Cara and Tim {Family}

It's always fun to hang out with "old friends" especially when it's an activity I enjoy doing ;) When Cara asked me to photograph her and her little brother as a surprise for her mom I was so excited! I think that's the best idea ever for a present! (Well for Mom's and Grandma's...not sure how well it would go over with the men haha) Apparently they haven't had pictures made together for a long time so she knew it would be special for her mom. I wish I could have seen her face when she opened her present! It was fun running all over campus and downtown, I used them as models to test out a few locations and they were pretty good sports! I also got some practice on posing non couples! I've never had a session like this and it was a challenge at first since I kept wanting to pose them as a couple haha Lucky for me, they were patient! :)

Take a close look at the second picture and see if you can spot what's "wrong" with that photo... ;) Cara was afraid she was going to get jumped walking around like that. To make matters more interesting...not only were there tailgaters getting ready for the home game that was just a few hours away but there were several campus tours going on while we were walking around! It's a good thing OU fans are classy and know how to take a good joke ;) haha





For more of my faves from this session head on over to Facebook! Enjoy!

X's and O's,
Brandi Sue

C Family {Life}

When my co-worker asked me to photograph her family, I of course jumped at the opportunity! Then I found out that not only are her kids older than any I have photographed but all three are boys! Yes, THREE...BOYS! If you've been following me at all then you know that my clientele generally range from still in the belly to age 4ish and most are girls. I was terrified at this new challenge! Okay, that's being a little dramatic but seriously, what was I going to do? I quickly threw out the old "say the alphabet wrong" trick as well as the "funny animal noise" trick. I decided to just wing it the day of the session. I mean, surely they would laugh at something right? Besides, I had one more trick up my sleeve and it allllways worked!

I stood there in front of OU campus watching them walk towards me. They were rough housing just like little boys do and no matter what, I couldn't get over the fact that they had the upper hand in this. I mean, come on here I'm the adult after all! I took a deep breath and quickly had them posing on the steps for a group shot. That's when I let them have it. My ace in the hole. "Smile big or you're getting barbie dolls for Christmas!" *crickets and stunned looks* My heart dropped. My 5 year old nephew gives me a killer smile with that line! Now what was I supposed to do?! That's when the mom saved me by teasing J about a "girlfriend", two of them busted into giggles while J held a bashful red faced smile. I quickly filed that in my "5 y/o and older age group" folder and shot like crazy. I learned which one fake smiles and to lightly tease him about it as well as the "girlfriend" trick, once I had that down it was a piece of cake! There was also a moment when the boys caught mom fake smiling, they flipped the tables on her and teased a real smile out of her making an awesome photo moment :)

Older children and boys both posed new challenges for me but it was fun learning new tricks and I'm looking forward to seeing how well they work the next time I have that age group! To check out some of my other faves and some of them just having fun (a definite trick to photographing kids) check out my Facebook!

X's and O's,
Brandi Sue

S Family {Life}

There just aren't words to describe the love that these two have for each other. Maybe there is but I'm just not that good of a writer haha. (My English teacher probably has my blogged black listed!) Either way, I've watched these two from afar over the past few years and it's been fun to cheer them on as they went from high school sweethearts, then newlyweds, and on to recently celebrating their first year of parenthood! Together they made a handsome blue eyed boy who is a living doll! He was more interested in the geese and running around than he was in being photographed by me but I'm used to that by now! :) I had fun chasing him around and getting him to smile with silliness!



Who needs words when you have gorgeous pictures?! ;) For more of my favorites from this session go to my Facebook! Enjoy!

X's and O's,
Brandi Sue

Dimples and Baby Blues

For several months Shawna and I had been talking back and forth trying to find a time for me to photograph her family. She wanted to have some cute pictures for Miss Paisley's FIRST birthday party and I had a location in mind that I had been wanting to shoot at for months. However, the ever so changing Oklahoma weather was not having any of it! During the week days we would have gorgeous weather but Miss Paisley's daddy works out of town and was only home on the weekends...which of course were a mixture of cold, snowy, and rainy! Some days being all three! In the meantime, Paisley's big day came and went but Shawna still wanted some pictures. So we waited and we finally got lucky toward the end of March with a sunny Friday evening.

Don't you just love this blue wall?! It's an auto repair shop here in Norman and it's perfect for pictures! When I first moved to Norman (a year ago) I noticed it while driving to my new job and instantly fell in love! I was so excited when Shawna said she loved it as well! There are so many great locations I've scoped out while driving around for my job as a home health provider! Unfortunately, they don't all have the best lighting especially for someone with only a little experience like me, but it makes for some good practice!

Here's the cute dimple!

I tried to place them in the same location as the first picture but the sun was just too bright for them to keep their eyes open haha So I had a hard time exposing for this shot but it's still cute!

Love me some good sun flare!

One of my favorite things to do on a sunny day is drive around town with my window down and sun roof open and one of my favorite places to scope out is the OU campus! It's full of beautiful buildings and landscaping and I love picking out places I think would make for great photos! Okay, aaaaand I also like to see what all the people are wearing...I'm TOTALLY a people watcher! haha That's hard to do when you're the driver, the trick is to go during busy traffic hours because you get stuck at a lot of red lights which gives you plenty of time to look around! That's how I found out Campus Corner had an In the Raw (sushi restaurant) and this awesome white wall with vines crawling all over it!

One of my faves from the whole day! Poor Shawna keeps getting a lot of heat from her friends over this picture. They don't understand why this poor little country girl doesn't also have boots on! haha Paisley does own a pair of boots (or several maybe) but Shawna said they didn't go with this outfit...and in her defense...she didn't even know I was shooting this picture! Which is also why her legs are the same length as her daughter's...she's short but not THAT short ;) I didn't notice at the time and I'm not THAT good at photoshop to fix it aferwards! ;)

See...she's only this short! ;)

I loved how Shawna coordinated their outfits. I'm a fan of keeping the same color family but not being in the same shirt, gives the photo some personality!

...And here's the baby blues! The best part is that this is with VERY minimal photoshop, just a little sharpening! Gorgeous!

*Thanks so much Shawna for letting me photograph your family and for believing in me! You guys were great to work with and I'm so glad I was finally able to use the blue wall! haha

Well, gotta let the puppies out before bedtime! Good night y'all!

X's and O's,
Brandi Sue