The new guy in town :: Pittsburgh Baby Photography

I don't believe there is anything quite like a new little baby. This past Thanksgiving allowed for me to take a road trip up north to PA and finally meet my newest nephew. He was born at the beginning of November and despite the fact that his mama says that he is quite a bit bigger than he was when he was born and doesn't feel like a newborn to her anymore, he sure seemed and looked like just about like a newborn to me!

I had a marvelous time doing a quick portrait session for him - his first professional quality one(!) - and my whole family left me to do as I saw fit. I'm not the type of baby photographer who likes doing staged composites of infants suspended in cloth hammocks, swaddled in special blankets, or bedecked in shiny satin bows and I prefer cleaner images that show clearly all of their teeny tiny details.

Some of my favorite images of babies/children are the ones that really allow you to look into their eyes because they are always so bright and curious and full of wonder. It's the type of thing we easily lose as we get older because our lives become too busy to stop and look long enough for someone to be able to look back at us. There's an old adage that the eyes are the windows to the souls and I firmly believe that no matter what our age, that's always the case.

God has not blessed me to have a newborn again just yet but until then I will relish in the opportunities that I get like this one to appreciate the beauty that is a newborn baby. I'm so honored that I was able to capture these first portraits for my nephew and I'm looking forward to more opportunities that I will have to keep documenting the way he grows up to be an upstanding and handsome young gentleman the way I know he will.

Hot off the presses!

When I'm not posting things here, it's sometimes because I'm posting things elsewhere. I write for the Fuel Brand network's photography division. My aim with my articles has been to instruct photographers how to use elements of art and design within the photographic medium. So many photographers out there (nowadays) are self-taught (and I don't begrudge a nontraditional start of a career in the least) but could have much stronger bodies of work if they considered how essential classic art teachings are for visual art itself.

I've already published articles addressing using visual texture to make photographs feel more dimensional and also touched on color theory and some of the ways that it can visually balance an image.  This month's article highlights the importance of visual branding and how it can be done effectively with typography.

Getting here from there

For as long as I can remember, I have been a workaholic. I had my first job at 15 years old and by 18 I had doubled up with work and have pretty much working like that since. To date I've probably worked over 30 different jobs in the following fields: restaurant/food/hospitality service, acute care within the clinical psychology and psychiatric field, health insurance management, quality assurance for retail sales, and classroom education and instruction. I've also successfully freelanced for both visual art and marketing/branding. What can I say? I LOVE to work. I really do.

A little more than a decade ago I was crazy enough to start my photography business.  Nowadays everybody has a photography business but way back when? It wasn't so easy to just start such a business. Digital photography wasn't nearly so affordable OR technologically advanced, photoshop was but a funny sounding word, and you had to know film and the actual functions of manual cameras and periphery equipment in order to create an even halfway decent image much less one that someone might be willing to pay you for. Still?  I had a gut feeling that venturing into the world of professional photography was something I was supposed to do.  I believed that I didn't need an actual studio in order to produce professionally recognized work. I believed that my skill and artistic voice could, should, and would be heard and I just needed to let it rise above the whisper it had been within myself.

Today I am amazed by the trajectory of my career path.  I just did an update on my official website and at this point my body of work and portfolio representation is so immense that I can't possibly even think about including half of it because there are just so many images. I am really having to pick and choose what should be cut out and replaced with newer images and it's awesome to look at the "throw away" pile and see that all of them are still really great pieces of work and are only being put out because they just aren't current enough.



I wish I could have a conversation with my younger self while she was in her school-age and college years and reassure her that telling people she wants to be an artist when she grows up will be something that really actually can happen and absolutely and honestly WILL happen. I wish I could tell her to not let others take the wind from her sails and call her endeavors lofty or pipedreams. I wish I could let her in on the seemingly secret thing that seems like the greatest key to success and happiness (but really it isn't) that if you truly do go forth and do what God has called you to do, He will provide every provision to catapult you forward and straighten every path you will find yourself walking. Even the ways that seem like they are taking you away from your dreams? Sometimes the road not taken by everyone else is actually a bit of a shortcut to the place that you couldn't believe actually existed.

Today I'm so happy to not have to "fake it until I make it" and also to know better when it comes to boldly and confidently going in the direction of my dreams. I'm still classically a workaholic with plenty of irons in the fire...

I write for Fuel Your Photography

I founded and maintain an art enrichment blog that provides lesson plan ideas and also an archive of my fine art pieces.

My precious creative endeavor that might be one of the greatest career risks for me ever but one that I cannot bear to give up despite the naysayers and accusations of pipedreaming.

When I was working a thankless office job without windows and going to meetings that seemed neverending, I dreamed of a life that was being a working artist and my art mentor encouraged to me do the things I felt and the money would follow.  I did just that and I will tell you that I am STILL doing exactly that. It's the one and only sure thing I know no matter how many people might tell me I'm crazy.

The Erdmans :: Baltimore Family Photography

I've done portraits for this family for a little more than half a decade now. I've had the great blessing and joy to document the engagement of their parents, their very first ever family holiday portrait (with their "furbaby" additions), then two more family holiday portraits (here is last year's), and a visit to the hospital for a "special delivery" newborn session of the youngest son.  Not sure if you have bothered counting but ll of those milestones have made it so I have been able to photograph them just about every single year for the past five years! Does that make me their official family photographer? Hmmm... I don't know but I will tell you that I sure have enjoyed being able to watch their family grow.

Anyway, here is their this year's holiday portraits.  In the past we have done them a lot closer to Christmas for their holiday send outs but this year we were very well organized and got them in my schedule book early in order to beat some of the holiday hustle and bustle. If you haven't already gotten your family's portraits squared away like the Erdmans, I suggest you take a tip from them and book your holiday session with me while you can!

Jamie + Colin :: Washington DC Engagement Photographer

Today I capped off an already awesome weekend with an incredible engagement session for Jamie and Colin.  We started at Union Station in downtown DC and then finished things off in Alexandria, Virginia. Here are a few teasers of Jamie and Colin basking in some serious bliss of being newly engaged.