One photography-type note: I did some photoshopping to these pics, but not much. I hesitate to point it out even, but Heather got her knees wet (so did I!) playing in the grass with Addy, so I had to do some magic to her jeans in the photos! How did I do? :-)

On to the photos of this sweet family!

Not so. Why? I'm at a weird mid-range place where I charge much less then the photographers who own their own physical studios and employ staff to book gigs and process their work. But I also charge more then the people who are trying their hand at photography and are quoting potential clients fees that make it barely worth their time to do the gigs.

Case and point: I was asked to quote a wedding this week, and the package included an engagement session. Right now I am including regular engagement sessions as a freebie if people book a wedding with me, which saves my clients $150. However, this engagement session was to take place at one of my favorite mountain lakes.... two and a half hours from my house. That is 5 additional hours that day committed to photography for the couple, so while I discounted the whole package by $150, I did charge for travel time.

While I was excited about the location for both the engagement and wedding pictures, and I felt that my personality was a good match for the couple, ultimately then went with someone they found on craigslist who is doing the whole thing for practically nothing. I figured with the travel time, time taking photos, and hours and hours of post-processing for both sessions.... their photographer is making $15 an hour.

I started out the same way that these photographers did, so I completely understand the need to underbid for the sake of booking any wedding they can get. I'm lucky in that this photography job is my passion, not my livelihood, but it is still disheartening to lose fun gigs because people are willing to gather quotes, then just take the lowest one regardless of skill or experience.

So here I am with a decision to make. Do I make the leap and start advertising in order to increase interest, or do I just bag the whole thing and go back to taking pictures for fun? I'd hate to do that because I really do love being able to offer people the opportunity to have beautiful pictures of their families to put on their wall.... without having to pay a ton of money or deal with people at JCPenny who have no other qualification besides the ability to hit the shutter release.

And if I do decide to advertise, how in the world am I going to pay for it, and how do I start? Until I've been completely self-sufficient doing all my own sales tax processing, creating and maintaining my own website, meeting with clients, doing all the necessary paperwork, and I even do all my own processing, which is getting rarer these days.

So, a dilema.

So... I feel perfectly comfortable that I'm not saying this egotistically: I made hands down the best brownies ever this week. Have you ever had Fairytale Brownies? Yeah, I made brownies to rival those this week. I'm going to laminate this recipe, possibly frame it and put it up in the kitchen so it's close at hand. They are dense, and moist and cakey with a perfect flakey top. Chocolate perfection.

Here it is, the recipe for the best brownie EVER (which I got here):

- 8 - 1 oz squares of unsweetened chocolate

- 1 cup butter

- 5 eggs

- 3 cups sugar

- 1 tablespoon vanilla

- 1-1/2 cups flour

- 1 teaspoon salt

- 2-1/2 cups chopped pecans or walnuts, toasted (I left them out because we have a girl w/ a nut allergy at work)

Prep:

Preheat oven to 375 deg F. Grease a 9x13 pan.

Melt chocolate and butter in saucepan over low heat; set aside.

In a mixer, beat eggs, sugar and vanilla at high speed for 10 minutes (this is important!).

Blend in chocolate mixture, flour and salt until just mixed. Stir in the nuts. Pour into prepared pan.

Bake for 35-40 minutes (Don't overbake)

Cool, and the recipe says frost if desired, but I think that's ridiculous.

Happy baking!

When I was getting ready for Tink's funeral Friday morning, I debated the camera. There were the normal girly considerations like how in the world could I get it to fit into my purse without looking like a freak (I decided looks weren't everything). But more then that, I was worried about how appropriate it was.

I've spent a good amount of time around Ryan's guys with my camera, and I suspect they appreciate it, and for sure I know they're used to seeing me that way. In fact, when Tink died, they asked me if I had any pictures of Tink hanging around, which I did. That's why I decided to just bring it along "in case". I'm so glad I did.

I imagined that the funeral for Tink would be huge, but I had no idea. The church, which had 1200 chairs, was full, with people standing in the back. There was an overflow sanctuary that I hear was full too. The service was beautiful (I didn't take pictures of course), and they touched on sweet things, but plenty of funny things (fitting for Tink!). At the end they excused all uniformed personel to go outside to make a line of honor. I didn't know what that meant. 90% of the church filed out silently. The rest of us followed the casket out and when I came outside, I was surrounded by men and women in uniform standing at attention. It was indescribable.

I was on the 5th vehicle back in the procession down to Queen Creek. It was the firefighters' family bus, and from where we were we couldn't see the 100 fire engines behind us, but we could see Tink riding ahead of us on top of his engine (which is also my husband's engine). I had no idea the processional would be this amazing. There were fire trucks at every intersection.

People standing on the side of the road waving flags and covering their hearts.

So many people....

And when we finally got to Tink's hometown, Queen Creek, we came around the corner and the entire elementary school was outside with signs, waving. I just can't even describe that feeling.

We came into the library parking lot, where they had tents set up for the firefighter service. First another line of honor.

Then into the tents where they had the entire bagpipe band, last bell, folding of the flag for tink's wife, a helicopter flyover, and most heart breaking, the last call... I've never heard it before, and Ryan tried to prepare me, but you just can't be prepared to hear that.

The whole day was just heartbreaking. To see his young children, and his wife, his parents, his brother, his tough firefighter brothers barely keeping it together, then not even trying to. But it was also beautiful and amazing. A fitting tribute to a good man who dedicated his life to the fire service and to supporting his family. I'm so glad I got to be a part of it.

When I put the pictures online, I hoped that everyone would accept them in the vein I took them: out of respect and love. I feel like I picked moments where it was ok to take pictures, and I left other moments alone. The camera was comforting to me, and I think the pictures are comforting to the guys.

And in true firefighter fashion, everyone went home after 6 exhausting hours of saying goodbye, took naps, got up, pulled themselves together... and held a WAKE. And oh boy, can firefighters drink to the memories of their friends. What a reunion it was, and I think if you'd asked Tink, this would have been his favorite part of the day. And nope! No pictures from that! And if there are, I'm not telling! :-)

(Note: I did not take the videos I have linked to here, but he did a good job capturing the firefighter service. East Valley Tribune also did an amazing video of the day)