What I’m Photographing

Extended Family Session – 

My heart just gets all involved whenever I have the opportunity to do an extended family session! Especially when the family members come from far away and are only together for a brief time. It is truly special to be part of a reunion and capture some of the fun! I was blessed with the opportunity to do just that! Some of the Brouillette family came from as far away as Alabama. Other’s came up from the Eugene area and we all met at Lewisville Park. With  Extended Family Sessions everyone gets a mini session of their individual family’s as well as fun groupings of all the cousins, the grandparents with all the grand kids, the parents with their adult children. 

Senior Session – Class of 2019

This girl just slipped in under the wire! She didn’t want to do a Senior Shoot but her Mom convinced her and in the end, she loved it! I met Emilie when she came to the studio with her class for a photography workshop a few weeks back. She had just completed her AP exams and is only weeks away from graduation.

Senior Sessions are a great opportunity to share your personality. Emilie shared her love of Powells with me so naturally we spent time photographing there! Of course I couldn’t go to Powells without a few of my own books! Emilie is confident and we had a lot of fun during her session.  She shared she had a good time. Which is always my goal!

Have you been to Powells? https://www.powells.com/

What I’m Doing –

Fighting with my computer! Technology is great! Super dooper! Can’t live without it! Until they change things and whatever you had figured out and was going so smoothly no longer works that way and then you have to relearn a new way to do the thing you’ve mastered! UGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Am I alone in this?!

Delivering images – I love sending out completed galleries! This week I sent the Dahl family their completed gallery. I was thrilled to receive a text stating that the images were “priceless”.

Editing – With shoots always comes the long process of editing. The most time consuming is culling through the images to determine which group shot has everyone with their eyes open and looking a the camera.  Or which one simply looks best! Whitening teeth as well as other minor edits are also part of my process. 

Designing albums for clients – I love the creative outlet this gives me! Albums are such a great way to have all the images from your gallery easily available. Too often our images live on our computers and never see the light of day. 

And!! My eldest niece had a baby!!!! Hope and her husband Will welcomed sweet Nora Mae on Tuesday. Vaulting me to Great-Aunt status!!! She is precious! Nora arrived a week late! Our family is thrilled with her arrival!

Goal Check –

This little segment of my blog is keeping me on my toes! So I guess that is good.

This week has been focused on shooting, editing and album designs. I’ve been blessed with staying active as well, which is necessary because of all the hours sitting on my backside while editing, designing and writing!

My {current} Favorite Thing –

Exploring new places. Actually this will always be at the top of my list!

Coyote Wall – We headed back to the gorge to explore a new to us trail. This is located on the Washington side across from Hood River. There is a maze of trail system here and we didn’t research where we should go. We followed the Maui trail up after asking someone on the trail and it was magical! It follows a creek up the wall. There were magical oak groves, stunning wildflowers and views for days! We followed a different trail down which was less scenic but more direct. It was around 6-7 miles of hiking. 

I would love to make this trail a annual hike!

What I’m Reading –

Horray! We are almost to Book Club night! I can’t wait! I finished “Little Fires Everywhere” by Celeste Ng and I really enjoyed it! 5 stars from me. It kept me curious until the very end. There were a few ahaaa moments and times I had to stop and think about what I had just read. Which I love! The author does a good job of presenting several different points of view and then turns them on their heads. Which I believe is an important lesson for all of us. Naturally, we all  have our points of view. What’s important is remembering that our POV isn’t the only POV, and can be changed when our eyes have been opened. 

The ending leaves several lose ends that I was mildly frustrated with.  Which I think could lead to a sequel…

If it’s not already there, I recommend this for your Summer reading list. You can grab it at Costco!

Jeff and I are headed to Boise this weekend to visit Josh. We are excited to spend sometime with our first born, who is now all grown up and living far away (well it feels far away). I hope you have a fantastic holiday weekend!

Shelly