When we first moved to Florida, we were contacted by one of my sister’s sorority sisters. She had been following my blog for a while and wanted to take family photographs of us as a “Welcome to Florida” celebration. Meeting Jenn Hopkins (and her sweet momma) was even more awesome than the photographs she took that day. She was sweet, kind, down to earth, and someone you just want to hang out with. I wanted to curl up on a couch with a cup of coffee and talk to her for days. She’s just that kind of warm person. And her photography?
Well, it’s basically amazing. There’s just no other way to say it. The first afternoon we met with her, she captured exactly what we were feeling and somehow put our personalities into the photographs.
Then, when I announced I was pregnant with Gracie, Jenn Hopkins appeared again and was one of the first people to meet Gracie Girl. She came to our house when Gracie was eight days old and took a few family portraits and more than a few newborn photos of Gracie.
When we reached a new milestone in our lives and we moved into our new house, Jenn Hopkins was one again to the rescue. She came to Orlando a few weeks ago and spent an afternoon with us while we tried to wrangle our children into matching clothes and keep them happy and clean. Once again, Jenn did not disappoint. In fact, these might be my favorite ones she has taken for us so far.
(These next two are some of my favorites…)
And my all-time favorite Jenn Hopkins photo ever (which will be on my Christmas card this year, by the way…)
Oh, sweet Jenn Hopkins, we cannot thank you enough for capturing all of our most important family moments in the past two years. You’ve helped us remember that we have had such happiness, even amidst all the turmoil and transitions. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
**********
Jenn Hopkins Photography is based out of Jacksonville, Florida. She travels frequently for engagements, weddings, newborns, children, and family sessions. Jen is a Wedding Wire Bride’s Choice recipient for the past two years and her photographs have appeared in Style Me Pretty and the Southern Wedding Magazine blog. Please visit her website for more information.
Several weeks ago, the amazing photographer, Jenn Hopkins, did some family portraits for us and I thought I’d share them with you. They are gorgeous and we can’t thank her enough.
We had portraits done for a few reasons. I wanted some family pictures done in honor of Bean’s first birthday. Sort of a celebration session of how far we’ve come as a family. But there were other reasons as well. Later this summer, MC will be launching a brand, spankin’ new website designed by preeeee-fessionals this time. The design company has sent us several draft versions already and let me just tell you – it’s freaking awesome. I wanted to make sure we had some really great family and individual stock photos for our new site and I think we got just what I was hoping for. I can’t wait to see how the web design team incorporates the pictures into their designs.
I also wanted family portraits taken because as some of you have seen on Twitter lately, I have started working on my first book. It is a memoir based on the first five years of my marriage and it tells the entire story of how my marriage came to be. Like my blog, it will be a real look into a fairly normal marriage and I’ll share about experiences where my marriage was strong and times when we really struggled. The idea is not that we are perfect, but that all marriages have ups and downs.
I’m finding that it is really different to write a book than it is to write a blog, and I struggled at first to get into the rhythm of telling a full-length story. But the further into it I get, the easier it becomes and it seems to be taking on a life of its own. I have been speaking with several agents and even have interest from some publishers already, so things are on the move. I also have a publicist now who will be working with both my website and, hopefully, my book. That’s really all I can share right now and I hope its enough to hold you over (and peak your interest so you buy 10,000 copies when its available…). So, in light of this new chapter in my life I needed some good head shots and promotional photos to send out. And Jenn managed to find the perfect balance between family and business in our pictures. She’s pretty impressive like that.
The reason I am sharing all these things with you right now is because without my marriage, none of these things would be possible. I don’t often talk about Chris in a serious tone. Usually I’m poking fun at him or threatening to divorce and/or kill him. But I thought I’d take a minute while I’m letting all these cats out of their bags to give credit where credit is due. Nothing good that has happened in my life and nothing good that will happen in my life would have been possible without Chris. Look at who I am – a working mom who writes silly things about trivial aspects of her world at her kitchen table. I have always dreamed of writing a book. In fact, it was the silent driving dream behind starting this blog to begin with. But that dream was so far from the reality of my every day life that I would never in a million years had the courage to even think that I could actually do it.
No one takes my dreams more seriously than my husband. And for that alone, I would marry him all over again. He has taken my dreams and made them his, too, and that has meant that the road to accomplishing things has been traveled by both of us. There is not one thing I write, one decision I make, one goal I set that I do without talking to him. And its not because he takes ownership or because I feel like I owe that to him. It is because he is the only one I can whisper these silly little ideas to who then turns around and blasts them out in a megaphone, breathing life into them.
Eleven years ago, he was my high school boyfriend who broke my heart countless times but underneath it all loved me more than anyone else.
Five years ago, I married him because he loved me that much.
And today I am living a life and accomplishing the dreams that I never thought possible. And its all because he loves me that much.
I am asked often on my blog how to know if you’ve found The One. I hardly ever answer that question because it varies so much from person to person. But for me, personally, The One was the person who took my dreams, pulled them out of the sky, and made them obtainable goals. He’s the one who stands by my side and shares my triumphs and tribulations as if they were his own. He’s the one who tells me every single day, without fail, how proud he is of me. And through all these things, he’s the one who makes me the driven, focused, dreaming person that I am.
There are still a lot of things to be worked out over the next year and who knows if anything will ever come to pass. But I do know that no matter where the chips fall, when the dust settles my husband will be standing right there by my side, whispering how proud he is of me in my ear. And that makes me the luckiest woman alive.
About 6 or 7 months ago – or maybe it was a year ago? – , my BFF, The Pioneer Woman, gave an online workshop on blogging. It was really interesting and she went into detail on a lot of different things from content to growing your site, but the part that I took to heart the most was her session on photography. She said that if you can make your pictures look clear – not even necessarily good, just clear – then it would take the look and feel of your blog to a whole new level.
A couple months later, I got my first advertising check in the mail and I used that check to buy a really great camera. So far, it has probably been the best thing I’ve ever bought in my life. Seriously. I bought it to improve the look of my site, yes, but also because Bean was getting ready to be born and I knew I wanted to have a ton of great pictures of him as he grew up.
Before I go into detail on the camera itself, let me put this caveat on this conversation. I am not a photographer. I do not pretend to be a photographer. I know very, very little about photography. But that is the great thing about a good camera. It can make your pictures look much better than they actually are!
My camera is an Canon EOS Rebel XS. And I love her. She is digital with manual controls so that you can choose to either let the camera be a point and shoot and do all the work for you, or you can fiddle with it until you’ve set all your settings yourself. That’s what I love the most about this camera. It will grow with me as my skill level increases. I used to use it as a point and shoot all the time, but now I’m getting a little better and can actually mess with stuff on my own.
At the suggestion of a photographer friend, we later bought a 50mm 1.8 lens to use for more detailed pictures. This lens is why our pictures of people are so clear. In layman’s terms (which is all I know), this lens blurs out more of the background and focuses on the image in front better. Its the reason some pictures look like you could reach out and touch the people in them. The only problem with this lens is that you can’t zoom or back away, so you really have to be able to move yourself around more than with a normal lens. That is sometimes a hassle, but its worth it for that perfect picture.
I get asked a lot about how I get such good pictures of Bean. Babies are really hard to take pictures of for me because they move so darn fast. But when Bean was ‘ittle bitty, I learned to put my camera on rapid fire shooting. So, when I hold down the button, it takes a bajillion pictures at one time. Usually out of that batch, there are at least one or two with a really great expression.
I haven’t used Photoshop yet. I don’t know how, for one thing. But mostly its because as a full-time working mom, I just haven’t found the time to work with my pictures. But if and when I ever get to that, I’m sure it will take them to a whole new level. If you are interested in Photoshop though, I’d highly recommend The Pioneer Woman’s photography blog. She gives simple tutorials that even I can understand.
For Christmas this year, Chris gave me the COOLEST present. I use Flickr to store all my pictures so they don’t take up space on our hard drives (I already filled one entire laptop with pictures and half of another hard drive. oops.). But when you blog as often as I do, the extra time it takes to upload pictures to Flickr is really a lot of time. So, Chris got me this thing called Eye-Fi card. Its an SD memory card that goes in my camera. Then, whenever I walk into our wireless network at my house, it automatically uploads the pictures straight to my home computer AND to Flickr. I don’t have to do anything. I can take pictures in my house, leave the camera on for a couple minutes, and they will instantly load in both places. Then, when I’m ready to blog, I can sit down and VOILA! There are all my pictures ready to use and I didn’t even have to do anything! The best part about the Eye-Fi is the price. $70.00 on Amazon and it save me hours of work at home. Totally worth the money.
I’m sure there are a lot of you out there who are much better with photography than I am, so if you have some handy photography tricks or pieces of equipment that you can suggest, feel free to leave that in the comments. I get asked about my camera at least once a day by readers and so I know a lot of you are interested. Like I said, I’m still learning, but hopefully I’ll get better and when I do, I’ll report back!
Hope you all have a great weekend! See you on Monday when I make a BIG announcement and introduce the first ever Reader of the Month.
(I’ll give you Twitterers a hint….@MindeeOFD…)
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