St. Louis in Pictures

Our first stop in St. Louis on Saturday was the Budweiser Brewery. 
I love the Clydesdales.


At the end of the tour we got a couple free samples. The glasses were specially designed so the bubbles rise up from the bottom. Pretty neat.

Later that night we went to a Cardinals game. We hadn't been to the new Busch stadium yet and wanted to check it out. It was a gorgeous stadium.



Sunday morning we walked to the Gateway Arch - I had been before but I was excited to try out my new wide angle lens. 



Sunday afternoon it was game time. The undefeated Buffalo Bills we playing the winless St. Louis Rams. 
And we had awesome seats!


They beat the Rams 31 to 14. 
Marshawn Lynch and J.P. Losman.
George Wilson.
Our QB - Trent Edwards.
My favorite player, Brian Moorman. He's the punter.
Todd caught two gloves from the players - I'm pretty sure it made his year.
The Rams fans were not pleased. 
We had a really good trip - St. Louis is a fun city. I wish the Rams fans weren't such jerks during the game - they really were some sore losers. Their coach was fired this morning maybe that'll cheer them up a bit.

Session Online

Click here to see the photos I took on Sunday. Positive or negative comments are appreciated :-)

My First Session

I had my first official portrait session yesterday. I actually had a really good time.

My weak point right now is posing - it seems easy but really it's not, I promise. This was a great learning experience for sure. I've edited about half the photos and I've seen so many things I did wrong and some thing I did right too. So much goes into it that you have to be conscious of - lighting, composition, pose, everyone in focus, random dog walkers in the background... it's enough to make you go crazy. But that's what practice is all about. 

Here are just a couple of pictures (I should actually be editing right now).

Nicole & Kurtis. Nicole was great with helping me come up with cute poses for the girls. 

This is Kristin. I love this girl! She was such a great little model and was very energetic. If every child I ever photograph is like her I will have it made.

This is Kourtney, she was also fabulous - she also had some great suggestions for poses which I appreciated.

This was my last shot of the day - Kristen wanted her picture swinging on the branch. What a cutie.

Hopefully I'll have all the shots on my website by the end of the week. I'm my biggest critic so editing has been a challenge, especially since I don't start my photoshop classes for a few weeks. But I'm slowly but surely figuring it out. 

Power is Back On!

I tell you 48 hours without power seems like an eternity. After the electric company told me it would be up to 7 days I was prepared but a little annoyed. But when the power came back on today I was delighted.
We got very lucky and had very little damage. Just a few shingles loose. We were stranded on Sunday at a restaurant because of numerous trees down on every possible route home. This is what remained when we finally made it home. This is right in front of our house.
This is a tree on the powerline about 100 feet down the road from our house.


Our neighbors yard.
I've driven by so many houses that had gigantic trees down in their yards or on their houses - I feel very lucky.
I'm so grateful everyone made it through this freaky storm ok and I hope everybody gets their power back real soon.

Secret Lovers

I caught my cats in another loving embrace the other day. Yes, Jack and Tyson - both boys. I snuck this photo with my phone. They think they're hiding something, I'm not fooled. 

Some Tailgating Pictures

Had a great time Saturday at the Cardinals game. We actually won this week, we beat Tennessee Tech 51-10. A little better than the two points we scored last week. Ouch.

Donnie and Debbie were feeling the love.
Mike was obviously bursting with excitement.

Jamie and Caitlyn.Some dude named Todd :-)Pit stop on our "two beer walk" to the stadium. (Because you have enough time to drink two beers on the way in - that's how far away we have to park.)Our first stop once inside. Priorities. 

The Cardinal Bird making his grand entrance.

This is the view from our seats. 

A Little Closer

As in I'm a little closer to having all the gear I need. I got the lens I took these with today - these were taken about two minutes after I opened the box. I love having little models at my beck and call.

This lens has a great depth of field so I'm all set for portraits. Just need some people instead of animals. Or other peoples animals, whatever.

Behold, the External Flash

Saturday I bought my first external flash for my camera and I honestly don't know how I lived without it. This was tops on my list of things I needed to get going. I knew it was important but I didn't expect to fall instantly in love.
This is the result with the external flash...

This is with no flash at all - blurry mess. Mainly because the dog doesn't sit still.
Oh glorious external flash...

This is what happens when i use the horrendous pop-up flash on the camera.

So worth the investment, wouldn't you say?