Julia's Photo Blog

Back in August, I spent a wonderful afternoon doing maternity photos for expectant mom, Karrie, and two-year-old portraits of her sweet little boy, Duncan, as a surprise for Daddy.  Yesterday afternoon I had the great pleasure of meeting the newest addition to this beautiful family: Dane.  This adorable baby turned 7-days-old yesterday, and I could not BELIEVE how strong and alert he was!  I swear he is almost rolling over on his own already!  I guess that has something to do with him being such a big boy (at birth: 9lbs, 21.5 inches long!).  Proud big brother Duncan sat down to hold Dane for a few minutes, and I just melted watching him hold his little brother, gently kissing his forehead and sweetly touching his hand.  Too too too cute!  Can’t wait to do more pictures with these little guys- family pictures are scheduled for November! :)  Here are just a few of my favorites from yesterday.

I recently purchased a new tripod. This is very exciting for a photographer, and so I wanted to try it out right away.  So I went out to do some night shooting where I knew I would need to do some nice long exposures.  I wanted a spot that had some water to reflect light, and I wanted to be able to see the stars!  So I headed to my old home away from home- YMCA Camp Lakewood, in Potosi, MO, a place where I spent many beautiful nights looking up at the stars.  I took most of these pictures between 11:30pm and 1:00am. There was mist rising over the water, the moon was full, and there were beautiful stars lighting up the sky (as well as a bit of light coming from the lights of the camp).  It is a peaceful and slightly eerie thing to walk around a summer camp (that you have known to be bustling with activity and loud with laughing children) in the fall, at night, with all the children gone.  It was quiet and lovely, and as always, my time at camp was a breath of fresh air for my soul.  I call this series, “Summer Camp, Sleeping.”

I am very excited to share my first national magazine cover with my readers! Last Spring, I was fortunate enough to have the chance to photograph Don Muller, of the Don Muller Gallery in Northampton, MA, in his store for an occupational portrait for my final portfolio at school.  This is the image I turned in for my portfolio:

Don liked it so much that when his store won a national award for being the #1 “Coolest Small Jewelry Store in America,” he asked me to photograph him again, this time for the COVER of Instore magazine, a national magazine for jewelry store owners. I just got my copy of the issue, and I was pretty excited to see my work on the cover!  (Note, I only photographed Don, who is on the right side of the cover, and the magazine publisher put my image together with the image of the guy on the left, who won the large store award.)  

I even got a by-line! :)

I realize that the readership for the magazine isn’t HUGE… but hey, I’ll still take it!  I also wanted to share the text message conversation I had with my brother about it:

Alex: “That’s really cool.  Next up, Time magazine!”

Me (obviously joking): “That’s right. They called me yesterday, actually. I told them to take a number. I said, ‘Do you KNOW who I am?!’”

Alex: “Apparently not, because otherwise they’d be asking you to be on the cover.”

Me: “Now you’re thinking. Self-portrait on the cover of Time magazine. Now THAT’S something to strive for.”

:)

On September 11, I had a fabulous time photographing the wedding of Rebekah and Dan in Edwardsville, IL.  I was amazed at how calm the couple was while getting ready- no pre-wedding jitters visible! Then Rebekah told me that they have been together for four years so she wasn’t nervous; she was just ready to be married!  She looked amazing in her vintage wedding gown, first worn by her grandmother and then lovingly re-laced, and hand-beaded by her mother! Even the veil was all hand-made.  What a beautiful labor of love! And all of Rebekah’s jewelry were also special pieces from family members.  Yay for “something borrowed”! :) The weather forecast had predicted rain, but we ended up with a truly gorgeous day with such an awesome sky (I love a good sky for photographs :).  The couple had a beautiful church ceremony followed by a fun, fall-themed reception.  I loved being a part of this special day for a very darling couple!  Here are a few of my favorites!

So it’s a bit of a slow week (What?! With this GORGEOUS weather! But it’s SO PERFECT FOR DOING SOME OUTDOOR PORTRAITS!!!!!!!  Tell me about it….)   It’s okay because I have plenty of photo editing, order fulfillment, marketing, and other businessy stuff to work on.  I am, however, definitely looking forward to shooting a wedding this Saturday! Woo! Until then, I thought I’d post some fun pics… from my phone!

So I am not a high tech phone kind of person. In fact, my new Droid X is the first phone I’ve ever had that has internet capabilities. Plus, it has an 8 megapixel camera! Crazy! I was thinking of investing in a new point and shoot for when I didn’t want to lug the big camera around, but maybe I don’t need it! :)  Anyway, I have snapped a few images with the phone camera since getting it, and I thought they weren’t bad. Sometimes there is a little (artistic) blur when the light is low, but that can be pretty (just sometimes).  Here are a few from my recent trip to Chicago.

Navy Pier

Indiana Dunes

Ride home.

Another really fun feature the camera has is an application that I downloaded called the “Retro Camera.”  This has four old fashioned “cameras” that you can choose between that give you effects similar to what you’d get with the original retro cameras.  My favorite is the one called the “Little Orange Box.”  It kind of reminds me of shooting with my Holga film camera because you have relatively little control of exposure, shutter speed, focus… anything really. But sometimes that can be freeing and have some fun results!  Here are a few pictures I’ve taken with the retro camera on my phone over the last couple of weeks.

My sister just turned 30.  She has had a good last year to her twenties- both she and her husband dropped a ridiculous amount of weight using Weight Watchers (and when I say ridiculous I mean I think my sis dropped something like 50 lbs and her husband dropped something like 100 lbs!), and now they are training for a marathon.  She is also in her last year of graduate school- so this is her 23 year of school!!!  But anyway, she looks great and is doing great, and so when I asked her how she felt about turning 30 (THIRTY!!!) she said she looks better than she did when she turned 20, and she’s finally about to finish school, so why should she feel upset about it? I hope that I can handle the end of my twenties with such grace (and um, general hotness!).  Anyway, for her birthday, she asked if I would do a photo shoot with her and her husband.  Since their engagement photos were one of my first portrait sessions ever (way back…. way way back when I was in college), it was kind of cool to revisit couples portraits with them.  Since my parents were along, and they have ALSO both recently lost weight, I included them in the portrait session too.  Oh, and we took a few with my sister’s crazy dog, Tex, who hasn’t lost weight, but we included him anyway. :) I love everyone in the following pictures!!!!!

My dad also needed a picture for business purposes. I liked this one. My dad is so cute. :)