When I first moved here, I saw this photo making it’s way around all the photography forums and social media sites that I am on endlessly. I instantly looked up who actually made this cake and was determined to have this very same cake made for me before I leave here. I mean, it hasn’t happened yet, but there’s still time if anybody wants to send it to me…The cake was made by Granny Schmidt’s bakery in Emmaus, Pennsylvania ! That’s not too far from me! Unless someone is REALLY good at cakes, you could make it and I could taste it! 
It just so happens that I am a Nikon shooter ANNNND this is the same camera that I use !
and if you are feeling less of a challenge….you could always use these awesome cookie cutters !
Happy Tuesday!
So I recently had a bundle of sessions and I couldn’t get over how cute my first session was with this little cutie….Six months of pure joy & cheeks to die for! I just love her adorable outfit from Chicaboo !
Ha ha, she’s even adorable when she cries…….but in her defense she was just trying to show me that she’s a BIG girl & ready to walk! Get ready for it Mom, I think she’s serious about this walking stuff!
We got our first snow!!! I was going to take pictures of it but then it melted before my battery charged up all the way. Yeah, that was like a dusting compared to last year! This is my daughter all snuggled up in her winter gear. The sweater was made by her great grandma who I’m about to take knitting lessons from and I can assure you that my goals are not that high! LOL. I am just happy with a little square to go around my cofffee mug. Yes, I’m an overachiever. No. Not really. And can we just talk about the size of these amazing marshmellows? They are vanilla marshmellows from Williams Sonoma. YUMMMMMMMMM!
Well it’s safe to say, things around here have been all too quiet. However, I’ve been busy, I promise! This winter weather is perfect because I am forced to sit inside and get things done that I probably wouldn’t normally do (like organize my kitchen pantry which I am goobed out about more than a normal person should be) . I am now learning that 80% of having a photography business is sitting behind a computer working on the business side. When I first started, I remember sitting behind a computer for hours just trying to edit photos. Once I started to master my camera more there was a lot less editing and overtime editing was the least of my worries. I still manage to be a mom and multitask my days away. I finally set a schedule so I don’t intertwine the two and that took a longgggg time to do. However, I will say that having both kiddos in school really put that push into a reality. Sooooo much easier now. Anyway, I’m one of those who likes to keep moving and unfortunately so does my brain. So I have been taking this time to brainstorm new ideas and I’m excited to share them! I’m not going to stop taking pictures but i realized that this year I want to have more fun and see where I can go with this! I’ve always been creative and I WAASSS nominated Most School Spirited in high school (even though I lost to my sweet friend Kendra, who I never stood a chance against) so when I get excited about things, I kind of get all cheerleader like and say READY, OKAY. So while the snow might continue falling up here in New Jersey…I will keep on working! These next few months I’ll be working on getting a new look for this blog (bare with the changes) creating a new blog and playing with my glue gun. I have a lot of shoots coming up so be prepared to check out the cutest little ones coming to CWP.
I love it when I get referrals and I was so very thankful that a fellow Air Force wife suggested me to this perfectly adorable family in Haddon Heights, New Jersey. I met them at their beautiful home and instantly felt a sense of warmth and love. We walked over to a nearby park right near their home. The sun was shining bright outside and it was a beautiful day for taking photos. We moved around looking for good spots throughout the park but little Lucas had too much discovering to do! The vast open space gave him a reason to explore and at 1 years old with a new found walking freedom, who wants to sit still? I wouldn’t want to! So we watched the kids explore and then headed back to their beautiful backyard. The kids began to open up even more now that they were in the comfort of their own home. Even little Lucas sat in his swing with great big smiles while his big sister gave him a few good pushes! As I left this amazing family session, I realized that I am so blessed to do what I do. As a mom, I know how important these moments are and I feel so blessed to capture them for others so that they will never be forgotten.
If you like this post & you haven’t checked out my other photos on Facebook…go “LIKE” it now!
It was my very first cold session here in New Jersey. So cold that I wore gloves and everyone was bundled up! I’m so glad the Alberico family hung in there to get some pictures and who knows, they probably didn’t even think it was as cold as I did. The leaves were so amazing, so vivid, and abundantful. It was time for the Alberico’s to cherish this fall season because they were just weeks away from moving to good ol’ sunny Florida! They will be dodging the dropping temperatures and snowy nights that are bound to approach us. I am super jealous that they get to trade in their winter attire for flip flops, sun dresses, and shorts! Nonetheless, I was really excited that they decided to get a few last images of their time together here in New Jersey with me. The girls literally jumped out of their car to hug me and were so excited to get some photos taken! I love their energy! So thankful to have met this sweet family! I wish you the very best in your new home!!!!
Today I posted that we were getting ready for Christmas in our house on Facebook (click + LIKE). I was trying to get everybody in the spirit and Josh was fighting with the icicle lights. You know, the typical situation where you pull the lights out of the box , plug them in, and only half of them are working. We were hoping to decorate the outside of the house first but that’s been put aside until next weekend now. So we worked on the inside & pulled out our advent calendarSSSS instead. Every year we get an advent from someone in the family so we have about 4 now but we love them so, it’s cool. My daughter was running around the house with her first Santa hat and it was so small that I decided to put it on one of our dogs. I quickly grabbed my camera and she was pretty good about having the hat on. She wasn’t happy but she knew the drill. If my camera is coming out in this house, I mean serious business. Okay, not really. She’s just old and lazy. But I took the shots, put the camera away, did the standard car shuttle run to & from school, errands, and made a delicious recipe for dinner that I got off of the amazing Pioneer Woman. After dinner, I got back to my camera, transferred the photos, and realized I had two copies of the same photo. When shooting my DSLR, I always shoot in RAW. People always have different opinions about whether or not it’s beneficial but I just do what works for me. Like I’ve said before, I’m self taught. I don’t really follow the rules because I never really knew them! 
Anyway, when I loaded the pictures and had two copies, I realized my settings had changed somehow to RAW + JPEG. You can see the difference in these two photos. Both of these images are straight out of camera (SOOC), for reals.
I personally think the first photo has too much yellow in it but as you can tell it’s a lot sharper than the RAW file on the right. Shooting RAW gives me better control on how the photo can be edited so if you don’t edit, you probably don’t want the ridiculously large photos & you definitely don’t need to shoot both JPG+RAW. One of the reasons I love shooting in Raw mode is because it allows me to batch process my images and ensures that I have consistent images that are ALL consistent in color and I can quickly edit them in the preset first.
Putting photos out there Straight out of Camera to a photographer is like Oprah coming out with no make-up. Seriously. I’m opening up a whole new world of criticism. I’m definitely not ready to start a series of “How to” but I thought this might help even one person starting out see the difference. Even if you’re not a photographer and you just like looking at my pictures, you might find this interesting. I guess if SOMEONE is reading this than I guess it was worth my time! So below is my final edit. I honestly didn’t do a whole lot to this Raw image. I lightened it up, played with the contrast, and sharpened the image! Voila!!!! OH and I almost forgot, I removed that skin tag on my dogs eye and some spots around her snout. This edit took about 2 minutes and because I’m pretty critical of my own work…I would probably go back and fix the overexposed white in the hat. It’s so white that you can’t see the texture! Gosh darn it, now that’s going to bug me!
That’s it for now! Thanks for visiting!!!! Feedback is always welcome! Happy Monday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I was super excited to attend the Fall Styled Shoot in South Jersey a week ago. I just adore Mary Meghan who set up the whole day and couldn’t wait to meet more talented professional photographers in New Jersey! I can’t say enough about this group! They have been so welcoming to a girl who isn’t from North or South Jersey! I’m just this short little lady who happens to share the same passion and love for photography. We were so excited to get started but we were truly racing against the remainder of daylight. We split into groups with different models and photographed them until it was time to switch up. Some of the models I had worked with before and they were just as awesome! Everyone looked ridiculously amazing thanks to Andrea’s mad skills from Make-Up by Andrea! She’s not only gorgeous herself but she can make others look gorgeous as well! Here’s just a few of the photos that I loved without going overboard on this shoot ( because that would be easy to do) I am so looking forward to the next one and I hope it involves snow because if it’s anything like last year, we are bound to get lots of it! Take a look at my day behind the camera…..
Doesn’t it look like so much fun? Thanks to everybody who made this such a huge success!!! Of course to Mary who always welcomes me to these gigs. All of my photographer friends (enter your name here) and the rest of you sweet sweet folks who made us love what we do even more!!! Thank You. Thank You. I hope you leave my site inspired for the next one!!! xoxoxoxo
Organizer/Hair/Photographer – Mary Meghan
Make-Up Artist – Andrea C. Figueredo
Bouquet & Hairpiece Designs – Angela Lynn ‘Perino’ Miller / http://www.etsy.com/shop/aperino
Models:
Katrina Tapper (not seen)
Sue Davis
Patrick Veterano
Annie Batt
Keith Anderson (not seen)
Elizabeth Anderson
Julia Miliaresis
Theresa Berenato
I moved to Southern New Jersey right before the massive snow dumping last year. I believe we had snow on the ground until April. I didn’t even meet my neighbors because everybody hibernated until Spring. So when the snow finally started to melt, we finally enjoyed the outdoors and this ray of sunshine moved in across the street!! Lacey quickly became the friend that I know will be hard to say goodbye to when I move! She’s beautiful, fun, and unbelievably upbeat! I just love people who live life to the fullest and she is definitely one of them! When she asked me for family photos, I knew this was going to be fun and we were so excited to get permission to shoot on this gorgeous horse farm! The sun was going down quick with the time change so we had to hurry but we were able to get some great shots! I had a great session with this gorgeous family and I’m sure this won’t be the last time you see their daughter on my blog. So without further ado, here’s my session with the beautiful Benzing Family! 
Sometimes in between entertaining kids and letting the dogs out, my brain starts to talk to me. I take advantage of those rare moments of down time and start asking myself where I’m going with these ideas that just kind of surface amongst the chaos of shuttling the kids to school, running errands, dinner, and laundry. I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in this and so I thought I’d share where my brain took me today! There has been many times where I just wanted to put my camera down. When I say down, I mean, down in it’s original box and shipped off to a new owner. YES, it happens and more often than one would think. When I was just starting out, I took pictures of my kids and others for practically nothing. I never imagined that I would be photographing weddings, families, or commercial stuff. As I get more invested into photography, I realize how much work is involved and if I am going to do this, I need a plan. For so many years, I didn’t have one. I still don’t have a concrete plan but I do have goals. With my husband in the Air Force, I know our lives will always change so concrete plans don’t exist in our world. My military friends can relate. If I can create small goals for myself, I do believe that all good things accomplished will lead to better things. Right?
So many people have asked me how to get started in photography and the truth is…I feel like I’m just beginning. I can’t bring myself to teach workshops or mentor someone when I am still looking for answers too. I don’t know when I’ll feel confident enough to actually bring myself to that point but I hope when that day comes, I will remember writing this post. I quickly learned that having great friends and support from others who share this same passion with me is HUGE. I use to feel like I had to compete not only with myself but with other photographers around me. The past year or so has taught me that my peers will only help me grow as a photographer and it’s safe to say that I owe these people a ton! I can’t even name them all because it would take forever. The good news is that I am not going to quit. I’m going to put the Ben & Jerry’s away and keep on shuttering & blogging ….
Thank You Mary Veterano for introducing me to this…I finally found it at WAWA . It’s good but I kept waiting for white chocolate pieces to appear!
Elisabeth and I didn’t meet until the day of the wedding. We wrote and exchanged many emails living in two different states and far from each other. It was a risk she was willing to take and I will be forever grateful for that kind of trust. Elisabeth is the kind of friend that I would do anything for! She’s just amazing! I’m so happy to call her a new friend and I’m so honored to have been a part of their wedding day! I just loved them! They totally deserve to be featured on a site and I couldn’t be more happy for them! It was super exciting to see my photos on a very popular Charleston Wedding site like Wedding Row and I can’t wait to show more! Here’s a few of their photos until my own blog post! Go check it out!
