The Locket, fine arts and photography

Anytime: A funny

2009-10-28T21:41:00.000-07:00

I would guess that most people who read this blog know that I'm also a school teacher. I teach middle school and high school art and the kids more than keep me on my toes! A few weeks ago kids were running for student council and were allowed to hang signs to encourage people to vote for them. These two signs absolutely cracked me up! Every time I walked by these signs they made me laugh!

This little guy can "relly" help you out - just don't ask him to help you study for a spelling test.

I got a kick out of the creepiness of the face on this sign! And again, spelling is not their forte! But don't worry, if you vote for this student - happiness will surely follow!!!

Senior: Kayla

2009-10-14T20:50:00.001-07:00

Kayla came to us from Dubuque Hempstead High School. We shot her sister's pics a few years ago and her cousin's last year. Kayla and her mom were like a walking salon! Every time I turned around Kayla's mom had her throwing on a new top or switching out her accessories! Kayla's mother is a hair stylist in Dubuque and changed her hair in just minutes. I was so impressed at how fast these two could create such completely different looks in no time!

Kayla, I love your laugh and your dimples! You are a gorgeous young lady and The Locket wishes you tons of fun memories in your last year of high school!

Wedding: Lara and Chip

2009-10-13T11:18:00.000-07:00

For the most part, I think people know that the other half of The Locket, Sarah, got married last weekend and moved to Georgia! Holy cats, right!?! As scary as this is for me, I can't help but think I put the nails in my own coffin! When we were shooting a wedding last year I introduced Sarah to her now husband, Brent. Yikes! Brent was one of my high school classmates attending Lacey and James' wedding. Talk about my two worlds colliding! My high school classmate marrying my business partner and originally one of my high school art students! For real though - she married a wonderfully respectful and kind man - I just wish he hadn't taken her away from me!!! "Can someone please get me a tissue?" Just kidding, but with that being said, we are going to give it our best stab to book as many destination weddings as possible. We are so looking forward to shooting two weddings together we've booked in Hawaii and Rome in 2010. So, if anyone knows of friends/family having destination weddings, please send them our information! If anyone knows information or resources to help direct/guide people to our site as destination photographers, please contact us and let us know. I think after the hype of Sarah's wedding dies down, we'll create a completely different site that specifically features our work from and for destination weddings. Oh, I can't wait!!!

Miss Lara was one of the most gorgeous brides I've worked with! She was so stunning I decided to make a mini gallery of just Lara! Love this set!!!

Lara and Chip kept the tradition of not seeing each other before the ceremony so that first glimpse of each other was especially awesome! If you remember Lara and Chip's engagement session, these two are crazy tall and made an impressive statement as a bride and groom. I loved Lara's mother's sweet hat! Not everyone could pull that off as beautifully as she did!

Lara and Chip were married at Schwab Barns outside of Solon and the facility was nothing less than breath taking!!! Brides, I've heard the owner only allows a few weddings a year, but this round barn and the outside facilities were unbelievably gorgeous! As Lara's father explained in his speech that night, the day felt like a dream!

Engagement: Greg and Tracey

2009-10-12T14:09:00.000-07:00

Although I'm nervous I've lost all my followers after such an insane lack of posts, I. AM. ALIVE! In the craziness of losing my business partner, I still have many, many clients to complete work for as well as continue with new ones everyday. I have been trying so hard to stay afloat and in the midst of figuring out how to run a two person business with one person - something had to go. My college years of sleeping three or four hours a night have returned and something had to give. Blogging is something I love to do, especially to have the chance to tell stories, but it just slipped aside for a bit. While I'm nervous out of my mind of what is to come with my, "I've finally got a plan and know exactly what I want to do with my life," I'm trying with everything in my heart to stay focused on my dreams and trust that God will guide the rest of my life in the direction it needs to go. I'm behind. I'm scared. I'm exhausted. And I'm timid to trust. And even with those feelings of doubt, I ask for the courage to be confident in my business and patient to see the results. I want to refocus. I want to be refreshed. I want to serve.

Enough of that deep talk! I really do love what I do and am thankful for my blessings everyday - I'm just trying refocus my goals! So... without further ado, I post again with high hopes of keeping things updated. I've had lots of exciting and creative shoots lately so keep checking back for more!

The next series of shots is from a recent engagement shoot of Tracey and Greg. I met these two through my college roommate Minda. Minda is just getting her feet wet in a possible photography career and we are going to shoot their wedding together in Chicago this coming May and I can't wait to see everything they have planned. I'm so pumped to work at a new venue!

Tracey and Greg met while attending the University of Iowa and stopped by Iowa City on their way home to the Chicago area. We did a few shots at Quinton's because this is where they had their first date!

My Wedding: A Photography Workshop by Bob Davis!

2009-08-27T20:25:00.000-07:00

Okay, so now for the big news!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The workshop is finally released!

OUR WEDDING, a photography workshop by celebrity photographer, Bob Davis! Check it out!

http://davisworkshops.com/#/calandar/

Happy Thursday! Woot! :)

-Sarah

Wedding: Cameron and Liz

2009-08-14T11:51:00.000-07:00

~ Manson

Wow! What a gorgeous day Liz and Cameron! These two really lucked out and had the most BEAUTIFUL Iowa summer weather day ever!!!

I love this pic! Liz wanted her dress to be a complete surprise so I believe her sisters were the only people that had seen "the dress." I love the bridesmaids as they saw her for the first time!

The stunning bride!!!

I caught this photo during the ceremony.

The reception was held in Dubuque at the Julien and it was incredible!!! I was in love with the beautiful furniture!

Liz and Cameron kept the tradition of not seeing each other before the ceremony so snagged them away from the reception for a bit. I love the classic, a bit old fashioned look to these two!

And the cute flower girl was hamming it up for us too!!!

Anytime: Daniel and Caroline

2009-08-14T06:48:00.000-07:00

~ Manson

And the real reason they invited me over... to take photos of the kids with their new kitties! Daniel is really sweet with them and Caroline, she just grabs whatever part of the kitten she gets ahold of first - head, tail, fur! One time I turned around and she had climbed on top of a filing cabinet to get one of them! No fear! She has scratch marks everywhere!

This was my attempt at getting a photo of the two kids together! I have better ones but this one is hilarious!

My favorites from the day...

Senior: Chelsea

2009-08-13T16:48:00.000-07:00

~ Manson

Wow - this was an all time favorite senior shoot! Chelsea was a blast! She's actually in California right now checking out colleges for art next year - my kind of gal! Chelsea is our spokesmodel for the Maquoketa/Dubuque area this year. Chelsea loves art and is on the school dance team and found us through some girls we shot from her area in 08!

Over a year ago I posted several images from a gigantic fire that took out a huge portion of Maquoketa's downtown - well, the rubble is still there! The DNR and the city have been arguing about what to do with the asbestos-ridden mess so we took advantage of it for our background!

I loooove, love, love junkyards and all the unpredictable 'schtuff' they provide! You never know what you're going to find!!! Sarah and I have had some unique encounters at junkyards - and this one didn't let me down! Most of the time I don't ask for permission to do things which is my own "I think I'm more BA than I really am and that my mouth can talk me out of anything. Well for some reason I had my dad get permission from his buddy for us to shoot in this junk yard and it actually paid off this time! Once we were almost done shooting a cop car pulled up. Surprise, surprise! I really didn't give the officer a chance to say much before I said we had permission to be there. Even so, he said, "Well it is kind of out of place to see a girl in a fancy dress walking around a junk yard." Once I explained what we were doing he didn't have much to say and went on his way.

This is only a glimpse at this girl! We have several mini-shoots planned rather than one longer one so I'm pumped to work with her again! Tomorrow's FRIDAY!!!

Engagement: Lara and Chip

2009-08-07T07:57:00.000-07:00

~ Manson

Holy cats folks! Talk about MIA? We're sorry we've neglected the blog so much lately but heaven-sakes alive!!! We have been to more weddings in the last month than most people go to in their lifetime! It is a good thing we love it 'cause I am pooped! August and September are nothing short of nuts too but I'm determined to get some sweet new stuff up here because we have plenty of that!!! Soooo.... without further ado, we present Lara and Chip's engagement session!

How 'bout that sky, right? CA-RAZY!!! We could obviously see how awesome the sky was but clearly hadn't watched the weather forecast for that evening. My husband called in a panic, speaking of 75 mph winds and trees being uprooted in towns. We were probably a bit more daring than we should have been but we got some sweet shots nonetheless!

Queen Anne's lace - my fave!!! Side note: I remember using Queen Anne's Lace in a bouquet I took to our county fair and being disqualified because they considered it a WEED rather than a flower! It created a tiny uproar in my family!!!

Since we ended up getting chased home by the storm, we met up a couple days later and changed the look to a bit more colorful and urban!
Just an FYI, Chip is nearly seven feet tall, yes - SEVEN!!! And Lara is no shorty either being over six foot tall. Hmmmm, and I'm a staggering 5'2"! I'll just say... we brought a ladder!

I swear his legs alone were the length of my entire body!

Isn't Lara stunning? I just can't wait to see her in her wedding gown!

Bridal session: Bethany, St Simons Island

2009-07-28T09:02:00.000-07:00

So while I was visiting my fiance on St Simons Island I was able to do a bridal shoot, thanks to Brent.

We took these a week before she got hitched, so she is married now- congrats, girl!

Bethany totally worked it! See for yourself!

Can't wait to hang out with you some more, Bethany. You were a blast!

-Sarah

Wedding: Ferguson and Baumgart

2009-07-23T09:07:00.000-07:00

Our recent bride, Lindsay, went to high school with Manson and we had been booked and looking forward to this day for over a year! Brett and Lindsay - you didn't let us down! Our day was over 18 hours long but we wouldn't do it if we didn't love it!

The ladies were troopers! They started getting ready at 7:30 am!!!!! Thank you to William Wesley Salon in Davenport for letting us play around with our crazy ideas! The girls looked awesome!

hello ring!

this is my favorite putting the dress pic on ever! lindsay is just stunning!

We sure hope you're not stressed Grandpa!

I love that The Proposal was one of the movies!!!

Can you say B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L!!! Thanks for being the bride we dream of Lindsay! Willing to try all our ideas and not crazy paranoid about your dress! We loved working with you two!

HOTTT!!!

What an insane dress!!!!!!!!

An all-time fave fo-sho!

~Manson
So at the Grand River Center - it really is "grand"! I swear there had to be eight wedding receptions going on at the same time! Sarah got Lindsay out on the rocks and I starting looking for my spot to shoot from! A balcony!!! I made up my mind and knew I had to move fast! I took off, ducked under ropes, ran up the wrong side of the staircase, burst through the doors of another way fancy reception, walked through their party and out the back door onto the balcony. I didn't ask - I just went! I did get some crazy looks but nobody complained once they saw my GORGEOUS bride sprawled out on the rocks below!

Wedding: Cayton

2009-07-17T20:47:00.000-07:00

What a crazy weekend! Last week we had a Friday and Saturday wedding! Phew!!! Sunday Sarah left for a trip to Georgia and I left for a last minute getaway to New Orleans! I'm glad to be home with my boys (my hubby and pup) but am not excited about the ridiculous amount of emailing, editing, and just catching up on things we have to do!!!

Jim and Kris were married last Friday. I met Jim when I first moved to Kalona to teach as Jim taught social studies at the high school where I taught art. Kris is a doll and I love her laugh!

Kris is also a school teacher as well as many of the members of the bridal party so a school bus as a limo was quite fitting!!!

Child: Jade

2009-07-09T11:30:00.000-07:00

~ Manson

Oh my goodness - C - U - T - E!!! We took photos of Jade when she was born and now she's turned one already! Taking pics of a one-year-old is so tricky! They can move like crazy and have no idea what you're telling them to do. I teach school with Jade's mom and she and her husband were the best photo parents ever!!! They weren't worried about her getting dirty or wet - they let her play and do her thing, while we worked it and did our thing. It is nice to have parents around to help with smiles but it's tough when parents are worried about the little things. The best way to capture the personality of a child is to let them play in their surroundings. No poses, nothing perfect, no rules!

Keep checking back often - lots, lots, lots to blog!

Wedding Teaser: 4th of July Wedding, Wedding Plans

2009-07-06T10:36:00.000-07:00

Whoa!!!

Fun!

Wedding!

On the 4th! :)

Here's a little sneak peek:

This week will be a busy one! Edit, edit, edit!

I'm visiting my Brent in Georgia soon! Woot! :)
(which, by the way...if any photogs want to get together to meet or anyone wants to shoot give me a ring! 319 936 3760)
So one week from today I will be there. Can't wait! This long distance business isn't the most fun, but it helps us stay creative in the ways we tell each other we love one another. For example, I love getting snail mail and Brent is great about sending me letters that make my day. It will be great to get to see him in person though. It's been about a month and a half! We'll be getting things set for our wedding that will be in Georgia in October. We just need to confirm a thing or two, but we've got some exciting info on what's going to happen at our wedding! So, photographers especially, check back for more info! I'm so excited!!!

Happy Monday!

Sarah

Wedding: Amy and Kevin

2009-06-30T09:33:00.000-07:00

This couple rocks, seriously, they are awesome! We shot their engagement pics in Red Rock Canyon in Vegas.

For the hair and makeup, we met the ladies at Twin Image Salon Spa in Iowa City. All of their employees looked like models. If any of you Twin Image workers want a shoot we would be more than happy. Give us a ring :)

Then we went to the IMU hotel:

First look:
I love her reaction!

Some bridal party:
This group was pretty badass if I do say so myself :)

The Groom:

The ceremony was hotter than a pistol but was so emotional and beautiful at Danforth Chapel in Iowa City:

wiping tears :)

the whole day was tear-jerking

Some couple pics (we'll be adding to this tomorrow, so check back!):

I went with the fellas to the deadwood downtown IC:

Loved the flowers! When it comes to flowers we're very picky for some reason - this lady was awesome! If you're in need of a sweet lady with pretty flowers, contact Julie of Fountain Flowers at 319-629-5522.

There will be more from this wedding tomorrow! :)

-The Locket Ladies

Anytime: Rainy Pictures!!

2009-06-24T13:44:00.000-07:00

A BIG thank you to Randy, my future father-in-law for finding someone who would let me shoot them last minute in the rain! I have been wanting to do this for the longest time! And another big thanks to Kelli and her friend Adam for modeling for me! You guys are rockstars!

Yay! Now I can check that one off of my list! Double woot!

:)

-Sarah

Wedding: Christine and Mike

2009-06-23T15:15:00.000-07:00

Prep!

Couple pics! Christine had some ideas and locations picked out, which was super helpful!
Mike and Christine did the cutest blindfolded first sight. loved it!

The adorable flower girl showing me her flowers:

The rings:

And bouquet:

The ceremony:

Wooo! All done!

Here are some fun bridal party shots:
This one reminds me of Fonzie. "heeeeeyyyyyy!"

Here are some fun reception shots!
Erin got these ones:
The bridal party was SOOO fun! What a great group!

And this cutie made me want to have these little outfits for my ring bearers for my wedding! Love the converse!

Manson was cracking up for a good 10 minutes after she saw this happen:
Who would've guessed he could still go that low?!

Manson was kind enough to let me experiment with my pocket wizard while she got some of the shots with more traditional light.

The flower girl and ring bearer think their getting hitched next! They were so cute the whole day!

and this one was lucky! I felt a dip coming so I quickly ran to the other side of the couple so I could get the flare. BAM!

And I want to end with a big thank you to Carie for saving the wedding day.
Carie has been shadowing us and will be helping at a couple of weddings that Manson and I are splitting for.
She was taking a picture and kneeled in a pile of poop.
She got up and didn't complain and said, "That could've been the bride! I just saved this wedding!"
Thanks for taking one for the team. Too bad you were wearing white. ha!

Have a wonderful evening, folks ;)

Engagement: More Chad and Allyson

2009-06-19T18:46:00.001-07:00

~ Manson

Phew!!! What a CRAZY day! As I was finishing up editing this session, it started to storm. Even though I only had about ten pics to finish up, I saw lightning and quickly shut down and unplugged my computer. I had sat at my computer all morning and even though the air was on, I had the window open a crack because I love to hear rain! After I shut my computer off I ran downstairs to turn my husband's new laptop off. Once I did that I went to the basement to be sure he shut off his desktop. As I was in the basement it started storming a million times worse and I could see water building up in the window wells. I walked over to the windows and realized it was already leaking through the floor into the carpet. My husband pulled the carpet up and I sprinted to the upstairs bathroom for towels. When I ran by my office I saw an even worse DISASTER!!! My 30" Mac was drenched!!! HOLY CRAP!!! (Sorry for the excessive exclamation points but they'll soon be justified!) This wasn't just kind of drenched either! Soaked! The crack the window was open must have blown WAY open in that five minute time span I ran downstairs to shut the other computers off. We have strange windows too - they open outward rather than up and down??? Regardless, my monitor, tower, new desk as of two days ago, external hard drive, and clear to my closet door were absolutely soaked. Thank goodness I had unplugged things before I originally left the room. I was so freaked out I didn't know what to do first. I had come upstairs to get towels for the basement and now this!!! All kinds of old photos I inherited from my grandfather from the early 1900's were wet too (and they were miles from the window). Unbelievable!!! So I frantically dry things off, freaking out the entire time - I just had to leave things to dry, say some mega prayers and go back to the basement problem.

My husband left in a panic to buy a ShopVac and I decided the only thing that would help would be to get rid of the water in the window wells. I crawled down into the well and began to shovel water and mud like crazy. I was drenched, scraped up, and pooped out but it helped. Our neighbors must have thought I was nuts! I'll skip to the good part - as of now, everything WORKS!!! The Lord is good - very, very good! We keep sucking up water in the basement and water leaked from my office floor through the kitchen ceiling but I think we have it under control. Now I just have to find new glasses because mine fell on the cement during the water scooping episode (and now have a chip right in the middle of the lens). Sorry for the vent session but that was crazy stressful and could have been a tremendously different outcome!

Sooo.... on to those pics I finally finished! Here's a few of my faves from Chad and Allyson's engagement session last week! They are getting married in Chad's home church because Allyson's is too small. Their wedding is this summer and they have arranged for us to take photos at Allyson's little white country church before the ceremony and I can't wait!

Many people have asked on my facebook page where this is at. This nutszoid stick weaving is at Ada Hayden Park in Ames, IA, and was created by Patrick Doughterty. One of my favorite all-time artists is Andy Goldsworthy and this strongly represents the outdoor sculptures he does! If you're interested, click on this link to see more pics of the incredible work of Patrick Dougherty.

Thanks to Allyson's sister, Ashley (our upcoming Hawaii bride), for recommending this site for photos! I think it'd be a fun field trip for my art students next year!

Advice for the day: Don't leave your windows open when it's raining (not even a crack) (not even for five minutes)!!!!!!!!!

Engagement: Allyson and Chad

2009-06-19T08:59:00.000-07:00

Whoa! The weekend was so fun when we shot these photos!

We went and spent the night on a Sunday night with our January bride, Ashley, who is Allyson's sister.

On our night with Ashley we got to sit and chat with her and Rick about their destination wedding in Hawaii that we will be shooting in January. Yep, you heard it...HAWAII! We got to flip through photo books about Kauai that were more than enough to make ANY photographer drool all over the pages. Manson and I stayed up laughing and talking afterwards because we were on such a high from all the Kauai excitement!

Oh goodness we're so excited!

!!!!!!

Ashley will send us random fun emails that always make our day. We were not disapointed one bit when we met her sister Allyson for our Monday shoot. We knew she would be wonderful as well!

Check out some of what I got!

This was my favorite! Allyson was so stinkin' cute laughing the whole shoot!

here's a pic of manson getting a super cool angle. all i can say is im glad i was on this side of her. ;P

Yay! It's FRIDAY!

:)

-Sarah

Anytime: Crazy Cool Sky

2009-06-16T08:16:00.000-07:00

~ Manson

When I shoot weddings I sort of lose track of everything! I forget what time it is, sometimes I forget to eat, and I shut my phone off from my outside world! Saturday's wedding was the best eye candy for a photographer ever - beautiful bride, gorgeous details, unique accessories and decorations!!! Oh, I love my job!!! Well, evidently my parents called and I didn't notice until they called back the following day. My husband and I were on our weekly trip to Target after church on Sunday and my dad called! He said my family and all of our extended family were having a picnic on our farm. I hate to miss out on things so we actually just left our cart right there and went straight to our house. We had planned a cookout with friends at our house that day too so my husband stayed behind to get ready and I went on my way to my parents place. Sunday was a gorgeous day for a drive and I had a great time four wheeling and spending time with the best family in the world!!! On my drive back home I stopped alongside the road about ten times to take photos of the crazy, crazy cool sky!!!

Gotta jet! Tons of editing to do!

Wedding: Nichole and Grant

2009-06-15T07:53:00.000-07:00

Wow. These guys were awesome! They took such good care of us. Thank you guys for being so wonderful!
Check out some pics from Saturday! Oh, and by the way - we loooove, love, love comments!
Pre Wed:

The girls got their hair done at Inspirations, Salon and Spa in Cedar Rapids.

Some bridal shots:

and we brought along the flower girl:

Ceremony:

Brides, if you still need a musician for your wedding - Dana Starkell, a classical guitarist out of the Quad Cities area, was fabulous!!!

The wedding site was GORGEOUS!!! It was held at Honey Creek Acres, an orchard near Swisher.

I liked this one of the guys:

Couple pics:

The reception was in Solon at the Brosh Community Center. We loved the site - the meal was inside and the dance was outside!!!

this little guy was throwing rocks into the water by the bonfire. when i put my camera to my face he got all serious on me. what a sweetie!

She threw the bouquet off a balcony!!!

after the bouquet toss:

and a couple pic to end:

Firefly experiment!

2009-06-12T06:25:00.001-07:00

Happy Friday everyone!

Last night I made an attempt to shoot fireflies! I have never really shot with a long shutter speed before. So I borrowed a tripod and accidentally broke it. yikes! (Randy if you're reading this I owe you a tripod!)

So anywho-- it was hard to keep the shutter open a while without a tripod without getting a blurry shot. I realize this isn't the most wonderful picture in the world, but i just want to share what I've been up to. I would love to incorporate a couple or a child in something like this. So sometime in the next week I am going to give a try to that. Should be interesting. I will let you know if I get any shots that aren't too embarrassing to post. You have to start somewhere I guess!

If any of you photogs out there have any tips for this let me know! :)

Peace!

-Sarah

I shot this at:
FStop 7.1
Exposure time 13
And I played around with the ISO

Perfect Wedding Shoes and Other Random Updates...

2009-06-10T13:50:00.000-07:00

-Sarah

Well, on Monday when Erin and I went shopping we found the perfect wedding shoes.
Gladiator shoes!
Woot!
I fell in love with them and then later found out they were on sale! God is good!
I snagged these pics from aldoshoes.com

There are some stones on my dress and I wanted some funky shoes, so basically these are exactly what I was hoping for!
And, I also ordered some higher than high purple heels (yay for having a tall man) that I will wear for a portion of the day.
So the wedding will be 4 months from TODAY. 1/3 of a year away... one hundred and twenty-two days! Well however you want to say it... Yikes!.... gotta get on my planning...
We decided colors...plum, brown, gold accents and, of course, white will be involved.
We decided on having it on driftwood beach on Jekyll Island where he proposed, but are reconsidering because of our budget (or lack of!)
Any stupendous planning ideas or ways to save? I would looooove to hear them! And if I find any good ideas I will surely post them. It's mostly the reception part that I am concerned with.
All this wedding planning business is strange! I am so used to just showing up at weddings.

-Sarah

Wedding: Angeles and Jaimie

2009-06-10T07:30:00.000-07:00

Thank you to Kenny Kim who invited me to shoot with him on Saturday in Chicago. I met Kenny last year at the Vegas Love Story Workshop. It was fun to see how Kenny works at a wedding. He is fast, efficient, and in charge! He nails the shot every time. The man knows his stuff! It was a great opportunity and learning experience for me. Thanks for that, Kenny. You da man! Good times! :)
Angeles and Jaimie were a great couple and the wedding party was so fun! It was also great to go and shoot and have no pressure whatsoever. Kenny took care of the group shots and all of the main stuff and all of my work will just be extra. I got to just play around with camera settings and have a good time.
I also met Gina DeConti who is hilarious, wonderful, kind, and a fantastic photographer.
Kenny and Gina- I can't wait to work with you guys again sometime.
Woot!
Thanks for checkin the blog :)
-Sarah

I love the hairspray shot every time.

Happy Wednesday!
:) Sarah

Engagement: Michael and Ashley

2009-06-09T22:02:00.000-07:00

~ Manson

I've gotta jet this morning so I'll write more about this session later - just wanted to get some pics up for today!!!

Check out the sweet reflection up top! I didn't even notice till I was home editing!