Here’s a couple of my favorite images from Shayna’s senior session.

Melanie was such a good sport about letting me drag her out to this old house to photograph her.   I love this one, and will post more images from her session later on.

I love when photography allows me to spend some time with extended family, in this case cousins.   Here are Darrin and Ann Hout’s family from a session a few weeks back.

I posted these on my Facebook business page weeks ago, but here are some favorite images from Jamie and Zach’s  engagement session.  I’ll post a few more later.

I’m behind on my blog, but here’s one I loved from Carissa Harwell’s senior session.

The last two years I’ve attended the Foundation Workshop, in Dallas, TX to be mentored by some of the best photographers in the business.   Unlike most workshops, where you bask in the glow of some other photographer’s “amazingness,” Foundation throws you in the fire,  giving you two days to pull together a photojournalism story.  My assignment this year was the Dallas Farmer’s Market, which would have been great, except that my first day shooting, it was just above freezing and spitting snow.   Undeterred, I went to talk to the farmers market vendors, who were all bundled up behind beautiful bell peppers and strawberries and pears, but not a customer in sight.  The first man I described my mission to told me, “No problem. You can take all the pictures you want for 30 minutes for $100.”

I told him this was going to get expensive, seeing as how I was to shoot for two days.  He told me in that case, he’d let me shoot the first day for free.   I went looking for Plan B.    Plan B was to walk next door and check out Ruibal’s Plants of Texas.   I’m so glad I did.   For one thing, it was warmer inside.  For another, I met some fantastic people.

Ruibal’s Plants  was started by Michael Ruibal, by selling plants in a 10×20 space at the Dallas Farmer’s Market.   He showed me a polaroid from that humble beginning below.  Many people sold plants at the Farmer’s Market, and many still do, but Ruibal’s went on to have a business occupying a city block right next to downtown Dallas  (shown below on the right) along with a Lakewood location and 30 acres of greenhouses, a few miles south of Dallas.  Ruibal’s built their business and their reputation on one  principle:  taking care of their customers.   Considering how kind Mark and Matt and their father Mike were when an Illinois photographer showed up on their doorstep, asking if she could hang around and take photos for a couple of days, I’d say they’re just extraordinarily nice people willing to take a gamble from time to time.

I shot all the “regular” things of what everything looked like and all the principle players trying to show a legacy story in a handful of pictures, but after a visit the second day from my team leader and friend, Amy Deputy, I tried to dig in and shoot deeper.  Specifically, my marching orders were as follows:  “Britt, Shoot Art!”

At this point, I think I should confess, that among certain hardcore photojournalists, I  have “a pretty picture problem,” so the idea of  intentionally  shooting a bunch of pretty pictures at a photojournalist workshop seemed as ill advised as wearing  flip-flops to a rattlesnake roundup.  But, I trust Amy, so I said, “If you say so…..”  Thinking all the while God help me this is NOT going to go over well.

Long story short, it went over very well.  I shot details of flowers.  I shot sections of leaves.  I shot weird things that made all the help look at me funny.  (Yes, I think she just took a picture of our garden hose.  She must be truly desperate.  Poor thing.)  I shot birds.  I shot puddles.  I shot what I felt.   I shot anything that moved and a lot of things that don’t.  I got in touch with my inner pansy.

We’re only supposed to post a half dozen or so of our images on our blogs, so I tried to pick a few that go well together on the page.  Some of these made my Foundation slideshow, some did not.   It’s hard for me to just choose a few.  I’m printing up large canvas prints of some of my favorite plant detail shots to hang at the Potter’s Shed, in Louisville.

Thank you to my much beloved team mentors, Amy Deputy, Huy Nguyen, Jay Premack and Rachel LaCour.   Thank you to my team members, Emmy Sherman, Bonnie Berry, Tak Yi Young , Tina Wilson and Gulnara Samoilova.  And thank you for the generosity and kindness of the Ruibal family.  It was an honor to meet you and to spend some time with all of you.  You have made a very special place in the heart of Dallas.

Honestly, I think this is my first pettiskirt picture, though my guess is it won’t be my last.   Kali Carroll came here with a concept.  She told me she had a pettiskirt, a mirror, jewelry  and (an adorable) one year old.  I told her I had a new backdrop and a new floor.   I was impressed by how well everything coordinated and loved the images we got.   Here are two of my favorites with the mirror that made me nostalgic about how my own daughter was at one.

It was such a pleasure to meet Jessica and Ben, a couple as charming as they are beautiful, and I can’t wait for their wedding at Blue Sky Vineyard.  I’ve attached a pair of  favorite  images for now as a placeholder and will add a couple more favorites soon.

I’ve started photographing and listing the lost dogs and cats at the Clay County Animal shelter and was particularly moved by these pups, found in a ditch in Flora.  I listed them Thursday and both were adopted Saturday.   I  wish more people would turn animals over to the shelter correctly, to the animal control officer, and pay the $15 per animal fee, rather than dumping them.

Here is a link to a current listing of pets needing homes at the Clay County Animal Shelter.  And here is a link to the Facebook Fur a Good Paws site, where we list adoption events and post more pics.

When Kristen asked if I had a washtub for some pictures during Jady’s 6 month pictures, I told her I had something better, a bathtub.  I dragged it out of  storage and we had fun with it.  I know babies in bathtubs have been “done,” and we took lots of other types of pictures.  Still, the bathtub ones are some of my favorites, for no other real reason than Jady just looks so cute.