No, the blog was not abandoned. Being an army of one much of the time, keeping up with all this tech stuff isn’t easy. Here’s to trying to keep things up better.

I hope you’ll enjoy these pictures of baby Cameron and her family. There is just something about babies. Those tiny toes, the little yet strong finger… Cameron’s family is certainly enjoying their newest addition, and you can clearly see why. She’s as sweet as can be.

As for motherhood, I know this… that until I became a mother myself, I had no idea how much mom mother loved me. And how truly deep love could go. I’d like to wish Cameron’s mommy, and all the other mommies out there a truly wonderful Mother’s Day.

A Mother’s love is something
that no on can explain,
It is made of deep devotion
and of sacrifice and pain,
It is endless and unselfish
and enduring come what may
For nothing can destroy it
or take that love away . . .
It is patient and forgiving
when all others are forsaking,
And it never fails or falters
even though the heart is breaking . . .
It believes beyond believing
when the world around condemns,
And it glows with all the beauty
of the rarest, brightest gems . . .
It is far beyond defining,
it defies all explanation,
And it still remains a secret
like the mysteries of creation . . .
A many splendoured miracle
man cannot understand
And another wondrous evidence
of God’s tender guiding hand.
-Helen Steiner Rice, A MOTHER’S LOVE

I confess that I’m not able to get our family portraits done as often as we’d like and should. Like the expression of the Cobbler’s children being the ones without shoes, I’ll use the excuse that we’re too busy taking other families portraits. That, or before you know it, life gets in the way. Well, the Goodales had finally scheduled our own family portraits session. We determined a date and a time that would work out perfect, when a couple days before… Life stuck. Charlie was sitting at the bottom of the ladder of his bunk bed when he stood up only to learn that his feet decided not to help. He fell face first on the edge of a Rubbermaid box that he keeps his Legos in. My poor baby. At least he didn’t get seriously hurt. Now our family portraits have been postponed, but we WILL get them taken.

Charlie's scratch

SPEAKING OF CHARLIE…
A little over a month ago, my little guy decided to go from a long-haired surfer boy, to a buzz-cut buddy. He told us he wanted to have his hair cut like his friend’s father, who happens to shave his head. He said he was sure that’s what he wanted, so Chris took care of it for him. Here are some pictures from it. Personally, the one where he’s in the middle of the new do cracks me up. It looks like he’s got a bad case of mange. LOL

Take a look at the lovely Anne and her 3 handsome boys! As if being cute wasn’t enough, these boys are also the sweetest kids around. Anne and I became close when I was photographing Aliah & Travis’s wedding in Mexico a couple years ago. We had a great time then, and the time has finally come when we would be able to make Anne and her young men the subjects in the camera. It was an ideal session, lots of fun, with real smiles and happy hearts captured in the images. Now, I just need to hope that perhaps Anne’s boys will be willing to play with my little munchkins so some of their extra good manners will rub off on my guys.

It’s that time of year again. The Lakeside Rodeo is about to get underway in my hometown of Lakeside. Along with the pageant for the Miss Rodeo Lakeside 2010. I’ve had the pleasure of photographing more than a few of the wonderful people on the rodeo circuit, and it’s such a treat. This year, Donna have been honored with the getting to take the portraits of ALL the Miss Rodeo Lakeside 2010 contestants.

I confess that when I was a kid, I thought the entire Lakeside Western Days that come with the rodeo where all happening for my birthday. Can you say egocentric? Don’t worry, I’ve gotten better. And besides, my parents feed that idea to me. Since it all happens around my birthday, I think my parents used the parade, carnival and the rodeo as my birthday party activities. It was a long time ago, and long before the jumpie parties of today, so you can’t blame them.

Good luck to each of the contestants. Any of them would be a wonderful representative of Lakeside.

To see this even larger, go to http://video214.com/play/dtx1FfDZsDsGUYg70SCltQ/s/dark?res=hq

Miss Rodeo Lakeside 2010 from Geri Goodale on Vimeo.

Some days are just blessed, and that’s how the wedding day of Mike & Kathleen seemed. Perfect day, a couple deeply in love, all wrapped up in the warmth and tenderness of family and friends. Their wedding was beautiful and took place a Point Loma Nazarene University, and their wedding reception, held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, was one of the best. Not because it was the biggest, because it wasn’t, it was simply and sincerely a lot of fun. Capturing priceless moments between people is what gets us excited about what we do. Moments between the bride and groom are beyond exquisite, but there’s more than that at a wedding. Like the moment below of Kathleen and her father. When a father sees his baby girl on her wedding day and has to hold back the tears… that’s that kind of moment that bring a tear to our eyes too.

Here’s to Kathleen & Mike and a Marriage Blessed!

Donna and I went out for a day of play with many fabulous San Diego and Orange County area photographers. It was a great time having the chance to join up with the San Diego Photog Shootout for their January outing. Interacting with this community of photographic artists, and having what has to be some of the hottest models on this earth to work with… how can you have a bad day.

No, it’s not the kind with facials and saunas, but it certainly is a place for rejuvenation. Senior Portrait Artists (SPA - pronounced spah) is a membership organization on a constant quest to provide information for the high school senior photographer in a creative, artistic, and innovative form from both inside and outside the photography industry.

SPA is dedicated to renewing creativity and sparking not only the evolution of photography and design, but also the revolution of style. Reminisce is thrilled to now be member, and to have been one of a limited number of photography studio that attended the 2010 SPA Event.

About that Event… The SPA Event is one that travels the nation, and in 2010, they came to America’s Finest City, and held right here at the Hotel Del Coronado. Photographers from all over the county, and 15 national winning models descended on our fine city to teach, learn, inspire, and of course, photograph those winning models. Perhaps 2011’s Event will include a model found by Reminisce.

Until then, enjoy some photos from this years event.

excited photographers during one of the fashion shoots

Shocking.
I know.
Two blog posts in 24 hours…please do not think I {Donna} am going to start spoiling you like this on a daily basis. Consider this a New Year’s gift!

An incredible story I want to share with you…

I was honored to be asked by Ralph to secretly photograph him asking his girlfriend Jill to marry him. There were unusual cicrumstances around how Ralph was given my name and I had thought long and hard about refusing the request. Fortunately Geri talked sense into me and I photographed the big moment. It was the most incredible, heart-felt session I think I have ever photographed.

I used my daughter as a decoy and she ran up and down the beach pretending I was photographing her when in reality I was photographing Jill and Ralph. Once he proposed to Jill and he explained what I was really doing there…we did some more portraits of the two of them as the sun went down. I can tell you that I have never seen two people more suited for each other or more in love during the time I spent with them.

If anyone is familiar with my past, you might have heard my stories about the times I have believed to have captured “orbs” or spiritual light sources during weddings that have always had reasonable explanations of who the orbs represented. I was viewing Ralph and Jill’s images later that night and my sister was standing over my shoulder. I came to the one picture that was the moment of truth…when he pulled out the ring. My sister can tell you I think I visibly gasped because in that one image out of hundreds…there is an orb that stands out. Instead of rewriting this…I am going to attach the email I sent to Ralph with the picture attached. It tells the story better than me retelling it.

It is long but so worth the read!!

Enjoy!

Hi Ralph…

Thank you for letting me be a part of your day…I believe it was for a reason.

Embarassingly enough…it has been so long since we posted anything on this blog that I forgot how to log in to do so! Fortunately…Geri and I have been blessed…we have been busy leading fun, frantic lives these last few months! We have photographed amazing weddings, an actual engagement, family sessions and events that we need to post and share with you guys! Geri is off to a photographer’s event tomorrow called SPA at the Hotel Del and I can not wait to see what she brings back for us to use this next year. I love the goodies Geri always seems to find for us!

I spoke with Geri tonight and we were both in the midst of getting our children ready to go back to school after Christmas break…we both realize how lucky we are that our children go to school every day so we can focus on renewing our energy towards our business. We are really excited for things to come.

I am not going to tell you one of my New Year’s Resolutions was to get totally updated on this blog but I am going to at least attempt to share at least one picture from all of the fabulous sessions we photographed these past few months.

I was privileged enough to be chosen by my three wonderful sisters to photograph their children for their Christmas cards and presents this year. It was a true delight to see how gorgeous my nephews and nieces have grown up to be (yes…I can include my stunning daughter Cassi in this also!). We had a great time at Griffin Park photographing and everyone was thrilled with how the session turned out.

Approximately six years ago, we attempted the same session and my niece MacKenzie, who was quite the precocious one, would not cooperate for the session. The family portrait that has hung in my Mom and Dad’s living room for the last 6 years is a 16×20 image with all family members struggling to smile as we waited for MacKenzie to cooperate. She never did and the family portrait was taken with just the back of MacKenzie’s head. I have to admit that it is probably the most cherished family portrait we have. I share that story with sessions because, as unperfect as that portrait is hanging on my Mom’s wall…it is a family moment in our history. My family is imperfect and the portrait captured that for us that day!

We recreated the portrait this time…tongue in cheek…since it is such a family heirloom for us.

Enjoy!