Objectives: to photograph the amazingly talented and gorgeous Perry Vaile of Perry Vaile Photography alongside her handsome husband Shawn. Also, to photograph the slightly elusive and slightly adorably-crosseyed cat Lexie. Also, to photograph the previous racing dogs learning how to be precious house dogs Huckleberry and Finnigan. This was the mission I accepted at their house. The second mission was to go to Perry’s neighbor’s farm down the road and photograph them there… where there happened to be the most adorable miniature donkeys ever.  Now, I’m not sure that “ever” really describes it as I’m fairly certain that miniature donkeys ANYWHERE would be the cutest ever, but, you know what I mean. So the house mission combined with the farm mission was total cuteness overload and WAY too much cute to photograph in 2 hours… so just know that I tried, Perry, but your family is way, way too cute… and thus this was only a glimpse into its cuteness.

I was super honored to be chosen by Perry to photograph her family this year as she is a WONDERFUL photographer and I was crazy nervous a bit like this. She and Shawn were so amazingly sweet to me and made me feel perfectly comfortable though… and I’m so happy to have worked on this for them!

This lovely client found her way to me by inquiring about real estate photography for one of her clients. I referred her to someone else, and shortly after received another e-mail from her… this time asking me to take her portraits. :) When she told me about her company and products, I was so excited. Stephanie Wetzel is the brains and beauty behind Trading Pounds, a business centered around her recent weight loss (she’s lost over an amazing 170 pounds so far since January 2010!). She’s already written and published one cookbook and is in the process of writing her second. Trading Pounds includes a blog, free e-books, and other personal coaching tools. Stephanie wanted some new photos to show her kick-butt new look and I was more than happy to help. She’s a ridiculously fun girl who has two cats, is a self-described nerd, and whose favorite recipe is pot pie with rosemary. :)

Along with her entourage (manager Elise and best friend Travis), we went into the naturey parts of a local park per her request to photograph Stephanie looking gorgeous. This was my first shoot of 2012… held on one of the coldest days in Raleigh I’ve encountered in a long time… and we all had very limited motion in our extremities by the end of the shoot. :D Thank you for your bravery, Stephanie… and for your awesomeness and help, entourage! 

 

So our friend Amber of Raimbow Tree made some new awesome  headbands, hats, gloves, and other adorable crafty things for spring! Of course, this called for a spring version of our previous post with Alaskan Kate and Raimbow Tree.  Amber brought a giant tub full of gear, dressed Kate up, and we trekked out into a field to have our product/model photo shoot! I was super excited to hang out with my ladies, root through all of Amber’s awesome new products, and photograph Kate… who needs basically no instruction whatsoever (except to NOT look at Amber or Geoff because one of them would crack up and we’d have to start all over). We had a great time and, despite Kate’s serious and soultry model face, we laughed our way through all of this.

Raleigh portrait photographer

Raleigh portrait photographers

Raleigh product photographer

Raleigh model photographer

Raleigh model photographer

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Kate, who’s a teacher, looks like she’s about to go kick Rainbow Brite’s butt in these pictures. I think it’s the headband coupled with the socks.

portrait photographer

Lifestyle Photographer Raleigh

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model photography raleigh

THIS HEADBAND RULES. And thank you, awesome wind, for helping with these shots.

Raimbow Tree

Model photographer North Carolina

HAHAHA We all titled the following shots as Emerging because of the following:

Amber: Hey… why don’t we get one like, you know, of you emerging from the woods?

Kate: …Like what?

Amber: Like, get back into the woods… and just come out!

Carolyn: Grab onto those branches! Look up and to the right!

Amber: And just… come out!! We need more movement!!

Kate: WHAT?!

Hahahaha. I love the way these turned out despite me and Amber shouting contradicting directions at Kate while she emerged from the woods, hahaha. Cracks me up.

Model Photographer Raleigh NC

Raleigh photographer

Raimbow Tree

The shots below are titled The Post-Apocolyptic Shoe which we thought was very Anthropologie… and they’ll probably steal this idea as soon as they see it. This came about via the following:

Kate: There’s a gnarled, chewed-up shoe back there.

Amber: Let’s use it!

Carolyn: Really?

::Amber pokes the shoe a few times with the end of a stick and very carefully picks it up by the tip of the stick and hands it to Kate::

Amber: Here it is! Don’t let the gloves touch it.

Carolyn: Okay! Well. Um. Put the shoe over your shoulder. Look at me. Okay good, now look down at the shoe. Perfect.

HAHA.

Raimbow Tree

Lifestyle portrait photographer

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NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC.

Raleigh portrait photographer

Raleigh portrait photographer

Head on over to Amber’s Raimbow Tree Etsy store to see more of her awesome stuff!