i want to keep him

oh little mason, you've won my heart. saying our hellos and nice to meet you's mason stood at my feet and grabbed on to my leg. so i picked him up, and decided right then and there that i could keep him. unfortunately his parents are pretty fond of him too and decided when the shoot was over to take him home where he belongs. i guess i can't blame them.

in black and white

i cleaned out my basement recently and found boxes and boxes of old negatives and photographs from high school and college. when i started learning photography i focused less on shooting and more on developing my images in the darkroom. it was magical to see my images appear from beneath the solution in the dim red light. all my images then were black and white.

my house is covered in black and white. to me, there is something very emotional in a black and white photograph. expressions take on new meaning and time stands still. obviously i love vibrant color, but when i photographed these beautiful little girls i felt like they needed to be black and white, captured timelessly.

















all but one

i met the mayor

i'd never met him before. but i knew he had to be something special if sadie agreed to marry him. i got out of the car and was compelled to hug him, that's not unusual for me but sometimes it takes people off guard. not ben. he hugged back!

ben and sadie are from small towns, where reputations are quickly made. i went to chillicothe where ben is from and sadie will soon live, to photograph them. he knew everyone. when i asked about locations, he'd say, "oh don't worry this is so and so's place i know them". or when i found the perfect building and the owner drove by he just said "oh it's just you ben". even in the middle of nowhere on a gravel road a guy passed by and stopped to say hello and heckle a little. i hope sadie loves to meet new people, because ben doesn't meet a stranger.

maybe what draws people to him is that fact that he's kind and patient. he farms thousands of acres near chillicothe, and if you know anything about farming you would know that ben is in the thick of harvest. he might be a big time farmer but he took the time to stop and let me photograph them, because it was important to sadie. i really like this guy.

life interrupted

most people realize when they have a child, being flexible is part of the deal. when natalie found out she was pregnant with her second baby she didn't have any expectations, only hopes and prayers. lots and lots of prayers. her first pregnancy was spent praying that max would just make it.

she was prepared this time. she knew there would be some things that she would need to do to make this pregnancy more peaceful. or so she hoped. but after all of the precautions she has had one thing after another to contend, interrupting her life and what she thought he pregnancy would be like.

but she has other distractions too, good ones. she's got max and she's got ben. we laughed so hard when i took the last photo. her stance was so stoic, and serene. it is a perfect picture of how you have something in your mind, what it's suppose to look like. but then the crazy comes running in, distracting you and making it different than you thought. you can either get annoyed and frustrated, or you can laugh; natalie laughs.

steamy even on a cold day

julie said, "they are going to remember this day forever" i think they will too. i love the kind of photo shoot where i feel like i'm part of the family, and with the kurtz family i always do. i have been photographing them every fall since julia was a baby, and every year i hope i get an email saying "it's that time again".

we always try to do something different from the year before, this year was no exception. we loaded into the car and drove an hour to a tiny town for a steam engine show. the day couldn't have been much colder but i loved seeing these huge steam engines, an old school house, relatively creepy dude with an animal skin outfit, and watching jack and julia run and play trying to stay warm. after we had our fill of steam engines and such we warmed up together in the car while the kids had warm chocolate chip cookies and milk, it was perfect.