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I’m sure you are all thinking that I am spoiled rotten.

I have to agree with you there. Santa came early this year! I have been eying up the Epiphanie bags for quite some time. I am no good at winning contests, so of course my name was never called, no matter how many times I tried to win one of these luscious bags. I have had the same plain ol’ black camera bag since we lived in Minneapolis, and do you know what? We have been home for six years now, so tell me how old my bag is, can ya? But my bag still held up just fine, even if it is not that pretty.

I’ve been leaving Rob notes, like the Epiphanie homepage up on all the computers, just so he could see how pretty they are. He must have been listening, because I received Lola last week, just in time to take her to Thanksgiving dinner and show her off. I love this bag! I can fit all my gear, plus there is room for a little bit extra. I do love my primes so I may need to pick and choose which lenses are coming along for daytrips, but this is so much cuter than my old bag, plus Lola does not scream “I’m carrying expensive camera equipment around!”

When the box arrived, and honestly I do not know how I missed it getting dropped off, but Rob tried to hide it with his jacket. Of course, in big letters on the side it says: Epiphanie. Lol, Rob let me open it up. The funniest part is when I pulled off the paper and we say the lavender inside. Rob said, “that is not the color I ordered” as I exclaim “it’s Lola!” I then told him I knew because Lola’s inside was lavender. It was funnier in person. Isn’t everything, though?

I am loving my bag, and can not wait for more sessions to be stylin’ it around on!

I know it says “wordless”, but this is my first ever wordless Wednesday post. From here on out, every Wednesday I am going to post an image, or two or three depending on my mood. Sometimes, it may be older shots, like these two, sometimes it will be my favorite shot taken that week and other times, well, I am just betting that other times it will be our little monster, just because I think she is the cutest thing in the whole world. Yeah, you could say I’m a bit biased.

I’ve got a couple more posts in the works, so you should expect more this holiday weekend!

Some of you may know, at least I believe our clients know, that I am a Nikon girl. I even got Rob to switch over from Canon when we went digital. The thing I love about my camera is that it fits in my hand, I think that is the biggest thing to look for when choosing a camera, any camera, make sure it feels comfortable when you hold it.

Okay, enough about my love of Boris, aka my Nikon D700. Yeah I name things, I am just silly like that. I am also a Nikon prime shooter. What does that mean, you ask? It means that I love to shoot with a fixed focal length. It all started when I bought Nikon’s cheap little 50mm 1.8 lens. Oh, how I have loved this lens. I admit, it has dropped, twice, and still shoots perfectly fine. I tend to have the 50 on my camera most of the time, it is the perfect lens to be walking around with.

But sometimes, I want to shoot wide. I bought the 20mm 2.8, used which was a total steal, but find that sometimes that is a bit too wide, if you know what I mean. So, while we were down in Madison on Saturday, Rob, Jamie and I stopped by Camera Company. I’ve been thinking about the 35mm, and unfortunately, Nikon’s 35mm 1.4 is a bit far out of my budget right now, so we picked up the Nikon 35mm 1.8.

I am so excited to start using this lens on shoots. It’s so light and quiet, I hardly realize it’s focusing it makes hardly any noise at all! It does vignette just a tad on my full frame sensor, but I have to admit that I tend to add  bit of a vignette myself. I’ve only had this little gem for just a couple of days, but it is so much fun to play with!

Take a look at the lens, plus I added my first shot with the 35, taken on the way home from Madison on I 90/94.

Rob and I met Corwin and Stephanie down in Madison for their engagement session since it was about half way for each of us, plus they were going to a concert afterwards, lucky them!

Corwin and Stephanie have this connection that is just beautiful to look at. Shooting their engagement session was one of the easiest ones we have done. They didn’t pay attention to the camera, but were totally focused on each other. My favorite shots are the ones where they are just looking at each other. You can just see the love in their eyes.

Even though we had a rather chill breeze and it was so cold that by the end of our session my fingers were frozen, well Rob’s too! We had the most perfect light for the session and an amazing location for these two lovebirds. I had the hardest time narrowing down images, so take a look at my favorites, and let us know what you think about them!

I love this next shot, Stephanie is just leaning in to Corwin and they look so happy! Have I mentioned that I love people in love?

Here’s the look I’m talking about, Stephanie may be smiling for me, but Corwin only has eyes for her. Awww, I’m loving these all over again!

I absolutely adore this one, Stephanie’s chin on her hand just checking Corwin out, love it!

Thanks for such a fabulous afternoon, Corwin and Stephanie, we can not wait for your wedding next year!

I had the pleasure of meeting up with Deb and the ladies from Exquisite Salon a couple of weeks ago to catch a shot of them with the American Cancer Society representative. By donating just $1 from each service, they raised $235 for the American Cancer Society, isn’t that awesome? We can all make a difference, one step at a time. It was a pleasure being there for these shots.

If you missed out in October, for the month of November Exquisite Salon is participating in the Cops for Kids program, providing gifts for those less fortunate. Stop by anytime this month with a gift suitable for someone age 11 and under and the lovely ladies will give you a $2 off your service.

What is better than giving back to those less fortunate, right?

I’ve had this session on the back burner for some time now. What with the holiday cutoff for albums, the end of our wedding season has just pushed this to the back of my mind. Well, no more I say. I am putting out the awesomeness that is Kristina and Ryan, well, mostly Kristina. Can you believe that Ryan refused to sit in the cold cold water at Devil’s Lake? Crazy man, of course you didn’t see me getting in that water, either. I sent Rob in.

Okay, okay, if Rob’s reading this I’ll fess up, he chose to go in the freezing water with Kristina and get some killer shots. We had so much fun with these two. First in the prairie with the gorgeous light and then getting in the last lovely sky and cloud cover over the lake before the sun slid below the horizon and we lost all color.

For Kristina and Ryan’s fearless bridals, we decided to hit Devil’s Lake, it’s got pretty much everything we could ask for: tall grasses, giant trees and the lake. Kristina has been wanting to do this session since before her wedding. She bought this dress instead of her gorgeous wedding dress just in case something should happen. Other than getting soaked, I think we did a pretty good job of keeping the dress clean. I’ll admit that the session did end on a rather awkward note involving Ryan, I and Walmart, but we’ll leave that to your imaginations.

Fearless bridals can be as tame or as wild as the couple desires, Rob and I are totally willing to capture whatever way you want to go. We definitely love when our clients are willing to do anything like these two, Stina and Ryan, we love ya!

If you are a recent bride and would love to do a fearless bridal session, give us a call at 608.434.5468, we would love to talk about your ideas! Check out Trash the Dress to see what fearless bridals are all about.

Rob and I met up with Lauren and Nathan out at North Shore of Devil’s Lake for their engagement session. They picked the perfect day, the colors were at their peak, the temperature was perfect, not too hot and definitely not too cold.

We started out next to the railroad tracks, I think you all know how we feel about those bands of metal driving off into the distance. Then, Nathan and Lauren showed us their special place. The spot that they always let the dogs play around. Of course, we got to play with the puppies a little bit. Rob took one for the team when he got an enthusiastic hello from Johnny. Don’t worry, Rob’s okay, I couldn’t stop laughing though. Johnny aimed straight for Rob, it was a first in our line of work, actually, getting jumped on by a 10 month old Chocolate lab, it’s going to be one of my favorite stories to tell.

Enough about that, we wandered around a little bit and came across this awesome leaf art, if that’s what you call it. We have no idea who made it, or even who left it, but it was truly awesome. The yellow leaves were no where near the area we were in, so someone brought them along. Take a look, you’ll know which shots I’m talking about here. I even made Nathan and Lauren lay down next to them. They are such a great couple, willing to do everything we asked of them.

We finished up by heading into the lake. Okay, just a bit for some awesome reflections in the water. Seriously, the perfect night for an engagement session.

As always, we love to hear what you have to say, so please feel free to share some blog love, it gives me that warm fuzzy feeling and I know our clients love it, too!