Never Swim Past Your Own Wall

Happy Wednesday night to everyone! So things are going phenomenally well with Kayla F Photography!! Logo and business cards are designed and getting ready to be sent off to the printers! I can't wait for everything to get up and running...next will be a business license! :)

So this next post is super awesome! My brother has been the Karns High School Swim Coach for the last 5 seasons and has asked me to do some photography for them almost every season! Swimming is not an easy sport to photograph; there is so much that can go wrong: light (always the worst light EVER), speed of the swimmers, capturing them at the right moment and not getting pictures just full of splashes! However, when you get a great photograph it really is so rewarding! So here is a little sample of some of this years swimming; my brother has moved down to South Alabama and is starting his career and I couldn't be more proud. But with that comes an end to his coaching (for now at least). I don't see him giving it up completely because he is so good at it and he really builds amazing relationships with his swimmers and their parents. You can tell that they think so highly of him; so without further rambling, here is the 2010-2011 Karns High Swim Team!

And he helped out with Grace Christian Academy's Swim Team as well!

Tyler, my brother, really is great with his swimmers! He tries to be such an influence and really tries to make a good impression on them...here is a not so great example of that! :)

I love this set! This little boy was cheering on his uncle Allen, one of the swimmers, and Tyler got right down there with him and was cheering him on too...even if it was just the warm-ups.

Love these two girls! 

Now, this is my favorite picture of the night. It is technically horrendous, but I love the grain, the motion and the simplicity of the black and white. 

My brother has coached and been apart of young kids lives for 6 seasons; some more when he coached them in summer swim. He has a huge heart and sometimes worked 3 jobs while he was coaching. I wanted to do a little something to show on my end how highly I think of him and what he has accomplished.

"Never swim past your own Wall." ~ Tyler Folks

Christmas is Over? Oops...

I am starting to get the hang of actually blogging things now...so hopefully I will keep this a tradition!! hahaha! Oh some great news on the photography front, I am going to be meeting with Kate Moore of Kate Moore Creative on Tuesday and we will start the process of working on my logo for Kayla F Photography! I couldn't be more excited! Once I get the logo, then that is when things are going to start snowballing! Next will be a FB page, a professional blog and eventually a website! Not to mention a whole bunch of fun stuff like stationary!! Hooray!! I am beyond excited! So now that I have gotten that out of the way, lets talk about something that is a little (or a lot) past due!

So the Christmas decorations have been down for a couple of weeks, the lights down too (we are not those type of people! LOL) but guess what I haven't done until last night...edit Christmas pictures!! Its amazing how time just seems to slip by and when you look at what you've accomplished it just doesn't seem to fit the bill!!! So I sat my booty down in my very uncomfortable chair and edited away! It was so much fun. I only took pictures this year at my Dad's house on Christmas Eve. Christmas day I didn't want to fool with it; I just wanted to relax and enjoy time with my family and not have my eyes peeled open waiting for fun stuff to happen (I know, I have committed the Photographer Travesty by stating that)!

Anyhoo, my niece, Sarah, is so amazing! She is wise beyond her years and when my sister told me what she said about Santa I was just astonished. She said, "She doesn't believe in Santa, but she knows he exists."

So these pictures mostly encompass Sarah because she is just so fun to take pictures of...its amazing to think that she used to cringe in front of the camera!!!!

Sarah and her Uncle Ty Ty...my favorite picture of them!!

Showing Uncle Ty Ty how her animals are magnetic...he is flabbergasted! :)

Now it was time to open presents. We all had a wonderful Christmas; spending time with family (no matter how cliche it is) really is my favorite part. But Sarah of course is just ecstatic over her presents...this next series shows her love for her Barbie Pool! Cracks me up!

Love this picture of Sarah! And here is my bro and Dad playing with Tyler's new Garmin!! FANCY!! :)

I know it is super late, but I hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas and New Years and was able to spend it with the people you love most...I know I did!

Introducing Two New Beginnings

I have some of the most exciting news (at least for me it is) that I have had in a long time!! I have decided to start my own photography business! Most of you probably don’t know, but I have battled the job blues lately. First, falling into a job that I literally would come home and cry to Robby about on a regular basis because it was so stressful and then not being able to find a full time permanent job since! So things have been super bluesy (not a word but lets roll with it) for me. So I decided, since I love photography more than anything (ok, minus the obvious exceptions) I decided I wanted to make it a bigger part of my life. What better way to do that than to have a business?! So here it is; Kayla F Photography. You can ask anyone in my family; I mulled over the name of this venture for a few days, but I was starting to drive myself crazy!! I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Eventually I decided I wanted something easy to remember and something I would never have to change (since my name will one day be Fletcher I thought it was perfect). I will have a website coming soon, but don’t want to unveil anything until it is up and running. I have a couple of ideas that I am just so insanely excited about. One of them being recruiting my brother for a little video (even though he doesn’t know anything about it yet)!

So, on with the post! This is my first official event for Kayla F Photography! Lei was my boss out at The Rush and I just instantly fell in love with her little guy Sebastian when she first brought him by the office! You will shortly see why! His little receding hair line makes you just want to put a pair of corduroys and suspenders on the fella and tote him around! Plus, he absolutely loves to have his picture taken (lucky parents)! He was all smiles all day and everyone couldn’t get enough of him!! When I first got to the house Sebby was still sleeping, but after I took this first picture he brightened right up!

Lei and Raimund had the sweetest outfit picked out for Sebby. I cannot tell you how excited I was to see those little UT booties! Go VOLS!

This is why I love photography! I love capturing those moments that you probably don’t remember; those moments that just slide right by but once you see the photos you get an immense amount of joy that it was those little things that weren’t forgotten. I love that! I love that I got Sebby smiling like a mad man at his Daddy and I love that I got his Mommy just oozing with love looking at him!! These literally are the moments that keep a smile plastered on my face while I’m taking pictures!

My favorite!!!

Lei and Raimund are Catholic so having friends and family at Sebastian’s Baptism was incredibly important to them! With that comes a load of Godparents! Sebastian is going to be incredibly spoiled and will have so much support! Its amazing to see how many people love this little guy!

Ok, so this little girl absolutely cracked me up all day. She was so sweet, but very skeptical of everyone and everything she came into contact with. Introducing Miss Amelia. You will see later what I meant by she was cracking me up (you can see her giving Lei the stink eye right above this in the middle picture).

Like I said earlier, this fella had a whole crew that came to see his big day! This really shows a testament to how incredible Lei and Raimund are, not only as parents, but also as friends. They had so many people to share this day with and it really shows how loved they both are. I love the bottom left picture...all the ladies are cracking up and the fellas look less than amused!

See what I mean about cracking me up! She had a stare that could kill! Like I said...she was skeptical of everyone!

Onto the Baptism. I have to admit, this is my first Baptism that I have been to where I was old enough to understand (and actually care about) what was being said. It really opened my eyes to such an interesting way of looking at babies and the responsibility their parents and Godparents have, especially spiritually.

Now, normally any child would absolutely start squealing when they were submerged, but Sebastian was so flipping cute. Lei said he loved to take baths so she was hoping everything would go well. I don’t think you ask for a better result; no tears and no pee! :)

There is that silly hair again!

I want to sincerely thank both Lei and Raimund for entrusting me to capture this oh so important milestone in Sebastian’s life! I couldn’t have asked for a better first session to kick start one of the most important decisions of my life!