Last night I met Shainna in Clermont for her first bellydance shoot! We had so much fun getting to know eachother and taking beautiful pictures. As you can see from the images below she has some experience with modeling so she was VERY easy to photograph...and she is so strikingly beautiful I just couldn't get a bad picture! Despite our run in with the obnoxious teenagers and the bugs down by the lake we really got some amazing photos and we were both very happy and excited! I can't wait to shoot with her again! Thanks for the great time Shainna and I hope that you enjoy your pictures =) Love Kristen I just got this email from Shainna this morning after seeing her images here on the blog: "They are sooooo awesomeeeeeeeeee!!!!!! I just posted them up, and tried commenting again. Stupid lab computers. I am so0o0o excited, it's like the excitement never ends. You did such a great job, I absolutely love your work, and your work ethic, shesh, talk about instant gratification huh?! LOL. "

So this past weekend I didn't do any shoots! I know, can you believe it?? Friday night I met up with some Florida Tribal Dance friends at Jellyrolls on the Boardwalk at Disney to celebrate Lacey's birthday and we had a great time. But as for the rest of the weekend.... I took a weekend off and I slept more than I have ever slept in one weekend in my life! Apparently I needed it more than I thought I would. I was supposed to do a "Photo-Walk" in Mount Dora on Saturday evening (www.photoshopuser.com) but I had to cancel it because of the effects of Tropical Storm Fay...it was a mess. I was disappointed at first but realized very quickly that it was meant to be. I have not been feeling well and have been very stressed out and it is really catching up with me. I am going to the doctor today to see if they can help me. So wish me luck! I hope you all had a great weekend and got the rest and relaxation that you deserve! I am very excited for this coming weekend however...I am doing my first "trash-the-dress" shoot at The Maitland Art Center on Sunday and it will be GREAT fun! My models Becca, Leyla, and Arielle are coming and I have a makeup artist and possibly a hair-stylist as well. These will also be used for promo shots for the art center since they want to refer me for their weddings. I can not wait to post these! I will let you all know as soon as they are up! I am also excited that it is Labor Day weekend so I get MOnday off of work! Yipppppeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So I have been working hard on my new website and I have it all designed and ready to go and thought I would share a couple of images with you so you can get a "taste". It is very similar to the one that is still up, it is just "spiced up" a bit and MUCH easier to navigate. It will have drop-down menus along the bottom and you will be able to access everything right from there. No more "two-website" thing. For those of you familiar with the existing website I realize it is not the easiest to find everything....it is a problem that I have personally had with it as well. The problem is that I can design everything, just not execute it. The new one will also be in FLASH so it will be very up-to-date and MOOOEY better! he he he. Please feel free to leave comments on how it looks so far and any suggestions that you may have =) Can't wait to launch it! Love Kristen

Sunday I went to Seminole (near St. Petersburg) and shot the Blair's family portraits. They have two cute little doggies, Max and Lacey. They won a gift certificate that I contributed to The Florida Boxer Rescue (www.flbr.org) event in February for a portrait session. They were definately excited to have a photographer there to capture their "kids". Max and Lacey were FULL of energy....and I though it was only boxers...he he he. It was fun following them around and watching them play. All they wanted to do is jump up on me and sniff my camera, it was so cute! I got some great shots out of it and thought I would share them with you =) Love Kristen

Saturday was Keely and June's engagement shoot! We had such a great time shooting at Pointe Orlando and got some fantastic shots! Some of my new favorites! They brought their girls along and they LOVE having their pictures taken! They are all so photogenic anyway it makes me sick! I loved all of the textures and everyting that we found at Pointe Orlando, from BB Kings to the imax movie theater....I love them! Congrats Keely and June! I can't wait to shoot your wedding in November!!!! Love Kristen Here is a comment I recieved today from June after seeing the pictures! "I love the pictures!! I can't wait to see the rest - you do such good work - I couldn't be happier!! Thank you!" Thanks June! And thanks for your comment below Keely! I am so glad you both like the pictures!

So I was having fun in Photoshop while working on the rest of Lacey and Alex's images and had to share this with you because I like it so much! I am big into altered art and handmade scrapbooking....but not the artsy-craftsy kind with pink bunnies and fluffy letters....more like vintage pieces and found objects. Things like antiques and skeleton keys, old clocks....stuff like that. So I did this artistic piece whilst trying to connect with my painterly side again. I scanned some of my scrapbook papers and other things and came up with this little promo for Lacey.....I hope she likes it! I posted the before and after so you could see what I did =)

My friend John VanHorn.......who used to be my boss when I first started working at Disney........extracted ALL of the files off of my computer today!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yay!!!!!!!!!!!!! One less thing to stress about...whhheeewww. I was really worried yesterday when I brought it to him because at that point it wasn't even bringing up the dreaded "blue screen". I think I cried a little =( But I left it with him because I was afraid that if I took it home, I just might try to flush it down the toilet or throw it against the fence! Apparently it just needed some time and a different set of hands. But the files are off and now it can get sent back to Dell! My friend is smarter than Dell....nanner nanner nanner! His website is www.johnvanhorn.net in case you ever need him...he is AMAZING! We are SO taking him out for some Outback Steakhouse yumminess (his personal favorite!)!!! He is also an amazing web designer, you can view his work on the website =) THANKS AGAIN JOHN......YOU ARE A LIFESAVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You would think since we have three computers at home, it would never be a problem right? WRONG! My laptop...brand spanking new I might add.....is dead....and not because I strangled it ether, although I REALLY wanted too! It is my work computer. It is the only one that was callobrated for color correctly and had Photoshop CS3 on it. I always had to restart it more than once which I was getting used to but then all of a sudden on Sunday it wouldn't start at all and now it is giving me this blue screen that says "computer has shut-down to prevent further damage to your components"........that is very scary. Most of the work is backed up on an external hard drive...whhheeewww.....but a couple recent events are still on the desktop that were waiting to get transferred. I called Dell support three times! The first time I was on hold for 20 minutes and then got disconnected, the second time I was on hold for 40 minutes and someone in India who barley spoke a word of English answered and I couldn't understand them so they hung up on me! Then the third time I just kept pressing "0" until someone answered and they said they would connect me to someone local....then that person said they had to direct me to someone else.....30 minutes later....I got disconnected again! uuuurrrggghhhhhhh! I didn't hardly sleep last night because of it. I am very upset! HELP!

So we took our good friend's Lacey and Alex of Florida Tribal Dance out for a photo shoot yesterday and we had SO much fun! Any time I have ever taken their pictures it has always been with a mess of other people so we though it would be nice to take them out by themselves and see what we could come up with. They don't have very many pictures of the two of them so we did that first....what goofballs! They couldn't stop laughing! They were making me laugh so much I could barely hold my camera to my face because my eyes were watering so bad! We got some great shots out of it though. Once we were done taking their pictures, Lacey changed into her new tribal costume so we could get some model shots for her without anyone else around. Let me tell you what......these are some of my absolute favorite images to date! The lighting was PERFECT and even after the sun had set, the golden glow of the street lamps were perfect against her skin and the beautiful white veil she was holding! We got some AMAZING shots and I think she is going to be VERY happy! Please feel free to comment on the images and let me know what you think! Here is a message from Lacey after viewing her pics: "Kristen my pics are FANTASTIC I loooves them!! You are a brillant!!! But I totally already knew that!" he he he he he =)

My husband and I were so excited to finally meet our best friends baby, Malena. We haven't seen their family in almost a year so it was nice to catch up. While they were visitng of course I had to take some pictures of the most beautiful baby in the world! We took them to downtown Clermont and got some cute outside shots of her. Then we took her back home and got some studio shots as well. She is just too cute! It was so nice to see them and we can't wait to take family photos in November when we visit! Love you guys! Love Kristen and Shane

Friday night was the World Hoop Day celebration (www.worldhoopday.com) and I was there to photograph it =) Although it rained, we all still had a great time and everybody was hoopin' away! There were raffles prizes and giveaways and the girls from Florida Tribal Dance performed. Morgan did an awesome dance with her LED hoop. They even had the boys hooping.......it was a hooptastic time and all for a good cause! he he he he. Check out the pictures below and see for yourself!