OSP Indy

I have always wanted to be considered a spontaneous person. I loved college because I rarely planned anything. Some of my best and most favorite memories were from the spontaneous moments my friends and I chose to partake in last minute, like the time when we went "Corning", it is an Indiana thing, I guess. You go out in the country and pick corn from a corn field and put as much as you can in the bed of a truck, then you drive down country roads and throw the corn at signs and when you hit the sign... you hear a huge BANG, and everyone screams of excitement, I'm not sure that is legal...shhhh!!! Or the time we decided to go "Mudding" in my non-4 wheel drive truck and got stuck in the mud within the first 5 mins. of trying and about 6 of us girls tried to push our way out... what a mistake that was. I think we made it worse, but we had someone come bail us out and we thought it was hilarious at the time. Those are just a couple to name a few. I have not been able to really be spontaneous in quite some time. When you get older and have to work M-F, it gives you little time to be young again.

But last weekend was my chance to redeem myself, to relive those college days, since it has been almost 3 years since college, I got a chance to be young again, and to be that spontaneous girl that is still inside me.

I decided to leave Michigan Sunday evening and head down to Indiana to visit my family. I was going to skip out on my M-F job, considering I only had a couple days left and honestly I knew they could not do anything to stop me... haha! There was a photo seminar/mini-workshop that I wanted to attend as well. So that's exactly what I did.

The photo seminar was very informative, and I'm so glad that I went. I feel like I'm starting off fresh and have a new perspective on my business. I got inspired and it felt good to actually be around other people that were once in my position, or are in my position as we speak. It was awesome! I would say that it could possibly be life changing.

We had some great speakers like Kevin Swan, from Indianapolis, with his Kiss Albums, (which we are starting to offer) Brandi Brown, from St. Louis, with her children's photography, Jennifer Driscoll, from Indianapolis, with her maturnity photography, and Garrett Nudd, international wedding/portrait photographer, with his inspiring talk about finding YOUR style. Plus, I got to see an old friend and amazing photographer, Shelly Valentine... who was super helpful and encouraging!

We had a couple shoots that we did as well. One of those being a creative project, where we were split in 4 groups and as a group, we had to go out and shoot a folding chair. There were just two requirements that we had to use 1. the photos had to have this folding chair in it and 2. it also had to have a person in it. We had 2 hours to complete it, and had to submitt 10 final images. The groups consisted of about 8-10 people. These were my best shots from the shoot, but I have to add that I couldn't quite feel my hands, fingers, toes, and my whole body was pretty numb about 15 mins into the shoot because it was so cold out. I hate being cold!

Another plus was that I got to see my other half Stephanie Michael and her husband Ethan, which I miss them both so dearly. But it was a fun trip home, and I was so glad that I went along with it being a spontaneous decision. I am young AGAIN! Whoooo hoooo!!!

(I don't think you can see the chair in this first one, but I still liked it, she was one of our group members and really good model as well)

BEST OF 2007: BRIDE & GROOM'S

I first want to mention if you have our blog bookmarked, please re-bookmark it to this site and get rid of the old one. I will be posting just to this one from now on. Thanks!

Welcome to the first post! I decided I wanted to do a "Best of...something" for while now, and although it's been 2008 for a few months now....

I know it's almost April, but it's never too late to start somewhere. I guess I'm one of those people who likes to revisit the past, like Back to the Future movies, go back to when I was younger, and totally redo some things. Not the REAL IMPORTANT things that have gotten me where I am today because I realize those things happened for many great reasons, just little things... like Why did I just eat all junk food, I know it's going to go straight to my hips or the time where I cut my own bangs and had school photos a couple days later, and YES, they were cricked... those kind of things. So I'm going to revisit 2007, even though it's four months into 2008, and post some of my favorite Bride and Groom shots. I tried to pick just the shots of bride and grooms alone, while not using many from the ceremony... those might come later. I must say they all were beautiful couples, and I'm so thankful I was able to be a part of each and every one of their weddings!

Good times!