Thursday, June 28, 2007

Jasmine & Warren

I shot Jasmine and Warren's engagement pics early Sunday morning and everything turned out to be gorgeous! I actually met Jasmine through her mom who goes to our church..turns out though after talking awhile with her that she is friends with two of my good friends! So funny! And SUCH a small world! They are so cute together and it's amazing to see their gifts work together into their future together! They're headed to the mission field which they seem absolutely perfect for! I'm shooting Jasmine and Warren's wedding out in Washington DC where they live, in December! I'm so excited! We did the shoot at one of my most favorite places ever, Lake Ellyn, I had never shot there and am now addicted to shooting there! haha! Enjoy the slideshow!

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Still alive....

:)
I haven't fallen off the face of the earth..yet..more blogging coming tomorrow...I've just been going literally non-stop for the past 4 days...so I haven't been able to function internet wise but I'll be back tomorrow! YAY!
LOL
For the mean time dwell on this quote:
To me, boxing is like a ballet, except there's no music, no choreography, and the dancers hit each other. Jack Handy - Deep Thoughts...(One of my favorite books now! Sooo hilarious!)

Saturday, June 23, 2007

Ice show!

Back when I was really little I LOVED to watch the Olympics especially the gymnastics and ice skating...I still do but when I watched it then I totally knew I would grow up to become either an ice skater or gymnast in the Olympics..or both!! haha! Well after breaking my arm in gymnastics and getting completely tired of ice skating after having a rink in our backyard for years I gave up those dreams..LOL! My sister Natalie on the other hand has taken on the ice skating dream! I'm not sure if she actually wants to get to the Olympics but she is amazing! She started lessons for the first time back in November and actually started on level 6!! Now she's up to 8 or 9 and really has a talent and passion for this that I sooo love to see! Anyways last night she had her ice show for the end of the year...it was such a great show...so I got some pictures! It was really well done and my second favorite routine after Natale's was this one with 4 guys sliding around the rink with chairs! It was craziness!! Check out the slideshow here! I love you Natalie! Sooo proud of you!!
Also, here is a little video my brother posted from her routine:)

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

So Blessed!!

I’m sorry I’ve gotten in the habit of being a blog slacker lately…I just added up today..I’m officially blog slacking 5 blogs! Yikes! Haha! All for a good reason though! Well anyways…this weekend was one of the funnest(I’m making that a word for this post) weekends! After shooting the wedding on Friday we got up Saturday to do a training session/photoshoot! It was my first mini-workshop training up my interns for this year which I have a total of 5!! I’m soooo excited about this!

We started out with a 3 hour overview of photography, business, marketing, slideshows, blogging, and Pictage. I realized after that why most other photographers have a couple day workshops! Everyone was pretty much trying to pack all the info in! Afterwards we headed to Oak Park in a 6 car caravan(YIKES)…now one of my favorite places to shoot, we had a couple models: my friend Sarah Chellappa, her brother Steve, my brother Andrew, and sister Natalie. They were excellent models and definitely knew how to work the camera!

We didn’t want to stop…we finally ended the night with Panera after getting kicked(by a very nice security guard) out of the parking garage we were shooting at…It was such a blast! I think I’m going to do this more often because I found out that I get more joy out of helping others start up their businesses and get into photography than even being in photography myself! Haha! Who knew!

All the photographers at the photoshoot were: My wonderful interns(minus a couple who weren't able to make it): Beth Laurren, Kristen Leigh, and Morgan Matters(Morgan is my newest one and she is AWESOME! More about her coming soon!); Bryant King(who I’m training up in photography), and Tricia Lee(A Wonderful photographer who just moved here from Atlanta and came to hang out for the day!) I am sooo incredibly blessed with all the amazing people God has put into my life! I laid in bed Saturday night just in awe of how blessed I am with these people! Enjoy the slideshow!

Monday, June 18, 2007

Elizabeth & Logan's wedding!

Wow...I think this is the longest it's taken me to get a wedding slideshow up! You will see in the coming posts why:) Anyways, we shot a beautiful wedding on Friday! Everything seriously went perfect! Elizabeth was so stunning and looked just as perfect as a Barbie doll!! :) As I said in their engagement session post they are so incredibly perfect for each other it's too sweet! It was really such a wonderful day, shooting the perfect wedding, meeting some wonderful people, and just having fun! Thanks sooo much to Beth, Kristen, and Andrew for helping me out! You guys are seriously wonderful! Check out the slideshow!

Thursday, June 14, 2007

Twins??


Wow! My new friend Kristen, her mom, and sister came over today! Kristen is going to be interning with me in the fall and I'm sooo super excited! We are going to have such a blast! She is from Maryland and found me through a network of photographers I'm a part of...after following my blog for awhile she wrote me and asked if she could intern with me sometime after she graduated... After getting to know her better and finding out how much we had in common I of course was so excited about it! Now after finally meeting her tonight we have so much in common we could be twins! lol! Both the oldest of 7, were home schooled, our mom's are Rn's, even down to the fact that our next door neighbor has the same dog with the same name!! haha!
Anyways, I've been following her awesome **blog** now for awhile so definitely check that out! She's helping me shoot the wedding I have tomorrow and I'm so excited to see her pics! Yeah! Well have an amazing night everyone! I love you all!
Ps..we had a nice fire tonight with them and this s'more picture just looked to yummy to pass up! :)

Not big enough...


I LOVE it when I get in this mode...what happens is I start getting super creative and really start dreaming about what I want to do with my life..it doesn't happen THAT often because I always have my mind on my business and how to improve that. BUT it's sooo great sometimes to sit back and look at your life overall and what you want to do and accomplish...and my biggest one is how to change and impact the world. I love just sitting back and completely dreaming up the biggest things that I can do..but then realizing that God can do even more through me that I could even think up! It's amazing! Well anyways..I've been in this mode right now for the past couple days..and my friend's we're over yesterday and they were probably annoyed since I couldn't really concentrate on what we were working on(LOL)...I just keep getting more and more ideas! lol! So this morning I had to download all these thoughts..basically just updating my vision that I wrote from 2 years ago with more recent goals! Looking back now at the goals and projects that I wanted to work on back then it's crazy because I actually accomplished them and within the due dates that I had set! Without even knowing it! It's seriously amazing! You should sit down sometime soon and just think up what you want to accomplish in this life and how to impact this world! Dream as big as possible and don't put limits on it either! The coolest thing is put due dates on it too and watch it start happening!! When I was putting it together this morning the only downside I had was that I still don't think I'm dreaming big enough! But there's always more to come!! So DREAM!! :)
PS..the book up at the top is called "The Principles and Power of Vision" Awesome Awesome book that I'm reading right now...check it out!!

Monday, June 11, 2007

Such a cool day!!

I shot a gorgeous wedding on Saturday for Lindsey and Josh...the adorable couple from this **post**. The wedding day went absolutely perfect! Lindsey was so calm the whole time and Josh with his sunglasses..kept the hot day cool the whole time...LOL! The ceremony was one of the best I've been to because they had a time of worship! It was AWESOME! I really did feel like I was just shooting one of my friends weddings...I almost started crying a couple times during the toasts and stuff..lol...I'm such a sap...
It was so funny too cause we stayed way longer than we were "contracted" for just because we didn't want to leave! It was so fun and just so beautiful! I also had the best assistants come and help...my friends Beth, Jesse, and my brother Andrew! I will post about the whole new crew of interns next week... Fun times! Enjoy the slideshow!!

Friday, June 08, 2007

Some toughening up...


I believe women are supposed to be classy and beautiful...and just all around act like a lady...
BUT..I do believe like my grandpa used to say...that we should be able to pull the plow! haha! Actually in one of my favorite chapters in the bible it says, "her arms are strong for her tasks."
Sooo going along with that topic the last two days I've spent with my cousins out in the country and this morning it was wonderful! We cleaned out their creek! Got down and DIRTY and cleared everything so the water could really flow! I can't say I've done work like that alot..but I felt so refreshed afterwards! I'm so sad though that we didn't take any pictures of before and after although probably all you would see are big globs of mud walking around with human behind it! LOL!...well it wasn't that bad but you get the point! :) I love taking little "vacations" before a big season hits and it's about to hit in full force starting tomorrow and basically not stopping till October...I'm so excited about all the fun weddings coming up!! Should be a blast!

One word....


Cicadas. They are literally taking over the world!! lol! At least here in Chicago! The 17 year cicada is alive and kicking! It's crazy! We went running this morning and it was basically like someone was screaming in my ear that's how loud it is..
Well anyways..I'm thinking of going on a new diet that I saw on my friend Jake's blog it looks pretty high in protein check it out here...**click here**
HAHA!!!!! Craziness! On second thought...I'm pretty good with what I eat now..;)

Thursday, June 07, 2007

Quotes...:)

I love finding great inspiring quotes!! I think it's like a little boost of energy that takes you farther! Like when we would be training for the marathon we would every once in awhile take energy boosts...so we could finish the run when we were exhausted! I think quotes are the same way! I just found this GREAT book of quotes so I'll be posting a quote of the week type thing in the section over to the right for that little extra inspiration or a good laugh! One of the most classic quotes I've heard was last night...My dad was saying how my grandparents wanted to change the world but they knew that just the two of them couldn't do it so they decided to raise up 12 leaders to help them change the world...(they went on to have 14 kids..) but awhile back several of the kids calculated how many diapers my grandma changed and it came out to 55,000 cloth diapers!! Craziness...so the quote is.. "She changed the world one diaper at a time!" LOL!

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

New Hobbies...


I USED to have a hobby called photography...eventually it became my full time job and business! I absolutely LOVE it but I decided that I need a new hobby to conquer! Well after going to the Hillsong United concert the other night I discovered it! Well not really but rediscovered actually...and it's playing the bass guitar! I used to play alot when I was younger but kinda let it go over the past couple years...
Now that I have pretty much outsourced most of my business I have more free time to play! :) But I thought..since I pretty much already know the basics of the bass I'm going to conquer two at one time so I picked up the electric guitar today too!! YEAH!! LOL!! I taught myself "Smoke on the Water" I'm not really sure who it's by or anything but I heard my brother play it then taught myself..so I think I might be good at this! haha! The fun thing is that I have other people(my brothers and sisters) to play with too because they all play an instrument! Fun times! I'll keep you all updated on our "band"! ;) lol!

Saturday, June 02, 2007

Liz & Logan

Last weekend I did Liz and Logan's engagement shoot! Liz wanted to shoot at the place where we're going to do their wedding pictures too! After doing their engagement session there I'm sooo excited to shoot there for their wedding now! It was so gorgeous! It's just a park but because it's so beautiful that people have to pay to shoot there! Craziness! But it's worth it!
Liz and Logan are so adorable together! They compliment each other so well! You see Logan is a Chicago police officer and while at dinner told us some of the most crazy and movie worth stories(I could listen to those all night!)...after hearing everything that he deals with everyday then seeing Liz it's a perfect match she's all girl, calm, and so sweet and he's big, tough, and hilarious!! Which make for some great pictures too!! I'm so excited to shoot their wedding in two weeks! Should be a blast!:) Enjoy the slideshow!!

Friday, June 01, 2007

A true Barlow....


That's exactly what I thought tonight when I was trying to lay my sister Olivia down for bed. Getting out the book to read to her she yells "NOOOO I want to sing!!" I'm like sing? She's goes "Yeah! For the people that are here!" A little confused I'm like "OK?!" So she runs downstairs to the Men's Fellowship that my dad holds every month, finds the last empty chair by my brother who was leading worship and starts leading worship with him!! Not wanting to miss anything and definitely not shy at all even with a whole men's group of 20 guys she's right at home...just singing:) LOL!
...I think she's going to make the cut;)