As you know, 11.13 is my birthday, so I thought it would be a GREAT idea for me to be the gift giver this year. Excited yet??  With that in mind, I’m giving $100.00  to the first 13 couples or families to book photo-sessions before December 9th!!!  That’s right – $100 off  my usual $250 photo session just because today  is my birthday.  There are a few restrictions, but you are going to get the same amazing photographs for you and your future legacy to cherish as you would with the regular price.  Your price just 150.00. Click here to contact me to book this special birthday gift today!

During my photo shoot with Cody for his new site Leadnext.org he wanted to get a few snaps with his wife Katie. I’ll have to say that she’s the more fashionable one.

Photo Background: Katie and Cody are two people who are undoubtedly in love with each other. As a result all I had to do was stand them side by side and photograph their reactions.

They make me happy. I was walking through Wal-Mart and wasn’t that happy because I was dressed up and it was very hot and humid. As I walked I started to feel better and the reason…..Return to Pooh Corner by Kenny Loggins was playing. I immediately thought of DCI, winterguard and every other musical genre that I could think of in how to play the song. My suggestion is that you put this song in your ipod or whatever you have so when you are feeling badly you can just turn it on and let the honey of good attitude drip all over you.

I’m a drummer of sorts. I was a drum captain for a Drum Corps and composed for bands. This will give you a little bit of insight on why Carter Beauford makes me happy. I think that I’m going to go more in depth later but what you need to know about why Carter is so good and makes me happy. He takes what has to be done…that is…keep the beat and play on beats 2 and 4….then he adds magic in between the spaces. He is an artist that knows the science and the art of his instrument. The problem with Carter is the same problem I had when I listen to violin prodigies before listening to college violinist. That is…they just didn’t seem that good. So beware…after listening to Carter you may be a drum snob.

From Genevieve:

So here’s the sitch: as there was no medical need to induce (baby was monitoring gorgeously and mommy’s been testing great too) ….we’ve been released to go home. for now.  Which may be only for one night or may take the whole weekend… we shall see.  And that’s what this process was about: waiting and seeing – trusting and leaning on an understanding higher than Peter and Genevieve’s.  God directed us with His Peace and thankfully confirmed it with several supportive medical staff at our hospital.

It’s the BEST decision for our little family, but it was NOT an easy one.  How to tell all of our eager friends and family that we purposefully DIDN’T induce when it seemed such an easy choice to have our Baby now?!  It certainly made for an interesting departure as rarely do the pregger-bellies LEAVE the hospital in this state! I know we were in the minority  saying “see you in a few….hours or days!!” to our wonderful nurses and midwives.  The One who formed this baby will bring this pregnancy to fruition.  What a lesson I am learning from this baby, and I don’t even know their face yet…

From Peter:

Our baby has been very active, but as you may know there were some borderline concerns so we were admitted to the hospital on Thursday night. Friday afternoon, the midwife suggested that if Genevieve did not dilate rapidly enough, that they were going to have to break her water manually. Once that happened, it was “possible” it would give the baby enough incentive to drop and induce natural child birth.

My question then was, “what happens if it doesn’t work? What happens if our baby goes into distress because there is no cushion because we rushed things?” Once that happens, the likelihood for a C-section birth goes up. (Which of course puts mama in distress.) So my reasoning was, “If our baby is not in distress, then why create a situation that could cause distress?” (How many fathers would willingly put their son or daughter in harms way when everything is going fine?) With that in mind, we decided to let baby Doyle decide if we head back to the hospital in a few days or in a few hours. Thank you so much to all our friends and family for your support and prayers. We will be keeping everyone updated.

We would love your comments!

One of the cool things about being married is sharing weird inside jokes and movie quotes. And “Baby Come Down” is one of them. Every mother knows that before birth there is time when the baby shifts down to get ready to say hello to the world. Although that does apply here it’s not the reason I wrote this on her belly. (OH, in case you didn’t know. This is my wife, Genevieve and we’re only a week or two from giving birth to our first child!)

This quote comes from the 2002 movie, The Importance of being Earnest. In fact, I laugh quite hysterically to my self every time I think about it. The first time I saw the movie at the Rialto theater I fell out of my seat with laughter and and following day I bought the play in paper back. So what’s the back story? Here is it.

• Jack Worthing, is a pillar of the community in Hertfordshire, where he is guardian to Cecily Cardew, the pretty, eighteen-year-old granddaughter of the late Thomas Cardew.
• For years, Jack has also pretended to have an irresponsible black-sheep brother named Ernest who leads a scandalous life in pursuit of pleasure and is always getting into trouble of a sort that requires Jack to rush grimly off to his assistance.
• In fact, Ernest is merely Jack’s alibi, a phantom that allows him to disappear for days at a time and do as he likes. No one but Jack knows that he himself is Ernest.
• Jack is in love with Gwendolen Fairfax, the cousin of his best friend, Algernon Moncrieff. When the play opens, Algernon, who knows Jack as Ernest, has begun to suspect something, having found an inscription inside Jack’s cigarette case addressed to “Uncle Jack” from someone who refers to herself as “little Cecily.”
• Algernon falls in love with Cecily
• Cecily and Gwendolen meet they think they are speaking of the same Earnest
• When Jack and Algernon enter from the garden, the two women confront them. Cecily asks Algernon why he pretended to be her guardian’s brother. Algernon tells her he did it in order to meet her. Gwendolen asks Jack whether he pretended to have a brother in order to come into London to see her as often as possible, and she interprets his evasive reply as an affirmation.

The women get up set and head up to the porch to ignore the two. The only way the men figure they can get them back is to sing….”Lady, Come Down!”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQW_bovs40s

Since we have just a few short weeks before the birth of our first child we thought it would be best to get some prego shots that weren’t just her in front of a backdrop like we have done for the past 8 months. I love photographing my clients and I love seeing them create shots for the purpose sharing them with their grandchildren. The tables have turned and now I am photographing my wife for the purpose of sharing them with our child and our grandchildren. We get to say, “Child, this is what your mom looked like a few weeks before seeing you for the first time.” These photographs are going to represent one part of our visual history of our family. I think this is why I like to video. I cherish the photographs I have of my mother and father when they were together. So to be in an era were the opportunity to photograph is ubiquitous there really isn’t a reason to not photograph with the purpose of sharing them with our future generations.

I do want to give a little background on some of these photographs. Genevieve loves the out doors and trees. So with that in mind we found a place to show here in her element. The hardest part about this shoot was the temperature. You can’t really tell by just looking at the photographs but it was about 90 degress with heavy humidity.  I think she did an awesome job. Don’t you?

*click on an image and use your arrow keys to scroll

Ah, today is Memorial Day 2011 and what I’m seeing, Atlanta is going to have some very nice barbecue kinda of a day. But I want bring back a post that wrote a few years ago about my dad and what he taught me during the 23.5 year opportunity to be with him.

Before there was Seal Team 6 there was my dad hanging and training in Coronado Bay, San Diego with SEAL TEAM 1 in the 60s. He died when I was 23.5 but man did I learn a lot during my time with him. Well, I don’t know if I learned a lot verses I was taught a great deal  but didn’t learn to appreciate its importance and apply it to life until years later. I don’t have scientific proof or the results of a battery test of children from parents in the military but I think there is an education about life and family that you just can’t get anywhere else but from a parent with military experience behind it. My reasoning comes from the fact that there is no other job that someone signs up for in which the job description includes: “You will protect the freedom’s and rights of the American Citizens and you will do so at all costs within the law.”  That means putting your life on the line if you are so called to do so.

My dad was single while he was in the Vietnam war so whenever an opportunity came up he always volunteered for additional assignments. I only learned this when a seal buddy of his brought it up in conversation. Like most military folk my dad didn’t say too much about his experience. He always told me that when I turned 15 he would tell me everything well….that never happened.

I remember seeing and reading commendations he received for putting his life in harms way in order to save a wounded teammate. One of the most influential experiences that I had with my father was when our family went camping. He decided to take us boys on a walk about around the camp ground. Well, we didn’t stay on the grounds very long and the next thing I know is that we were climbing up rocks and sliding down them. We were sliding down them because there was no way to either climb up or down them. I distinctly remember how scared I was to slide down this particular rock because it took my dad longer than I thought it should take to slide down. So when we all grouped, I asked my dad, “If we can’t climb back up then what are we going to do?” His response, “There is always a way out.” And wouldn’t you know it……we found our way out.

Here are a few of his teachable moment quotes.

• “You only get sick if you want to” (take the principle of this, he was a SEAL)
• “Son, you’re going to go if you like it or not. Deciding if you have a good time is up to you.”
• “There is nothing wrong with being scared but never let it make your decisions for you”
• “A person can’t play the victim for the rest of their lives”
• “Son, You can ask me for anything that you want. You may not get it but I can guarantee you that if you don’t ask for it, you won’t get it at all.”

Read the complete story here.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Q0G3Z8QFVQ

I’m all about family connections and relationships. That’s the heart of Storyboard Life. Well, I had the great opportunity to photography Michael, Kerri and their first edition to their family, Esther. My wife and I have known Michael and Kerri for quite some time. In fact, I photographed their engagement session in Savannah and their wedding only after coming back from Haiti the night before and driving through the remnants of a very bad ice storm.

It’s important to get the “standard” portraits of the families but it’s equally important to photograph families in action. We like seeing photographs of people staring at us but we love watching our loved one interact with each other. And it sure wasn’t a problem doing that with this gorgeous family.

If you don’t have quality family portraits or need updated ones then please contact me. Enjoy.