These pics are actually from last fall… they crack me up. She’d been looking at a fashion magazine and laughing at the awkward poses of the models. She grabbed a yoga mat, her big plastic belt (you know, the kind that come free with the jeans but isn’t quality at all) and a pair of my shoes (it kills me that they fit her now… how can she be almost my size already?) and asked me to take pictures of her in her fancy high-fashion ensemble. One result from our 5-minute photoshoot:

Love this girl. Gosh, she’s beautiful. But more importantly, she’s just a really wonderful, delightful person. Lucky me.

You may have noticed I have a thing for big trees with the sun shining through them. I can’t help it, I love it.

I love the look on his face as she walked down the aisle.

Is this getting old yet? I just think it makes such a nice parting shot…

I made a goal last week to blog every other day (at least weekdays). Didn’t quite make it, but I’m going to be gentle on myself and just keep going rather than beating myself up about it. More important than blogging every other day, I wanted to have every other post be a personal one. About something I like, or something I’ve done, or something I’ve discovered. It will make my blog feel more like me. Because as much as I love my job, there ARE other parts to me, and they sometimes feel like they get swallowed up in all the other things in life (including my job), and I lose motivation to blog because I’m kind of tired of just talking about that one side of me.

So. Unfortunately, since I’ve been either working or at the pool or at the beach with my kids this week (it IS summer after all!), I haven’t spent any time proofing my own photos. But I did proof this one from a recent wedding (to be featured soon!).

My test subject, my dear Davey. My assistant at weddings (I’m always VERY careful to point out that he’s my assistant, because it’s the only time when I’m his boss and I rather enjoy that feeling). My mule, as I call him when he’s got all my gear (or when he’s showing his stubborn streak). My partner in crime, the love of my life.

I like that I wrote love, and he’s MY love. I wasn’t taking this to take a pic of Dave, per se, but  it just happened with our experimenting. I love shooting weddings with him. I sometimes have to shoot with other people, and that’s fine, but he just GETS me more than anyone else. He knows how to make me laugh or calm me down or help me focus. And his work is really good!

He also doesn’t respect me like I’m his boss, which he really needs to work on.  We toy with the idea of bringing him on full-time, but he’s also a really good accountant, and those are really hard to find these days. Besides, I don’t think he likes me to be his boss. He likes being a boss, and neither of us like being an employee, so we’re at an impasse. He’ll be my employee at weddings and my tech-guy and accountant for free, but I can’t afford his fees.

He’s a really good man. I  really love this guy. I’m the luckiest girl alive.

p.s. Here’s a shot of “the mule” in action… full service, carrying cameras AND wedding bouquets! All with a smile…

My artsy favorite shot of the day: (check out the perfect circle flare!)

My sentimental favorite shot of the day:

Can’t wait for the wedding tomorrow! It’s going to be SO much fun and so so special.

p.s. I apologize for all the randomness regarding the watermarks/logo… Obviously I had set up to blog this several times the last few months and never finished the job. Rather than redoing it, I just went ahead and posted my mismatched ones. Letting go of the perfectionism will hopefully allow me to blog in a more timely manner, ha ha.

These images mark a piece of Andrea’s history. Not only because they were the fleeting first days of a newborn baby, but because they were the fleeting last days of  living on the lake. Last week, she moved to Carson City, Nevada. I’m so excited to have her back on my side of the country for the first time in a decade! (before Kentucky, they lived in Philadelphia… hard to get much farther away than CA to PA) Since the move, she and I have delighted ourselves by calling each other IN THE SAME TIMEZONE! No more telling myself that while 4pm is great for me to talk, she’s probably eating dinner or getting the kids to bed, or thinking of something I need to tell her at 7 and knowing she’s already in bed. This same-timezone thing is really great.

Anyway… on to the pics!

Can you see why I found him so irresistible?

My brother-in-law is into making furniture by hand. This beautiful bench holds one of his greatest masterpieces.

Their “diving rock” reminds me of the rock on the lion king that they hold the baby out on… we had to do a small re-creation:

(by the way… the rock slopes downward, my sister was laying next to him and holding him… you just can’t see her hands in the shot. I would never plop a baby on a rock over water without proper precautions!)

This pic shows it all for me. The lake, the rock, Leah completely loving on Bryce (the girl was a kissing machine!), the special relationship between Keith and Bennett… I love it all.

A few more faves:

Bennett refusing his dinner.

Leah giving kisses.

My Earth-Mama sister:

Keith enjoying one of the best things about their life in Kentucky:

Just for the record… that lake is incredible. That picture makes me want to jump in again. The water isarmer than my California swimming pool. I don’t know how but it really is. Something in that water cleans away stress and makes you instantly happy, even if swimming in lakes seems a little scary at first. I wish they could’ve brought it with them, or that I could buy it as a vacation home. (which reminds me… if you’re on that side of the country, it’s still available for the time being! Snatch up this little piece of heaven!)

I think this family is incredibly photogenic. I couldn’t get over how beautiful they were the whole time I was proofing this session.

Ok… in that one they’re pretty tiny and their beauty is a little hard to see… but I love me a tilt-shifty-flarey, big epic pic.

The girls… serious california girls! And after a moment of trepidation from one of them, they were all “take one of us doing this, take one of me like this”. “I know… let’s hug!”… um, ok. Thank you.

Even the boys got in on the action… their hug was a little more, well… masculine?

Mom and Dad were feeling the love too…

Last shot. I usually love the last shot because it’s so telling. No one is trying anymore. It’s the perfect slice-of-life shot… mom all calm and happy amid the chaos, one kid sad because she’d hurt her hand, one kid over the session (and had been for a little while) two, just hanging out, and dad showing some love. These shots make me just as happy as the “perfect” shots because, really, they are totally perfect.

So… in some kind of record time for me between session and blogging it… here goes!

This sweet little missy was so happy and smiley, I really didn’t have to do anything to make her smile. I didn’t even have to work. Easy Peasy.

I really love this shot, how it shows that she’s in the adorable crawling stage, and how mom is cheering her on in the background.

This smile… we saw it a lot. So happy that smile takes up her whole face! Dad made her so happy, I loved their connection.

This shot… she’s actually on her dad’s back, upside down, and I’m shooting up at her. I think it’s funny that you can’t tell.

Dad is an avid gardener. I like that his human crop and his veggie crop are both represented in this shot.

In this shot, dad is holding her upside down and you can’t even tell. Oh, you can? Oh… yeah…

Happy happy family. Love it.

Here are some favorites.

I really love this “grandma shot”. They look so relaxed and happy here. [I call the looking and smiling shots "grandma shots" because these are what makes grandma happy. She might be disappointed if all we had were artsy fartsy shots!]

This light… I was dying. They were laughing at how giddy I was while I was taking this.

This is at the beach… I love their bare feet.

I love the feel of this shot.

I still have a few spots available for next Saturday’s mini’s. Downtown Campbell is so much fun because of the variety of looks in such a small area.

I really love the variety of footwear in this family.

Announcing May Mini Sessions! Downtown Campbell. May 22.

Cost: $150, includes one 11×14 print. Contact me for details, shannon [at] shannonmontez [dot] com

Last time I did mini sessions was last November. I loved so many of the images, I’m going to have to break the sharing into two posts.

More tomorrow…