Mrs. Kellogg

Today was such a great day for Stephanie and Ryan's wedding. Stephanie was super chill the whole day, and Ryan had the biggest cheesiest smile that lasted the entire time. I think he might have worked it for the camera a couple times, but I might be wrong—he was probably just working his excitement.

I finally get to show you Stephanie's gorgeous bridal portraits. We shot them a couple months ago at the Hinnant Family Vineyards in Pine Level, NC. That's where we had the reception this evening. They're in the process of renovating their banquet hall, but they put together a beautiful room for the party tonight; I understand there will be even more changes by the next time I visit.

Pretty New Albums

I'm excited to finally get to show off a new product that I'm offering. I'm partnering with Finao to offer albums from both their Elements and ONE album lines. I recently ordered and received a couple samples from the Elements line. (I'm still working on the samples for the very hot ONE album.)

I love these custom, self-mount albums. There are a bunch of cover options including gorgeous brocades and bright leather-look materials, and you can choose the color of the pages. Since they're self-mount albums the edges of the pages will show. Oh, and with one cover material (available in lots of colors) we can have the cover imprinted. These are not options I had available with my previous self-mount albums. (Self-mount means that I print the pages for the album at my lab and mount them myself before giving the album to you.)

These photos were taken with my lovely new lens. YEA!! I'm shooting Stephanie and Ryan's wedding this Saturday, which I'm way excited about because I'm always excited about shooting weddings, but I have some new equipment that I'm ready to use on a real shoot. I also figured out why my color was getting messed up between the Lightroom export and opening the photos in Photoshop, so you should be seeing much improved color quality on the blog.

Family Portraits

I shot portraits for this lovely family at Pullen Park in Raleigh a couple weeks ago. I've been steering clear of the park for a while because I've thought it would seem too juvenile—I think I've seen a lot of other photographers' work there of little kids in the spring with bright flowers in the backgrounds, so that might be why? I don't know. But I finally decided to give it a try and loved all the great places to shoot.

I know the mom, Ginger, from my new Bible study group. We're both leaders for a ladies' Bible Study Fellowship (BSF) class in North Raleigh. We're taking a break for summer, but we'll get started back the Monday after Labor Day. This coming year we're going to be studying the life of Moses. Let me know if you're interested in getting more info about the study. It's an international organization, so even if you're not living in the Raleigh area, there's probably a class near you somewhere.

Midsummer Classic

When you grow up in a baseball family, and your family loves watching sports in general, and your Uncle Johnny is one of Josh Hamilton's trainers, and they're both at the All Star game, and Hamilton is in the home run derby, it's pretty exciting to watch the home run derby. I watch a lot of baseball games every summer of whichever team I have family members playing. This year it happens to be the Texas Rangers—my allegiance will change very quickly when necessary.

Last night my sister, husband, and I went to my parents' house (they have cable, we do not) to watch the 2008 MLB Home Run Derby. My sis and I made pesto from freshly cut basil, which we'd definitely never done before or hadn't even watched anyone do, so it was a total experiment that ended up turning out amazingly well. mmm. (In the south we use a very limited number of ingredients for seasoning food—salt, pepper, chicken broth, and ham hocks. That pretty much covers everything, well, almost, but using basil is really branching out—a lot. More on southern cooking another time.)

We had fun watching Hamilton hit 28 home runs in the first round. AWESOME!! Tonight we'll watch the All Star Game. And tomorrow I'll start catching up with blogging some of my recent portrait sessions.

Em and me; excited about our yummy pesto creation and the MLB Home Run Derby.


Johnny Narron and Josh Hamilton during bp. This photo was from Hamilton's SI cover story.

| natalie + greg | june.21.08 |

I had a great day photographing Natalie and Greg's wedding a couple weeks ago. They scheduled plenty of time before the ceremony for a portrait session of the two of them. (Brides and grooms, this is definitely a smart idea—see each other before the ceremony.) They both were so relaxed and were able to enjoy each other and the portrait session since they didn't feel any pressure to hurry to the reception. We started out with the portraits at Greg's family's farm in Selma, NC.

Their wedding ceremony was held at a small church in rural Kenly, NC, and then we headed to Rey's in Raleigh for the supper reception.

Now, Natalie and Greg are enjoying themselves in Hawaii. Awesome.

Mrs. Pittman




Freshly picked that morning. They were mmmm.


I know this photo doesn't show off any kind of great photography, but I wanted you to see Greg's dwarf, black, lion. He was vicious—I was given specific instructions not to pet him.


courtesy of Jonathan.