It is what you have been waiting for! You all ask about getting a cd with your images on it. Well here is your chance. We are cleaning out old files and making room for the new year. You can purchase digital files from any of your old sessions. This offer is only available in February. If you have multiple sessions to buy you may be able to get a discount for purchasing them all. This applies to portrait sessions only (weddings are excluded).

As many of you know I went on a trip to Thailand and Cambodia. David Jay of Showit Sites offered a free website for a year to the person whos picture gets the vote. That is like a $500 prize, so I am asking for your vote because it is time for me to build a website and I will  be using showit sites. I have met David on a few occasions and he is the nicest most generous person you could ever meet. His products are helping thousands of photographers.

So go to Bobby’s website and VOTE You vote by leaving a comment with the Picture number and name I’m #6

And because post are better with pictures and a humiliating story…..

Here is a photo taken at my friend Claire’s house…. I mean farm I love it there. You have probably seen a ton of images taken at her house because she has the greatest open fields and has graciously let me bring a bunch of strangers there to take pictures. Anyway while I was walking around with one of our friends trying to show him some stuff on his camera, I shot these two with mine.

So after we all ate dinner, the kids were all running around and playing and somehow it came up that I could do a split. Of course I had to prove it so I borrowed some pajama pants to put on under my dress and did it. Then the kids were walking down the wall to make backbends and of course I said I can do a backbend away from a wall. So again I had to show off. After I wowed them with my backbend someone asked if I could kick over and I said ummm maybe. I used to could but haven’t tried that in a while. Well the attempt failed and as my feet returned to the ground my foot landed sideways. I felt that something didn’t feel right! I took my sock off and my toe was completely flipped up and to the left… It looked CRAZY! Thankfully our friend Megan was there and she is a Nurse. Coincidently she HATES feet. So Claire got her some gloves so she could look at it. She yanked it back into place and now instead of it being crooked it it straight and bruised and swollen. I am so glad I won’t have a deformed toe for flip flop season!

Here is a picture of me washing off my foot so she could operate.

Thanks to Blake for grabbing my camera and snapping this picture of me in all my glory!

So you can fully appreciate it here is a close up…. Please excuse my unpainted “winter toes”

I will spare you the photo I took today of the bruising!

Now GO VOTE

I love it when couples are so in love and up to anything. With this crazy weather we had to reschedule their appointment, but thankfully we were able to shoot on one of those beautiful days where the temperature was around 60-70 degrees.

The image to the right is my FAVORITE! The most beautiful light ever! If I could only shoot in one condition the rest of my life it would be in this light.

When I asked them what their favorite things to do were, one of the things he said was that he like to play basketball… Soooo I had to do a little test to see just how high he could jump

So…. where to start…

All of the temples were insane. It is so hard to believe that a very long time ago there was life here (besides tourist). I can’t wrap my head around what it must have been like to live in those days. These temples are so beautiful.

Thom Bayon – Cambodia

I heard someone say that the faces (they were ALL over this temple) were supposed to be the king and he wanted his face everywhere so that he could watch over his people forever. I don’t know if it is true but it sure sounds good.

This is right inside the gate of this temple. Imagine trying to get away with this riding situation in America!

Here I am during one of Cherish and I’s impromptu photoshoots. I think we were both unaware of the lack of sleep that showed on our faces! LOL seems those photos were all a waste of time. I was able to salvage a few thanks to a little patch tool in photoshop to get rid of the bags under my eyes!

Here I am again with some of the traditional Cambodian dancers

Whatever this foot was attached to had falling off at some point in time. It kindof looks to me like its a hand trying to climb out of a grave… creepy right?

Here is a photo that I took of my brand new handy dandy Shootsac that I won at the Jose Villa workshop that I attended before I went to Thailand! I cannot wait to blog that stuff too, but have vowed to finish this first. The shootsac has completely changed the way I shoot. I was more if a one lense shooter before I got this.I could go on and on, but if you are a photographer or a amateur and you don’t have one… get one! They are worth every penny!

After we visited this temple, Bobby (you can read more about our trip on his blog) asked our Tuk Tuk drivers to stop whenever we saw any wild monkeys. This was my favorite experience of the trip! If you didn’t check out the video trailer of our trip do so here and watch a monkey sneak some fruit off my head (i think it is around the 2 minute 38 sec mark).

This little guy was with his mom and a couple other kids selling fruit to pesky tourist like us. I think I bought all of the green fruit you see below that he had.

Here are a couple pics of me stolen from Bobby’s blog

Let me just preface this by saying that these are not tamed monkey’s, this is not at a zoo. These animals are wild and on side of the road. It would be same as stopping on side the road and hanging out with some squirrels here in the states (closest thing I could come up with at 2am… its a lame metaphor I know) (wait… is that a metaphor?)

Anyway…. Everyone was feeding the monkeys and of course they will hiss at you and you can see those teeth. And its a little scary. But I coaxed a few to get on me. There were prob about 50 monkeys at least and also a giant boar that actually frightened alot of the monkeys back into the trees. At one point I think I had 3 monkeys on me. I know that it may sound stupid to most of you, but it was SOOOOO awesome! I can’t explain it really! I am an animal lover. My friend Claire said her husband saw her on my Facebook page and this next photo was my profile pic and he said “Tell me she didn’t get a monkey… She got a monkey didn’t she?” It’s the joke around town that we have a zoo, and I am okay with that

I would live right there on that street just to relax and hang out with the monkeys all day… If you would all agree to send me like $5 a day for the rest of my life I think I might could afford to do that not too much opportunity to make money there.

LOVE those mohawks!

Given my recent Dentist bill for my kids I am printing this up and hanging it in the bathroom!!!!

This was my favorite temple, Ta Prohm. The movie Tomb Raiders with Angelina Jolie was filmed here. It was magical.

I became obsessed with these spindles (on the right), I guess that is what you would call them. I think I photographed every one there was at this temple for a project that I thought of while I was there.

Here are Erika and (blogless) Erin at Ta Prohm.

Here is a heard of Tuk Tuk’s waiting for their passengers. Someone compared them to a heard of wildebeest cooling off under a shade tree. And who could blame them it was SOOOOOO HOT that day. They basically drop you off and wait for you, and for only $15/day! It’s crazy!

When: January 23rd

Where:  Our Downtown Baton Rouge Studio

Info:  Make your kid the talk of the classroom. Who doesn’t love custom products with their child’s picture? A simply unique valentine background. Perfect to use for classroom valentines or to send to family and friends. Several sizes available to suit your specific needs

$75 Reservation fee includes 25- 4×5.5 Custom Valentine Cards. Reservation fee is due to book your appointment and is non-refundable.

Valentine Designs to come soon…. I am in Nashville and will head home tomorrow from our National photography convention and carelessly forgot all my design elements.

On this day we woke up early to get on a an all day long train ride. To be honest I was glad to have this day to be by myself. We were all together but we were on a train with the wind in hair and the sun on our skin and that is one of my favorite things. Rolling up the windows and turning on the AC wasn’t an option. For at least an hour of the first train ride I sat on the edge of the caboose hanging my feet off of the train listening to my ipod. Alone with my thoughts reflecting on all the insane things we had done and experienced and looking forward to the next adventures in Cambodia.

I orginally thought it was cool we were going to Cambodia but was most excited about Thailand. Turns out I LOVED Cambodia. Don’t get me wrong I could spend my whole life laying on Freedom Beach or any of the islands we were at or around on the day we  chartered a boat. But to be honest if I had to choose a place to waste my time in, it would have been Siem Reap, Cambodia.

These lily pads were in the river as we waked over a little walkway bridge to get to our rooms at The VN guesthouse. I loved them.

We were all tired, the night before was pretty eventful. Several people went out and stayed out almost all night and the rest of us tried to pack while the electricity went on and off for long periods of time. Finally able to lay in the bed when some other noisy guest were having a great time and making sure everyone else heard! Here are some people resting at the train station waiting for the train.

I didn’t take too many pictures during the time on the train. But here are a few. The one to the left is Erika looking so seriously out of the window. The other is of these two little boys who boarded the last train right before we arrived at the border town. They were so cute!! Letting us all take pictures of them. They must have felt like movie stars. Look at those smiles.

We spent the night at a hotel in the border town. We couldn’t cross the border into Cambodia until morning. I soooo wish I had some video of that night. I was soooo delirious. I was talking crazy and if they didn’t know me better my new friends would have sworn I was drunk. A few of us went into the Karaoke room and I was exhausted and decided to go back to the room and go to sleep. I walked straight out of the door and into a glass wall. And I hit it hard!!!! There was a little Thai guy standing there with his jaw dropped and his arms out. I went back in the room to tell everyone, I was laughing so hard that I was crying. About 5 of the workers from the hotel walked in laughing out loud. When I finally got back up to leave again the workers held my hand to make sure I made it out okay. It made me laugh bc I know they thought I must have been wasted….. But I promise I wasn’t I don’t even drink.

Here is the Cambodian border. I love that it is a Kingdom.

The smell at the broder was almost unbearable. And the children there begging was so sad. As we walked up Bobby warned us by saying “Hey guys…. These kids are so cute but they will take everything from your pockets so be careful”. As we were walking from building to building during the visa getting process we saw many locals carrying large things and hauling carts with goods back and forth across. It was so sad to see little kids barefooted pulling carts (much like a horse is the best way to put it).  This little guys cart wasn’t half as full as some of them.

We arrived at the 2 Dragons guesthouse, and this is the owners son (4yrs old I think). He was sooo adorable. And very smart too.  On the right you will see the picture he was drawing, there were some snakes on there and I made a comment that they were scary and he quickly informed me in the cutest little voice that… “Rat snakes aren’t scary they eat Rats not people”

These ducks were still alive……

We took a Tuk-Tuk ride to Go watch the sunset at one of the Temple Ruins. These guys are victims of land mines. Bobby has said that they have held that same spot for 3 years. Here they are as we walked up to watch the sunset.

You have to walk up some pretty steep steps….

There were hundreds of people there to watch. Watching them was one of my favorite parts.

How beautiful is that.

The picture to the left reminds me of the Lion King.

Here they are again still playing on our way out.