Stella Chroma- Cosmetic Product Photography

Had the opportunity to work with this amazing company who makes products that are big 5 free, cruelty free, paraben free and phthalate free. Stella Chroma makes awesome skin and nail care products and it was a pleasure to put together a shoot for some of their line.

I styled, modeled, and through some finagling of the self timer also photographed this shoot. Retouching for cosmetic photography is also super important. You want every image to convey a message and not get bogged down with tiny flaws that could have been fixed in post.

Matthews Chamber Golf Tournament

Though it poured in the morning and did a bit of sprinkling throughout the day, the Matthews Chamber Golf Classic was a success and I was happy to be one of the sponsors for it! It was held at the Olde Sycamore Golf Plantation.

Bubbly

This was a fun little test I did with Julia of Chandon Brut and Chandon Rose. Lots of photoshop to make sure we got the bubbles where we wanted them!

And just in case you were worried, none of the alcoholic bubbles were wasted in the making of these images!

Florapothecarie - Small Business Collaboration

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A while back (when my hair was still blue), I was privileged to do this collaboration with small business Florapothecarie. They make 100% natural and vegan skin care products and even dry shampoo! I had a great time making some clean imagery for the brand and doing a little self-care while I was at it!

Saint Patrick's Day Crawl with Friends- Matthews, NC

Before shit started hitting the fan for real in Matthews, we decided to go on a little Saint Patrick’s Day Bar Crawl early on (perhaps not the most well though out plan in retrospect, but we wanted to support our fave places). We met up with some friends, made a few and probably annoyed a few more while going from The Loyalist Market, to Jekyll and Hyde, to Seaboard before I got at little too day drunk and places got a bit too crowded and Clint and I called it a day.

Sad we didn’t get to make it to Grace O’Malley’s and Stumptown Station, but we will for sure be hitting them up with this craziness dies down.

I know it’s weird being a freelancer in this environment, but everyone stay as safe as you can, self- isolate as much as you can (I see the irony, don’t worry) and remember we’re all in this together.

Matthews Chamber Holiday Gala 2019

Clint and I always have an amazing time at the Matthews Chamber Holiday Gala and this year was no different. I had the honor of photographing the event this year and it was pretty clear that everyone had a great time.

This year it was held at the Hilton Garden Inn at Waverly and was Sponsored by Novant Health Matthews Medical Center and Dessi Dufresne of Edward Jones.

Feel free to scroll through and see just how much fun everyone had at the event recognizing some of Matthew’s amazing local businesses.

Sloth Encounter - Tiger World - Charlotte, NC

Yesterday with Lauren, Adam, and Adrienne I got to go meet a baby sloth at Tiger World! His name was Nacho and he was way softer then you would imagine a sloth would be. Adrienne and I came up with this for Lauren’s birthday present and I got to say, we totally benefited from it as well. Such a cool experience. We learned a ton of things, like how sloth saliva is actually toxic- so no sloth kisses for us- and that Nacho could actually rotate his ankles around so that he could climb down a tree without shimmying down butt first!

Lauren was totally enamored and was definitely not paying attention to our guide so I was trying to look like I was to make up for it. I think we retained like 25% of what she was saying because we were all so excited. Sorry!

Tiger World is using these encounters to help build Nacho a nice warm habitat which is really awesome. We found out that 4 out of 5 of the animals at Tiger World are rescued from all over the place. It was a very neat place to visit. Highly Recommend it!

The Birthday Girl

Sloths have little hidden ears under their fur! They almost look like human ears.

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Georgie's Bachelorette Party - Charleston, SC

I had a great time (maybe too good) be-bopping around Charleston, SC with these wonderful women.  Georgie gets married in September and our girl's weekend was a wonderful way to celebrate her! We took a go with the flow plan for our weekend and we did some awesome things.  We went to the beach just long enough to not get burnt to a crisp. Then we went on a boat for a tour around the harbor and finished the evening with some good food and a ghost tour.  

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Had to end it with the awkward pic.  Basically sums up our day: sweaty, tired, a bit hangry, but still having a good time.  Also, they took a picture of me taking a picture to prove that I was actually on the trip.  Ha.  The plight of the photographer is to never actually get to be in photographs unless you entrust your baby camera to a stranger.  We're going to have a great time celebrating together in September!

Not Another Film Post - JK It is-- Charlotte, NC

I'm forever taking photos of these kids and their dogs.  If they weren't so darned cute they wouldn't appear as much in blog posts. 

So thankful that the Hubby had such an awesome best friend so that I could steal her away from time to time and she could help me harass him when need be, or you know, for fun.  

Thanks to the The Dark Room for doing such a great job with this film!  Especially since I still have no idea, how old it was.... My bad guys. 

Monika's Headshots - Matthews, NC

Monika is almost always down for a photo adventure so when she came over looking super beautiful and with the news that she had just got hired for a new job we figured it was the perfect time to snap some new headshots for her.  Confession:  One of my favorite parts about shoots is when people drive by clearly wondering why the crazy photographer girl is in such a weird position on the ground or standing on a rock or walking backwards perilously close to the road.  You guys get the idea. 

Matthews Free Medical Clinic

On Monday, I had the pleasure of hanging out with some lovely people of Matthews Free Medical Clinic and taking photos of their annual golf tournament.  This year it was at Raintree Country Club and we had fun zooming between holes on our four-seater golf cart and greeting everyone.  We were also able to eat food from some of the sponsors, including Chik-fil-a and Papa Murphy's Pizza, and do beer tastings with some of the others!

Many different companies and people sponsored the event, and everyone had a fun time coming together to support the clinic. 

You could buy a skirt (donations going to the clinic) and wear it to be able to hit the ball from the women's starting point.  That's probably not the correct terminology at all, but we're going to go with it since I know next to nothing about golf. 

I didn't get to stay till the end of the tournament, but we had fun right up until I had to run off for my next appointment. They had a dinner after I left where the winners of the silent auction was announced.  

 On a different note, I'm so glad I wore sunscreen. 

First Day of Legal Marriage

Clint and I totally got married in a courthouse before we went on our epic jaunt to Scotland and had a ton of adventures involving Scotch and Hairy Coos. This is our first day of marriage adventure. It was pretty low-key, but it features photos in front of my favourite door (may it rest in peace), my husband's goofy hungover face, and oysters at RockSalt so who can complain?

Teal Film - Charlotte, NC

I did a fun experiment with some teal film I found at the PhotoPlus Expo a few years back.  Finally got to shoot and send it off.  It's definitely interesting.  Everyone came out as smurfs!  Lots of family beach photos and the color shift definitely came out kind of eery in those. 

Saint Patrick's Day

Had so much fun last weekend with everyone in downtown Matthews for Saint Patrick's Day!  Met some new people and spent some good time with friends. 

Like this gorgeous woman. 

Had some fun and amazing drinks with the lovely people at Stumptown Station.I love hanging out in Matthews, not only because you see so many people you know, but there's a great atmosphere throughout the whole town.  No one gets shwasted (generally) and you're not dealing with crazy, drunk, bros. 

Then we headed down to Temple Mojo and sat outside in the beautiful weather (where'd that go by the way)!

We paused to take a few photos in front of the Planet Ballroom's cool green door, where Ace got a new dog girlfriend. 

After that we bebopped on down to Seaboard (one of my favorite places in all of Matthews) and sat on the patio where Lori and Laura were trying to teach Ace to balance a goldfish on his nose.... 

Seaboard just opened their brewery! It's awesome and they already make some kick-ass beers! You should check them out!

It was so great to get all of these people together and hang out, even if we were missing my Hubby (he had a bachelor party to be at and he missed out on all our fun).

Boudoir Photography

I'm in love, love, love with some recent work I did of people getting a little more vulnerable in front of the camera.  I think it's not only empowering in the moment, where you start to recognize that your body is wonderfully made, but it helps later when you look at those photos and are like; "Wow, I look great. I'm a badass."  I want to make everyone feel like a badass after I photograph them. Looking forward to shooting with more wonderful people and creating images that help them love themselves!

Yadkin Valley Wine Tour

Yesterday I went to three wineries with some amazing women!  The Matthews Women in Business Group went to Laurel Grey, Shadow Springs, and Dobbins Creek Wineries.  Johnny from Johnny B Limo Service took us around and kept us on schedule. Thanks to Kim Gossage and Dessi Dufresne for sponsoring such an awesome event!  We did a lot of laughing as you can see. I can't wait for the next event with these ladies. 

Snow Days Are The Best Days

I was able to have an awesome snow day today!  I worked on some personal projects as well as some business.  In between that,  I went on a  photo adventure with a couple of my friends. There's nothing like the world being a giant softbox to create some beautiful portraits.  Or some silly ones. And I got a quick one of my dog because dogs are amazing and he was too fast to get anything else (He's not a fan of snow). 

Lemon Bars

I cannot get over how talented Lauren is.  A few minutes after she styled these (AND MADE THEM HERSELF) she cut about nine to ten inches off my hair.  Did we do a practice run where she only cut off seven? Yes.  But I did trust her to do the last two and make it look awesome!

Case in point: She's amazing.