Andy+Kelly = Baby Liam :)

i met kelly 2 ish? less than 2? years ago when she contacted me about shooting a dance crew...sound familiar?? :) i've been shooting them since :). we became friends on facebook not too long after and when i was about 8 weeks pregnant, i saw her announce on her page that she was pregnant too (she's due 10 days before me) - i was still in secret stealth mode, so i messaged her with disbelief and told her i was as well. since then we've been joined at the text hip and i seriously think we should write a book with all our hilarious and mostly disgusting pregnancy texts back and forth. jenny mccarthy we've decided is just not as funny as we are. belly laughs, my butt!
and andy, well i just met him :) i kinda like him! ;) he HATES pics (what guy doesn't), so i told him he didn't have to look at me or the camera at all. (i like it better that way anyway - it's like peeking into their lives instead of them staring at you like what are you looking at? and trying to force a non-fake smile). so that's what we did, and he warmed up pretty quick :). and i have to say, he was such a gentleman - took great care of the pregnant ladies, making sure we didn't slip on ice outside and checking often on not just kelly, but me too :).
kelly, you're awesome. i'm glad we are friends :) thank you guys for everything :). i freaking love the dual-personality of this shoot.
xoxoxo :)

this little moment happened for real approximately 5 seconds before i asked andy to repeat it. i was checking my lighting (camera not up to face) and out of the corner of my eye, i saw him do exactly this. i could not love this picture more! feeling your baby move inside of you and having your husband experience it too is by far the coolest thing i've ever felt in this world and i guarantee i'm not the only woman to say this, so to capture something so amazing is why i do what i do.
love.

ok so it's no surprise i'm sure, that everyone having their photos taken are at first a little (or a lot) nervous, excited, anxious, etc. and have no idea what to do. sometimes i also feel the same at the beginning of a shoot. until everything starts clicking (no pun intended), it takes a minute to get comfortable. what i love about the first part of a shoot - the nerve-racking part - is that it makes funny things happen. nerves = laughter... generally. so what did kelly do? she started stuffing diapers in andy's shirt, pants pockets, etc. :)


soooo wish you could see the robot artwork andy created in the background. it's washed out from the light :( and of course i stuck my logo over it ;) whoops.
and sometimes, smiles and laughter don't come from me saying anything funny, or them doing anything in particular....they sometimes come from the dog (scootzy collins) in the next room whining and crying from inside his cage because he feels left out. it was an absolute riot. 2 preggos about to pee themselves anyway, and then you throw in a basset hound being a baby. :) thank you scootzy! love this :)

trust your photographer :) when i told kelly i wanted to shoot in their ikea catalog (but way artsy-er) living room, her mouth dropped. "i HATE that room!!!" but trust me, she did, and guess who picked a bunch of her faves from that room? kelly :)

gorgeous. :)

i love love love this one :) maybe it's the angle? maybe it's the looooooove? who knows. but i love it.

there are so many things going through my head on a shoot...lighting, composition, shutter speed, true emotion, lint, dog hair (just kidding), stray hair, etc. that sometimes my directions go a little like this:
"put your....uh... face.... on her .....uh face...." seriously???!!! i said that! put your face on her face! hahahaha :) so i pretty much said that the rest of the shoot. it worked ;).


andy i heart you in this next one :)

outfits and personalities............presto-chango :) off to shoot some modern pics!!!
btw, we had no idea where we were going. we started out hoping for one location to be open (it was FREEZING outside) and guess what, downtown dayton is SHUT DOWN on sundays. so we drove around looking for ANYTHING and thank goodness they knew about the location we ended up at, cause i'd never been there. SHHH! it's a secret secret place! it might be a new fall-back location. ;) 
ok, so don't judge. i haven't done "modern" before and i know like 3 poses. stand there and look uninterested. stand there, face each other and look uninterested, and stand there looking away and look uninterested. after those were accomplished i looked at kelly like help me. :) hahaha
pose 1 :)

pose 2 :)
pose 3 :) (told you so)

oooooo tricky tricky!!! throw in a little one up front one standing back action! the tie check thing happened before this shot and i saw it and made andy do it again :) fun :).

a little self-portrait. i was obsessed with the reflective ceilings, so i took one of myself lying on the ground shooting :) (i am always on the ground i swear!) getting back up is getting trickier these days ;)

gorg.

eeeeek! i feel like this one should be in a magazine! i love it!!! maybe it's just me...

and they looked at me like i was crazy when i said "OOOOOH ESCALATORS!!! THAT IS HAPPENING!!!" oh yeah, one of kelly's faves. booyah grandma. booyah.
omg i've had too much starbucks.