a public service announcement

I'm taking a break from photos to tell you about something really important. This has been on my mind and heart for several months now, and I want to share it with you, and show you how you can help! :)

Every year, many hundreds or thousands of Nepalese girls are kidnapped or tricked into traveling to India. Some are "married" with the promise of a better life. When they arrive in India they are sold into sex shops where their lives are beyond miserable. If they don't die in the brothels, they are thrown onto the streets. The girls who do make it home are rejected by their families and communities. They have little hope for life beyond the brothels.

100% of my photography proceeds until the end of the year will be given to the Princess Home, a Christian rehabilitation center for young women rescued from the extensive sex-trafficking network of Nepal and India. These women receive care and job training...they are given hope for a new and better life. The organization also works to stop sex slavery, focusing on freeing women before they even cross the border into India. Read all about the Princess Home and their parent organization, Tiny Hands International, here: http://bit.ly/1Ok6lT Looking through the photos and stories of these girls, and the hope that the Princess Home gives to them, it is hard not to be affected.

During this holiday season, please consider purchasing artwork to benefit a much larger cause. The stakes are high, and it does not take much money to completely change another person's life. Tiny Hands estimates that it only takes $10 to stop one woman from being enslaved.

If you're thinking about buying art for someone this Christmas, consider buying from my Etsy shop! Thanks for reading!

Engagement Photography in Lincoln, Nebraska: Jim & Kelsey!

These are pictures of my brother and his now-wife, Jim and Kelsey. I took these shots back in March, as soon as it was (barely) warm enough to spend time outside. It was actually my first time doing engagement pictures, and looking back I wish I'd have done a lot of things differently. I didn't have a lot of creativity in the poses and prompts that I've become at least a little better at recently. Everything is a lesson, right?

The bench they're sitting on for some of the shots is the exact place they got engaged. :) It's in a park not too far from my parents' house.

discovering why i take pictures

I have a wonderful husband. Sometimes I think he knows me better than I know myself. (And sometimes he doesn't have a clue, but for that I can't blame him in the least...I confuse myself sometimes.)

He came in just now, after I wrote that first sentence. :)

Anyways, lately, I've been frustrated with where I am in my, I guess I can say, photographic journey. Or something like that. Basically, I've been taking my camera out, and don't see things to photograph. I feel really blank and uninspired. Does it have something to do with trying to sell my art? Probably. But the observation my insightful husband offered was this: My pictures are a kind of story of my life, in that I don't usually go out to take pictures, but I take my camera with me, and photograph what I see while I'm doing life. Most of my great photos have been taken while I was there doing something else.

Engagement Photography - me and hunky husband!

A lot has changed since I wrote my last post in May. The biggest event was definitely getting married! :) These are some of the engagement pictures we took of ourselves a few months before our wedding. It's taken me forever to put them, or anything else, up here!

This summer also brought a move into a new apartment with my husband, and my final semester of undergrad studies. I'll graduate in December with a major in English and a minor in History. Right now my world is a flurry of wifely duties (which I simply adore) and scholarly assignments (which I usually also adore, though not in the same way). On today's agenda: write a basic overview of the Great Vowel Shift. Fascinating, isn't it? For me, yes, actually. It is.

But this blog is about photography, not linguistics. I haven't done a lot of shooting on my own this summer, mostly because of the busyness of this summer (my brother got married too, just a month before mine!). I have continued to sell photography at my Etsy shop, and I was also part of the Cathedral Art Show this past month - my first art show ever! It was a success, and a lot of fun.

branches vs. infrared - art photography

i have really loved tree photos lately...those dead branches, scraggly and sometimes menacing, make for dramatic art. But since spring has sprung, and the once-dead branches are clothing themselves with bright leaves and flowers, the high drama is no more to be seen. I probably drove by a particular lake 50 times, telling myself I HAD to photograph how those dead branches looked when reflected in the water, but now they are full and green trees.