Cheryl || Bridal Shoot

I literally don't know what to say. Cheryl was such a good sport to get into her wedding dress for me. In the middle of August I rented a couple sweet lenses and a camera for a wedding I was photographing. I had a few days to practice with the new equipment before the wedding so I had planed to have a mini shoot with my friend but her gorgeous Mother heard about it and offered to let me shoot her in her wedding dress. I was thrilled to have the chance to photograph a bride. As her wedding photographer hadn't gotten many bridal portraits on her wedding day this was somethings he was excited to do as well. 

So after I made TONS of mastiakes, cracked stupid jokes and had to pause every now and then to figure out the new stuff... This is the result. 

Cheryl and her daughter put this stunning bouquet together.

A personal favorite.

Can you beleive she paid her sons to help haul this amazing furniture out side just for our shoot? So awesome!

And another fav.

A little bit of a different edit.

That's it for now.


-Mary K.

A cold, wet, beautiful day...

Sometimes life can be hectic, busy and frustrating, and sometimes you just need to get away form it for a little while. Get some quite time and just read for a while or watch waves crash. 

Friday two of my sisters a friend and I went to the beach for a little day trip get away. We armed ourselves with tons of blankets and way to much junk food. We had a smashing time! Here are a few lines I scribbled down sitting in the middle of a storm with cold feet. 

"Today I went to the beach with my sisters and a friend. We wanted to get away for a little while,  have some quiet time on the beach, read, eat junk food and relax. 

Now I'm sitting in a  rock shelter with a log roof and benches made of logs. On a beautiful hill with the most spectacular view of the ocean. On a cold, wet and windy day. Great. 

The clouds are all around us. Its not raining hard but it's consistent and cold. The shelter where i sit is facing towards the ocean and rain. It has two doors and an open wall or half wall looking towards the sea. The Roof isn't over that part of the building. Also it had a few windows leaving this "fort" well... drenched. The floor is almost wet all over (with a few dry patches here and there). And the benches are for the most part only damp. Every now and then the wind drives the rain further into the shelter and we become even more wet. 

But I said beautiful. And it is! 

The rain dropping into puddles, stirring reflections with small ringlets. The sound of the ocean below. A soft rustle of the leaves. 

And us all bundled up in every coat, blanket and hat we have along. 

Cold toes, cold hands, cold nose but warm hearts. 

Outside one of the windows I can see part of the coast line. The think fog rolling in makes it fad away in a almost magical way. So prettily framed. 

The contrast of green on dark gray and brown. A small weed has grown up in the floor. White light defused in the clouds reflects onto the wet rocks everywhere. 

My toes are even colder now. And it sounds like the rain has grown harder now. 

It might not sound like much to you. Sitting warm and dry somewhere but I am overwhelmed by its subtle beauty. And grateful for a warm coat. 

Thank you God for giving me all this."

-Mary K. 

more blogging... and hello.

So maybe i'm not so good at this blogging thing. My biggest problem with blogging is that you need to do it often. Keep it recent and new. I want each blog post to be as close to prefect as possible. Grammar, spelling etc. But that's not me. I'm not perfect. And the things that I do aren't perfect. 

So i'm going to try again. Posting a little more often. The posts won't be perfect or even very interesting but hopefully they'll be a little more "me". Weird and funky but cool. (Yeah and i might just fatter myself again.) They say flattery will get you everywhere. I believe that.
So here we are. All I want to say to day is Hello. So here goes. 

Hello! 

Queen Ann's Lace

Oh my goodness guys! It was beautiful... The orange sun was setting behind the far away trees. Blue skies stretched for miles in every direction. Little birdies flew over head, singing their happy, bed time, tunes. Me on my bike, camera bag slung over my shoulder. Riding along soaking in the evening air. 

This time of the year is beautiful. Just beautiful. (Sometimes a little hot for this Oregon girl) but just gorgeous with blue skies and lots of excuses to eat Popsicles. One of the things I love about this time of the year is the flowers.

Went on a bike ride with my camera a few days ago right at sunset. There's a huge field like space near where i live and some of the bike trails go around it to create what we call "the long loop". This time of the year the field is just chocked full of Queen Ann's lace. Talk about beautiful! :) 

These photos really don't do it justice. It was that pretty.

Lady Bugs. There was tons of them. (Yup! I'm gonna have to be getting a macro lens sometime down the road.)

This stuff smelled like Mint but I've never seen look like this before. Must be some sort of weed. Anyone know what it is?

Hoping your having a beautiful summer.

-Mary K. 

The Big Picture

In life it's easy to get bogged down by the all consuming little things. Everything that makes your day great or your day suck. Bills, not enough sleep, to much to do, stress, chores, homework, and the list goes on. All those things that demand so much from us on a regular basis. You stop noticing beauty in life and forget to see how much you are blessed every single day. Things you take for granted, good family that loves each other and God, yummy food to eat, a good roof over your head, a car to drive, warm sunny days, green grass and trees all around you, and a God that knows everything about you and loves you anyway. ;) Yes you may not have everything you want in life, but you are blessed. In life its easy to lose sight of the big picture.

And when I say big picture I mean a high res. landscape with you as the focal point. Time to brake out your wide angle lens and capture the big picture. I don't know what yours looks like, but even though mine is a bit blurry right now, it's looking pretty ding, dang, dong good!

(Disclaimer: This is a random photo of a friend from a while ago. I don't actually have a "big picture" but I thought this one was cool.)

I got a chance to go outside today, lay on a blanket in the grass, listen to my favorite music, sip a yummy smoothie all while watching the end of a beautiful sunset. (I would recommend doing this as much as possible.) It was nice to lay there and just enjoy being. Listening to encouraging songs that somehow speak to me in new ways almost every time I listen to them. And it was good to think. Think about what is going on in my life, in the world, and how God is in control of it all. 

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,

    the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,

what is man that you are mindful of him,

    and the son of man that you care for him?

O Lord, our Lord,

    how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Till later...

The Call

So if you've seen Narnia you may have heard this song, "The call". It a really nice relaxing song. But its been going around in my head for like a whole week. Its one of my favorite songs right now. You can listen to the whole song here. : ^) 

It started out as a feeling
Which then grew into a hope
Which then turned into a quiet thought
Which then turned into a quiet word

And then that word grew louder and louder
Til it was a battle cry

I'll come back
When you call me
No need to say goodbye

This photo is the very bottom part of Multnomah falls.


That's all for tonight... just a random thought!

(PS) This probably doesn't really make sense because i'm really tired right now. Sorry.

Cold toes... Warm sand...

When I was little I absolutely hated wearing socks. I despised them. My feet were always getting hot. Mom made me wear the kind with lace on the top, and even though I did think it was pretty it itched something awful. I would have gone bare foot all the time if she had let me. So when summer came and I wasn't forced to wear socks and shoes I was delighted. My feet got though each year and I could walk and run and hop and skip over our gravel and not even feel it. But the best time to go bare foot though was at the beach. There's nothing quite like the feeling of warm sand between your toes. Or cold sand (gotta love Oregon).

Right now though, i'm very glad of my socks. They keep my toes from completely freezing off. I have come to see their virtues (although I can't say I care about them enough to keep them matched up very well). Oh well, a girls gotta make a fashion statement somehow, and I do think my blue sock and my yellow sock say quite a bit...

Here's a photo of one of my favorite places! (Taken in June) Makes me miss summertime... 

I for one am looking forward to some nice warm sand this summer.

Keep your toes warm,

-Mary