When a family spends a week at the local fair every year, they will always have the memories. But pictures to help remember? Yes, please.
I followed this family of three around the Hookstown Fair in late August and capture just a few memories for them.
In January I entered a few of my favorite images in the 2017 Shoot and Share Contest. After a month of voting, the results are finally in! One of my images ranked in the top 3.5% of over 330,000 entries! Another 5 were in the top 10%! To be honest, I was kind of surprised that my favorite picture only made the top 30%, but I probably have my "mommy goggles" on for it.
I love weddings and I love photographing them too. This image of the groom's grandparents was taken at a wedding last summer. I love that it captures so many love stories in one image. The elderly grandparents, worn but still together. The father and mother, holding hands as they smile looking at their example. And the young mother holding her baby and watching the little girls run around. Then the commotion of the whole crowd behind them, all there to celebrate the union of two more young loves.
These were all in the top 10% of the contest. I love b&w images, and I think it's safe to say that others love them too!
I should have done this a long time ago since I loved this session. It was the perfect combination of portrait, lifestyle, documentary photography. I can't decide which genre I love best, so when they are all incorporated into a session, I am in love. And to be honest, this is my close friend/cousin's family, so any day spend with them is a good one.
They often go to the strip as a family and Peace, Love & Little Donuts is their favorite. So after a few posed and fun portraits by the loading docks, they enjoyed some of their favorite donuts and a walk thru the Strip. A crazy fisherman, shaped balloons, fresh flowers and Mancini's pepperoni rolls for the ride home rounded out the day. Enjoy the pictures and I hope you can see how much fun they had on a family day together.
Celebrating their 4,018th day together (11th wedding anniversary!).
So there's a little story that goes with this one...
We were down in the bottom of Whole's Fish Market, using the restroom and I dared someone to take a picture with the fisherman. The little guy agreed, but as soon as he stepped next to him, a booming voice came over the loud speaker and scared the fish out of him!
because every mom needs to know that she is and looks fabulous...and she sure is!
Does this look like a family that enjoyed Pittsburgh?
We had an appointment for Leah's fractured elbow: remove the cast, x-ray, and put another cast on. It was lunch time when we left the doctor's, so we went to Jason's Deli. Here my husband is trying to give her some soft serve ice cream. Not suer why she was so against it, but she did eventually remove her hand and try some!
This week's favorite wan't a clear win as most past ones have been, but I chose this picture of Lilly helping her cousin fill up the calf buckets. I remember doing the same chore with my sister when was I younger.
But the story that sticks in my mind as a childhood lesson was when we were filling up the calf water buckets one hot summer evening. It was hot. The water was cool. So we dumped buckets upon buckets on ourselves. We were laughing because we thought it was hilarious watching each other dripping with waterWe were soaked and so was everything else around us. But our dad was in the milking barn watching us too. He did not think it was hilarious. We were threatened with a water-soaked bed that night (and he would pour water on our brothers to wake them up in the morning, so we knew he was serious!). We slept in a dry bed that night, but we never again dumped buckets of water on ourselves.
Lesson learned. Respect the comforts of others (humans and animals!). I pray my daughters make mistakes and learn from them here in the loving boundaries of the family farm. When they grow up and possibly leave, they will be equipped to make it wherever their life leads them.
"Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old, he will not depart from it." Proverbs 22:6
I love how she still snuggles before nap and bedtime. She's the only baby who lets me rock her to sleep. Maybe it was because with the first, I read all the books that encouraged to let the baby fall asleep on their own. I might say that I had an awesome schedule and routine with the first and second, but with her, I am definitely a softy and I am loving every moment.
The youngest is definitely a daddy's girl. If she's not going with him, she is wishing that she was. I love this picture of her putting on his hat while he ties his shoes, getting ready to leave for work. I posted this on Facebook and someone commented that it is is a "Norman Rockwell moment." I kind of agree and might have a family friend sketch it (minus all of the background distractions) and give it to him for Father's Day. Now to capture one of him with the other girls.
Every Monday and Wednesday, my girls and I are at the farm I grew up on. Sometimes they get to go out in the evening and help feed the calves and for this night, milk the cows.
Even though both my girls only tried to strip the cow and prep her for milking, it makes my heart happy knowing they get a glimpse of what my childhood was like. I started milking cows with Gramps when I was in 6th grade. He had just had knee surgery and couldn't bend down to put the milkers on. I was short and couldn't reach the pipeline, so we made a team. That's my favorite part about my family's farm...family and the way we can have fun working together.
While this first picture is the favorite of the week, I wanted to share a few more of the ear piercing experience...
This past month, her cousins got their ears pierced. She was going to wait "until she turned 6", but decided she wanted them now. So here she is with her "more experienced" cousin and bestie getting ready to dress her ears up with a pair of lady bug earrings. While I do not like how this particular picture is composed, I love how they are holding hands, smiling at each other, and the jeweler (or would you consider her a type of beautician?!) is smiling because she also thinks this is the cutest thing ever.
Here's the whole crew helping my daughters pick out their earrings. I shared this with my sister-in-law and she pointed out how this picture sums up their personalities. I love when a snapshot does that. (And I don't know who's kid that is with her hands down her tights?!)
I think I love everything about this image. The black & white conversion and how she looks as she sleeps and snuggles with the blanket my mom made me. The contrast of the babydoll and the war paint on her little rounded cheeks makes me smile too.
This picture perfectly portrays why they like to help me in the kitchen. I also love that the middle Little is wearing the crown she made the day before at preschool. And these cupcakes were consumed just a few hours later at Aunt Leanne's house for her "birthday party." Just another thing I love about my girls...every who has a birthday needs a party.
I am completing a 365 this year and will be featuring my favorite picture from each week here on the blog. Hope you enjoy this!
Something I am trying to do this year is to be in more pictures. It requires a little extra effort because I have to set up a tripod and use the self timer but it's kind of fun, and I hope my daughters will appreciate seeing what their mom looked like (and did!) when they were growing up. (I also hope I don't regret this decision but I am the typical "mom wearing a Target shirt" with straight hair so I have nothing too crazy to be embarrassed about. Right?!)
This picture was obviously staged but I wanted to expressed how I feel about doing laundry. I think it explains it to a T. When I was 13 years old, I told my mom "when I grow up I am not going to have a dresser with drawers; just baskets to throw the appropriate clothes in." I was blessed with a mother-in-law who bought my husband and I some bedroom furniture for our wedding. Needless to say, I fold clothes.
I love documenting life. In elementary school, Laura Ingalls Wilder was my inspiration. I thought it was so cool how she wrote about her childhood and people a century later enjoyed reading about it. Encouraged by my 4th grade teacher, Ms Natowich, I kept a journal all thru school. I didn't want to forget a thing when it was my time to write the novel of my childhood! (I am going to admit, it is slightly embarrassing to read what my teenage brain thought but I do have an account of the first impression of the boy who would one day be my husband!)
I went to college and majored in accounting. I traded in the journal for a little camera, but I didn't get serious about photography until my 2nd Little turned one. The Canon Powershot I had broke and I was in need of another one. All I wanted was the same little handy camera, but my husband thought I needed a camera "with the lenses you can change, you know, like Amanda's (my sister-in-law)." I was intimidated, but soon got over it and the rest is history!
So here I am documenting life. Not quite the way I was envisioning in 4th grade, but I love this creative outlet. I doubt my pictures will ever reach the audience that Mrs. Wilder had, but capturing the lives and personalities of my girls is an honor that I hope they appreciate and enjoy as they (unfortunately) grow older.
