Leigh & Blake- Maternity

I shot Blake and Leigh's wedding a few years back and it was fun to be a part of another special time in their life. They are such a fun and beautiful couple. I can't wait to photograph baby Call in another month or so.

Thanks Leigh,
Jamelle

Studio update

PHEW. Done with the third coat of varnish on the floors at the new studio space. We are going for a very weathered, rustic look on the floors. Painting is completed, we did the ceiling in chocolate brown and walls in a silvery blue. Hum, blue and brown-- our colors! All our furniture has arrived and is in boxes... Sunday is unpacking day. Special thanks to Kim Duncan to helping us design the space. Lighting is on the way and we are going to be open for First Friday Flagstaff, Oct. 3. Thanks to sister Kate for helping with the floors and to Jamelle's dad who helped us make the stairs go bye bye-- there was this horrible staircase that just went down into the dungeon under our space... and well, we weren't ready to tackle the dungeon quite yet.

I've run into a technical error on my hard drive #2. I can read but not write to it. No bueno. It's put production on hold for a few days. I called Apple today and decided... that I'm copying everything off it now, trashing it and loading up a new one. Sounded better than shipping it to Phoenix to discover that I have to do the aforementioned task. Don't worry, I'm all backed up but still it's scary when hard drives take a dive.

Owen's daily grind

I thought I'd just post a few cute ones of the boy. Two are from regular bath time. We get in the bath with him and have fun. He likes to stand up and hold the edge now. Also he's "into" reading a book with little furry patches while I change his diaper. Middle image thanks to Daddy Clark. :)

Sneak Peak: Joni & James

Full post on Joni & James coming. Their Sept. 6 L'Auberge wedding was fabulous. I definitely ripped the shadow idea from Matt Adcock. Thanks man.

Jenna & Emily | HS Seniors

I haven't ventured into this world of High School seniors as much as Jamelle, but Cameron + Kelly Studios will be offering LOTS of senior sessions for '09 (if you have time) and '10. This is Jenna and Emily of Flag High. These two have been best buds pretty much their whole lives and Matt --er Mr. Clark has known them almost 10 years. They bugged me to do a blog post, so I did a quick edit...no PhotoShop work here... but here you go girls... full edit of photos will be ready Monday, promise :) Oh, we did their session together, which worked out for this time, but I'll consider on a case by case basis in the future.

Hess Family Shoot

Jamelle shot these too...

High School Seniors & Jamelle Kelly

In case you have missed the news, I will be officially joining Cameron's photo biz in a little less than 3 weeks. We will officially become Cameron + Kelly Studios. So, I thought I would introduce myself... I'm Jamelle Kelly. I've been working with Cameron this past year and we have decided to merge our photo businesses and build off each others strengths. (As Cameron has already mentioned and more on the studio space update later) We will size these photos larger, later today... slight technical difficulty...blogger!

I've been keeping busy with high school senior portraits the past few weeks as yearbook deadlines are quickly approaching... This is beautiful Jordan from Sinagua High School.

Love those eyes!!!

Cheers!!

Edie Lynn Hines part II

So here are some more little photos of baby Edie. I'll let the cuteness do the talking...

Steve + Carol | Hart Prairie | Flagstaff, AZ | Weddings

Steve and Carol have been together forever. They even went to prom together! When they called me to shoot their wedding, they said, "we've seen your work and we've seen your own wedding in Arizona Bride magazine and we want to pull off a similar event." So I gave them all the names of my great vendors and when I got to their wedding I have to admit I was a little nostalgic -- only two years ago it was me getting married in that same location (they actually picked a different spot but a few vendors were having a hard time managing the road logistics so it was changed to Hart Prairie). Anywhooo they "one-upped" me in many regards. Their ceremony location was tucked away behind some Aspen trees and it was beautiful (ours was too close to the tent) and they had lawn games and well, a better portable restroom facility. Me, I chose to save money on the port-a-potty-- yes, it was the regular old deal blue and everything. Carol and Steve; however, went all out with this ROYAL restroom and believe me it was worth it. Check out the totally RAD detail of the photographs they printed up, cut out, and pasted to construction paper and then hung on the "walk" towards the ceremony. Every guest stopped to check out the photos. Also their friends cut out these Aspen tree rounds and did flower arrangements, which turned out beautiful. Oh, oh, the pirates. Steve and Carol had been threatening to do a Pirate theme wedding for years and so Steve's family brought some pirate parafanilia to the wedding and we took some funny photos. That's Steve's sister and Dad posing: ARRRRrrrrrRRR! HAD to post this NOW!
**sidenote** their ceremony was 4 minutes. I thought we got pretty good images, considering... Thanks to my fabulous assistant, Jamelle, and also Pamela Matheus for shooting that day with me. See slideshow in it's own window here or view it on my blog

Shoot Q Video part III | Edited and on YouTube, BABY

Shoot Q is a studio software web application that makes my life a lot easier. Shoot Q's magical editors made TWO nice compilation videos of my footage. Find it on their community video site. Upload your own if you use ShootQ. I also embedded the "writing" songs one by Eric Laurits, which is hilarious.

Sedona Cake Couture | Bride's Cafe

If you don't already know, Sedona Cake Couture is one of my favorite vendors. Andrea makes these AMAZING cakes that are also DELICIOUS. Check out a cute photo I took of Andrea delivering a cake in June posted to the Bride's Cafe (a great wedding planning resource blog).

back to school cold and merger update

Matt, my husband, is a teacher. He's been back at school for a month now and we got sick this week... a 'back to school' cold as I've been calling it. So I've been trying really hard to recover fast and I've been sleeping during Owen's naps instead of working. It hit me hard on Wednesday and I'm starting to feel better tonight. It certainly does NOT help that Owen is teething (big time) and up every hour every night this week. Poor little guy, he's cutting the top four teeth-- big ones--! At any rate, I'm going to bed... hopefully the boy and I will sleep.

Good news! Gran Clark is coming for a week and I will hopefully catch up on lots of editing. She is ticked pink to watch Owen while I work.

Update on the merger... I'm merging my business with my assistant, Jamelle Kelly. We are becoming Cameron and Kelly Studios. Jamelle will be expanding the portrait experience so I'll be officially offering kids, babies, doggies, high school seniors, etc. Our new pad in downtown Flagstaff just got painted (brown and blue, of course). Now we are sanding the floors... photos to come tomorrow. The talented Kim Duncan is doing the interiror design.

New website, new prints, new albums, new, new, new! We will have our soft opening Oct. 1 and Grand Opening in Nov. More news to follow... stay tuned.

101 in 1001, stolen post

I wrote these goals in November 2007 when I was pregnant and not sure if I wanted to tell the whole world wide web (AKA I was in denial re: pregnancy). Anyway, goals are to be shouted from the mountain tops and thus, you will fulfill them (at least that's how it works for me). So I give you... my goals, in life, love, business and baby... all there for me to live up too. What's neat is that I haven't read them since I wrote them in November and now I'm going to make them part of my blog much like photographers Melissa Jill and Jessica Claire have. When I am at a loss for a post, I'm going to do one on a goal I've completed. I need to catch up on these...
P.S. those highlighted in yellow are completed and will be blogged eventually with photos... the red one is impossible now, I didn't complete it, probably because I didn't post these goals :( Anyway, it was interesting to read these after not looking at them since November. I realized that I work towards my goals (slowly) without posting them. It will be interesting to see if I motor through more of them now that the WWW knows. **side note** when I started these, I thought, "this is going to take forever to write 101 goals." I think it took me 15 minutes... they just kept coming to me in no particular order... so TRY IT. It's inspiring.

101 in 1001 (1001 days is 2.74 years)
today is Nov 4, 2007

1. Get a studio downtown
2. Get a new blog
3. Teach a workshop
4. Teach a DWF workshop
5. Update website with new 2007 images
6. travel back to Spain
7. finish a personal documentary project
8. Pay off all debt
9. Read 1 new personal book a month for 3 months
10. Read 3 business books in 12 months
11. Design MY wedding album
12. Ride my mountain bike 30 times in 2008
13. Run a marathon
14. Do the cream puff 100 mile mountain bike race in OR
15. Covert a bike/buy a single speed mtb
16. Ride my bike everywhere for two weeks
17. Get back to my goal weight post baby
18. Breastfeed for 8 months
19. Deliver this baby without drugs
20. Grow a garden with mint, basil, tomatoes, oregano, thyme
21. Plant some vegetables
22. FINISH landscaping around house (especially SIDE YARD)
23. Buy a new Mark III or Mark II
24. Buy a Canon 5D
25. Shoot 3 portraits in the studio
26. Find an internet money-making muse
27. Work 50% less hours in 2008
28. Convert business into LLC or s-corp
29. Sell more prints online
30. Blog at least once a day for a month
31. Take a photograph of myself pregnant once a week from 6 months to delivery
32. Do a new self portrait every year (long term)
33. Save 15% of my total income for 12 months
34. Set up 1% for the planet membership
35. Get Patagonia to speak at the Flagstaff Film Festival
36. Attend an AWESOME workshop that helps my business
37. Cook dinner for Matt twice a week for 3 months
38. Think of something awesome for Matt’s birthday
39. Make a portrait of Matt
40. Schedule a photo session with photographers for belly shots
41. Buy some of Emma’s work
42. Buy some of Raechel’s work
43. Collect two more photojournalism books
44. Trade prints with Running
45. Get freelance work for a magazine
46. Get published in the Daily Sun
47. Don’t use any plastic bags from stores for 2 months (make habit)
48. Create an awesome self-promotional piece
49. Finish decorating my office
50. Find a free intern
51. Get published in the New York Times
52. Freelance for the Arizona Republic
53. Attend an NPPA event or conference
54. Go to New Zealand
55. Go to Japan
56. Get a FABULOUS destination wedding in Mexico or Hawaii
57. Get a show at Flagstaff Photography Center
58. Make sample albums for three Sedona Vendors
59. Paint bathroom
60. Rip out shower in bathroom
61. Tile bathroom
62. Do 3 art projects with Matt
63. Get published in Martha Stewart Weddings
64. Get published in Grace Ormonde
65. Get published in Arizona Weddings
66. Get published in Arizona Bride
67. Cook 3 new recipes from Sunset Magazine
68. Buy a hybrid vehicle
69. Hike rim to rim at Grand Canyon (again)
70. Visit Antelope Canyon
71. Do some charity photography work
72. Give away a free wedding package to a client
73. Re-organize the garage
74. Build bookshelves in bedroom
75. Take a relaxing weekend vacation
76. Decorate the baby’s room
77. Rock climb with Dawn
78. GET ON A RIVER TRIP in the GC so I can say “I just got off the river”
79. Make “I just got off the river T-shirts”
80. Visit with Sara O’Brien
81. Visit with Kathleen
82. Visit my grandmother with the new baby
83. Write letter to someone regarding teachers and exempting from taxes
84. Get published with Patagonia
85. Have 5 networking meetings with other photographers
86. Shop at Farmer’s market 5 Sundays next summer
87. Win a medallion on WPJA!!
88. Buy information about building an GREEN eco home
89. Get solar panels
90. Get compost bucket thingy from city of Flagstaff
91. Water garden with roof water
92. Teach Kaibee a new obedience trick
93. Take a PhotoShop course, learn more techniques
94. Do yoga 2 times a week for 8 weeks.
95. Make homemade baby food
96. Make a baby quilt
97. Finish CCP operating manual and put together as a notebook
98. Get a completely new website
99. Write 10 love letters to Matt
100. Surprise Matt with 5 nice things
101. Buy 5 photography books

Jo + Austin | Forest Highlands, private residence | August 30, 2008

So if you (or your parents) happen to have a gorgeous second home in Forest Highlands... why not get married there? Great idea! Most people underestimate the simplicity of a small ceremony, AKA just family. This is a great way to split up the events so you do not have to feed 100+ guests. If you have the ceremony on a Thursday or even weeks before your reception, you can relax and just "throw a party." This is a bit less traditional, but as you might know my advice is about weddings is to DO WHAT YOU WANT! It's your day. If a big ceremony with everyone watching makes you nervous.... don't do it! Plus you usually get to have two outfits (and two pairs of shoes... am I appealing to you ladies yet)?

Jo and Austin made it simple and it was great. There were 3 babies in the family under three, two of them were 5 & 6 months respectively so it made sense to have a nice small family style event. I was only there for three hours, but we got some great shots anyway. Here are two quick ones

Owen is 6 months & #95 - completed !

My little guy is six months old. Owen, just like Matt and I, loves to eat. I am making his baby food (#95 on my goals) after reading a great book Jamelle gave me, Super Baby Food. It's easy! You basically puree anything and then freeze it in an ice cube tray, pop the trays, put the food cubes in freezer storage bags and defrost when baby needs to eat. SUPER easy and way cheaper than jars. I thought, "nothing could be easier than the jars" but this truly is a great system. I highly recommend this book.