow classmate at Otterbein, very close friend, and one of my very first brides this summer, Anna. I absolutely adore it! The lamp, I fell in love with at T.J. Maxx and just could not go home without it.

I made a major trip to IKEA right after we moved in. The hall tree and magazine hanging rack are both from there.

Kitchen and Laundry Room:

One of the major projects was painting all the cupboards. I think it made a big difference to the look of the room though.

My little brother got these for me for my birthday at an auction. They belong in this kitchen.

I am so happy that I added these shelves. They are added storage that will never go to waste.

Sitting Room:

Found these great frames for free, and then I spray painted them yellow. They work perfectly for the images of Trevor and I at the fair that were taken by C Studios.

This table was another one of my great finds. I got it at a garage sale for ten dollars and then spray painted it.

This is one of my favorite pieces of art that I own. The artist is Kelly Goode, and you can find more about her here. I bought this in Savannah, Georgia, and while I was there I actually got to meet the artist and talk to her for awhile. Our lives seemed to be running parallel in so many ways. All of this makes this piece very special to me.

And the lamp is from IKEA.

Extra Bedroom:







Hallway:

Pictures are obviously a very large part of my life. I decided that this was going to be my picture wall. I am going to continue to let it grow and change.

Bathroom:

This is by far the biggest change in the entire house. It went from my most hated room to my favorite. We painted the cupboards and walls, new flooring, new shower, new faucet, and new toilet.

And, of course, my shower curtain from Anthropologie that I chose before we even had the keys to the house. It was my inspiration for the entire bathroom.

Oh, and new lighting fixtures, new mirror, new towel and toilet paper racks.

I got all of these frames for free too and just spray painted them.

Office:

It is so unbelievable to finally have a room that is completely dedicated to my business. I love it!

The art on the wall is mine that I did in College. I had them framed because they were accepted into the Ohio State Fair Fine Arts Exhibition. Ever since then I have had no where to hang them since they were so large until now. I am so happy to see them everyday now. They are acetone photo transfers that I did from images that I had taken of my brothers.

I got these chairs at a garage sale this summer for $4 a piece. Then I found this fabric, and my mom recovered them for me.

Tables from, of course, IKEA. I have seen these on just about every show on tv because they are only $7.99 a piece. Amazing! And somehow, Willie slipped into one of the pictures.

I got all the office furniture from Sauder Store and Outlet.

All of the vintage cameras on the book self are from garage sales, and each one has some kind of story behind it. The green boxes and the curtains are both from IKEA.

Bedroom:

This definitely has become my favorite color of paint in the entire house. I just love it.

I took these images on a road trip through Virginia and thought that they would work perfect in this room. The shelf and the frames are from IKEA.





This is more than a house now, it is our home.