It seems every time I sit down to write a blog post the sun comes out from it’s favorite place to be these days… behind the clouds. Maybe I should blog more often, eh?

This is Kelli and Brad Holt. One of the couples that agreed to be my guinea pigs for some things I’ve wanted to try. What a sweet couple!  The more I talked to Kelli the more I found we had in common. We even traveled to the same remote community in the bush of Africa and made the same friends with the women there. After experiencing something as life impacting as that trip it’s difficult to really explain the experience. It’s so exciting to find someone to talk about it with who completely understands. I hope to have the chance to go again and this time, take my best friend so we can share those memories together. Yay for Kenya!

Kelli and Brad are so sweet and seriously so in love. Watching them reminded us of newlywed times and reminded us how lucky we are to still share that after almost 4 years of marriage. They never wasted an opportunity to hold the other’s hand. And my goodness… they were up for anything! There’s a shot in the series that could only be achieved by them standing in harms way. Several times they had to bolt as oncoming cars were racing around the corner! Because of their fearlessness I snapped one of my favorite shots of all time (the one with them standing in front of the tunnels). Hats off to a great couple!

They have long term plans of one day moving the Knoxville which we’re super pumped about! We will surely become friends. ;)

A few of the first shots of this series were used to experiment with new PhotoShop Actions I downloaded from Totally Rad Actions. So, if you’re wondering about the color in the first set, that’s where it came from. The next post I write will be about the free Actions and what I think of them. Leave a comment to let me know what YOU think!  Thanks for stopping by! ;)

Welcome sunshine!! You are free to drop by any time! Because it is such a beautiful day and I have some pretty rockin things planned for it. We’re going to make this short and sweet. I was so lucky to stumble upon this amazing ballet studio in downtown Johnson City for this shoot.. with the help of a good friend of course.  The natural light + the magnificent low-light capabilities of my trusted 5D Mark II + the paper hearts + the couple in love + my clever husband (and cute!) + laughter made this session so scrumptious and perfect.

Again, I love free photo sessions because I can take the kind of shots that I want to take. My main goal throughout this photography journey is to eventually reach the point where brides + grooms look at my work and say “I want exactly that! We love your STYLE and trust you completely!” Lots of people say, I like your artsy style and we want artsy pictures.. and your pictures are artsy. I love this.. but it’s not quite reaching my goal of I WANT WHAT YOU DO! I’ll throw a party the day that happens! All that to say.. I love free shoots because I can play! These pictures are me playing and in full response to the whims of my heart and mind. I love them and I’m so excited about where they may lead.

Too many words for such a beautiful Saturday! Enough! Off to play in the sun!

“Our Endless Numbered Days” by Iron and Wine might just be my favorite new song. When I sit down to write a blog post I have to make sure all things distraction are turned off, muted, paused and in the puppies sakes.. put outside. ;) I make a warm cup of tea and start a mellow little ditty from whatever Pandora channel I’m feeling at the moment. Okay, so the tea doesn’t happen ALL the time.. but it sure helps the warm and fuzzy feelings flow. The song listed above was the first song playing this go around and I think I’m in love. I think as I write (type) I’m going to name every song that plays on this channel. Just for fun! So shall we…

Before I get to the yummy, yellow-walled, love-filled frames of this session I want to talk about a fun experience that happened last night. So my birthday was this last weekend and since we were out of town (best trip to Johnson City ever by the way) we celebrated with our families this week. It’s been a whole week of bday celebrations so far and I’m loving all the fun, all the love  AND all the cake! Last night we joined my dad and his girlfriend, Nancy at the local Chop House. I felt like a diva in my 5 in BCBG heels from last year’s birthday, but that’s a whole ‘nother story. We laughed, we ate and we talked about the power of social media marketing. Not our usual topic of conversation, but since it seems to be the only thing occupying mine and David’s minds these days…  we can’t help but bring it up! We read Socialnomics this week by Eric Qualman which has stirred our excitement about this whole social network game again. We were like two kids telling about this AWESOME movie we had just seen with big bad monsters and the hero and how he rescued all the little animals with out voices getting louder and our smiles getting bigger and bigger. Dad had the same look on his face as the dad in the hypothetical would have…  uh huh? Ah ha. I see.

(song just changed to “The Crane Wife” by The Decemberist. Saw them perform this several years ago, awesome!)

So, as time went on with the Social Media fest going down at The Chop House dad started to catch on and ask questions which we totally loved answering. We talked about how people now check Facebook more than their email accounts and how powerful it is to be able to get my work in front of so many people with just a little click. We talked about how big businesses are hiring people JUST to work and network on social media outlets. I told about the conversations I’ve had lately with other photographers about his and how funny it is that they still haven’t caught on to this AMAZING tool! I laugh inside every time someone says it’s silly or not worth the time (lol now). He was blown away with that fact that 90% of my business has come from Facebook and I just got 3 inquires from it that day! If I’m not careful I’ll go on and on and on and on and on about this. So, I will stop. Thankfully, I think by the end of the conversation (or the lecture, call it what you will) dad decided to join Facebook which I’m thrilled about! We hope to teach him and Nancy all about it this week! THAT was a good time! What nerds we are.

Before we left dad said, “You know, you two should write a book.” Which we replied with, “I think we might” with a laugh. Don’t put it past us!

ANYway! For those of you who are still reading, bless your hearts! Now, what you actually came to the blog for, PICTURES! This session was one of 3 that David and I shot this weekend in Johnson City. We wanted a new playground to shoot in and we surely found a great one! I love downtown Johnson City and think it is just a treasure trove of colorful photography goodness! These sessions were set up for free and solicited on our Facebook Fan Page last month! One thing I love about doing free shoots is the freedom they give. I can focus on the kind of photography that I love and really respond to my creative juices and whims. I think all three of the next blog posts I’ll be posting really show the kind of photographer I want to be. I hope you enjoy these as much as I do!

These are the Sikoras, Emily + Russel. If they lived here in Ktown, we would totally hang out all the time. Emily has a super cute foodie blog that I’m going to be following that you can find here –> Emily Eats Clean

the trash is my favorite part of this shot. ;)

look at the little red bell, LOVE!

David took this one. When I saw it I just couldn’t stop looking at it. I love it so much. This one might go on our wall.