Janie's Photography Blog

Christina & Tony

When you have a good fish on the line, you know it.  Isn't it similar with people?  Christina and Tony have been friends since high school.  After returning home to Tampa post-college, they started dating and have been boyfriend and girlfriend for about three years.  Now, he has reeled her in.  It happened while they were fishing.  Tony had a "fish on the line" and asked if Christina wanted to take it.  When she reeled it in, there wasn't a fish on it, but instead an engagement ring.  She looked at Tony.  He was on his knee beside her and he asked her to marry him.  And of course, she said "Yes!"  Their wedding will be in April!

Tony and Christina were adventurous on their engagement shoot.  We went to four different locations with three different outfits.  The sun was setting on us at the end, but we soaked up just about every minute of it that we possibly could  . . . and captured some really fun, Florida, simply-them shots.  Enjoy!

PS...to see photos from their slideshow, you can go here.  The password is the bride's last name.

Christina and Tony bought their first home together!!  Congratulations!
 

"She belongs on a cameo" {teaser}

"She belongs on a cameo."  That's what my dad said about Christina's natural beauty.  Her smile, her gorgeous curly head of hair, her laughter.  She is beautiful.  I love this photo.  The reflection in the water, the random piping that Tony and Christina are sitting on, Tampa in the background, the lighting from the close-to-setting sun . . . perfect.

 

More to come.

Lauren & Brad

 

Her eyes sparkle.  Her smile is contagious.  She is beautiful.  And she is beautifully in love with her fiancé.

Brad asked Lauren to be his wife in the middle of a lake on the fourth of July.  They live near water, she grew up near water, they love the water . . . so naturally, water had to be a part of our engagement photos.

Lauren loves "vintage" so I took some liberties to make her engagement photos exactly what she was hoping for.

 Enjoy.

You might recognize the setting of the next two shots from their teaser . . .

And they lived happily ever after.

 

A Kiss {teaser}

On this Thanksgiving Day, I am:

Thankful for kisses.

Thankful for friends.

Thankful for family.

Thankful for love.

What are you thankful for?

Also, I am thankful that I have a lot more photos to share from Lauren and Brad's engagement session, but it might be a couple of weeks, so enjoy this short teaser.

 

Kathryn & Matt

From the moment they first met, Kathryn knew that she liked Matt.  That was in the fall of 2005. Their friendship grew over the next few months as they hung out in a large group of friends.   Kathryn waited patiently.  Matt finally asked her out on a date in June of 2006. 

 

They dated.  And in the process they fell in love. 

 

Fast forward three years to this fall.  They were at Cedarkirk, a camp that has been very meaningful to them, especially Matt.  He made the perfect plan to pop the question, but it rained.  So, he implemented plan B. 

 

They sat in rocking chairs on the back porch of Cedar Lodge.  Kathryn’s dog, Manchester Beautiful Carlton, “Manny” for short, ate plants while they talked.  Matt played Kathryn a song.  She did not realize what was actually happening.  He got on his knee and he asked her to marry him. 

 

She said yes.  

Click here to listen to the song that Matt played for Kathryn while you view their full-of-fun-&-love engagement photos.

These are the rocking chairs they were hanging out on when Matt popped the question, so of course, we had to get a shot here.

The next series with Manny is so fun . . . 

. . . kiss for Kathryn . . .

. . . happy family, good dog . . .

. . . and kiss for Matt.

Manny  was all over the place and happened to step in front of the camera as we were getting ready for the shot below.

Such a sweet and real moment captured.  Kathryn looks at Matt this way all of the time.

It started getting darker and we wanted some shots with this cool mildewing fence and these amazing trees.  It just happened to be someone's backyard, but thankfully K&M were up for being adventurous and happily hopped the fence to play.

I literally think that I might have squealed when I looked at my camera after taking this shot.  I love it!

Yay for playfulness.

And then, we found the coolest place for photos ever and grabbed some last shots before the rain came and the sun set.

Kathryn's expression and natural beauty in this shot, in this style, could not be more perfect. 

"I'll be here
when the sky turns gray 
The sun goes blind
and the moon won't stay 
I'll be the light to guide your way
onto some place new 
I'll be here
when the crowd is gone 
The last note fades on the very last song
I'll be the road to take you home 
I'll be here for you"

-Robert Earl Keen

Beautiful ~ {teaser}

  

Beautiful light.  Beautiful love.  Beautiful couple.

 Beautiful engagement session.

More photos to come.

Love as Music

Click play to listen the song to which Will and Emily exited the church as husband and wife.

Have you ever witnessed love as music?  I experienced this, first hand, two weeks ago at Will and Emily's wedding.  They both have a love for music, family, friends and especially each other that could not help but touch every little corner of their wedding weekend in Asheville, NC.  These are just a few of the photos from their beautiful rehearsal and rehearsal dinner.  I did not take very many at their wedding since I was on the dance floor with my adorable husband.  Enjoy.

on to the rehearsal dinner . . .

Will surprised Emily at the end of the dinner with a serenade, sung to the violin alongside her two brothers.  It was really special!

and on to the post-dinner, music jam and hang out . . .

dear happy couple, we wish you a happy new life together!

A Beautiful Thing

"Two people in love, love, love, love, love . . . is a beautiful thing!" 

Those words come from a country song by Paul Brandy and I have to admit that I completely agree. I had a blast taking these engagement photos of Sarah and Michael over a year ago (before I was a blogger...hence the fact that they never made it to the blog).  There are a lot of kissing photos . . . which was all me, telling them to sneak a smootch for the camera.  I have been meaning to post these photos for awhile and was reminded to do so this past Monday evening as we celebrated the engagement of Sarah's sister Christina. Tony asked Christina to spend the rest of her life with him this past Saturday. He actually tied a fake ring to a fishing pole that she pulled up, when she looked at him, he was on his knees with the real ring. How cute! Our friends cannot be more excited for the two of them . . . so, hopefully I will be taking their engagement photos at some time (wink, wink, Christina). For now, enjoy the love between Michael and Sarah Hart, who have been husband and wife since January. Since I have been m.i.a for over a week now, I'm giving you a big-ol-dose of love. 

We started out on Bayshore Boulevard . . .

This is FUN lighting and such a cute moment!

and then we headed to Ybor City for a more "urban feel" . . .

I feel like these two photos could be in a modeling catalog.

Let's be honest, you two could be in a movie with this shot!

I LOVE the expressions and the feel of these two photos.

I had to make this one "old" looking.  So fun!

Perfect lighting...love it!

Vote for Sam & Nate (Guest Photographers)

 

Meet my friends, Sam and Nate Lewis.  They entered a casting call for Mad Men, a show set in the 1960s about an advertising agency.  Don't you think they play the part well?  They need your help to win!! You can vote once a day, everyday, until August 11th.  

Vote for SAM here & NATE here.  Just click on the 5th star to give them the best rating.

Credit where credit is due: Sam and Nate took these photos.  Besides being great photographers, they're also incredible artists.  They work for Hallmark, Sam is an illustrator and Nate a graphic designer.  Check out more of their work on their blog, Pencil-Pop.  

Good luck guys!

 

jeff & jocelyn

My brother Jeff and his beautiful girlfriend Jocelyn were sweet enough to let me take some fun photos of them with literally a half a second's notice and without really asking their permission.  The three of us were on the boat with my parents yesterday and we stopped to get gas right next to this awesome boat storage building.  While the gas was being pumped I kept looking around admiring the setting and thinking how I'd love to take a fun photo shoot there some day.  Lately I haven't really let ideas fester too long, I've been a lot more impulse about anything that comes to mind . . . so instead of thinking about coming back, I just said to Jocelyn, "get out of the boat, we're going to do something fun" and we grabbed Jeff and went up there for a quick shoot.  I really LOVE the way these photos turned out!    

About yesterday, I'm probably the epitome of a "planner" as I always like to know what I am doing and have "all my ducks in a row" so that I can make the most of my time.  Yesterday kind of threw me off, but it ended up being an awesome day.  When I woke up, I had two things planned for the day, one at 10am and the other at 1:30pm.  By 9am my 10 o'clock had been canceled and unfortunately Kenzo has a test on Monday, so I knew he'd be heading to school to study.  Since it was SO beautiful I decided to go for a jog (I am not a jogger!) and ended up running 3 miles or so.  It was invigorating and I came back, jumped in the pool, laid out for awhile and read some of my book by the pool.  I headed in to get ready for my 1:30pm and found a message saying the family I was going to take a photo shoot of (how fun, right?) couldn't make it.  What was I going to do now?  I laid on the couch for what felt like 10 minutes (probably more like 2) trying to decide what I wanted to do.  Finally I called up my dad and decided that I would join him, my mom, my brother and his girlfriend for a boat ride.  While I was driving down to S. Tampa my tire got sliced on the highway.  Thankfully I made it all the way to their house and we decided to deal with the tire after the boat ride (a very typical response for my family: fun first, then whatever needs to get done).  I seriously LOVE Florida at this time of year, there were tons of boats out as everyone must be feeling this "spring fever."  Once we got back to the house my dad and I went out to change the tire and after a bloody finger and the help of two of my brothers, we got the tire changed.  I headed to Sears to buy a new one and decided to go ahead and replace all 4 tires since it had been awhile.  They said that the wait would be over an hour.  Since I was definitely not dressed for the mall (my hair was a mess from the boat, I had a bathing suit and cover up on and I smelled like suntan lotion) I just decided to walk around and take some photos.  It actually turned out to be a really fun unplanned photo "safari" (I'll post photos from the mall in the next couple of days) and I was proud of myself for being so flexible and not minding that it actually took almost 2 hours.  Anyway, the day turned out to be completely different than I expected . . . but SO fun . . . and probably a much needed change from everything going how I plan for it to be.  

thanks j&j for humoring me and being such hot, on-the-spot, models!

and a few more shots from the boat ride:

this is my parents' dog, Rocky.  she is my favorite dog in the world, so sweet and so cute!  she LOVEs coming on the boat with us.

Sarah & Michael ~ Tampa Event Photographer

One of my best friends in the world got married last week and her big weekend was an amazing celebration of joy, love, family and friends.  It was important to Sarah and Michael, that their wedding be personal, intimate, & familiar.  They accomplished this by allowing their family and friends to participate in major ways.  Michael's groomsmen were his father, uncles and Sarah's brother...Sarah asked Kathy Connor, our high school young life leader to be a part of the ceremony...Arthur Lastra, a long time family friend served as the reception DJ...Zoe Gallina, a high school friend was the wedding coordinator...Stacey and I had the opportunity to create her beautiful centerpieces and I was also honored to be asked to take photos during the bridesmaids luncheon and rehearsal dinner.  (It was my first time using my new flash and I realize I have a lot to learn!)  Thank you Sarah and Michael for sharing your special day with so many people who love you! 

Here are just a few of my favorites from the weekend:

the beautiful bride at her bridesmaid's luncheon

I visited Sarah and her girls in the salon & at the church during the wedding day and got some fun shots . . .