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I photographed adorable little Baby Alexandra a couple weeks ago...she is the daughter of Elizabeth and Dan, whose wedding I photographed last year, and little sister to sweet Charlie. So smushy!    Labels: NEWBORNS, PORTRAITS
Hello blog readers! I wanted to take a quick poll to see who is out there reading my blog. Will you vote below just to let me know a little more about you? I can't see any other info about you than how you vote. Thank you!Labels: NEWS, PORTRAITS, RESOURCES, WEDDINGS
I've lost the past several days to that nasty flu bug going around -- boy is it a tough one! It has really wiped me out. I think I'm finally starting to get better though. Good thing it hit me now; just two weeks before my busy spring wedding season kicks in.
But on to much more fun news: It has been about 10 months since I updated my portraits website, so if you click here, you'll see lots of new images and perhaps some familiar faces from the past year or so. :)
 Labels: NEWS, PORTRAITS
 I just checked Open Source Contest and saw that one of my family shots from a few years ago placed 5th! Yippee!
The cool thing about the highly addictive website is that is a photo contest for photographers and voted on by photographers -- not a panel of judges. Photographers can often be a hard group to please photographically speaking, so this is very flattering! Be sure to check out this site and see how addictive the voting is. :)
Incidentally, this candid shot of Mark and Andrea Hiland (and their daughter Ava) was used by a local developer on their website last year because they are such a beautiful family!
 Labels: NEWS, PORTRAITS
Here is another contest that just came to me.... and it's open to any bride, groom or portrait client of mine.
Send me a quick note and tell me which image from your wedding day or portrait session (that I took) is your absolute #1 favorite and why? If you had to rescue just one single image from your wedding day or a particular shoot because it just represents YOU or something important to you, which one is it and why did it mean so much? The one who moves me the most with their short story will WIN a FREE PHOTO SESSION in 2008. (I'm in a pay-it-forward mood this year.)
The Jist: Describe or email a copy of the photo (or send image number from your proofs) and tell me why it meant so much to you. Did it make you cry? Did it capture the pure essence of a particular relationship? Did it make you see yourself (or someone else) in a whole new positive light? It doesn't have to be a long story and can even be one sentence... I'm just curious about which one moved you so much and why it moved you. If it's from a wedding and both the bride and groom have different favorites for different reasons, both can enter. Same with families if mom and dad had different favs.
The photo shoot will need to happen in Phoenix metro area, however, you can still enter if you are out of state because we can always schedule something if I am in your area or if you travel to and from Phoenix from time to time. Winner will have one year to schedule their session.
What can the 1 hour session be used for? Anything: new baby, family, engagement, pets, you name it. You can even give the session away to someone in Phoenix metro area who possibly can't afford a professional photographer if you want to keep paying it forward.
Deadline: Please send me your entry by Tuesday, March 11, 2008 at midnight PST.
I'll select the person who moves me so much with their email and announce the winner by Friday, March 15th on my blog.
Good luck!
Here is a random image just cause I felt like adding in some BW to this post :-) One of my favs from 2007.
 Labels: CONTESTS, PORTRAITS, WEDDINGS
Me
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
I'm not one to like drawing attention to myself (perhaps that's why I like being BEHIND the camera), but you may have noticed a new link above called About Jennifer. It only took me about 5 months to work on getting this info to Ryan Brannen, who designed the layout (and this blog), but it's finally complete and up! A special thanks to Kimberly Jarman who took the pictures of me and to Ryan who pushed me to share more than I might have previously and came out with such a great look for this page. It's HARD to come up with a long bio about yourself! What do you think?Labels: PERSONAL
We have completed another album and have several more in process as we speak. I really love this album! Michelle wanted a very elegant and clean-lined album, so this design really speaks to her and Craig's sophisticated style. You can view the full coffee table book here. It is a 10x10, leather-bound, flush mount album. Their wedding was at Desert Mountain in Scottsdale, Arizona.  Labels: ALBUMS
"Jordan, I picked out this super cute shirt for you to wear today. Look how cute it is!"
"No. I don't like that."
"Why don't you like it? It's really cute." (Shauna in the background: "Oh that IS really cute Jordan!")
"Because I don't."
"What don't you like about it?"
"Because I said I don't."
"No, WHAT don't you like about it?" (Forgetting for moment there is no such thing as reasoning with toddler.)
"Because I DON'T."
"Please. Mommy wants to take a few pictures of you in it. Then you can take it off and wear whatever you would like. You can pick out whatever bottoms you want to wear!"
"NO! I don't want THAT shirt!"
"Please."
"No."
"Well, Mommy is going to put it on you anyway for a few minutes and then you can take it off, okay."
Tantrum/battle ensues for 2 minutes.
"I want to go to the park now!"
Shirt is forgotten and all is right with the world again. Mommy got some pictures and toddler is just fine. Toddler wore shirt all day.
 Labels: PERSONAL
And the winner is...... Cristi and Curtis! The girl whose terrible wedding photos inspired this very contest just couldn't be topped. So congratulations Cristi and Curtis! We'll get your new shoot scheduled and go capture some new images of you two-- and your love for each other 5 years later.
Here is their story and five of their original wedding images... (remember, these images were not an exception to the rule - this is what the rest of her images look like too, if not worse.)
Cristi and Curtis's Terrible Wedding Photos Story While planning our wedding, so many things went wrong that I remember a co-worker saying “Good thing you don't believe in signs, otherwise you probably wouldn’t be getting married." At that time her comment didn't really bother me. I didn't really care about where my wedding was going to take place, what my flowers or cake looked like, or that my custom-made dream dress had just gotten ruined. The most important thing to me was to have amazing pictures and I knew that I had an amazing photographer and that made me feel so incredibly lucky. Unfortunately, not for long. My amazing photographer had some personal problems and had to cancel shooting our wedding about 3 weeks before our wedding. Ok, maybe now I should believe in signs. However, I'm a very positive thinker and I believe that everything happens for a reason.
The same day that I found out I no longer had a photographer I went out dancing with some friends. There, I met a girl whom I had worked with while in college. I told her my story and she said the magic words: "Don't worry my husband is a wedding photographer! Let's meet this week so you can see his work and I'm sure it will all work out. The meeting went great. I really liked his pictures, they gave me a big discount and she even offered for me to wear her veil (they had just gotten married a couple of months before). Let's stop here for a moment. We met at a restaurant, he brought one photo album, with pictures of lots of different weddings and had a list of poses for me to check off. I told him I wanted more of a photojournalistic approach and thought I was covered. When you choose a wedding photographer, make sure that you see a few whole albums of just one wedding to give you an idea of what yours will look like. Make sure to be critical and not overly positive like I was.
Our wedding was so beautiful and so much fun! We left for our honeymoon and when we got back all I cared about was seeing our wedding photos. I remembered first looking at them and wanting to cry, but they were both there with big smiles on their faces saying “aren't they beautiful?" and “they turned out so great”, “you looked so beautiful” and so on. So I took the pictures, gave them the check, grabbed my purse and ran to my car. I called my husband crying telling him how bad the pictures were. He calmly said, “I'm sure they are not that bad. You just had really high expectations. I'm sure they are great. Come home.” I drove home and prayed that he was right, as he usually is. I ran inside and handed him the photos. As he looked through them, he avoided making eye contact with me and proceeded to go trough each picture a little faster than the one before. Pretty soon, he stopped, as he had given up. He looked up at me and said “I’m so sorry, honey." My heart sank and I cried – a lot. He hugged me and held me while I cried. Then I realized that I had something a lot more important than pictures, but still I wanted the pictures.
I called the photographers and told them how disappointed I was. She said that their style of photography was great and that she was sorry I didn’t see it the same way. When I went over to their place to return her veil, they gave me back my check so all I paid was a deposit (about $1,000). I explained to her that it really wasn't about the money. I had dreams of displaying my wedding photos all throughout the house, being able to relive my feelings on that day and sharing those photos with my kids and grandkids but now I would never be able to do any of that. She said she was sorry. I know she was, but it still didn't make me feel better. They were really nice people and I was never mad at them. I think I was disappointed in myself for letting this happen.
Now, I'm thinking this all happened so I can win this contest and have some truly amazing and special pictures. And also to be able to tell my story so this doesn't happen to others.
This August, we'll celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary. I know that the wedding day cannot be recreated but I also know that we love each other more today than we did the day we got married. The feelings that can be captured now could not have been captured 5 years ago. Plus, when we got married I had my grandma's ring and now I have my own!
Picking the worst 5 pictures was no easy task as there are so many! I picked the ones I really wanted to have: the first kiss, walking out of the church, in the car on our way to the reception, a view of the church during the ceremony, and a “posed” picture outside on the bridge by the beautiful lake on a beautiful day. So here they are. Please don't cry, I'm okay now! And If I win this, I will be REALLY happy!
Labels: CONTESTS, NEWS
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