My Family!!

My Family!!

Sunday, February 27, 2011

TAX EXEMPT!!!!

I would like to announce that it is official. After waiting and much hard work from our Project Sweet Peas board members, Project Sweet Peas is officially a501(c)3 tax exempt non-profit organization! I have mentioned before that PSP is a non-profit, but we finally have our tax exempt status now! what does this mean? Anyone who sends a donation to Roses From Rosalynn (or any other local PSP project for that matter) will be mailed the paper work to apply it to their taxes at the end of the year. It gets better! If you donated since I got Roses From Rosalynn up and running (around OCT/NOV) and you have not filed your 2010 taxes, you can message me and I will send you the form for last year. I am thrilled to be a part of this amazing group of women who are so dedicated to helping other families in  time of need.

This tax exempt status will hopefully open doors wide for more donations from bigger companies, along with grants. Let's get Roses from Rosalynn all through Ohio, and Project Sweet Peas in all 50 states! If you are interested in starting your own local project, email me, or log onto Projectsweetpeas.com and send an email their way and express your interest.

Thank you everyone for your continued support and generosity!

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Need Advice for the Future ....and More Photos

I think it is time that I establish a website for my photos. I started this blog for my Rose, and although she is the one that inspired my photography and my new "live like today is your last" mentality which in turn has inspired me to pursue actually trying to make some sort of living off of my new found talent and passion. However, it is quickly turning into a photography website now. I know you all love my photographs, but as I was thinking about it, I realized that some of you are still in a place with your grief that seeing pictures of babies or (hopefully soon) pregnant bellies may be a little much. I decided it is about time to establish my Irish Eyes Photography website. Now, I am still working of finding out if I can use that name, and then I will have to pay for the rights, but in the meantime, I figured I could start researching website designs/designers. I want this to be a real site, not just a blog. I want a slide show as of my best work as when the potential customer first clicks on the link, and then separate tabs for Senior pictures, baby pictures, family photos, etc. That way they can get a feel for each individual category. Then of course I want a tab for pricing, for I am hoping to start charging for my services around May or June. Until I get the website up and running, I will continue to post my photos here, but I will warn when there are baby pictures involved (by the way, there are some way at the bottome of this post).

Here is where you come in. First, do any of you know a good website designer, or are any of you good at this? Second, what do you think are reasonable prices for a photographer to charge? I have been doing some research on this, and the prices seem to be all over the place. I find some charge per hours for a sitting fee, others a flat rate, some have packages, and others do ala carte style (so much for sitting fee, so much for each picture, if you want another hour or an additional clothing change, etc). what do you think? To give you an idea of what goes into a simple senior picture shoot, I recently had another shoot. She changed clothes three times, we went to three different locations (one of the locations we used 3 or 4 different settings...so I don't know if this counts as 3 or 6/7 different settings). It took approximately an hour and a half for the entire shoot. I have to admit, the more I do this, the more proficient I am becoming with my equipment, and the quicker these shoots are going. The majority of the time invested comes after the shoot. It took me about 3 hours to download, do some BASIC editing, and post the pictures to my facebook/blog. This does NOT include the burning of the disc, and the time it would take to order prints for the family. Based off of that information, what do you think I should do?
Since I KNOW you want to see the pictures, here they are:










 Can you see the improvement in my photos? I really can! Also, here are my latest photoshop adventures, I am becoming better skilled at it too!




Original
Photoshop

Photoshop
Original

Original
photoshop (softened, matte added, scratches and blemishes removed)


Original

Phtoshop (Softened, matte, and scrathces removed from face)

orignal
Photoshop! LOVE this effect!!!

Original


photoshop!


Dancing the Night Away!

Foster and I attended the annual Ohio National Guard Winter Dinner and Dance. They decided to hold it in a hotel this year, making it convenient and safer for those who wanted to drink and have a little fun. Foster and I had tossed the decision back and forth on whether to get a room. We decided that if I was not pregnant this month ( I would have found out 7 days before the ball), then we would get a room so that neither one of us had to be the responsible adult and drive us home. I have to admit, although I would love nothing more than to have Rosalynn here, or be pregnant with her brother or sister, it is the little things like this that make me look on the positive side of not having children to worry about. (I have to look at the bright side to keep myself sane).

I had to work the night before so I was afraid I would be exhausted. I had to get my nails done before my hair appointment with the girls at 2pm. I woke up at 11 and rolled myself out of bed, headed to the salon, and got a manicure and pedicure. Foster packed our bags, and when I got back we headed towards the hotel. I met the girls at the salon, and the hair artists commenced on out locks. They hair style came out beautiful!!



MINE! LOVE IT!!
Foster and a few of the guys decided to head to a local bar and start drinking while watching rugby while I headed to the next step in my transformation, makeup! If you remember I told you I was going to go to Macy's to get my makeup done, well, they did not have a MAC counter at this Macy's so I went to the Lancome counter instead. As I mentioned, I spent WAY more than their minimum, but I came away with some great skin products. I really need to switch up my skin regimen after the pregnancy because my skin has not been the same, and I have quite a few more wrinkles than I did a year ago.

As I was getting my makeup done, my best friend JJ showed up because she just happened to be int he area. We got to talk and hang out for a little bit, it had been WAY too long!

Once the prep work was done, foster and I went to the hotel room where Mr and Mrs Prince met up with us for a few cocktails prior to the event. This is when I snuck into the bedroom to put the finishing touches to my look, I put on the dress and jewelry. When I emerged from the bathroom, Foster's jaw dropped. He was so pleased with the look I had put together, and even admitted that the money was worth it because I looked "Beautiful, classy and stunning". I will show you this picture, but Foster is not happy, because he is missing his jacket, but it is the ONLY full length picture I have of my dress. Make sure to check out the shoes!

Foster and I all dressed up! (minus his jacket:-)

Mr and Mrs Prince
Foster goofing off

Who knows! they were messin with the camera!
When we went downstairs tot eh ball, there were TONS of people there. I thoroughly enjoy going to these events, because I am such a social butterfly. Everyone from the first FEMALE Ohio TAG was present, to the CSM of the Ohio Army National Guard. The TAG informed me that regardless of whether Foster was able to attend this year's NAGUS conference in Milwaukee, I was coming. "Well yes Ma'am!" I responded as we both started laughing. I don't know how I can say no to that, so I guess I am attending the conference in August!

When I went looking for people from my unit, they were nowhere to be found. I know I have a small unit, but I was kind of hoping at least one of the officers would be present. I stopped by to talk to my Battalion Commander, and asked her if she knew where my unit was seated, and she said "You are it!". I laughed and told her I left my uniform at home and it was too small anyway.

Of course I came armed with my camera, and got some great photos!
The boys!

Our new FIRST FEMALE TAG and her hubby!

love these guys!

and them too! look at her heals! Hot!

Foster is taking us BOTH to the ball next year since her hubby will be deployed:-) We are getting matching dresses and she is dying her air red...then it will be his ultimate fantasy!
The funniest story of the night was when Foster ate the leftovers off his boss' wife's plate! She had a whole piece of salmon she didn't even touch, and I guess all the drinking had made Foster hungry, so he asked her a total of three times if she minded if she was SURE she wasn't going to eat it, and she insisted he take it, but of course as soon as he ate it, we would not let him live it down. From what I hear, his boss is still teasing him about it at work, and making TALL tails out of the story, jokingly saying Foster stole the food and was eating off of every one's plates. I warned him they would never let him live that down! Of course we took a picture of him pretending to take her dessert too!





His boss is hilarious and always likes to tease Foster because of how well he takes it!

Around 1 AM Foster was about to drop. I took him upstairs and tucked him into bed and then headed back down to the hotel bar to spend more time with the girls! We sat by an outdoor fire and chatted with the CSM (Command Sergeant Major) for about another hour. He was stationed with Foster on their last deployment, and for a while we were chatting and every time I mentioned something about myself, he would respond "I know,"

I responded, "Now, I know since I am in the Army there are things that you can find out that way, but how the heck do you know some of these personal things?!?!"

He said, "Well, Foster told me so much about you! He talked about you for a year straight and I probably know more about you than you can imagine."

That scares me just a little bit! But at the same time, it was flattering to know that Foster talked so much about me while he was deployed, and to such an important man. By the end of the evening we were toasting champagne, and I learned a lot more about him too, so I didn't feel so odd.

Overall it was a pretty amazing night, and I really enjoyed spending such a special night with Foster. I am already looking forward to next year's ball!

Monday, February 21, 2011

Beautiful Babies

This was the latest baby shoot I took this past weekend. I have to admit, they are the cutest little girls, however, the baby was sooooooo fussy. I was really disappointed, because although I was able to get some amazing shots (some pure luck!) I had some other ideas I wanted to test out on this little one, and there was no chance to. I understand why A.) there are not that many baby photographers around this area, and B.) Why they charge so much for it. There is an immense amount of patience needed to pull newborn shoots off. I enjoy it though, so I will continue to have patience, since it is a virtue;-) Without further ado, here are my favorites:













 

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