ah, 2010.  One of the hardest, best years ever.  It was a year that was amazing for my business, broke me personally, brought me to my knees, and showed me I’m strong enough to stand.  All in 12 months.  This is what I wrote the first of January, 2010. I can say I wholeheartedly accomplished none of it 100%, but did make strides, some tiny but there.

Let’s take a journey back through the year, shall we?

*January: January is my learning month, my month of pushing myself to dream. Last year it started here at Imaging USA and ended with a roadtrip here to Dane Sanders workshop. I don’t think I realized the gravity of this workshop to my year. It’s only now and look back and can see that as the catalyst.

*February: Studio 317 was born. We have a space and started renovations:)

*March: The Pink Label, my boudoir photography collection, launched and we held our first Knoxville photographers shootout. Community was being formed! oh, and me and Lena had fun:) and some more.

*April: Lots, lots, lots of sessions.

*May: I became Knoxville’s SMUG leader. LOTS of weddings, including an epic start and end of a wedding roadtrip to Yosemite.

*June: my heart broke.

*July: Beautiful weddings, Guns, and baseball.

*August: My little girl turned 3, I started finding my new normal and healing, we vacationed and had some cool weddings. and then I finally blogged the vacation

*September: Weddings, features, oh my!

*October: I realized I was ok. actually ok. And lots of sessions and weddings, like this one. and this one. and this one.

*November: I found me. and began the journey to the new me (20 pounds down, more to go!). And I hosted Dane Sanders workshop here in Knoxville and dreamed. big.

*December: Launched the new website, turned 30, and had my blog invaded And felt peace.

************

I literally can’t wait for 2011.  I’m dreaming big, making big changes personally, leaning in and enjoying it.   I’m nervous (way nervous!), excited, honored, humbled, and sososo happy to be on this roller coaster called life, even if it does get the best of me some days.

in the midst of the hustle and bustle

of traffic, stress, and too much fudge

let us not forget

that tomorrow, deep in the history books,

a baby was born

that changed the world.

merry christmas!!

Hi all I am pulling a JD and invading my dear friend Shannon Kelley’s Blog to wish her an absolute perfect 30th.

I met Shannon on an online photography forum and we would chat, she would visit my crazy posts.

She then one day out of the blue called, said I was on her mind all day and asked if I wanted to  shoot two weddings with her in Knoxille, TN.

God made a way and net you know I was sleeping in Lena Bean’s room

I  got a chance to see how Shannon is amazingly talented, gifted and generous.

What inspired me the most was how she gets things done, she just does it.

I also got to see her in action at weddings and amazingly impressed of how easy going she was and made her bride and grooms feel wonderful.

Our friendship has grown so much that I would even guess her password, no she has never given me her blog password, I am just that good, actually I will take that back,  not sure if I will get in trouble.

I am blessed to call Shannon my friend, mentor, go to person, laughing buddy.

She is one of the first people I want to share my victories, frustrations and failures.

She has been through a lot this year and I so admire her courage and heart.

Shannon Happy 30th birthday, hope you do not get upset with the invasion.

I truly wish you a very happy day, and pray for many blessings for you, your family and business.

I know God has great plans for your life and I thank Him for sending you into my life. So Happy Birthday girlie…

love ya and wish I was there celebrating with you…

Feuza

tomorrow we are starting the fun process of announcing the nominations of the Top 10 of the year! So I thought I’d quickly squeeze these in of my Lenabug. These have been sitting on my desktop for a couple months now waiting to be blogged. We took our annual trip back around September to pick berries. Lena insisted that she wore her pretty dress. Lucky for me it made the pictures even better:)

Her new thing is to say “princesses do…” So if she wants a lollipop, it goes “but princesses have lollipops”.  But don’t let this dress and princess talk fool you, most days you’ll find her in her John Deere boots.   Love that girl.

for the photographers out there: these are all shot on a Canon 5d, 50 mm 1.2, straight out of camera, sharpened for the web.  No actions or photoshop, the light was too yummy to mess with:) I heart yummy light!

I have this picture of me and my dad when I was little walking down a road away from the camera going fishing.  It’s one of my favorite pictures because its just us, and you can just look at the picture and make up all sorts of stories about what we were talking about, what me or my dad were thinking, about how the day was.  I love pictures like that, pictures that make you want to know more.

The other day we went out to take some family pictures in the spirit of procrastination and having to order cards that night.  (thanks mom for helping!)

And as we were walking back to the car I captured this shot.  One of my favorites ever of my two loves in life, my lenabean with her dada.  Oh, how she loves her dada.  I hope she grows up and looks at this picture and makes up all sorts of things in her head about what they were talking about and how that day was.

in other news, my trip to Haiti got postponed late last night after riots with their election continued.  I’m set to go sometime in the next couple of weeks and thank you all so much for the prayers.  Please continue to pray for Haiti as it goes through this vulnerable time!

So right now is my crunch time of the year where I have lots on the ol’ to do list. Add in a trip to Haiti in a couple weeks and you have one crazy photographer who is regretting her decision to quit caffeine. So the pictures from my personal life are pushed aside for the moment until January when I have some free time but in the midst of uploading my cards to my computer I saw this one and had to take the time to share it before putting it in my to edit someday when I’m sane pile:)

my Brad and Lena, flying high at the corn maze. It’s amazing how important pictures are in this world. I never want to forget these memories.

-you have been no less than 4 costume or characters over the last week. Mater and Princess were the two planned ones:)
-answer differently to anyone who asks you what you are going to be for Halloween (best one yet is a hamster!)
-relish in the joy of just dressing in costume.
-but wanted to see you dada wear the fro first:)
-you are so excited for the hayride this afternoon that you keep asking if its time to go.
-your answer to what do you want for breakfast is candy
-I literally had to cut lollipop out of your hair about 10 minutes ago (apparently too much fun was had with dada while mommy had a wedding yesterday!)
-have watched Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkin literally 10 times
-may have cured dada and his love for Charlie Brown:)

ps…I was so wishing I had had taped some of the above shots because the sound effects were HI-larious! So when you look at them just picture me telling her to get in the rock and roll spirit and then her busting into much growling and rrrr’s with her rock and roll fingers up. Oh me.