8 Years | personal

This year marked 8 years that we have been married.  In some ways, it's been a loooong 8 years.  But most ways, it's gone by way too fast.  There have been quite a few speed bumps we've had to travel over, but we've managed to do it together.  And, last year we got to celebrate our victory over those bumps (completely unplanned, and a surprise to us both, I must say) by renewing our wedding vows at church the night of our 7th anniversary.  It was so powerful for the two of us, and so appropriate.

I can truly say that we are better than we ever were before.  After 8 married years, we've still got the goosebumps -  holding hands - sitting close - silly giggles and laughter that new couples have,  but we've also got the best friends - stand by each other no matter what - respect - and love that only a couple who has been married for so many years can ever have.  I feel truly blessed to have found such a relationship.


Truly blessed.

There was so much going on the weekend before and the weekend after our anniversary that we decided to put off our little celebration until the last weekend of April.  I'm so glad we did, because it turned out to be a beautiful and perfect weekend out on the water.

Usually, when we go camping, we try to book a camp site ahead of time, or at least know where we are going before we get there.  This time, since our little trip was somewhat last minute, we decided to just wing it and find a spot that you are allowed to camp but isn't part of the State campgrounds.  We ended up driving about 30 minutes from where we loaded the boat and finding this peak of an island where nobody else was staying.  And it was perfect!  We had our own little space and the sunset and sunrise in plain view with water surrounding us on three sides.  So beautiful!


As we were unloading our stuff from the boat and setting up camp, I was snapping a few pictures of our little island scene.  I walked back over to where Brian was unloading the firewood from the boat and snapped a photo of it.  When I looked back at my camera screen I laughed so hard!  It looks like he was about to get clobbered with his own wood!  Who threw that at him???  It wasn't me!  I swear!

Isn't it so pretty?  The weather was just perfect too.  Just enough sun to keep us warm, and just enough breeze to keep the bugs away.

As night was falling, Brian cooked us dinner on his portable grill that Stephanie got him for Christmas.  That thing can really cook too!

We decided to go to bed early and wake up around 1am to go shrimping.  When the time came, I really did not want to wake back up and get on the boat for another 30 minute ride away from camp, but I'm so glad that I did!  I had never been shrimping before and it's quite neat to be out on the water that time of night.  Plus, it made Brian so happy that I went without complaining.  He just loves doing these kinds of things and it makes him feel good when he gets to share it with me.

When we got back to camp and ready to head back to sleep, we kept hearing this noise and realized the raccoons were getting into our cooler!  So, Brian got back up, shoed them away and set his boat battery on top of the cooler so they couldn't get into it.  Unfortunately, they had already gotten to our brand new loaf of bread that was meant for our lunches the next day.  As he was getting that straightened out, one of those raccoons was rather aggressive and TRIED TO GET IN THE TENT WITH ME!  I yelled at him and he ran away, but my goodness, what would I have done if he got in there?  Yuck!

After all that excitement, back to bed it was.  And man, did we sleep good!  It was so nice.  Quiet, other than the sounds of the wind blowing the trees and an occasional boat on the water.  When we woke up the next morning, it was so beautiful.  I actually should have taken video, because my photo of what I saw when I woke up just does not do it justice.

After getting up and dressed into our bathing suits, it was back on the water for some fishing.  Brian put a nice Trout in the cooler!

We decided since I wasn't about to eat the rest of the bread that the raccoons left for us that we would drive over to Ponce Inlet and have some lunch at one of the restaurants on the water.

There were dolphin everywhere.  Most of the time they were pretty close to our boat and Brian would slow down so I could take a picture, but the little buggers just didn't want a close up.

Brian being silly.

Our only disagreement for the weekend was weather or not we should leave the rest of the bread for the raccoons when we were leaving.  My thought was that they didn't deserve it because they didn't ask in the first place, why give in to them?  But Brian loves animals much more than I do, I guess.  So here's the bread, all spread out for them to eat.  I do love him for his kind heart. 

Guess I was taking too long getting that photo of the bread.  Brian started to leave me! =)

Brian, thank you so much for this little trip.  I had such a good time and have missed doing this kind of stuff with you. 

Funny, that I was pregnant with Gracey the first time we ever camped together and pregnant again this time when we haven't been camping together in a few years. 

Perfect, our little weekend together.

Wonderful, that we are still loving each other like we did in the beginning.

Marvelous, that we are loving each other even better than we did in the beginning. 

Thank you for all the little things that you do.  Thank you for always holding my hand.  Thank you for all the kisses goodbye in the morning, and kisses hello in the afternoon.  Thank you for all the support when I start getting crazy pregnancy brain.  Thank you for always thinking that I am beautiful.

Thank you for being such a wonderful husband to me.  

I love you so very much.  

Every.  

Single.  

Day.

Love,

Jess

What I've learned This Week | personal

So I was supposed to be doing these every Friday.  I had full intention of doing that but then when I posted Damaris Mia's  Rising Star Interview two weeks ago, I decided to leave it at the top of the blog for a week to give others a change to see it.  I couldn't tell you what happened last week other than life getting in the way.  

So anyway, on to the new post...

Every Friday I'm going to write a post about what I have learned about photography and life in general.  It's mostly for me to start keeping track but it's also for others. Maybe somebody else can learn from something I've learned, who knows?  And, by the way, they are in no particular order.  Just random.

Week three and four ...

Photography related -

*I'm reading another one of Michael Freeman's wonderful books on photography.  This one is called "Perfect Exposure".  I'm almost halfway through and its proving to be a good read.  It goes into more detail about histograms and what they represent as well as camera metering.  A lot of it doesn't necessarily apply to the kind of photography I do but it never hurts to know as much as you can. 

*I think I've finally come up with a simple logo that I am happy with for now.  It looks really good on the website that is getting close to being complete.  I'm excited for it to launch but I keep adding a bit more content so it's taking longer.  Yes, the hold up is still me.

*I learned how to make my own bag from poster board paper because i couldn't find a white bad big enough for my client's photos.  I think it turned out pretty good.

*My new email address is up and running.  This is the one that runs directly from my website.  Feel free to shoot me a hello!  jessica@jessicaswatts.com

Life in general -

*I am such a procrastinator sometimes.  This week it was telling the teacher I would bring chocolate chips for their crafts and then putting off going to the store to get them until 8am this morning on the way to school.  Oh, well.  It worked out ok.

*Gracey had an awesome last game on Saturday and we are so sad that season has already ended.  

*I HAVE NO CLUE what to buy my husband for his birthday anymore because I know that all he really wants is a boat, so until that day comes, nothing will compare!

*That being said ^ ...  He really loved the blog post that I wrote for him and that makes me so happy. 

*It's been two weeks and I realize after typing all of this out that I really haven't learned that many new things while I wasn't posting. =)

Here's Gracey at the end of her last game.  Please note that the ball she's holding says "Home Run".  This was her prize for making one of the three home runs on her team the last game. 

And this is me.  Crystal took this photo as we were watching the game.  I was keeping score.

Did I ever mention that I don't have time to take pictures during the game because I also keep score?  Ya, Coach handed it to me the very first game and asked me to help out.  I've never kept score before in my life, so I kind of got thrown to the wolves, but she says that I do a good job.  And I must because she had me keep score every. single. game. !!!  I really don't mind it though.  It helps me to pay closer attention than I normally would.  I guess it's a good thing my dad raised me knowing baseball so well.

Happy Monday, everyone!  Hopefully I will learn a ton more in the next four days so I can have something interesting to talk about on Friday. =)

Love, Jess

What I've learned This Week | personal

Every Friday I'm going to write a post about what I have learned about photography and life in general.  It's mostly for me to start keeping track but it's also for others. Maybe somebody else can learn from something I've learned, who knows?  And, by the way, they are in no particular order.  Just random.

Week two ...

Photography related -

*Be careful while editing photos not to push too many wrong keys on the keyboard.  I have no idea which key I hit, but it changed my brush and I had to re-edit about ten photos.  Whoops. 

*I'm sadly going to have to change the way I watermark my photos.  I always put it at the bottom so that my clients can see themselves instead of my watermark but I guess some people don't understand the concept of the way that photography copyright works.  I'm learning most of my lessons the hard way. =)

*The Creative Live with Tamara Lackey event will be November 19-21.  I may end up missing some of it because I have some sessions scheduled that weekend but I'm still looking forward to catching as much of it as I can.  Check it out if you can.  It should prove to be a great learning event.

*My website is taking a bit longer to complete because I'm having a very difficult time completing the write up portion of it.  I sure do wish it was easier for me to talk about myself.  It would come in pretty handy right about now.

*If you know specifically what you are trying to acomplish in photoshop but don't have a clue how to do it, google will get you the answer pretty quickly and the internet is a very generous place when it comes to others sharing their knowledge!

*I printed a chart out for my own reference on the focal distance for each aperture setting.  I plan on using it until I have my sweet spots completely memorized. 

Life in general -

*We are headed up to South Carolina for Thanksgiving this year.  I feel like it might make it a bit easier for me if we got out of town.  Thanksgiving has been bonding time for me and mom for many, many years now and it's probably going to be a hard weekend for me.  At least this way I won't be in the kitchen, so I won't be in there without her.

*Never chop at your bangs when you are having a bad day. Ha!  Ya, I've had to learn this lesson over and over and over.  Learned it again this week. 

*Mom and Dad Swatts have a new pop-up and it is super nice!  I bet they can't wait to use it.

*Oh, and I learned that Gracey had a project that was due last week.   But I didn't learn about it until this week.  ***sigh*** I'm really going to have to be more thorough about going through her backpack every day.  Spending five hours in one night on a project was NOT FUN!

I'm missing being out in the sun already.  Gracey doesn't have school today so maybe we'll try and get some somewhere.  But for now, here's a photo of our last beach trip that never made it to the blog.

Happy Friday!

Love, 

Jess

What I've Learned This Week | personal

I've got a couple new things I'm going to be doing on the blog here soon.  One of them is this post.  Every Friday I'm going to write a post about what I have learned about photography and life in general.  It's mostly for me to start keeping track (I kind of wish I would have started this sooner) but it's also for others. Maybe somebody else can learn from something I've learned, who knows?

So here goes for week one ...

Photography related -
*Remember to stop down (change aperture to a higher number) when photographing more than two people.  Out of focus eyeballs on one person while everyone else is in focus drives me nuts!
*Tree shade is not always my friend, even when it's dense.  Pay extra close attention to possible light spots on faces and arms.
*CreativeLive is hosting another learning event coming soon and I'm pretty excited about it!
*There are many other photographers out there who are at my level but it's rare that we put ourselves out there on the internet like that, so I'm going to ... just to be different.
*I've had the chance to meet a few amazing photographers this week!
*I'm going to a Dave Ramsey seminar on November 5.  I'm pretty excited about that as well!

Life in general -
*P90X and I have a love/hate relationship but I will soon have that P90X butt I've been dreaming about! "Get rid of all that goo!" as Tony says.
*I inherited a super amazing and wonderful cousin through my husband.  Ok...so I've known this one for quite some time, but I felt like it needed extra recognition again this week. =)
*Grandma Kaye put money towards Gracey's lunch money. Twice now.  And I am so very thankful to her for that!  Mom Swatts, if you are reading this ... THANK YOU!
*Me and store-bought Halloween costumes do not get along.  At all.
*No softball for Gracey this weekend.  We are disappointed, but it's actually a nice little break.  Next game is Tuesday!
*Brandon made a sweet tackle at his football game last night!  Undefeated!  Woohoo!
*I wish so much that I could have been with Sarah for her birthday this week.  Love you bunches, sweetie!
*I still miss my mom.  A. LOT.  But I know she's been proud of me and I can feel her with me every day helping me reach my goals.  I love you forever, mom.

Gracey went to her first ballet this week.  It was the 2nd grade field trip.  I wish that I could have gone with her but there wasn't enough room for parents to tag along.  She said she had a lot of fun.  I'm glad!

So, all-in-all it was not too bad of a week.  I'm actually pretty tired from all that learning but I sure am looking forward to our annual Halloween party tomorrow night, store-bought costume and all!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Blues | personal

Have you noticed how blue the skies have been this month?

Every day when I look up I see these gorgeous blue skies that I haven't seen in years, not since I was little.  I've always noticed that the sky was never as blue here in Florida because I missed those crazy saturated colors that used to appear over the mountains where we lived in Arizona when I was a kid.  Usually the skies here are a hazy white-ish blue color.  But not lately.  And every time I look up and see all that blue it makes me think of mom.

Blue was her favorite color.  The color of her beautiful eyes.  The ones that you could look into and see a gentle and kind soul looking right back at you.

I miss her every single day.  When I wake up in the morning the first thought in my head is always, "She's gone.  My mom is gone."  Sometimes I don't even have the words to describe to myself what I am feeling.

Deep sadness.

She was truly my best friend.  Who else in my life will ever love me as unconditionally as only a mother can?  I feel like we were so close, and yet...I also feel like I wasn't close enough to her.  She was taken from us...from me too soon.  Much too soon.

So, when I look up at those blue skies each day, I try to imagine that she is there, smiling back at me, just like before.

Bright blue eyes shining, gentle and loving.

Neglect | personal

Ok.  So I've neglected my blog again.  I was totally planning on gathering all the photos of Gracey's birthday party and all the stuff I made for it and blogging it back in ummmm....September. :(  Sorry guys!  it never happened and I'm a little overwhelmed with how much I would have to write in order to catch you up to speed on what's been happening in my life these days.  So, I'm just going to make a list to make it easy on myself, and so you don't get bored to death! :)

• Gracey started first grade - fun stuff!
• Gracey turned 7 - also fun stuff!
• We went to South Carolina to visit for Sarah's birthday (she just turned 11) - more fun stuff!
• Went to an awesome Halloween party hosted by Paula and Wade - we're really having fun now!
• Halloween! Gracey dressed up as Hanna Montana this year.  We celebrated with DeeDee and Chris - so much fun!
• Moved Gracey's room to our side of the house - she sleeps in her own bed now! fun! fun! fun!
• Three photo shoots - totally amazing and fun!

and the latest and greatest...

• Rachel and I have started a business together!

We joined our talents (she's a hair and makeup artist) and created...

We are so very excited about this!  You can check out our new Blog or become a fan on Facebook to get more information!  We hope that you love this as much as we do!

Hope everyone is safe, healthy, happy....and having tons of FUN!!!! 

Nichole V Photography | portrait photography

Nichole V is a photographer that I have been following through her blog for about a year and a half now.  I found her through googling "natural light photography tips" (or something similar to that anyway).  When google took me to This Post I was thrilled.  This was exactly the kind of simple information I was looking for to help teach me more about photography and how to achieve that special kind of lighting in portrait photography.

I spent hours looking through her blog posts and finding more and more information that she was so kind to share.  I don't know if she really knows how much her posts like This One and This One have helped me (and so many others, I'm sure) learn more about portrait photography, but I'd like to thank her for taking the time to write them.

------Thank you so much Nichole, for every effort you make to help others find their way in portrait photography!  And, thank you for helping me.  Your posts helped me to see the light at a time when I was struggling so hard to understand it.--------

Nichole has her own workshops.  I've always wanted to attend one, but haven't been able to.  Recently, she released her workshops as a package you can purchase called {life as art} Workshop In A Box.  Oh, how I wish to have this!  After following her blog for so long and seeing how talented she is, I know this is going to be good!  So, check it out!  She's giving one away.  How cool is that?

Again, thank you, Nichole!  And good luck to all who participate in her contest! 

Blogs I Follow | personal

I follow quite a few photographers blog's. Some of them I visit more than others. Sometimes it seems like they all take a break from new posts at the same time. So if I'm in the mood to feed my brain then I start finding more blogs to read and pour over the photos. Today I decided to count how many I know have in my list...There are 70! Whoa!

Here are some of my favorites:

Jasmine Star

The Modern Type

Jessica Claire

Tara Whitney

Mom*Tog

And I just added these two to my list:

Gail Werner

Jose Villa

I'm surprised my brain hasn't crashed from all that information yet!

Our New Family Member | personal

Meet our newest addition to the family, Montana Skye. We just call her Skye for short. She is the sweetest little Catahoula ever! But don't ask Scout about that...she's left quite a few little teeth marks on his neck from them playing together! She was born on July 4th and was given to us as a gift from our sis and bro! Thank you! We love her so much!

Here she is the weekend we went down to Sarasota to pick her up:



And this is her just yesterday:



Welcome to our family little one. You will have many spoiled years to come!

New Header - Again | portrait photography

Well, as you can see, I changed my header again. I think I just get bored when I have to look at the same thing over and over again! I'll probably be changing it yet again within the next few weeks. Oh, well...

On to other fun stuff. Stephanie and I created a video for the Annual Halloween Party. I laugh every time I see it. If you listen closely, you can hear my laughing. I couldn't hold it while we were filming!

If you have a facebook, you can check it out here: 4th Annual Hallween Bash

I'll be posting the photo's we took for it here soon. I still have to get caught up here again before that. I haven't even posted anything from Gracey's birthday party yet! Soon...

So... | Miscellaneous

I knew that it had been a while since my last blog post but I guess I really didn't realize just how long it had been...July 10th? Are you kidding me, Jessica??? You've got a lot of catching up to do! So, I'll be working on catch-up with the next few posts. Sorry for the delay...enjoy!