engaged: philip + danielle | burlington, n.c.

When Philip + Danielle contacted me about doing their wedding photos, I squealed with excitement! Philip and I were friends back in high school, where we spent days convincing our AP European History teacher to let us watch any movie that had to do with Europe and play Risk, along with surviving many other “challenges” of high school. I was so happy for him when we went to N.C. State and even happier that he met this awesome lady, Danielle while he was there! When I say that I couldn’t think of any other people who were absolutely perfect for each other, I truly mean it. Philip is a Ph. D candidate in the College of Veterinary Medicine at State and Danielle is a veterinary medicine student and a Ph. D candidate. They just get each other. Their love for each other is huge! They laugh at each other and themselves and are all about caring for animals in such a very intellectual way. Phil proposed to Danielle late this summer while she was at school. A good friend convinced her that there was a sick goat out in the field by a big tree that needed attention quickly. Little did she know, the sick goat was Philip. Philip took a knee and Danielle’s breath away in one fell swoop while she was decked out in her mud boots and overalls. It was a total surprise, which always makes for the best proposal!

We met out at their wedding venue in Burlington, Starlight Meadows, to have a rustic and casual session. This new venue is awesome and is going to be so beautiful on an early October evening! We played and danced in the meadow with their sweet boy, Finley, laughed at all the things, and had such a great time. These two even cracked jokes the whole day about some pretty gross cow facts (I’ll spare you the details but I quite enjoyed them myself!), in addition to owning all awkwardness and quoting YouTube videos. They are an adventurous couple who know how to have some serious fun and are dream clients!

Philip + Danielle, you two are just so perfect for one another. It brings butterflies to my stomach when I see how much love there is beaming out of y’all. Thank you for the great session and I cannot wait for the big day to get here!

senior portraits: evan | goldsboro, n.c.

Evan. An athlete. A smart pants. A super hero. An aspiring fighter pilot. This kid is on top of the world, y’all (or will literally be when his dream of becoming a F-22 fighter pilot come true). Evan used to be my neighbor in Seymour Johnson’s base housing back in the late 1990’s. He and my brother were total bros and would rule the trampoline, mummify G.I. Joes, and carve their names into everything. When Evan’s mom asked me to do his senior portraits, I had no idea he was getting ready to graduate! I still saw him as my younger neighbor who was crazy strong for 4-years-old. For his portraits, we ventured out to some of Goldsboro’s iconic places including Seymour Johnson Air Force Base to see the planes-on-a-stick. It was a very foggy Veteran’s Day morning, which made this session inspiring but also nostalgic as the jets appeared to be shooting out of the sky, it seemed.

Evan is on his way to do awesome things with his life. He’s at the top of his class and aspires to go to the Air Force Academy (finger’s crossed that he gets in!), he’s a top wrestler and football player at his school, he wants to study aerospace engineering in school, he’s not afraid to be a goofball, and he has a clear passion for his superheroes (seriously, he’s got the best superhero wardrobe in the world), and could be a model if all else fails. But on top of all these accolades, he’s a genuinely wonderful big brother who is super chill and super patient, a great son, and a big dreamer who loves his country. Evan, good luck with all your life endeavors and I hope your ride to the top is a spectacular adventure!

warner’s pirate party | goldsboro, n.c.

warnerbdaydip_9

Warner has literally grown up before my eyes. From his newborn photos, Easter egg hunts, Christmas photos, his first sparkler experience, birthday’s and even being the most adorable ring bearer at my wedding, this little man knows my camera so well, he now decides when it’s ok to take a photo…with his eye behind the viewfinder! Captain Warner turned 4 in September and p-arggghh!-tied h-aarrggghh!-died in his huge pirate ship as him and his friends set off to find the treasure chest full of gold, jewels, and doubloons! They let the skull-n-bones sail fly high over the crow’s nest and hung their pirate allegiance proudly over the stern, as their treasure chest piñata flew in the wind on the bow. This was by far one of the most charming pirate shindig I’ve ever witnessed. As this little pirated directed his shipmates around, they hunted for treasure, ate the tastiest cupcakes off all time, and worked hard in the rain to keep their ship afloat! This little pirate has the biggest personality around! Happy birthday, Warner!

warnerbdaydip_1

20140913_allen_warnerbday-197i

20140913_allen_warnerbday-237i

warnerbdaydip_11

warnerbdaydip_2

20140913_allen_warnerbday-296i

20140913_allen_warnerbday-824i

20140913_allen_warnerbday-817i

20140913_allen_warnerbday-822i

20140913_allen_warnerbday-873i

warnerbdaydip_6

warnerbdaydip_10

warnerbdaydip_5

warnerbdaydip_4

warnerbdaydip_7

20140913_allen_warnerbday-1066i

20140913_allen_warnerbday-1116i

20140913_allen_warnerbday-1122i

20140913_allen_warnerbday-1165i

20140913_allen_warnerbday-1211i

20140913_allen_warnerbday-1213i

20140913_allen_warnerbday-1229i

warnerbdaydip_8

20140913_allen_warnerbday-10i

I hope your birthday p-arrrrggghh-ty was pirate-tastic!

the 5th of july

‘Merica! What’s better to celebrate America than with family, fire, and food? Nothing. Nothing is better than family, fire, and food, and if you can’t celebrate with family, fire, and food on the fourth, celebrate with family, fire, and food on the fifth! Jerry and I drove to Goldsboro after oohing and aahing at Chapel Hill’s fireworks, apparently a top 10 in the nation firework show according to Travel & Leisure Magazine, to have a small little celebration with family and friends. Of course, none of this would be complete without mini American flags, American Flag themed desserts, tasty cheese trays + fruit salsa, and of course, fire on a stick. This was Warner’s first time with sparklers and poppers. The wonderment a child, and even adults, have with sparkly fire is just mesmerizing. However, a note to the wise: if you hand a three-year-old a sparkler, you better know how to run fast!

I hope you had a fabulous Fourth of July celebration full of family, food, and fire, too!

keenwood apiary honey harvest

The honeybee: the ultimate pollinator and creator of the most natural sweetener with the best health benefits.

Last year, a local beekeeper, Beverly Keen, contacted me about photographing her bees and the honey harvest. While our schedules didn’t match up last summer, we were able to get together this year. Mrs. Beverly was my husband’s 7th grade science teacher and he LOVED her. She taught biology and after spending a day with her, it was evident she has a passionate soul for teaching and keeping her bees. This gracious, southern woman welcomed me to her home, clad with adorable bee paraphernalia, to teach me about the honeybees and reiterate their importance to our society. Bees are full of life, and it’s truly amazing how they function as a colony and how vital they are to human life. When I asked her why she chose to become a beekeeper, she simply said, “The Lord just fascinated me with why he created bees, so when I retired, I decided it was my time to keep them.”

Honeybees are a vital and important part of our agriculture, as they pollinate around 80% of our plants to produce fruits and vegetables. These fascinating, flying critters are not pests, however, they are the movers + shakers of our environment that keep the circle of life circling. If honeybees are healthy, our environment is healthy, which reflects in our overall health. Honeybees are important, y’all! Over the last 8 years, they have seen a significant collapse. In 2006, Colony Collapse Disorder, CCD, became a huge and mysterious killer of honeybees. Since the major collapse, CCD has killed 30% of the honeybee population each year. While many scientists and researchers now believe that it was a cyclical phenomena, possibly tied to certain pesticides, honeybees still aren’t as abundant as they used to be, therefore putting our agriculture industry at risk. Could you imagine a life without apples, cherries, broccoli or any type of fresh produce? Or honey for that matter?!

Since then, many boutique apiaries have popped up across the globe. Everyday people raising honeybees to pollinate plants in hopes of improving the environment. Urban beekeeping boomed a few years ago utilizing rooftop space in big cities for bee hives and small gardens as people started to realize how important these relatively peaceful creatures are to securing our food supply. Also, people have realized all the health benefits that come from consuming raw, local honey, which unlike tupelo or clover honey, has a complex and dynamic taste as it comes from the nectar of a myriad of plants. It helps with allergies, is full of vitamins and minerals, and has natural antibacterial and antiviral qualities. Mrs. Beverly advised us to start sipping a tablespoon of honey everyday before bed because it’s best for our health and contains tryptophan which helps us sleep. On top of the many benefits of honeybees and their honey, these buzzing critters and their apiaries are some of the most sustainable beings and “farms” around! Here’s the sustainable cycle that Mrs. Beverly experiences at her apiary:

The queen bee lays her eggs, or brood, to create drones (males) and worker bees (female),
These bees grow up to fertilize the brood or pollinate her garden,
Then they take the nectar to the hives in their nectar pockets, which then goes through the cycle of becoming honey,
Mrs. Beverly takes the hives apart to harvest the honey,
The wax is cut off and honey is extracted,
The honey gets bottled up to sell and the wax gets melted down for candles (some people like to make beauty products with it!),
The equipment used to extract the honey then gets put outside and the honeybees clean it spick and span as they eat up all the honey as one of their sources of food,
And the cycle starts again!

Look at her just sucking up the sweet honey off of that glove!

And we found the Queen Bee!

Look at all the honey dripping down the sides of the extractor!

The natural creation of something so geometrical like honeycomb just fascinates me.

Mmmmmm, honey!

That’s a load of beeswax!

Such an adorable little honeybee scooter for her grandbaby!

Me and Beverly in her garden, followed of course, by an out of focus selfie!

For more information on the importance of the honeybee, in addition to the fight they are facing, check out some of the articles below:

Hearts for Dance

Last summer, my awesome sister-in-law held her 2nd Hearts for Dance workshop. This dance camp invited disadvantaged hispanic girls from around Wayne County to come and finally learn how to be a ballerina. These girls are the most grateful and excited dancers ever. They sleep in their tutus, they’ve mastered the perfect ballet bun, and dance truly encompasses their hearts. As Tess and her crew at Dance for Christ live by, let us “praise His name through dance!” (Psalm 149:3).

I took this on as a personal project after graduation. And a year later, due to (thankfully!) getting a job & a crazy first-year of marriage (loved it!), I finally have it finished! Personal projects are something that feeds your soul, and this project definitely brought me back to my photojournalism roots. I’ve dabbled quite a bit in fine art photography & design this past year, but it’s good to know that my lovely professors pounded photojournalism, multimedia, and all the ethics to boot into my noggin! I’m so blessed to have been given a great education & even more blessed to get to use it on a daily basis at my job and as my stress reliever!

Finishing this project has been amazing. I find video to be a challenge, a puzzle, if you must. The tedious editing, the countless command+z’s, and the final product are so very rewarding. I suppose it’s because it’s not as instant as digital photography, despite the fact that it’s digital video. It’s something you must work for and something you will cherish, more like film photography when you do it all yourself in the darkroom. It has to have an idea that is deeply conceived, than overly brainstormed, then creatively shot, then painstakingly edited & lastly, eagerly awaited to be uploaded to the internet. What a world we live in these days. This project has taught me to breathe. To take time for myself, and to remember my roots. It’s something that I’m going to work more towards this year, becoming an all-around healthier person. I’m going to take the time to edit those old photos on my hard drive, I’m going to search for some new story to work on, and I’m going to enjoy every minute of it because it’s something I love to do! If you have thoughts on personal projects, or would like to continue the personal project conversation, leave me a comment & we’ll talk!

class of 2014: lindsay player

Back in the beginning of June, I had the wonderful pleasure of shooting my first class of 2014 senior portrait session with the beautiful Lindsay Player! This girl has the most contagious smile and is such a natural in front of the camera. She’s got classic & elegant style…I asked our whole session about her wardrobe! We traversed around downtown Goldsboro and her bubbly self greeted all the people who passed! Lindsay goes to Eastern Wayne High School, does StageStruck Theatre and wants to follow her sister to Carolina and do the physical therapy program! She was so much fun to hang out with and I could’ve spent days photographing her and complimenting her clothes & accessories! Such a natural & she laughed at all my bad jokes so as far as I’m concerned, Lindsay is the bomb dot com!

dip4

Lindsay-You are a strong, beautiful, and outgoing young lady with the world ahead of you! Cherish your senior year and all the people that will make it unforgettable! You have the world in your hands and God in your heart-your life is set, girl! I wish you the best of luck on all your life’s adventures!

artist dance academy: senior dance company

I’ve been itching for weeks to post these photos! And now that the recital is done and the surprise has surprised–here are some lovely pictures for y’all wonderful people! Back in May, I photographed Artistic Dance Academy’s senior company as a surprise gift for their beloved instructors, Mrs. Patricia and Mrs. Crystal! These girls are on their way to make their marks in this huge world! All of them have great things ahead of them and hearts full of love & grace! I was in tears with them at their last recital last weekend! I’ve watched all these girls dance their hearts out across that stage for 7 years (both recital & Dance for Christ) now and they have grown into strong, beautiful dancers and even stronger young women. Good luck all of you as you take over this world with your faith and grace!