Sunflowers!

Hey all! I am so sorry I haven't blogged in a couple weeks. I am pretty excited about this week's blog because I have wanted to see sunflowers for so long. Now these aren't Kansas sunflowers but they were still beautiful. I caught the sunflowers towards the last half of their life. Next year, I will know I need to go a few days sooner. Finding the field was a STRUGGLE. I saw in the newspaper that there was a field in Sedalia. It only gave the street name but said they were visible from the street. I thought how hard can this be? I drive along the street until I see a big yellow field. Oh no.
       I went looking for them and I drove at least 10 miles out of town and the road turned off. I was so confused and didn't know which way to go. At this point, I thought o.k. I went the wrong way or something so I drove back towards town. I was so frustrated. Derrick called me and tried to help me. He looked on google maps and told me if I stayed on the road, I could still make it to Warrensburg that direction. So I thought I can drive back home and I will be on that road so somewhere I have to run into these sunflowers right? I went about 5 miles past where I did last time and finally found them!
       Before I got there, I saw some little sunflowers next to the road so I pulled over and got some shots of them because I thought one way or another, I am getting some pictures of some sunflowers today. The big sunflower field was gorgeous. I had never seen so many. I pulled off on the road and walked over the ditch to get pictures. The ones closest to me were a little dead so I kept on driving down the road and came across some that weren't quite dead yet. I love LOVE sunflowers so I was just in heaven. It was a relief to find them. I didn't stay a long time because I didn't want to trespass on the peoples' property and I had already spent so much time looking for them. I will go again next year. It stinks sunflowers are not alive very long. That's why I haven't made it to Lawrence while they've been in bloom.
    If you've been following my blog, I FINALLY got a picture of a deer last week. I only had about a second to get one, so I am still going to try and get another good one sometime. I was excited to at least get one picture though lol.  Take a look at pictures and leave me a comment. Let me know what you think.

Sports

Hello. Have you all been watching the Olympics as much as I have? We have literally been watching constantly because they are my favorite sports event to watch. gymnastics and swimming in particular are my favorite sports. I'm sure much of the country feels the same. In honor of the Olympics, I thought I'd share some of my favorite sports shots I have taken with you. Sports was not my area of expertise in college but I do like to dip my toe into them every now and then. If you've been following my blog, you know I love shooting Special Olympics Sports. I have also done some shooting for the Muleskinner during college.
Sports are hard to shoot because you need a fast lens and the lighting isn't always the best like if you are in the gym or in my experience, I have found bowling to be the worst to shoot. You can't use flash at a bowling alley because it triggers the machines to reset. Football is nice because it is outside but you have to anticipate the action more. In football, you are usually running up and down the sidelines. In golf, you have to walk along with the players. Basketball and volleyball are fun to shoot because they're so fast paced but harder to get focused images without a very fast lens. Swimming is fun to shoot because you get some interesting facial expressions as the athletes are completing their strokes. Cheerleading is for sure my favorite to photograph. I have never gotten the opportunity to photograph gymnastics or figure skating, but I would love to some day.
I feel very lucky when I get to photograph the SOMO athletes. They feel like a celebrity when they are up on the podium and I love getting to capture that moment on their face. Being apart of the 2010 and 2014 USA Games has let me get the opportunity to photograph the famous tennis player, Andy Roddick, and the basketball player, Jason Thompson. Unfortunately I never met Andy in person but I was near Jason Thompson enough to get a picture and get a signed towel for Derrick. I would love the opportunity to photograph more athletes including Michael Phelps and Simone Biles.
Below are some of my shoots from the Muleskinner and SOMO events. I hope to expand my sports portfolio in the future.

Why I love photography?

Hey all. Thanks for checking out my blog this week. It has been crazy and hectic lately and school hasn't even started up yet. It seems life is like that a good portion of the time anymore but I'm not going to get into that. This week, I thought I would tell you why I love photography and show you some of my favorite images that I have ever taken. Some of these might be repeats but this will just give you another look at how passionate I am about what I do.

I love photography because I love getting to change my scenery every day. There is always a new location. Even when I go back and shoot the old scenery, things have usually changed; there are new flowers or it is a different season. I love shooting nature because it is every where. I can pick any location and always shoot a new place.

 I love photography because I usually always have a different client. I get to meet new people all the time and photograph their special memory. When I photograph for Special Olympics, there are 16,000 athletes in the state of Missouri so I am always shooting someone new. I love getting to shoot different families and seniors and see each person's unique personality.

I love how creative you can be with photography. There is so much freedom in what you can do. It's fun that you don't have to stick to just posing a person on a stool with a gray background for a school picture. Even in a studio, you can change the background and change the props. One of my favorite things recently, is double exposure. I think it can give the picture a really cool look to have another picture on top of the first one. Of course there is an appropriate time for it and time not to use it. Photoshop gives you the power to get really creative with images. I also like shooting different angles and changing what is in focus and what isn't. I really love black and white images. There is so much emotion captured in black and white. As soon as we buy our own house in the future, I am going to have so many black and white prints on the wall.

These are just a few of my favorite images. I thought it would be easy to pick out a few when I was going through them. Nope. I love so many! Each of these images is different. I love waking up each day wondering where I will be shooting at or who I will get to photograph.

Chicago

Hey I'm back. Sorry there wasn't a post yesterday. My husband and I went on vacation for a couple of days. We ended up going to Chicago so my post this week will be some of the photos I took on that trip. Neither of us had ever been before and it was an experience. Chicago traffic was fun to navigate in. I thought my husband handled it well. I loved being next to Lake Michigan. It is quite a beautiful lake. We went in the water on the Chicago side on Tuesday and went to the Michigan side on Wednesday. The Michigan side had a cool haze over it. The water was definitely colder on the Michigan side as well. I was very happy to get to be on the beach. I had been waiting so long to get to see the Bean and it was very cool. I'm intrigued of how that came to be a thing.  We walked to Navy Pier. It was really neat being along the water and seeing all the boats. I fell in love with deep dish pizza. Totally recommend it! We also went to Harry Carry's Tavern. The best service I have ever had. We literally got our food within 5 minutes of ordering and it was delicious. Great trip! Hope you enjoy the pictures.

                          Not sure what these trees are but had to capture their uniqueness.

Lake Michigan