Bridal Portraits

I had a wonderful bridal shoot with the daughter of a dear friend on Thursday. 

A is the dream bride to take pictures of!  She's beautiful on the inside and out and had no problem relaxing and letting what was on the inside shine through.  We laughed a lot and tried lots of fun stuff.  I had such a great time with A and her mom.  Thanks, ladies!

MC

I spent a portion of my morning with Miss MC today.  She was born last week, which made for an early Valentine's gift for Mom, Dad and her two brothers.  You can't get any sweeter than this!

Mom bragged and bragged about how calm and quiet MC is, but I guess I brought the spunk out of her!  She didn't want anything to do with the naked and sleeping poses, but gave me her full attention when I swaddled her in a wrap I brought along.  Mom commented that they hadn't seen much of her eyes, so I'm glad that I got some great shots for them.  What a cutie she is...and check out those cheeks!

What's with the punctuation?

You may have wondered why I have the periods in real.life.photography.  You may have not, but here's my reasoning anyway.  Each word in the name has a purpose.  Every time I look at it I think of the following. "It's real.  It's life.  It's photography."  My desire is to capture real life, not poses, even though there are times when the posing is necessary.  But I want to impart the emotion of the moment because it's real and it's life and it makes for awesome photos.

Be real,

Ashley

Change, anyone?

I am so excited about what God has in store for real.life.photography this year.  He's already pulled back the curtain a little bit and gave me a peek at what's in store.  I'm getting excited.  I'm like a little kid wanting to see more, but he softly says, "Wait child.  Be patient and trust me.  It's going to be good."  I sense a shift in my photography is coming.  Something's going to change.  It's not going to be the same and I'm excited. 

I have a wedding coming up in a few weeks.  I've had several requests for weddings in the past, but I've always turned them down saying that I'm not a wedding photographer.  It's long hours and drama and really hard work.  That's what I remember from my cousin's wedding that I shot almost two years ago.  But then again, I was in my first trimester of pregnancy with the twins.  That'll leave a bad taste in anyone's mouth! Anyway, a dear friend called me a couple Saturday's ago and asked me to shoot her daughter's wedding.  I couldn't say no.  I also had a lady from church ask me about shooting her son's wedding and I felt the Lord telling me to stop saying no.  I love kids and families and babies, but I just have to wonder.  More on this as it unfolds.

Be real,

Ashley

Near and Dear

This photo shoot was near and dear to my heart.  Meet Carter Gray Richards, my brand new nephew.

Isn't he precious!!  He's big, too!  The little chunk weighed 9lbs. and 8oz. when he was born.

He was only 3 days old at the time of this shoot, so he slept most of the time.

He eventually started to get hungry.

He opened his cute eyes and looked around.

He got a little fussy, but mommy picked Carter up and snuggled with him.

And he was fine.