Excuses, excuses

So this is pretty much how I’ve felt the last several months—chasing around, with everything out of focus. This little photography gig I’ve got going? It’s kinda caught on! Since returning from Minnesota at the end of June, I’ve done nearly 25 photo sessions. (Thankfully, the photos I show clients are technically much better than the one you see above. Some are in focus even!) With my regular job I can really only handle about a session a week, so it’s really been keeping me busy.

Let’s see . . . what other excuses can I come up with for not posting? Well, there’s Twitter. I’ve made 600 posts/updates there since April 24—does that count? How about Facebook? Any points for that? Nah—I didn’t think so.

Oh! I know! I have things going on three nights a week—Tuesdays are camera club, Wednesdays are band, and Thursdays are church choir (exciting, no?). That must be the reason why I haven’t posted.

::Mrtl-style tangent (with photo!)::
Incidentally, I took first place and second place in the camera club’s November competition. The theme was Children. Hey—I photograph kids all the time! Here’s my second-place entry (note the ever-present drool hanging from his chin):

I wish I could show you the first place winner, but for privacy reasons I can’t.
::End Mrtl-style tangent (with photo!)::

Then there’s Guitar Hero. We got GH3 this summer, and recently got the new World Tour version. J.P. plays guitar, and I play drums (badly). I even tried my hand at singing the other night. Um, yeah . . . it wasn’t pretty.

Regardless of all the excuses, you may be asking yourself why I’m posting now. After all this time. See, on Wednesday, Susie‘s sponsoring the Fourth Annual Blog Cookie Exchange party. I’d hate to miss out on the tradition (I can’t believe this is the fourth year already!), so decided to come out of “retirement.”

::Mrtl-style tangent::
Didja know that I actually met Ms. Fairchild this summer? I did! I was traveling for business, and we managed to get together for lunch. I got crabs. She did too. Oh, get your mind out of the gutter—it was a seafood restaurant!
::End Mrtl-style tangent::

Now get moving! Head over to Susie’s to learn more about the party. Put up a post of your own (or don’t), and then visit all the other guests’ sites to have a good time! I’ll be serving hot buttered rum—DEEEEEE-lish!

What’s New

I almost began this post with an image from a recent maternity session, but then realized that it—along with the title of this post—would probably give you the wrong idea. So I’ll save that photo for later.

Things are good and bad here in Sharkeyville. J.P. and I went to Disney World with Character Builder and her family recently. That’s CB’s daughter above—she turned five while we were there, and was very excited to wear her new Cinderella dress when we had breakfast with the princesses on her birthday.

Vacation was lots of fun. As you may know, WDW is J.P.’s favorite place on the face of the earth. And it was fun to experience it through the kids’ eyes. For a blow-by-blow recap (and tons of photos), click on over to J.P.’s place.

I’ve been experiencing a little flurry of activity with my photography biz. I did two maternity sessions in March, and have already completed one of the newborn sessions. Now I’m just waiting for the little girl below to arrive so I can go spend some time with her.

So that’s the good stuff. Unfortunately, there’s some not-so-good stuff too. I know Character Builder has been planning a post about this, so I *think* it’s okay to mention it here. Last month, her nine-year-old daughter went flying off her scooter and got a concussion. As part of the treatment and diagnosis process, they did a CT scan and discovered a cyst on her brain. It’s not life-threatening, but she will need surgery this summer to drain it. UPDATE: Read the full story over at CB’s.

And speaking of surgery, it sounds like my mom may be in for some more. We learned yesterday that her ovarian cancer has returned. We’re waiting for the results of her CT scan to know the full extent of it.

So if you have some extra good thoughts or prayers that you could send along on my family’s behalf, we’d really appreciate it.

Busy weekend

No, the image above isn’t me! She’s the subject from my first-ever maternity photo session on Saturday. I didn’t go to bed until about 3:00 on Saturday morning, and I was awake at 6:30, an hour before my alarm went off. Do you think maybe I was a little nervous about this? I bet I hadn’t taken 50 photos since the newborn session I did on December 15, and I was feeling a little out of practice. And then there’s the fact that I was tearing the house apart in search of my battery chargers at 11:30 the night before. Yep, prepared and organized—that’s me.

But it turns out my worries were for nothing. Mom-to-be was gorgeous, and she and Dad were up for anything. We did some natural light shots, and then brought out the studio lights and props—the parasol you see above, booties, blocks, and some little beaded heart coasters I got at Target (you’ll see those at the end of the post). It’s really different to work with subjects who do what you ask instead of running the other direction! I really had a blast with them!

Saturday afternoon brought another session, with this handsome boy:

The rescue called us a week ago, asking if Maggie might like a little brother. I couldn’t believe it, but J.P. actually considered it! But we talked it over and decided we should remain a one-dog household. So Buddy needed some photos for Petfinder. It was definitely easier working with the mom-to-be! I only got two good shots of him, but I suspect that’s all it will take for someone to snatch him up.

Then I had a rehearsal with my trio from church, and we went out to dinner with the neighbors on Saturday night. Seriously, Saturday involved more activities in a single day that I’ve probably had in the entire last month! And now you know why I never update here—I have nothing to talk about!

I can’t leave you without sharing my favorite image from Saturday. After I spent so much time focusing on Mom-to-be, Dad was feeling a little left out. So we did a shot that included him too . . . .

Slide Show Test

Interesting . . . I’ve seen these slide shows on other people’s blogs, and decided to try it out for myself. I don’t like the annoying advertising, but it’s free–whaddyagonna do?

Yesterday I set up a new blog for my photography, and I’m considering using something like this there. What do you think?

Where to start?

As you may or may not have noticed, I’ve been gone for a while. Oh, I’m still here, I just haven’t been here. I have no excuses, but hey, this is my blog—do I really need an excuse? The longer I stay away, the easier it is to stay away. And now I feel like I need a really big-deal post in order to return. If that’s what you’re expecting you might as well bail now, because there’s nothing too exciting here.

You may or may not wonder what I’ve been doing during my absence. Let’s see what I can remember . . . .

I did a photo shoot for the daughter of one of my co-workers. She was a sweetheart, and she loved these beads. I even made the tutu—can you believe that? It was super easy (otherwise I would’ve had to outsource), and I may have to make some others in different colors.

My mom was in town for a few days, and we took her to the dump. She was begging us to take her there. Who wouldn’t want to visit a pile of trash? Well you see, this dump is just a little different. Oh, there’s trash there, of course. But on Sunday afternoons, they open the place up as a scenic overlook:

You can literally see for miles in all directions. They have those binocular thingies like Mount Rushmore or the Empire State Building (only these are free!). And believe it or not, there are picnic tables and playground equipment. At the dump! How cool is that? Even the local Amish families like to spend time there.

Don’t worry about Mom—we did other fun things while she was here too. We took her to dinner, did lots of shopping, and she went with me to a camera club meeting. The speaker that night was Bob Caputo, who’s worked for National Geographic for 27 years. His photos were amazing, of course, but he also had great stories of how he goes about capturing them.

Speaking of camera club . . . we meet twice a a month, and one of the meetings is a competition. I entered my first competition last week, and I got third place! I was pleasantly surprised. Good ol’ Maggie!

Remember the Blessing of the Animals that I mentioned last year? It’s coming up again next weekend, and J.P. and I are taking portraits to help raise money for the rescue. Last year we used the blue backdrop as seen here:

Since we’re always going for repeat business, I like to mix things up a bit from year to year. But I didn’t want to shell out big bucks for a backdrop that dogs will most certainly pee on. So last weekend I bought a HUUUUGE paint drop cloth at Home Depot and painted it in the driveway using a couple colors from HD’s “oops bin” and a couple colors that were left over from projects around here. It didn’t turn out half bad! Maggie begrudgingly helped me test it out today. Since I probably won’t post again this week, she and I will just say it now: HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Rescue Me

I’ve had lots of opportunity to practice my photography skills lately. The rescue that we work with has asked me to take photos of the animals that are up for adoption.

Know what? Kittens move really fast! It’s tough to get them in focus. But man, are they cute! It’s a good thing J.P. is allergic, or we might have a house full.

There are several more photos in my Flickr stream. Click the link to view the pets in a slideshow. Then let me know which one you want to adopt. 🙂

Is this thing on?

In the last several days, a few readers have dropped by to inform me that it is in fact no longer Saturday.

So where have the rest of you been?! I mean, come on . . . I don’t post for a whole month and you’re not even concerned? No one even cares that I dropped off the face of the earth?!? Hmmmmpf . . . I see how you are.

Okay, okay . . . totally kidding about that. Honestly? I thought it would be better to leave up a post where I’d actually done something than continually post to say, “I’ve got nothin’.” Also, I’ve been busy with a few things . . . .