If you were playing, you might recall that the hint was “Pattycake, pattycake, baker’s man. Bake me a cake as fast as you can.”  And, no, I am not opening a wedding cake business or a daycare!  Though, it seems like since I had the twins, I have been running a daycare! However, that’s not it!

My friend and fellow photographer, John Blair of www.b2weddings.com, is the proud winner of a $10 Starbucks gift card for correctly guessing that I am launching a brand new children’s photography website!  As I scale back on weddings, I will be redirecting the focus of my studio towards children’s portraiture.  Not just any portraiture, though. I won’t be re-opening the studio or breaking out the studio lights anytime soon, because my style is 100% natural light contemporary children’s photography.  To give you an idea of what my imagery looks like, here is a sample of a very willing model, the adorable Miss “K”:

Be on the lookout for the launch of my new website: www.pattycakephoto.com, coming very, very soon!

So, Congratulations, John!  OH, and here’s another tidbit of trivia for you . . . if you happen to be getting married in Arkansas or Missouri or somewhere else where John and his lovely wife Trisha photograph weddings, you can hear my voice when you call them to arrange your appointment. That’s right, the voice of shawna K is their outgoing message and has been for 2 years now. Apparently I must have a professional sounding voice, even if it was recorded at the end of a very long week of photo conventions in Vegas.  TOO FUNNY!

As promised, here are more from today’s 10-minute 6-month session. 

“OH BOY!  Mommy’s taking our picture!”
“Uh Oh!  I haven’t done my make-up yet!”

“Oh, don’t worry.  I’ll spit-shine you up and you’ll be gorgeous in no time!”

“Ugh. What have you been eating???  That tastes kind of funky. You should brush your teeth.”

“No, really, it’s bad.  That taste is stuck on my tongue!”

“Dude, don’t EVER do that to me again.  I’ll put my own make-up on next time.”

“Hey look, I’m sorry about smacking you in the face. Come here and let me tell you something. Don’t you think we should _______________.”
“Oh yeah! That sounds fantastic!”

“Ummmm . . . I don’t know. Maybe we shouldn’t _____________. I don’t think Mommy’s gonna like that.”

“Oh hey, Mom.  What’s up? I didn’t know you were there.”

“No, really. We’re not up to anything at all.  hee hee”
“I swear, it was Tyler’s idea.”

I can’t write much at the moment. I have a zillion other pictures to share from this session, but I’m swamped with work, I had to take my grandma to the ER today, and the babies are yelling at me because they want my undivided attention . . . but I HAD to share this picture.  I took it about 15 minutes ago.  Yes, today they turned 6 months old.  And, yes, I’m soooooo sad.  It goes by so fast and I love newborns.  They just aren’t newborns anymore. waah. They’re BABIES through and through.  And so, so, so stinking cute and funny.  Oh if I could only stop time.

P.S. Miss J (Jordyn) is on the left with very little hair and Miss T (Tyler) is on the right with the head full of hair. 

Greetings Clients,

Just to let you know, we are up to our eyeballs in album orders right now.  We are currently delivering 2-3 albums per week and have contracted with a spiffy new album designer to get us caught up with the workload since my maternity leave.  If you want to know the status of your album, you can always check the album status link to the right of this page, or you can email us and we will let you know where your album is in the queue.

Just a reminder, the album queue is determined by the date you gave us your album selections not the date of your wedding. If you got married in 2003, but turned your album selections in yesterday, then . . . sorry . . . you are last in the queue (that’s totally hypothetical, by the way; I’m not pointing any fingers!  haha!).  Also, all album designs must be prepaid. So, if you are adding an album to your package, payment for that album is due before we can begin the design process and, again, your place in the album queue is determined by the date you a. gave us your picture selections and b. paid for the album.  We currently have about 6 albums that we can’t begin production on because we are waiting payment. 

Also, our albums are 100% custom and come from a variety of suppliers depending on the album you selected for your particular wedding. Some album companies take longer to assemble the albums than others.  We’re terribly sorry, but third party vendors are completely out of our control, but we do urge them along.

Thank you again to all of you who have been so understanding during my maternity leave.  Tyler and Jordyn thank you, too! 

-shawna K 

I recently photographed an engagement session for Tracy and Andy at Balboa Park.  Tracy and I have been friends for over 7 years.  We met back when I was attending the University of San Diego (http://www.sandiego.edu/) and working as an editor for RECON Environmental, Inc. (http://www.recon-us.com/).  It’s hard to believe how quickly time flies and how fast things have changed for myself and for Tracy.

Their session was a great time to catch up with Tracy and it also provided me the opportunity to get to know Andy a little bit better before the big day. I always tell people that engagement sessions are the best opportunity for us to get to know each other.  On the wedding day, the bride and groom are usually a little bit nervous and stressed.  It helps us all out a lot if you’ve already had some time in front of my camera.  That way, it’s familiar instead of being yet another stressor. 

I can’t tell you how many times guys have said to me that they hate having their picture taken, only to say at the end of the e-session that they actually had quite a bit of fun! Well, I want you to have that same fun on your wedding day.  Andy was quite a trooper and I think he had fun getting cozy with his fiancee!  These two are just way too sweet!

Brooke and Travis are celebrating their first anniversary this weekend.  Aren’t they just adorable?

I love this very casual portrait of Travis:

Well . . . I’m feeling particularly unloved today.  Lots and lots of hits on the blog, but no comments.  I can SEE that somebody is reading my blog, but no one leaves me any comments (except for Zarah . . . she’s always sending me love).

Some of you have emailed me, a FEW of you have left comments.  But I’d love to know who else is reading.  I’m feeling very lost in blogspace. Waah!

So . . . drop me a line . . . .PLEASE . . . . pretty please!

-shawna K

Well, as promised, here are some more pictures from my birthday camera.  I had been thinking about getting a new point and shoot camera for a variety of reasons.  While my Canon A95 is nice, the technology they are packing in the newer cameras is just phenomenal.  That, and I was looking for something to do some fun underwater shots with, as well as some nice macro work.  The macro abilities of point-and-shoot cameras are astounding.  When I heard about the Olympus 770SW, I just had to have it. http://www.olympusamerica.com/cpg_section/product.asp?product=1287 

For starters, it is shockproof to 5 feet.  Meaning, if my daughter drops it, it won’t break.  It is waterproof to 33 feet.  If I’m sinking below 33 feet, there’s a problem and my camera getting wet will be the least of my worries (I no longer SCUBA dive).  I also like the idea of being able to take a camera to Disneyland and other such theme parks and not have to worry about it every 5 minutes.

So, you’ve already seen some video (and, trust me, the quality on my TV and computer is soooo much better than web quality.  I’m using google video to host my movies, but maybe I should check out a better system).  Anyways, here are some pics STRAIGHT out of the camera.  I was pleasantly surprised with its colors and tone, even underwater.

This one was using the underwater portrait mode, so the white balance is a little off:

This one, you can see where the water is hitting the lens (my nephew was squirting the camera):

Here is a natural light macro shot of a ring:

Another:

An indoor portrait with flash, red eye reduction on:

Tyler, with flash, red eye reduction on:

Shiloh, with flash, red eye reduction on (if you have ever photographed an animal, you know how difficult it is to make their eyes look decent, esp. with flash.  Well, this one just blew me away — Shiloh’s eyes really are amber like that, so the red eye reduction and the flash combo REALLY did their job):

I think the only area I felt this camera fell short was with its firework mode.  Yes, it has a mode for fireworks.  Had I read the manual BEFORE I used the camera (ha ha), I might have been able to fix some things about the exposure, but basically I felt it left the shutter speed too slow to capture the scene, leading to motion blur.  A tripod could have fixed the problem, but who uses a tripod nowadays anyways?  And even that’s not going to slow the firework down.  In any case, I don’t mind the motion in the actual firework itself, but I expect the city to be sharp — and it’s not.   Sadly, I think this camera CAN do it, I just think the developers were a little overzealous in trying to get those fireworks exposed.  Oh well.

Oh, and last but not least, this is another macro shot . . . but this one was taken at night using, believe it or not, the camera’s built-in LED illuminator.  I’m shocked.  Stunned, really, at what this camera can do.  It’s not the nicest lighting in the world, but hey . . . .I’ve seen a LOT worse.

Anyways, enjoy!  And if you feel like having some fun with your kids in the pool or at the beach, I highly recommend this little bitty camera!

Be a part of history!  Today I am participating in the first ever “blogathon” to raise funds for the ”THROUGH THEIR EYES AFRICA” project. 

This project will be sending a group of well known photographers into a remote part of Africa that has not received any help yet.  The photographers will be mentoring young adults on how to take pictures so that we can get a look at their society “through their eyes.”  The funds raised from this project will go right back to the needs of these people. So, please go now and give at www.throughtheireyesafrica.typepad.com. They need your donations to make this happen.  Remember, what you give will make a difference in the lives of some of the neediest people on earth. 

Be a part of history.  Be part of the solution.

And thank you for your generosity.

For more information about this project, please visit www.throughtheireyesafrica.com.

My husband got me the COOLEST toy for my birthday.  I’ll tell you more about it my next posts but in the meantime, here’s some video from it: