Vaughn Portrait Park

Mercedes, Republic

We got a great day for senior pictures.  Warm, a little windy-enough to blow the hair around, and gorgeous warm light.  Mercedes has had a busy senior year.  She has been a part of the Republic Tigers, girls basketball team that won the state title this year.  It has been a bittersweet experience, since she had to have knee surgery last fall, and wasn't able to get on the court.  Now she is looking forward to college, and hopefully basketball again.  Best of luck, Mercedes!

 

 

The sunlight is so deceptive. It is only @12 degrees!

Saturday, again! This is the first one in a month that I haven't photographed. I am sitting at the lake watching the sunrise and thinking about all the things that need to be done before I leave on Friday for Las Vegas.
Laundry, dry cleaning, dogs taken care of, suitcases packed, program tweaked, visuals ready, and yes, all my clients taken care of. The frames for several orders came in yesterday, so I will be a framing fiend on Monday. Hopefully, I will be able to make contact with everyone before Friday.
Life is full. I am happy that I have the opportunity to know these great families and that I am able to capture life memories for them. I am also blessed to be able to share the experiences of my life in photography with a new generation of photographers.
Life is good!

Blogging doesn't come easy for me. I spent last night reading a friends blog, and I was just so involved with her ability to write and tell stories. She took you on a visual tour of her travels both with her words and her photographs. I am so in awe of her ability. I want to engage you in the reading of what I have to say, and carry you along with me through my photographs.

Many years ago, when I first started photographing, I determined that I wanted to create photographs that were objects of beauty. There was so much ugliness on TV and in the news, that I didn't want to contribute more. I have spent 40 years looking for and capturing beautiful images, whether it is of nature, objects or people. I believe that people deserve to see the beauty that I see in them, and I have dedicated my life to finding the beauty in each person that I have been blessed to photograph. Thank you all for trusting me enough to give me this opportunity.

Lumley Family

The Lumley family came in over the holidays to do family portraits while everyone was home.  This is such a great bunch of people!  Lots of fun and very patient with the process of moving a large number of people around.  Thanks for making my evening so much fun!

 

 

 

 

Abby and more!

First of all, I want to apologize.  I have been very busy, and I haven't kept up my blog.  I am so sorry, but I thought that getting portraits ready for the Holidays was more important than posting.  Now, I will be posting again regularly.  The good news/bad news is that I will be posting a lot of images rapidly.  So here goes..

Abby came in for senior portraits on one of those late fall beautiful days.  She had planned the things that were important to her, and it was very easy to move from one concept to another, because she was so organized.  I hope that you enjoy her images as much as I enjoyed capturing them.

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks, Abby!

Matti

Matti is a lovely little girl who is going to be one of our calendar children for the Downs Center Group of the Ozarks.  She was totally captivated by the sun, wind, and sound of the leaves outside.  We really had to work to get her smiles because she was so involved with what was going on around her.   Mom and Dad and big sis, Julia (and me) did everything but stand on our heads! It was great to be reminded of how important it is to stop and enjoy what is around us.  Inside, she had a ball with the tutu and hat. 

Shelby!

Shelby came over right after school one day, and she was ready to play!  I fell in love with this little girl, because she was such a tease.  We photographed her in several outfits, and have some great pictures for the Downs Center Group of the Ozarks calendar, but my favorites are the ones of her making faces at me. The range of expressions makes me giggle everytime!

Jessica

Jessica's family came in for portraits a  couple of years ago, and I was able to photograph her big brother for his senior portraits.  I have had so much fun with this family--they have a great sense of humor, and it is just fun.  Jessica has had time to think about what she wanted to do with senior pix, and came up with some great ideas. 

Today, I had the opportunity to go through some images and process them in Photoshop using tilt shift. It was a fascinating way to look at images and focus on specific areas. Some days are just 'play days"