So it was decided last Sunday that this week I wouldn't touch my camera and instead take all of my blog photos with my new iphone! It was a lot of fun and a stress free, fun way to see the world around me. Plus, having Instagram was like the whip cream to my pie. By the quick click of a button I was hand picking crazy colors and filters to apply to my images to give them a little extra kick of awesomeness. Hope everyone has had a great week. Can you believe tomorrow is August 1st? I feel like I was just saying hello to summer...

I like that place where the sky meets the sea.

That fuzzy line between water and air, 

fin and flight,

dream and reality.

This is what my mornings look like lately:

- desk

- coffee

- granola

- vanilla yogurt

- fruit

just a tease.

You can't go wrong with a little black dress and whiskey over ice.

stay tuned.  :)

fleeting moments.

That's what summer days are made of.

Highlights of my week:

• declaring a whole day for cooking and listening to good music.
• making strawberry mango sorbet with lime (with mangos from my yard.)
• eating said sorbet.
• making mango fruit leather. yum.
• exploring with critters in the backyard.
• going to a birthday party for a 63-year-old manatee. 
• seeing wild dolphins leap for joy right before my eyes.

What was the best part of your week?

perspective.

I forced a smile through my teeth and told her it was okay.

No really. It'll be fine. As I frantically doused my favorite pair of dress pants with a rag soaked in soda water, I told the waitress I had done worse. My second day at waiting tables I spilled piping hot coffee onto a woman's lap. Hearing this seemed to ease her mind a bit. I mean, the longer I thought about it the red wine on my pants didn't scald me like hot coffee and it might leave a stain, but at least it didn't get on my camera. The camera that was sitting just inches away from the glass of wine that that I was now wearing. The camera that I got a loan for, along with my first lens and my first imac computer. The camera that got me through photography school and the first two years of business as a wedding photographer. Portrait photographer. Food photographer. 

It was at that moment that I realized, wow, I'm doing what I want to be doing. It's real. I'm getting paid. I'm traveling. And It all feels so good, so right. Who would of thought that having wine spilled on me at a wedding reception that I was shooting would put it all into perspective? But it did. I mean, yesterday the UPS guy delivered my new camera bag. A bag that I've wanted for at least a year now, but couldn't afford or justify. And in a couple months I plan on purchasing a new camera. All decisions that are signs of a growing business. Putting money and energy back into something that can only get better from here.

And as I sat there at the end of an exhausting wedding day and cleaned wine from my clothes, a part of me thought, as I always do at some point during a wedding, "why do I do this?" By the end of the night I usually have a headache, my hand is cramping from holding my camera 12 hours straight, my feet ache, I've usually skipped a meal, and the mental stress has my hair nearly falling out. It's hard work. But it's worth it. It's worth every second. The emotions expressed that day are priceless. The beautiful image opportunities are endless. The fact that every wedding is different is an exciting challenge. And the love expressed between that new man and wife? It leaves me (sometimes) crying and longing to be swept away into some girly fairly tale. Sappy, but so true. 

I love what I do and who I am becoming.  I love to look back on the growth of me as a photographer and say,...wow. And I'm not even close to where I want to be yet. But a little wine's not going to get in the way. I'm just glad I was there that night to be a part of that couple's life, and future. Stain, or no stain.

georgia.

As I drove the back roads of southern Georgia I felt myself slipping suddenly into another time and place. The roads wound through thick, lush patches of Kudzu. The air was sticky hot. Really hot. And as evening approached, the locust began to buzz. It felt like summer. A mix of summer from my childhood on the farm and a summer from the 1940's that I could only dream about. The kind of summer filled with lemonade, fried chicken, and long hours in the fields. The kind of summer with rickety screen doors, whirring ceiling fans, and gnats constantly buzzing in your ears. A place where the southern drawl poured slowly out of peoples' mouths in a molasses kind of way. The kind of thing that couldn't help but slow you down just listening to it. It was the kind of place to wear a cotton sun dress and carry a paper fan. A place to run barefoot in the red dirt and let your hair get sticky and wet against your neck. A place for shaded walks among the endless pecan orchards, blueberry picking, and fresh peach jam. A place where you shared conversation in the garden while picking weeds. The kind of place where you ate what you grew, reaped what you sewed, and hard work went a long way. It was delicious. Delicious in a way that needed preserving. Like an old recipe, the one that brings you comfort. The one that never lets you down.

These pictures were taken during my time spent at Koinonia Farm and Plains, GA.