Katie – Maternity Photography in Springfield, MO

This is my good friend, Katie, who is due in February with her first baby – Baby Boy “A”!  I am so excited to be a part of her birth team as a doula & help make her labor, delivery, & post-partum as smooth as possible.  I am completing my certification as a Doula through DONA International, and so grateful Katie & Jon allowed me this opportunity towards that goal.

Katie is one of my crafty buddies, and has really cuted-up the baby room with curtains, tree & leaves on the wall, stuffed fabric bird mobile, scrap fabric rug, a conglomeration of different alphabet letters on the wall, and more – all made by her, of course!  You can see some of those in the pictures.

I love this beautiful lady!!

Katie

Awww! These came out so well! Thanks, Rebecca!

Boys at the Creek

Patrick & Branch at Busiek on a wonderfully warm January day!  Little boys throwing rocks & watching horses cross the creek….what more could you ask for on a winter’s day?

My Garden Radishes

I am so excited that we have a real garden for the first time. I have been wanting one for six years or so but have always grown in pots due to being in apartments & moving a lot. Finally, as you know, we bought our own house this year (another hooray!) and dug up some earth to grow our own food. I am a thrilled that things actually grew pretty well, although I know the soil needs a lot of amendments to make it more fertile. This ground has never been touched – the yard was completely, 100% barren of landscaping. (Former owner was a retired army bachelor. Need I say more? hehe.) And I am now well aware of how much more garden space we need to dig up next year, because I did not get enough of my favorites. I would like to grow enough to store over the winter til the next season, via freezing, drying, or canning.

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Radish tips...I thought they looked so pretty from this angle!

So I ordered some seeds from Baker’s Creek a few months ago for the fall crop & have been surprised by the amount of radishes we got.

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Radishes from our garden. All organic! Didn't really have bug problems with them at all!

I don’t even like radishes.

LOL!! But here they are! I think they are pretty, but even the variety that was labelled as “sweet” is still too spicy for me (although I do like plenty of other spicy things…just not radishes, I guess!)

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Close-up of a radish from our garden

I mostly grew them because I read that radishes and carrots are typically grown together, and I definitely wanted carrots. Those carrots take forever!! I hope they turn out better than my pot-grown carrots in the past!

P.S.  Thanks to the organic CSA we got last year for the gardening inspiration!

Red Monkey Spices – Food Photography – Springfield MO

Last week I had the opportunity to photograph some spices & spice grinders for Red Monkey Foods.  They’re based out of Mt. Vernon & do a lot of packaging for other companies, but also have their own line of Red Monkey spices.  They’re all-natural & many are organic.  Levi gave me a few samples to try….the AMAZING Hickory Smoked Balsamic mix is definitely going on my shopping list.  We put it on some oven fries, then later on burgers….wow!!  It was truly the best-flavored burger I’ve ever had.  By the way, one of their clients is Target…how cool is that.  Good for them!  I’m proud of our local  businesses for doing so well!

This was definitely the crazy-fastest turnaround time I’ve ever done!  Here’s how it went down:

3pm Wednesday: Receive initial phone call
5:30 pm: Meet in Springfield at Hebrew’s to get the spices
7 pm: Get props at the store
10 pm: After Boy is asleep, set up everything so it’s ready to go in the morning
7 am Thursday: Start shooting
8:30 am: Start dumping files onto the computer
9am: Meet at Y to give spices back
10:30am: Back home; start editing
11:45: Complete editing & uploads
{lunch/play with Boy}
1pm: Complete additional requested editing.

I feel like Billy-what’s-his-name who did all those infomercials would now say “Sha-bam!  Done!!”

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The line-up of tabletop grinders and bulk spices they are marketing for food industry

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Just the bulk spices.. I had fun setting up this one because I broke open the veggies!

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Tabletop spice grinders. Great on burgers & fries! I would enjoy having this at my table at a restaurant.

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And Bloody Mary spice grinders! How unique is that?

 

Reed Family – Photography at Sequiota Park and Galloway Village, Springfield MO

I was so excited to photograph the Reed family again & especially to see their beautiful twins at two years old.  They are so tall now!!  Here’s a quick one I really liked from their session….

 

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Gotta love those swings at the park!

 

Such sweet smiles!  Thanks, Dad, for making crazyness at them.  I knew it would work!

It was a hard shot to get on the swings because there’s two of them, so getting more than one kid to smile at the same time is harder…plus they’re swinging at different rates half the time, so catching them both in the focusing plane at the right time can be tricky.  (For you camera buffs out there who like to know more about how to get a sharp shot like this: I bumped up the ISO so I could also bump up my shutter speed and increase my depth of field. )