Mega.Foto.Blog
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Family. Fotos. Food. Friends. Fun.

never a dull moment. ever.

Schedule

HOLIDAY Sessions are Full. Taking appointments for February 2013.

Friday, November 30, 2007

Service...

This past spring our RS hosted a "Service Auction". I auctioned off a photo session and Kim packed all of her points into bidding on my session. I hope it was worth it! (which reminds me....I need to go and claim my closet organizing from Melissa!) Since they were my "service session" they get more posts than usual (can you tell I'm getting caught up and I'm slowly digging myself out of the black hole???? which means I've been able to rejoin the blogging world again!) I couldn't pass up this series (and it was a good example of how to "display" a series of shots. There are images that are 'stand alone', and then there are images, when combined/collaged/or grouped together, can create quite an impact as shown here (so Kim, be ready to go over your "wall galleries") :


Oh, and I just couldn't resist trying out my new beanie on her little guy...love the face and love the color!!

The FINAL one...

He...he...he...I've shot all but one of these four sisters and Kaci...don't you believe the saying "good things come to those who wait"? Cristin (older sister) was one of my first weddings and first engagements...and I'm sure she will agree with me that I've come a long way! :) So Kaci...even though you said I wouldn't get you "relaxed" by the end of the session...I beg to differ:

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Biltmore

Oh man...oh man...oh man...I'm so excited to finally be able to post some images from a wedding I did 2 weeks ago. It was so elegant, beautiful, wonderful (I could go on...but I have some pictures I want to show) SO...I know she's dying to see these...and she should because she was an absolutely gorgeous bride (and her husband is quite the 'catch' if you ask me) I wish you guys the best...these are just a few of my favorites. If you have a nice internet connection (mom..you don't :) you can run the slideshow (it will take awhile to load) to get an idea of a wedding that was smoothe from start to finish!







Slideshow (it will take about 5 minutes to load so be patient...its worth it :)

www.holdsworthphotography.com/owens.exe

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Comedy of Errors

So life is completely crazy right now BUT I was bound and determined to have Christmas lights up this year (last year I traded my father-in-law putting up my Christmas lights for a hunting day with matt...I think that's called killing 2 birds with one stone...no quail pun intended :) ANYWAY last year when my FIL hung them, the curse of the Christmas lights continued from the previous year...they worked for a few minutes and then quit working...I even had bought this groovy timer!!! So...yesterday, I walked away from the mounds of work in my office...found a scarf...put a beanie on Mac...told Laina to change out of her swimsuit :) (she opted for just slipping on a jacket over it) and we headed outside. I gave the kids jobs and believe it or not...it actually worked!! Laina helped! She handed me all the little plastic shingle clips that let you just stick the lights on with the end of a pole, and Indy was a great light carrier, (and no dad you cannot recruit them for your own lights) So we get going and I realized we're missing something....CHRISTMAS MUSIC! (remember the dad with the 500 cds?) so we round the front of the house and we blast our XM from the car (the kids dismantled our only cd player :) for just a few minutes everything was pure bliss...I'm thinking "this is what Christmas is all about" Mac started dancing (yes mom...he was walking in a circle dancing around) Laina and Indy were dancing...joy joy joy...then-it startins to get dark and really cold...and our entire string of lights go out....I think hmm...the cord must've come unplugged...no biggie we'll fix it later...got to keep hangin', losing daylight. So I finish the house (took me 45 minutes...I timed it :) and went around to the beginning. The extension cord is still plugged in and the outlet works...hmm...maybe a fuse? so I unplug the first string to get the spare fuse out...and it drops...into the rocks...I have Indy go and get a flashlight (because of course by now its pitch black outside...and freezing) and try to find my needle in a haystack. Then I figure I'll just go to the next connection and get the fuse out of that one...so I drag the chair over...disconnect that strand...and drop the fuse again...in the rocks...okay...I finally get a spare fuse and plug it in and....they work!!!!! for 12 seconds and then out again. By this time the noise level from McLaren has risen to almost unbearable and he's just following me around begging to be picked up...he's bleeding from a major wipe out earlier (ok just a spot on his nose) so I finally cave....defeated we trudge inside to eat dinner (should've served dinty moore, then we would at least have ended on a positive note). My YW president calls and we get to talking and she says that you have to load the lights from different sockets...duh! I thought my house is so small that surely we could do it all from one outlet...I mean I just wanted some lights around the roof!! how the heck do people run all those lines with all those crazy lights!!! ...so tomorrow (I just couldn't bring myself to do it today...and perhaps not even tomorrow) I'll go and restring the other half of the house...because we WILL have Christmas lights this year...oh yes...we WILL.
(p.s. I was so distraught over my hanging that I didn't even get to discuss my reasons for hanging them in the first place. Honestly I think its just because its so dark around here...we have no street lights and this is the best excuse for lights at nighttime...I'm thinking of leaving them up until February
p.s.s. I come from a family where the christmas light production is so scary that everyone tries to run and hide...but you can't hide from Wade...who's biggest achievement to date was being featured on the front page of the Thanksgiving weekend Yuma Daily Sun with his lawn of ginormous Christmas trees made completely out of lights
p.s.s.s.s.s. don't have a picture to post 'cause the lights don't work.)

Saturday, November 24, 2007

Estrogen

At least that's what I'd like to entitle most of the pictures from this family session of 1 boy and 5 girls...5 gorgeous girls...and our boy wasn't too bad lookin' either ;) (I should be posting his calvin klein ad, but I'll wait for him to proof it first). We finished our shoot (which included 2parents, 2 dogs and 4 horses) and then the girls took the horses "out to pasture"...and I couldn't pack up and leave...so I went and practiced on my "animals in motion" photography and then before I packed up I started chatting with the son on photography and said something about how you either end up being passionate about 1. people 2. animals or 3. landscape...then I got home and started proofing and saw that I clearly had no idea what I was talking about since the majority of my sessions seem to include people, animals and lanscape!!! whatever--I'll close my mouth and just shoot (people...my favorite). So here's my "estrogen" picture...and then the rest are just for my mom and dad...oh and the Anderson's :)







Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Lizard?

I'm a magnet for animals (wait until the next post :) anyway...they brought the lizard along for a nice little distraction...and it worked!!! (except for when I tried to pull it by its tail and ripped it off...kept that bit of info to myself, even when someone pointed out the blood :) and I forgot that I had picked the lizard image to post (in honor of "maning" up my blog-increasing the male-ness :) and prepared another one...I just couldn't leave out one of my bronze wall images...they were waaayyyy too funky! so you lucky dogs...in light of my spacey brain...you get 2 images! Happy Thanksgiving!

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

In the closet...

So around here, the head of our household (a.k.a. Ebeneezer) likes to decree loud and clear that Christmas music should only be played during the month of December, WELL....whatever! I am proud to announce that as I hopped in the car tonight, by myself :), the thought occured to me, "XM has to have started their Christmas channels by now" and sure enough...I started off my "in the closet" music season with Wilson Phillips, "Silent Night"...can't get enough of "carne asada" wilson. You see, growing up...my father owned about 100 Christmas cds (NO EXAGGERATION--remember the grapefruit story?)...I'm sure that the collection is up to about 500...its one of his missions in life to own every Christmas cd out there...anyway, he would set up his cd player (no ipods back then) and stack the cds by it and just blast the puppy...the music also provided a nice background/drowning out noise for when he was yelling at everyone to hang the freakin' Christmas lights in a certain way (pardon the tangent).

I love Christmas music and only have to wait 2 more days before I can "come out", in the meantime I can settle for XM in the car.

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Fire Ants!!

Yes...I have to say, I was hoppin' a lot more than usual during this session. My friend kept telling me there were bugs and bugs and ants...and I didn't really get what she was talking about until I stuck the family on top of an ant pile!!! How was I supposed to know the huge brown mound of dirt was an ant pile??? The ants here live in little sand mounds...anyway despite the ants, we rocked! I thought this blog needed a little masculinity...too many girls lately :) Thank you Natalie and Ryan for the wonderful family session :)

What the heck!!!

What happened to the past week???!!! Where did it go? How did it go so fast??? I'll tell you how (buckle up!) Friday night I went down to Phoenix to attend a funeral on Saturday morning. A friend of our family, Jack McLeod, passed away after battling cancer. It was my first funeral as an adult and I was really really glad that I went. I was able to see friends from long ago and be with my family. It got me thinking about my own funeral, and so I started telling my mom all of my funeral "wishes", to which she replied..."ummm, I really hope to not be there so save the info". Bottom line...I want laughter and the closing song to be "Scatter Sunshine".

Moving on from last wishes, I returned home Saturday evening, only to head back down to Phoenix Tuesday morning to fly out to visit my good friend Stacie. McLaren went with me and of course fussed the whole time. But that didn't seem to phase us...and we both took turns napping until noon and then staying up late. I squeezed in 4 photo sessions in 2 1/2 days (crazy...insane!) and then flew home Thursday night. On the flight home, we were jinxed by my cousing Sheri who experienced a similar situation the week before. The last 20 mintues of the flight McLaren BARFED all over me...over and over and over. Luckily for me (Sheri wasn't so lucky) I had a really nice dad sitting next to me who patted him and gathered barf bags and paper towels etc. It was disgusting. I wrapped him in an airline blanket and he immediately passed out. Lovely.

On Friday I had another family session (was incredible) and then headed BACK down to Phoenix (are you counting? that's 3 times in a week :), spent the night at Matt's brother's house, my mother-in-law watched our kids and we went to the temple. Then, I got to shoot a wedding at an incredible house in the Biltmore....loved it...loved it.

Obviously there are no pictures for this post because I'm behind 5 sessions and a wedding...so those will start to trickle out slowly, but rest assured tomorrow I'll be back on track...and I only have to go to Flagstaff this week for family turkey time!!!! Yea!

Thursday, November 8, 2007

Crazy...energy...running...and a few spaz outs!

But you'd never ever ever know it from this would you? (Now Lisa...NOTHING else until Monday night...don't even think about camping out on my doorstep! I have to let the craziness fade away...trust me it will :) The little miss below reminded me sooooo much of my Laina...from the way her face scrunched up in front of the camera to the way she went into "laina land" and danced (oh wait...that would be "maggie land")...you only need a second to capture a timeless memory. (sniff sniff...tear tear :)

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

R&K sitting in a tree...

This rhyme kept running through my head while I was proofing their session....first comes love (did their engagement pictures) then comes marriage (did their wedding), then comes the baby...with the craziest red-hair mohawk...HA! It was killer!!

Creative Workshop

I went to this great workshop in Phoenix this past weekend. I loved meeting new photographers and hope to continue those newfound friendships. We took an hour and went and did a shoot at the Mesa Arts Center. Totally funky place...I had fun trying new things and working on creativity...anyway thought I'd share!





Just to give you an idea of what it took to get all those pictures.....

More Dinty Moore please!

So the other night I knew Matt was going to be home late, so I opted to work instead of make dinner. So I had to come up with something really easy (ahhh! this must be how my mom and sister feel nightly! kidding...but maybe not really...) anyway I grab a can of Dinty Moore (SICK!), the only reason I have it is for "food storage", open it up, nuke it and put it on the table. I had some leftover hot dog buns (my kids only eat the dogs...no buns) so I spread some butter on them (anyone's mouth watering yet?) and put that on the table. Not more than 30 seconds go by and Laina starts praising her meal - "Oh man mom...this is the best! You're the best cook ever!!!" (she then got up from the table and came and gave me a hug). Then Indy starts in..."wow mom...you are so nice to make us dinner...thank you". Now you would think that I would be thrilled with these remarks...but here's the clincher - I made homemade beef stew 2 weeks ago....do you think anyone would even touch it???? NO! I wanted this meal to go unnoticed, but instead...they had 3 bowls. I told Matt--I'm thinking of thowing in the towel and alternating between dinty moore one night and hot dogs (without the buns) another :)

Sunday, November 4, 2007

Disneyland

Wow...what a crazy life we have goin' on here...Between Disneyland, Halloween and my creative workshop (just got back) it is very fast-paced! (Fortunately we don't really know how to live any other way!) Here's our take on Disneyland...THANK YOU DAD for making it happen and inviting us to your 60th birthday party...it was the best party the kids have EVER been to...see you on your 61st at the front gate! (maybe this time Tim will bring egg mcmuffins for everyone). My dad did a great job as a "shooter".... although seeing myself in front of the lens makes me appreciate being behind it!!!

WARNING: you might have to remind yourself that we WERE at the happiest place on earth!
(p.s. shamelessly long post)
(p.s.s. I saved the best picture for last...uncle timmy fat belly)

So...this is how we started out...at the HAPPIEST place on earth




Minnie...busting out with yet another "original" pose...frankly I was speechless and just took the picture



(this is how Indy felt about the Matterhorn)


(wow...what an eager smile-I get it from my mother...I only kept this to show how Laina rode the Matterhorn at age 4...under a blanket :)
Can you guess which dwarf this is? (he wouldn't let us fix the hat!)


I believe her exact words were..."Mom I don't ever want to leave". This is when my mom and I looked at eachother and said, 'we have got to bail or we are going to be stuck in princess land FOREVER!!!'


ready to blow chunks!
stick a fork in me...

I'm done!!



ahhh...good ol' uncle Timmy...fat belly...