A big fat sneak peak for the D Fam because I had way too much fun at their session. Ben is another photographer friend of mine (yes, about 99% of my friends are photographers, it’s kind of wacky) and I met him and his family at Richardson Nature Center in Bloomington one evening. The weather threatened storms but turned out to be quite perfect for photos and we had the area pretty much to ourselves.

(In case you are wondering, the nature center has lots of frogs but no alligators…that we could find anyway.)

I did not steal either of the kids to take home with me, although I was pretty tempted and might reconsider sometime soon. Thanks for a fun session, guys!

Certain persons who shall remain nameless have been giving me a hard time about lack of updates. It really hasn’t been that long! But it’s true, I’ve been a bit remiss and a lot busy. The good news is that I took a load of packages to the post office today so you just might find some photos in your mailbox soon. That being said, something “fun and fresh” was requested so here we go.

This is Mikey and his sons Adam and Landon. We met Mikey while we were in Virginia, he works at The Homestead. The morning after we met him, he brought his kiddos in on his day off so that we could photograph them before our flight. I have a sneaking suspicion that the photo above more accurately reflects their daily life than any of the other photos I took.

But seriously, how cute are these two?

I think Landon might be the smiliest baby I have ever seen. He didn’t stop smiling once during the entire session. Just smiles and giggles and those two little teeth.

Okay, maybe I got one photo of him not smiling but still plenty cute.

Adam’s plans didn’t really involve too much photography, but rather a lot of running around and a little bit of talking about Spiderman. Coaxing him to follow me as we walked through the hotel lobby, I said to him, “C’mon, goofy!” Adam says to me, and to pretty much everyone within a three mile radius, “I’M NOT GOOFY, I’M ADAM!!”

And here’s the thing about out of town sessions…

You can give those kids sticky sticky sweets to eat while wearing their best clothes because hey, you’re about to leave town and never come back!

But come on, can you blame us?

And now I’m back to editing but I’ll try to be better about posting.

Last summer, I started working with Family & Children’s Service, a local non-profit organization. I attended several of their summer kids programs to photograph them and then they used the photographs for various promotional materials.

Last fall, an artist named Katie Thompson began working with them to design a mural that runs the length of the 55 foot hallway in their Lake Street office. She came up with the design and sketched it on the wall so that volunteers could help paint it. One hundred and twenty volunteers, the youngest being four years old, worked on it and it took them over 400 hours. The most exciting part for me, though, is that the mural is based on the photos that I took over the summer. When I attended one of the volunteer days in the fall to photograph the mural in progress, I could immediately recognize some of the faces and yesterday when I attended the dedication of the finished product, I could recognize a few more. What a fun way to see bits and pieces of your own work!

The final work looks amazing! I have absolutely no ability to draw or paint so Katie’s talent boggles my mind. During the dedication speech, President and CEO Molly Greenman said that they used to feel that if you didn’t come into the building depressed, you’d leave depressed for sure because of the long, dreary hallway. Not anymore!

If you’re looking for a way to get involved in the Twin Cities area, check out Family and Children’s Service. They are looking for help in a variety of areas and they are very good to their volunteers.