by Amy | Feb 4, 2013 | Blog, The Art of the Moment
Last Sunday I had the fun privilege of photographing maternity portraits for a dear friend of mine…who just so happens to be the cutest little pregnant gal I’ve ever known. Remember when you were a kid and you put a ball or a balloon under your shirt and pretended to be pregnant? Yeah, she pretty much looks like that. Just so precious. Without further ado, please say hello to Tiffany, Kyle and Wiley.
Since the weather warmed up to positive 20 degrees {F} we even took a few shots outside.
I told Tiffany to bring along anything she wanted featured in the photos with her. To my wonderful surprise she and Kyle showed up with Wiley in tow. He is so cute and spunky. Adding him to the mix in these portrait was so fun. I’m pretty sure I laughed until I cried at some of his antics. Oh, and let me be clear…I didn’t tell the dog to get on Kyle’s shoulders. They told me that’s just where he likes to sit. What a ham!
Thanks guys! I had a great time. Can’t wait to meet that sweet baby girl!
Amy
PS–Love this session? Check out the full gallery at the Amy Allender facebook page. And while you’re there…you should like it, so you don’t miss a thing!
by Amy | Jan 31, 2013 | Blog, The Art of the Moment
Last week I posted a sneak peek of Danica and Robin’s photo session. Here is the full deal. Two sweet sisters. One sugary baby–one spicy three year old. I had a blast setting my “mobile studio” up in their very own living room so Danica could be entertained while we did Robin’s photos and Robin could nap while we shot her big sis’s portraits. It worked out great.
Before I unleash the cuteness, I’ve got to thank their wonderful mother, Wyrene for being a guinea pig and letting me test my new set up in her home. She’s the best.
For even more of these cuties, be sure to go over to the Facebook page tomorrow. I’ll be posting the full session there. Oh, and you might as well click the “like” button while you are there. That way you won’t miss anything awesome.
Amy
by Amy | Jan 25, 2013 | Blog, The Art of the Moment
This week I had the good fortune of photographing two beautiful little girls. I was so excited to edit the photos…so I’m thrilled to be bringing you a sneak peek tonight! Without further ado, feast your eyes on Baby Robin and her big-girl sister, Danica.
This session was especially exciting for me because recently I’ve stocked up on props and back drops. {And more are on the way!} See…I’ve never worked in a place where outdoor photography was not a year round possibility. So I’m getting creative and making this whole winter thing work to my advantage. This session was so fun. Robin is precious, as you can see…and a joy to shoot.
Now meet Danica. I just love this girl’s personality. She is a bit of a tom-boy…but boy does she clean up nice! She was eager to give me her “Princess Smile.” But when I handed her a strand of pretty beads to play with she didn’t pretend to wear them. Instead she quickly told me that it was a snake that had poison and could bite. Hey…whatever floats your boat. I love a girl with imagination and attitude.
Amy
by Amy | Dec 25, 2012 | Blog, The Art of Design, The Art of Faith, The Art of the Moment
As usual, I had good intentions of writing to you diligently while I’ve been home in Elkhart {IN}. I also had good intentions of working out…since I teach a triple {three classes in one day} the day after we return home. {Woof.} I even brought me super sweet new Brooks home. But guess what? I didn’t do either. I hope you don’t hate me…or even worse…disown me. Or shun me, like Dwight Schrute to Andy Bernard on the Office.
I’m digressing.
I wanted to wish you all a very Merry Christmas. Over the years that feeling deep in the pit of my stomach…you know the one…the excited, can’t-hardly-sleep, what-will-morning-bring feeling–well, it’s faded a bit. But it has been replaced by a new feeling. One of a deeper relationship with Jesus and a better understanding of what His birth really meant.
Both are good. However…I’ve got to say I like the latter even more that anxiously waiting for Santa.
I hope you do too.
Thanks for sticking with me. I wish you could all be on my Christmas card list. But I have enough trouble getting a very few cards out on time. {Some are still sitting in my car, awaiting the USPS.} So here is your card. Straight from me {and Derek} to you. It’s a little different than the one we put in the mail. That’s a long awkward story. Maybe I’ll tell it to you someday. I love you all.
The back side reads:
“Them little lights aren’t twinkling.” “I know, Art…and thanks for noticing.”
It’s a quote from Christmas Vacation. Drumroll please…
Have a great day with your family.
Amy
by Amy | Dec 6, 2012 | Blog, The Art of the Moment
Creating a solid Christmas cards has been one of my favorite traditions since college. Whether posting with my roommates or snapping a quick picture with Derek…the Christmas card is a magical thing.
This year, it occurred to me to spread the world of Christmas card possibility to some of my friends. I mean, I own a fancy camera and a production business…if cute photos aren’t a perk of the friendship, I’m not sure what is.
Lucky for me…my friends are simply precious. Get ready to feast your eyes on two cute couples {and one awkward couple}. Get ready to pin some sweet ideas for your own portraits.
Don’t Sean and Katie remind you of a Forever 21 ad? They are so beautiful. I just love their style.
Like that banner? I made it in about an hour. I cut letters out of poster board then taped wrapping paper to the front of them. Punch holes in the letters and weave yarn through. Easy as pie.
Now say a hardy “Hullo” to Mallory and Kyle. See, I told you my friends are cute! These two just had their first anniversary…congrats, guys!
Okay. Now a few portraits of an awkward couple. You guessed it. Me and Derek. Here’s the thing. I want photos of us that look this cute. The hard part is that I’m the photographer. So any portraits of us have to be shot on self timer. Boo. So, what ends up happening is, I find a cute location…I push the button…we have 10 seconds…and we choke. When that little organge light is blinking at us, we forget everything about looking good and cute…and we {I} look like a hot mess.
This particular time we chose a location full of weeds and grass to trip on. So, I pushed the button then began to run to meet Derek. I tripped multiple times, my hair got a little ratty and my eyeliner started to run. Smile. Click. Dang…I look awful. So I compiled these photos. The best of the bunch…but still a bit awkward, if you ask me.
The best ones are where I am NOT looking at the camera. But aren’t we always harder on ourselves? {PS…I’m not fishing for compliments here. Compliment my cuter, more photogenic friends instead.}
But if there is one thing I’ve learned in recent days {like with my Christmas tree} if you put some white lights on it and look at it at dusk…even the most awkward thing can look beautiful.
Here’s a napkin. You can stop drooling now. Don’t you just love romantic Christmas portraits?
Amy
by Amy | Dec 3, 2012 | Blog, The Art of Adventure, The Art of Living
I can’t guarantee that this is the only awkward thing that will happen in my life this holiday season. But I can tell you that the event I’m about to describe goes down in history as one of the most janky, rigged-up, random things Derek and I have ever done.
And we’ve done a lot of weird things in our day. I’ll start by showing you a photo of the tree while we were decking it out. Now let me tell you how we got here…
So it’s Christmas time and we needed a tree. One of our favorite holiday traditions is finding our Christmas tree…and cutting it down ourselves if at all possible. The only time we’ve bought off a lot was when we lived in Oklahoma, and that’s only because they are so hard up for trees down there.
Over the years we have found some pretty precarious trees. Like the tree we got in Florida after driving by a random evergreen field. There was a mailbox with a saw hanging from a nail on the post and a sign that read : “Christmas Trees $25. Use the saw. Put money in the mailbox.”
Seriously I can’t make this stuff up. We hauled that one home in the back of our 1995 convertible LeBaron.
But what happened this weekend was even more redneck than that.
Saturday started innocently, with our weekly trip to Menard’s. {We always need something from Menard’s.} After picking up screws and bolts we went to the garden section to get a tree. But when we walked outside it just didn’t feel right. Sure, the nearest Christmas tree farm is hours away. But there had to be a Christmas tree for us somewhere in the wild. So we left tree-less and took a drive into the sticks to see if we could find a tree that we could whack down ourselves.
It turns out…there aren’t many more trees here than there were in Oklahoma.
We drove and drove. And what we found was that evergreens are planted intentionally up here. They lined lawns and created property boarders, but none seemed appropriate to cut down and haul off without facing criminal fines. We were about to give up and drive home when suddenly…there it was…
It was a true Clark Griswald moment. You know like at the beginning of the movie when he sees the tree, and it doesn’t matter that it’s way too big, or that it’s not even the kind of tree you use for a Christmas decoration. “Thith tree is a thymbol of the thspirit of the Griswold family Chrithmath.” And we knew it would be ours.
Where was this magical tree? I think this photo can speak for itself.
Yep. You are seeing correctly. It was at the edge of a gas station. All alone. Obviously an intrusive tree, not meant to be there. What gave us further calm about taking it for our own was the fact that it was half uprooted by the wind. If we left it, it would just die anyway…this was much more dignified. Sure, it was leaning back on another tree…but we’d be able to straighten it up in the stand. Sure it literally had empty bird nests in it…but we’d shake it good before taking it inside. Sure it was full…but we have tree trimmers at the house.
So Derek cut. And once it was cut we had another Griswald moment. Pretty much the same realization Russ has when he says: “Dad, that thing wouldn’t fit in our yard.” But we knew, “It’s not going in our yard, Russ, it’s going in our living room.” It was big.
But stuffed it in the back of the Equinox anyway. Somehow we got the doors closed and we hauled it home where we whacked off a few feet at the bottom, and I trimmed it into a respectable shape. Once up in the living room we really realized how ugly natural it looked. Full of holes, still a bit crooked. It looks as awkward as the circumstances it came from. But we put it up, slathered it in lights and used the trimmings to deck the rest of our halls.
In 2012 we cut down our own tree. And it was a beaut, Clark.
Amy
by Amy | Nov 15, 2012 | Blog, The Art of Design
Today I’m going to give you a beginner’s lesson in design. Let me put it this way…If I can do it, you can definitely do it. So I’ll be showing you step by step how to make this:
From this:
Pretty enough to be a card, right? Well first, let me tell you that you can do this. There is nothing special about the quality of the photo or the skills you need to put it together. My mom took this photo of my family skating a year or two ago. It was snapped on a plain jane point and click camera. {Mom is not a photographer.} All you need is a little imagination, yesterday’s cute elements and this tutorial.
This is a long post…so you’ll have to click through to see the full tutorial.
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by Amy | Nov 14, 2012 | Blog, The Art of Design
Hi guys,
Christmas is coming up fast. I actually thinks that goes without saying. The season brings lots of things. Candy, cookies, warm drinks, White Russians, parties…and cards. Lots of cards.
Whether you send out a card or not…chances are you still like clever, cute photos. {I know I do!} So I made a few goodies for my goodies. You can use them to make your own cards…or just a really cute Facebook cover photo. Up to you!
Here are some examples that I made using the elements that I’m giving you today! Click the links below…that should take you to the free Google document so you can save it for yourself. Once you save the ones you like be sure to check out the tutorial on designing your very own custom cards!
I’ll start with a recent photo. The rest of these are a bit of a time warp…The stars and text are one solid graphic. Get it here.
We took this photo when we lived in Florida. It was a joke that this would be our Christmas card. We meant for it to be a bit awkward. At the time we really did miss snow…Now it’s all over the place….The tree and the thought bubble are available for you!
This is again from Florida. I guess we took good Christmas photos that year. This orange tree was in our back yard. How cool is that? The text and snowflakes are separate. There are three snowflakes for you. Here’s #1, #2, and #3.
Again…the snowflakes. Here’s a different text graphic for you. I really love this one.
Lastly, a little joy to the world.
The point of these is to be able to turn any photo into an awesome Christmas card or image to share with friends and family. Using these is super simple. Just save it to your computer, open your image in an editing program that supports layers {like PhotoShop or GIMP}, then open the layers and put them where you want!
If you don’t understand the “layers” talk…no worries. I’ll be covering how to use them tomorrow. I’ll show you how to put together your own Christmas card in GIMP. And if you really wanna go ghetto…you can always use these in Word. Create a custom paper size to fit your image. Open your image, then open the elements you want to use.
I hope you like them. I’m also cooking up custom cards for my Etsy shop. So get excited already!
Amy
