Welcome baby Cameron!!!

Our friends Trent and Jeanette adopted a baby boy last night! Yahoo! A baby brother for Jess

So exciting...its getting harder and longer to adopt in NZ. When we adopted the "stats" were 1 baby to every 3 couples now I think it would be at leat 1 baby to 15 couples - so sad.

Photos to come soon hopefully!!

This time next week

I am either going to be dancing and enjoying the rest of the wedding OR crying and curled up in a ball on the back seat of my car!! I pray I am dancing! Ihave had so much doubt today over one silly comment from a complete stranger on a photography forum... :(
I can do this. After all everyone starts somewhere...
It was stinking hot today...I am hoping tht next week is fine - slighty cloudy, cooler so that I dont sweat it out in my trousers and no wind. Not asking for much but that is my prayer as I go to sleep tonight!

I ♥ faces "hands on"

I ♥ ♥ ♥ "I ♥ faces" !!!!!

This weeks its hands on and so I went for this pic of Amalie and I. I took this pic myself one morning while I was feeding her - its one of my favourites!
Pop over to their website to check out all the other great "Hands on" photos! Or even better - enter one in yourself!

I know I am doing this on Suday but it takes me ages to add buttons etc!

Still cant work out out to make pics bigger. when I use the I♥faces tutorial my photo just gets cut in half :(

Sometimes I could just scream!!

While I love being at home with Amalie - sometimes I feel like I am not even me anymore.
Where did Angela go? Has she been gone so long she wont ever come back?
I don't even really know who Angela is anymore.
I know who I would like her to be but that seems so far off.
At times, the kids drive me nuts, like seriously I feel like my head will explode. And other times I miss them so much when they are gone. Crazy woman.
I love ALL that we went through to "get" our darling children. Sure I don't have the pregnancy stories or can relate to the pain of child birth but we still had pain.
I worry what they will be like when they grow up...will Amalie really search for her birth father? We don't even know where to start looking for him if she did. Will she believe us and Erin that he wasn't a nice man, that he was trouble and she wouldnt have been safe with him.
Will Oliver want to reconnect with Sarah and James. What are they like now? They were so young when we met them.
who knows...I guess time will tell.

Gosh they have changed so much in those two photos. Amalies eye is CRAZY in the top one!!

Planning going to plan

I think my day is going to be more planned out than the brides!!
I have a list - will check it twice - ohhhh sounds like Christmas!! But I am one of these people who like everything written down, in order, bullet points help to!!
We have a venue for the photos which I am excited about and plan to go there this weekend to scout it out!

I have downloaded Adobe's light room to have a play with for 30 days. I think I like it! Add it to the list of programmes I have for editing photos!

2 weeks tomorrow

too cool

First EVER engagement shoot!!

So, Andy and Maree arrived last night for a chat about the wedding and a quick engagement shoot as it was pouring down!! OH yes the heavens opened and drenched the place on and off all day. Luckily we ended up with a fine spot to crack into the photos.

I admit I was nervous...while Andy is my BIL I also admit that I don't know him well. He was only young when Greg and I got married and he lived with his dad so we only really saw him Christmas etc and then we moved he all of a sudden became a man and now found the wonderful Maree!!!
We set about doing photos and I noticed my first mistake when I went to edit the photos:
I talk to much!

This of course resulted in Maree talking through most of the shoot!!

I took roughly 150 photos and edited the ones I like the most! I hope they like them and are not thinking - Oh my goodness is this what our wedding photos are going to be like???

I wonder if I will look back on these photos be like : What was I thinking?? But that's all about learning - so when I am a photographer to the stars I can come on here and see where it all began!

The planning has begun!

So I have taken a leaf out of Kristin Rogers book and now I am cutting, pasting and writing my plan down for the wedding!
We have a quick engagement shoot tomorrow night with them - where we will run through the plan and who, what and wheres!

Its offical

I am the photographer for Andy and Maree and while I am still very nervous I am also super excited.
I have lots of ideas in my head and thanks to a post on http://kristinrogersphotography.com/ I have been printing and saving thumbprints of pics of how I want the shoot to look!
I have been extremely lucky to acquire the talents of an old friend who actually photographed our wedding, next week to help me with a few tips and tricks. Unfortunately it has come in to action under sad circumstances as his wife's mother has died and they are coming down for the funeral.

In other news:

I have a sty in my eye. Oh yes a sty!! I have not had a sty in my eye for years!! And it hurts!

I have a wedding booked!

Holy crap-my-pants!!

I am so excited/nervous/worried that I feel like I could pee my pants at any stage! My BIL is getting married in 5 weeks and they asked me yesterday to do the photos!! I am still really unsure if I have the right gear for it after all I only have my 2 kit lens and pop up flash!
I am searching for somewhere local that i could rent a lens from but they are all further north or further south and wont courier it to me!
In my mind I am saying "If i just had the right flash or the right lens and oh please dont rain and please may they be good!!!"

Worried, YES. Excited, YES.

Am I up to this?? I have done one wedding before on my amazing trusty film camera and If I was doing them on that I would not even be worried but this digital thing I carry around constantly is such a worry!

Right, off to hunt down some gear and go to the location of the wedding - did I tell you its all inside - another worry for me!!!