Anatomy of a Sam + Av Pic

If you follow me on Instagram its no secret my dog and baby are the stars of the show. But that's what happens when you're a stay at home mom and spend 90% of your waking hours with the two of them. Who runs the world? Sam + Av, that's who. Or at least my household. Deeeeefinitely running my household.

Completely convinced being a bookworm runs in one's DNA because my whole crew is, like, deep in that reading game. 📚🤓🙌🏻 #samanthaandaveryshenanigans #avysjacket

A post shared by Lorri | The Pretty + The Brave (@theprettyandthebrave) on Feb 26, 2017 at 9:10am PST

I receive numerous questions on how I get my pup (I use that term loosely, she's almost four) to cooperate for their notorious Sam + Av photos. So I'm here today with the not-so-secret secret.

Truth be told, its the baby that requires the most work. The dog is just there for the treats, no lie. We got her as an eight week old puppy and began training her immediately. We've always used treats as her rewards so I think because of that she's very food motivated - she will do nearly anything for a treat. She already knew basic commands of "sit", "stay", "down" (lay), "paw" (shake), "come", "leave it", etc before the thought even crossed my mind to dress these two up and take their photo, so those basic commands definitely come in handy when taking these photos.

Like I said, the baby is the wildcard so I alway, always, always get Sam in position and dressed first. Then I give her the stay command and she hangs tight while I bribe the baby to participate. Okay, its not that bad, usually its not a bribe but sometimes it truly is. While other times she will put something on Sammy and herself and request to "CHEEEEEEESE!"

If something covers Sam's ears she typically wants to shake it off so I just give her a "leave it" and she sits still, I snap the pic, give her a snack, and release her. Honestly she's a brilliant dog and after just three or so of these photos she seemed to know what the routine was going to be the moment she saw me pull out my camera so that's helpful as well.

The whole Sam + Av series started as an accident. The baby wanted to play with some sunnies, I had another pair and put them on Sam and she just walked over to the baby with them on and I died laughing and snapped a pic.

I shared it on my personal Facebook page and people got a huge kick out of it so I started doing them weekly and posting them to my Instagram as well as a tab on this blog of mine. I've since removed quite a few of them because I've decided I don't want a million photos on the internet of my kids' faces, but there are a few still up. I'm definitely not anti-posting-pics-of-my-kids, but I just don't want every photo to be of their face, if that makes sense. So if you look at my Instagram you will see that there will be side-profile pics, or a photo from behind, or a photo where the kids have something covering a portion of their face, and every once in a while you will see their entire face. It gives them some privacy and the photographer in me has actually had fun trying to see certain shots from a different perspective so I feel like I'm forced to be a bit more creative with the shots due to trying to keep their whole face out of the photo. Sometimes its simple cropping like so:

Not spoiled at all.

A post shared by Lorri | The Pretty + The Brave (@theprettyandthebrave) on Apr 2, 2017 at 4:12pm PDT

and other times its snapping the pic mid-bite like so:

It's the freakin' weekend! 🍦

A post shared by Lorri | The Pretty + The Brave (@theprettyandthebrave) on Mar 31, 2017 at 4:13pm PDT

Getting back to the Sam + Av pics, I plan to bring them back with a little twist now that I have somewhat explained why I took many of them down. I'm sure you've guessed that they will likely have props to cover their faces and you'd be right! So go take a peek at some of the older ones that are still up here and check out my Instagram here and search the hashtag #SamanthaandAveryShenanigans to find loads of photos of those two getting into everyday mischief. And check back in a few weeks for their newest photo with a twist! Its sure to please.

Happy Tuesday, ya'll!

J&K - Engagement

J and K are perhaps one of the cutest couples I've come across - their chemistry is great and they were so much fun to work with during their engagement shoot. Theirs is actually the first shoot I've done in Crestview, if you recall we recently relocated up here a few months ago, so it was nice to explore the area to find a location for their shoot. K wanted trees, that was her only request, so to the park we went. And not only did we get trees, but we got eggs and killer ducks too. Twas funny. So without further ado, here's a few of the loads of photos from their session. Enjoy.

Xo,

Lor

Photography Will be my Full-time Gig...One Day

I shot my first wedding last month. Let me repeat that, I SHOT MY FIRST WEDDING LAST MONTH! Yep, it's amazing what a little word of mouth can do, that's how all my shoots thus far have came about and I am oh-so-grateful to all the amazing peeps I've worked with so far that have gone on to recommend me to others; I appreciate it from the bottom of my Nikon loving heart.

As for this wedding, this first wedding, it was definitely intimidating to know that I was responsible for capturing the beginning of these two wonderful individuals' lives together.



I learned so much that day. And I learned even more when I looked back at the photos during the editing process. And even now, just a month later, I look at the photos and I still learn from them. That's how every shoot goes. And I hope that's how every shoot always goes. I want to always be learning. Always. And so far that's been the case, even if it's just photos I snap of my own kids, it's a learning experience.

So without further ado, here are just a few of the (literally) hundreds of photos I took at the Galcik wedding.

And seriously, again, because I can't say it enough - thank you, thank you, thank you all for trusting me to capture these moments in your lives, whether it was a wedding, your child's birthday or communion, an engagement, or fun family photos. I love watching a family laugh, a bride cry, and a baby smile. I feel so honored to be asked to document all these events and times in ya'lls lives. So thank you for allowing me that. I am so blessed.

2011 Rumbarger Family Year in Review

In our house we take photos like it’s goin’ out of style, so it only seems fitting that we have loads of pictures displayed around the house and even more saved on our computers. I share a lot of them right here on this blog for my family so that they can not only see what we're up to (since we live halfway across the country) but they can also save them and print them out for their own use. But that left me with lots of cute electronic pictures, not hard copies. I ran across MyPublisher and knew that their hard cover photo books would be the answer to my dilemma.

So I spent a few evenings compiling most of our photos and creating our photo book, but by the time I finished I realized I missed the deadline of the “free pages” sale which allowed customers to create a 100 page book without paying for the extra pages. Without the deal, one book with 100 pages would’ve cost a little over $100. So I decided to wait until I received another discount code in my inbox and when I finally did I pounced on the offer. Five days later this bad boy arrived in the mail:

Boom-shock-uh-lock-uh! As my Brother-in-Law would say.

It’s a gajillion pictures of our entire 2011, packaged in a nice, purdy, ½ inch thick book.

I put the photos in chronological order so that when you flip through the book you see them in the order the events happened.

So we started out with Owen's birthday even though it was technically in December rather than the start of the New Year.

There were all sorts of layouts so you can change the arrangement of the photos based on the orientation of the photos.

Of course Bear and Jersey made an appearance or two...

as did the amazing Florida sunsets we are so blessed to see every evening.

Everyday fun...

and summer camping trips...

Vacations...

and trips to Nana and Poppa.

We included big milestones...

and everyday life.

And since this book is dedicated to our brood, it only seemed fitting that we put lyrics from Rascal Flatts' "My Wish" on the back cover. 

The program is super easy to use - I'd recommend it to anyone who is plum full of photos like me. They have the large book, which is what I chose to go with, but they also have little mini books which would be cute as gifts for kids. I guess some people would cringe at the $40ish price tag but it's a small price to pay for a nice hardback book that we can flip through and reminisce on the past year. I loved our book so much that I plan to do it at the end of every year from now on. And I'm determined to go back and find/organize photos from the years past as well to make those photos into a nice little book also. If photos make you happy and your totally into family traditions you should check out MyPublisher and start your own yearly book. Or maybe even create a book for a special occasion such as an entire book dedicated to your kiddo's first birthday. 


Oh, and wait for discounts (they'll send it to you in the form of an email), they seem to always have some sort of sale whether it's buy one get one free, or "free pages" or 20% off.  
Trust me, it's worth the wait, need proof?

I bought two books (one for my parents as a gift) so my total was $86, but had I just bought one book it would've been $43 and that's including shipping! And do you see that I saved $157.90?! Can I get a SHAZAM?! No? Okay, I guess a 'very nice' will suffice.


Lor