Carmen + Jamie :: Maternity

Carmen and Jamie have been friends of ours for a long, long time, in fact, Jodi grew up with Carmen, and I met Jamie in 2001 soon after I moved to Iowa. In one of our more ambitious stretches last summer, they were our tennis partners that one time we played tennis! :) Since then, they have been anxiously awaiting the beginning of March when they get to meet their new little one for the first time!

Congratulations, you two!

Alana :: Hair update

We didn't want to make Alana more self conscious than she already was, after our 5 year old son took a scissors to her hair, so we gave it a day or so before we took her picture. She's okay now, and seems to have forgotten the whole deal already. That's what I love about kids... they are resilient. What happens to that when we grow up? When we get older and "mature", we end up holding on to things WAY too long. Two days and she's totally over it. Adults, we need to take lessons from our kids sometimes.

Here's a strand of original length hair that Jackson missed....

The culprit.

I know.

You're asking "Surely that innocent little boy couldn't pull off something so naughty."

Then, it was time for Alana's birthday party! She turned 4 yesterday, and we threw a little family party in her honor...

Stella chips in her two cents...

Our kids love to play kitchen. In fact, we have a "kitchen" set up in our basement, where they take orders, and use pot holders and kitchen utensils to create "meals" for us. So Jodi bought them (among other things) chef hats!

A Case of the Monday's :: Part 6

Here goes another round of "A Case of the Mondays" where I pass along a few random tidbits of life around our house, studio and some insight into how Jodi and I view the world.

1. A small tragedy struck our home yesterday. Jodi stayed home from church with the kids, because Alana wasn't feeling to well, and we didn't want to pass it on. Unfortunately, at some point in the morning, our older two kids, Jackson, 5, and Alana, 4 (today!), disappeared into the bathroom, only to emerge a little while later to reveal that Jackson had cut off ALL of Alana's beautiful long hair! It was a sad moment for our family, because she hadn't had her hair cut since she was born. Oh well. :) What can you do?

2. I have been reading. A lot. The thing is...I don't read. Or didn't, I guess. Jodi I were scheduled to go to a large photography conference this past January, and at the last minute decided not to go. We decided that instead of going, we would stay home and read all the books that we've been told to read over the past 3 years. Sure, it's a colossal stack, and we'll not get through it any time soon, but we're working on it. We're reading books about business, and leadership, and autobiographies, etc. So far, so good! If you have any good books we should check out, let us know!

3. The Olympics. Not going to lie, I'm not a huge Olympics fan. I mean, some events are fun to watch, but I'm not the kind that is glued to the TV for 16 days straight. Although, the sport I happen upon the most these days is the Biathalon. That's an intense sport, right there. I'd be surprised if 1) I could ski that far, and 2) if I could hit the targets.

4. My golf clubs have been itching to get outside and go for a walk.

5. Speaking of golf, apparently people aren't liking Tiger Woods' apology, saying it wasn't sincere enough. I wonder what he was supposed to say. Should he have cried? If so, how much? What would he have had to do that would have made it "sincere enough"?

6. We had a Wii gaming system for a few years, and one day it broke. One of the kids may have stuck something in the optical drive, we're not really sure. Well, that was a year or two ago. This month, we shipped it back to Nintendo, and they fixed it for free. For FREE. And, they replaced our games! For FREE. Win. Win.

7. The basketball team that I'm helping to coach took Second Place at another tournament this past weekend, and our season is coming to a close this week. We have one game tomorrow yet, and then the conference tourney this weekend. Coaching sure made the winter go faster!

8. Any LOST fans out there enjoying the last season with me? Any theories on what the ending will be?

9. I'm watching a sermon series online called "Doctrine" by Mark Driscoll on the pillars of what Christians believe. If you're a Christian, this is serious stuff, because if you don't know what you believe as a foundation for your faith, you are easily shaken. The Bible has a lot to say about issues that are pretty controversial these days, so you better know where you stand and why you stand there.

10. Finally, last Monday I posted an image which needed a caption. I asked you to comment on the post, to see what came to your mind when you viewed the image.

We received 18 captions on the blog, and 23 comments on Facebook, and there were some very clever ones. It was very difficult to choose a winner, so we put our favorites in a hat, and drew one out. And the winner is Taylor, with:

"Two Worlds Meet".

Here's the rest of our favorites, in no particular order:

1. "Mijn paard is sneller than ew deer". (just because it was in Dutch/German)
2. "Oh Crap!" (this was submitted at least 2x with variation)

3. "Get off my tail, you're driving me buggy!"

4. "Drivers were unable to determine which they would rather be stuck behind."

5. "No need for snowplows."

6. "Horseplower."

Thanks to all of you who submitted captions... Taylor, please email us your mailing address at info(at)gehmanphotography(dot)com, and we'll send you a Starbucks Gift Card!

One Snowy Day :: A GP Mini-Contest

Here's an image I dug up the other day that Jodi took when we were visiting my parents this past Christmas.

It would be fun to hear how you would caption this image. Leave your caption in the comment box below, and at the end of the week, we'll choose our favorite one and send the winner a Starbucks gift card or something. Enter as often as you like, but use a new comment for each caption you submit so it's easier to keep track of the ones we like.

Awards

Over the past 8 years that Gehman Photography has been in business, Jodi and I have been attending our State Photography Convention each February, to continue our education, stay up to date on new equipment, network with other photographers, and keep up with current trends. If you are a new or aspiring photographer, and you hope to have your own business someday, there is no better advice I could give you than to join Professional Photographer associations. Seminars, speakers, competitions and just meeting new people will push you towards becoming a better photographer and business-person, and you'll learn the in's and out's of the industry that you could never learn on your own.

••••••

As per usual at these conventions, we entered the competition, and we were fortunate enough to bring home a few awards, which we would like to share with you! :)

So to start off with, Jodi won first place in the category "Indoor Groups" with our family picture! One of the judges was crying, he was laughing so hard! They talked about this image for quite a while, and out of almost 400 images entered, one of the 7 judges picked this image as his/her favorite and we were awarded a judges ribbon! That's a first for us!

Secondly I won third place in the category "Portrait Albums" with Kelli and Cody's Fareway Shoot:

Thirdly, we won second place in the category "Wedding Albums" with Sam and Michelle's wedding:

and lastly, Jodi and I won first place in "Wedding Albums" with Christy and Hisham's album, which scored 93 out of 100... our highest score ever in the 5 years we've been entering competition!:

In addition, we were awarded the Fuji Masterpiece Award as well as the Don Knopp Memorial Award for the Highest Scoring Wedding Print or Album for the second consecutive year.

And if that wasn't enough, both Jodi and I were honored to be recognized by the association as Top Ten Photographers in Iowa for 2010, with Jodi at #4 and me at #6 in the Non-Masters* category.

We'd like to take this space to thank all of you who have encouraged us along the way.... we're blessed to be surrounded by a great cloud of friends and blog stalkers who keep us pushing to create something fresh and unique every day, and to our wonderful clients who inspire us with your love and your life stories. We appreciate you all! We believe that every good thing comes from above, so it's only right that we credit God for all of the good things that he's given. In the long run, awards are just papers, and pieces of wood if we don't keep our focus on what matters most.

••••••

*Non-Masters basically means we haven't earned our Masters "Degree" in photography yet, something that takes several years of service, high scores in competition, and speaking engagements to accomplish. We've only started working towards that goal in the past year, so we've got a ways to go. :)

The Girls

Last night, I was helping Alana with something, and just realized how beautiful she is. So, I grabbed the camera, and did a little photo shoot with her. It wasn't long before little Stella came along, and I had to get some photos of her as well.

These girls and their gorgeous eyes just make the pressures of life dissolve sometimes.

Take time for your family today.

They are precious, and these moments are gone before you know it.

Disclaimer on Stella's hair... yes, we do comb it sometimes. :) She pulls out barettes, and clips and rubber bands, so sometimes this is how she looks after that happens. :) I think it's adorable.

Sara + Josh :: Motion

Happy Monday, and Happy February! (one month closer to warm sunshine!)

This project was a long time in the making, and I finally wrapped it up last week. As some of you know, this year, Jodi and I are launching a new product to our photography business, and it's what we call "Motion Photography". It itself, that phrase makes no sense at all but here's why we call it what we do. Obviously, we are in the art of photography, that's what we do. But, some new tools came along not too long ago that are allowing us to put our photography in motion, using the same cameras, same lenses, and same artistic eye that makes our still photography what it is. So, since we've been wanting to do this for a long time, because there are just certain things about a wedding where the emotion, and atmosphere of the moment just can't all be captured in a still photograph. So, it just made sense that we would launch this into Gehman Photography!

Take a look at our latest video, and you'll see what I mean...

PS. Go to our Gehman Photography Facebook Page to view the video in HD.