What a TIME!

It's always a treat to spend TIME with my son, Lucas, and this TIME I had five glorious days with him, all to myself, in Vegas where he's lived for the past 4.5 years. Why does the TIME always go by so quickly? Anyway, here a few shots from our TIME together...

Lucas' house, about two miles from the Strip:

Boys and their toys (the toys get more expensive the older they get):

His Christmas "tree" and decorations (Hawaii ornament from our cruise last year). This tall & skinny pine tree will be planted outdoors later on. Lucas has an incredibly green thumb (which he didn't get from me) and has lots of unusual indoor plants all around the house:

A photo from Lucas' My Space page - getting in the holiday spirit!

Lucas, Skaught, and me...

The Stratosphere (the tallest building in Vegas) - we took the elevator up to the top to enjoy lunch and the view (the restaurant spins around slowly - takes about an hour to get all the way around):



Walkway view from the hotel to the pool area where Lucas worked this summer - you can see the typical amount of snow this year on the mountains in the distant:

The pool area where Lucas had a (very lucrative) bartender position this past summer. Sadly, when the pool closed for the winter, he lost this job and is now a food runner at the indoor sports bar & grill. Thankfully, he has a job but his salary was cut in half. The economic downturn is making it impossible for him (and everyone else) to find another job. I heard later that over 1,000 people applied for a few positions at a new In-And-Out Burger joint opening up - OMG!

Luke's friend, Ariel, is on the right - he told me later she's "cold as stone" (not really - she's a performance artist and was doing her thing at the mall in the hotel. FYI...she gets paid $150 for an hour of standing there, only moving once every 10 minutes or so):

My performance art (for some reason, I didn't get paid for it):

One of the outdoor lounges where Lucas currently works - I'm relaxing in the Joe Montana lounge - who's Joe Montana? (just joking!):

But then it really did snow in Vegas (later on, there would be 4 inches on the ground and everyone was freaking out!). I kept saying, "this is nothing, folks!"

Love my grandbabies...

and, my beautiful boy!
TIME with your family and friends is the best present you can give or receive this TIME of year. I'm just so incredibly blessed.

a "senior moment"

Last Friday, I had a "senior moment"...not the kind you're thinking of (like when an elderly person can't find their reading glasses because they're perched on top of their head) but due to an incredibly fun photography session. I photographed a high school senior down in the Short North and walked away thinking, this was the coolest thing I've done in a long time (and not just in terms of artistic expression but it was literally 25 degrees that day).

Check out the main pic on my blog for now...check back in a few days when I'll post a few more from the session.

Homesick

I knew my Hawaii pictures would resurface some day...has it really been almost a year since we set sail around Paradise?

Nothing like a little winter wind howling and snow showers swirling around my Hilliard house to make a girl homesick for paradise.

consider this

My friend, Barb and her trusty assistant, Natalie, are the Queens of Green so I'm jumping on their bandwagon this Christmas, especially after reading a great article by Spencer Hunt in the Columbus Dispatch:

The goal of an environmentally conscious holiday is to change spending habits and traditions in ways that cut pollution without diminishing the Christmas spirit. Consider this:

• Every year between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day, people throw away 25 percent more trash than normal: about 1 million extra tons a week;
• The number of greeting cards mailed each year in the U.S. could fill a 10-story football stadium, according to waste-reduction advocate Use Less Stuff.
• Powering decorative lights strung on homes will result in power plants producing more than 400,000 tons of carbon dioxide, the lead ingredient in global warming and cost homeowners more than $250 million.

Most of us are already aware of how to reduce our footprint on the planet but it can be tough reinventing tradition. The following Christmas considerations aren't that big of a jump:

• Choose LED lights if you're gonna' string 'em up - I bought mine this weekend for our FAKE Christmas tree (fake is also good, but I just learned that REAL trees store carbon, provide habitat, are grown locally, and 90 percent are recycled as compost and mulch).
• Use gift bags that can be re-gifted - my girlfriends and I do this all the time.
  
• Send email holiday greetings to those in your address book (see my previous post) and only snail mail cards to those who aren't as technically advanced.

Ready to make the leap?

Which One?

I'm doing my Christmas cards early - now that my photo sessions are done I have lots of free time on my hands before I head out to Vegas to see Luke. Every year, I sit down with my address list and a cup of hot chocolate, turn on iTunes and sign away. But instead of buying a box of cards, I decided to make my own photo cards and send them via email.

Hmmm, wonder which one YOU'LL get? Only Santa knows.

Brrrr...

I'm generally not one to complain but my feet have been freezing ever since the weather turned cold a few weeks ago. I've got all the cold-weather footgear a girl who lives in Ohio needs: wool socks (that are kinda scratchy), fuzzy slippers (that could pass for dust mops) and a million pairs of boots (mostly black).

Not a good sign - it's only November.

Holiday fear

My usual holiday cheer is feeling more like holiday fear as I try to gauge how much I need to get done between now and my pre-Christmas trip out to Vegas to see my 29 y.o. bundle of boy (besides the holidays, I've got to squeeze one more high school senior session in here somewhere). I had a feeling that once I decided to bail out of BECKY J. photography that these last few months would push me to the limit....but it's definitely worth it, financially and emotionally. I've been giddy over the number of sessions I've done and the amount of photography my clients have ordered. It's all gone to my head and I'm feeling very blessed.

It's funny, though, how in the midst of all this craziness, my right brain is still trying to figure out how it can stay involved in the photography business even though my left brain is screaming, "Are You Completely Crazy??" R-Brain loves all things creative. L-Brain totally sucks at going to networking events, pricing competitively, or even entering stuff in QuickBooks - the easiest software to use on earth! It makes me cringe to type an invoice or write a proposal - it makes my heart sing when I open up PhotoShop. You get the point.

So, here's the compromise...how about I handle your holiday cards for you? Choose one of my newly-created E-photocard designs and I'll customize it with your information. Or, send me your own jpg and I'll whip something up. I'll even send this little creation to your personal or business email list as an E-Card - no postage, no licking envelopes, no writing little notes. Very eco-chic and unique! Here are a few samples...ahhhh, feeling much better. R-Brain got its fix.

You guessed it...

more Inniswood. And a super nice family to photograph. No better way to spend a Saturday morning.

Once a photographer, always a dreamer

I can't get enough of Inniswood Metro Gardens, especially in the fall. My photo session this past weekend was there and my remaining October sessions will be there, as well. It's just magical when the sunshine filters through the leaves of the trees or cool shadows are cast over natural backdrops.

Long after my business goes dark, I'm sure you'll still find me there as it's turned into kind of a home away from home. Hmmm, maybe I'll start doing some fine art photography...once a photographer, always a dreamer.

I love fall

Judging a book by its cover

This is one of those instances when you really can judge a book by its cover...

I have just wrapped up some assignment photography for a book author, Gail E. Dudley, who will soon be publishing her latest writings on a life lived in prayer. In the meantime, here is a sneak peek of the cover that I shot from the inside of my Honda Element on a rainy evening. Gail's vision for the cover came to her as she sat in her own car one rainy afternoon, looking out the windshield with God whispering in her ear, "This is it. This is my vision for your life." Pretty cool stuff, huh?

Please let me know how many copies of the book you'd like to order and I'm sure Gail would be tickled pink to sign them for you.