Urban Engagement

A couple weekends ago I had the pleasure of photographing Corbin and Danielle's engagement. Corbin is my best friend's older brother, so I've known him for awhile, and the two of them are SUCH a cute couple.

I seriously had so much fun with this (and got a ton of great candids).

We shot the first half of these at the Myriad Botanical gardens on what was a beautiful day, then went over to Bricktown to shoot the rest.

I'm really happy with how these turned out, hope you enjoy!:)

Shiloh and Stormy's Announcement

This weekend I got to have an adorable mini-shoot with one of my old high school friends and her daughter.  She's expecting a new baby in October and I'm so excited for her!

Stormy's such a little cutie and I finally got to post them today!

Here's a few of my favorites:

Such a cute little family, can't wait to meet the new little one this fall!

Breaking in the Springs

Over Spring Break, I went on a little road trip up to Eureka Springs with my family. (Get it breaking in the springs haha get it) (*boos ensue from back of the room*)
This is a long time family favorite vacation spot that we've gone to since I was about three or four. If you've never been, Eureka Springs is in Arkansas in the Ozark Mountains, and is a nice, naturesque getaway with a great downtown area with lots of cool little shops and cafes.

On the way, we stopped in Fayetteville to hit up Dickson Street Book Shop. (Which may have actually been my favorite stop on the whole trip.) 

This is another family favorite we have frequented over the years, particularly my dad (pictured below). The place is just PACKED full of used and discontinued books. Every nook and cranny of the building is filled with books, which is a book-lover like me's dream. I stumbled on Annie Leibovitz's photojournal Pilgrimage (score) and a set of old prints from the mid-1900's, including an old photo of Cary Grant from '32, and my favorite, an old shot of Ansel Adams from the '50s. I think collectively we left with three huge paper bags from here,

 After leaving Fayetteville and grabbing some concretes from Shakes (double score), we were back on the road to Eureka. Since we got there on a Sunday, much of the downtown area was closed down by the time we got there, but we managed to find a small Mexican restaurant open for dinner.

The next day we started exploring the town more. We started at Onyx Cave, which is a cool little cave a little ways outside of town that has guided tours. Ignore the crappy flash photos, it was really dark down there. As one would expect from a cave. I picked up a cool little amethyst wind chime while I was here.

After the cave we went to Promised Land zoo, which is a cool little petting/drive-thru zoo a couple miles outside of town. We discovered this last spring break, and it was so fun we couldn't miss it again. I think I had more fun than all of the children there combined. I mean, look at this freakin alpaca.

                                                                         IT'S FACE.

We spent the next couple of days perusing main street, exploring it's many local shops, and eating ungodly amounts of sushi. Like, three meals in two days ungodly. 
It was nice to have a little break from everything and just have a week to relax, take photos for myself, and read.

A couple more because the sky was SO BLUE. Okay bye.

A Love for Low Lighting

Hello all! I have more photos to share today:)
My most recent assignment in photo lighting class was High Key and Low Key photos in the studio.
High key are well lit, bright images with minimal shadows, while low key are low lit, darker with more shadows. The assignment was supposed to be about half of each, but I ended up loving the low key so much more that they're nearly all low key...woops.
Anyway, here are some of my fave low key shots from the shoot!
(If anyone's interested I'll include some details of how these were shot below.)

Models: Kailye Anderson and Jessi Chapman

For any other photographers or techies that are interested, I'll share a little about my lighting setup on these. This dramatic, low-lit effect is pretty easy to achieve in the studio because, as you can guess, you don't need a lot of light. Our set up was one 800 watt light on a stand with an aluminum cone to direct the light at the subject. We placed it at about a 45 degree angle in front of the subjects to create some cool shadows. On some we also used a full body softbox on the very lowest light setting on the opposite side of the subject if the shadows were too harsh.
Enjoy!

In the Studio

Last week I had my first studio session, and holy heck I loved it.
The assignment was for Photographic Lighting, and it was simply to 'create a portraiture.' Pretty open assignment, so it was easy to have fun with.

Here are a few of my favorites!

Models: Jessi Chapman and Kailye Anderson.

Make up artist: Trent Duckworth (@tweeeent on Instagram-check out his awesome work!)

Wanderlust

The last few months I've had a terrible case of wanderlust.  I spent most summers growing up travelling to different European countries (and 48 states) with my family, so travelling is a pretty huge part of my life.



Cue terrible quality photo by 13-year old me.

I haven't been able to travel as often since I started college, which makes me insanely sad. I know every one my age says this, but I really want to spend my life travelling.  I feel everyday like I was born in the wrong state, country, continent, etc. Don't get me wrong, Oklahoma is a beautiful state and it's a great place to grow up as a kid, but I definitely want more.  The goal is to never permanently live in OK again once I leave.

My bucket list travel spots right now are Greece, Australia, and Central/South America. I've been lucky enough to see a lot of Europe, but I'm seriously lacking in my southern and eastern borders.
Unfortunately and obviously, travel is expensive, and my minimum wage job and photography projects don't include the budget for a continental jump right now.  So in the mean time I'll leave you with some photos from my most recent trip from last summer.

Paris is one of my all-time favorites I keep going back to. I live for boulangeries. LIVE.

The view from the London Eye is phenomenal (and terrifying if you're scared of heights like me), but I don't think anything will top the feeling of walking across Abbey Road and taking a cliché tourist/Beatles fan picture.

This was my first time in Madrid, and I am obsessed.  The bright buildings and streets lend themselves to some awesome color photos, while the sangria lends itself to an awesome drunk me.

Brussels was the final stop on this trip, and while we didn't see much of the city itself, we did visit a super cool zoo that recreated the cultural environments of each animal, creating a miniature world with different countries represented in different areas.  (Also, aww red panda).

Joslyn's Senior Shoot

I did some senior photos for a friend in my hometown a couple weeks ago.  She wanted all outdoor shots and wanted to include her puppy, Batman, who I was happier to work with than I am with most people.

Here's some of my favorites!

Those dog poses doe. Dzamn. Someone get that dog a modeling contract.