Mona Alicia

McGee, Brown, and Austin family(ies)

Alicia — Wed, 16 May 2012 09:00:00 +0000

I’m trying to cover all bases in my post title, haha! This is a large family, some of whom are married and have smaller families within the larger family, hence the long title. These pictures were a Mother’s Day present so I’ve been saving them until after Mother’s Day so as not to ruin the surprise. Bobbie (who is a photographer herself, you can see her work at www.bobbiebrownphotography.com) asked me to shoot a session with herself and all the rest of her family at a gift to their mom. Their dad took their mom away for the evening so that we could have use of their yard. It’s a beautiful yard and having the pictures in a personal location sometimes makes them even more meaningful.

Here is the whole family…

And just the siblings…

Brothers and sisters…

Bobbie, Stuart, Kennedy, and Bristol (and baby Tenley Rhyann was born a few short weeks after this shoot!)

Russell and Kristen

Tressa Ann

Tressa Ann & Matt and Clark

Clark and Jenna

Holly, Jonathan, and Mya

As I’ve mentioned before, I love including four-footed family members in a family shoot…here’s Clay and his dog Scooby.

And one more shot of the whole family!

Thank you all everyone for asking me to take these pictures for you! I had a great time!

Mother’s Day recap

Alicia — Mon, 14 May 2012 15:55:51 +0000

I’m well aware that lately this blog has turned more into a blog of my life than a photography blog. I admit that sometimes I sit down to blog a photo session and instead blog something about our house or personal photos of our life. I don’t know how to explain it except to say that I have to do what I feel like at the moment. I do have some photo sessions to blog and I will get to them hopefully soon. Until then I want to remember what a nice Mother’s Day I had yesterday. And I’m not even going to blog many pictures about it because I didn’t take many. What is wrong with me? Sitting here today I’m kind of wishing I had more pictures so that I could do a “proper” blog post, but then again, I didn’t want to carry my camera around with me all day snapping pictures. I wanted to enjoy and live it instead of document it.

My Mother’s Day started Saturday night when my girls were too excited to wait until the next morning to give me my presents. Charlotte had painted this beautiful cake carrier for me (with the help of a wonderful instructor…thank you Jennifer Bush!)

And Samantha worked in her Mimi’s yard to make money to buy me these plants and planted them herself. Thank you Mimi for helping her with it! And Samantha made me this sweet heart.

After church on Sunday the three of us went to my favorite restaurant, Hawthorne’s in Mint Hill, so I could indulge in some eggplant rollentini and it was delicious! Then we stopped by Wal-Mart on the way home so I could get ingredients for homemade guacamole which is another favorite food of mine. While we were there Charlotte and Samantha bought a velvet horse color-it-yourself picture that they picked out. We then came home (where I took a nap a nice Sunday afternoon nap), then went over to Mimi’s to visit her on Mother’s Day. She gave me a beautiful card with a sweet hand-written note and money to buy myself something for Mother’s Day. I totally did not expect that at all! She is wonderful to help out with my girls and we are lucky to have her.

We then headed over my mama’s where I made the guacamole and sat around the table with my parents and siblings for a couple of hours and ate it along with fresh strawberry pie, ham and yeast rolls, and homemade vanilla ice cream. It was very laid-back but that’s the best kind of meal, am I right?

After coming home the girls sat at the table and carefully colored the horse picture they picked out.

Then they gave it to me and told me it was part of my Mother’s Day gift, too.

And they gave me a handmade card to go with it. I think these are the best kind of cards

All-in-all, it was one of the best Mother’s Day I remember. It was all relaxed, I did very little cooking (and that’s only if you can call making guacamole “cooking”) and I got to spend time with the most important people in my life. I hope you had a wonderful Mother’s Day, also.

Dance To You Recital 2012

Alicia — Wed, 09 May 2012 04:29:05 +0000

As you probably already know, I took recital portraits for Dance To You earlier this spring. I also was at the actual recital and captured some behind the scenes shots of the dancers preparing for their big night and also captured a few shots of the dances from a view that the audience couldn’t see. Here are some I’d like to share with you because I thought the dancers and their families would enjoy seeing them, and maybe some of the rest of you will, too .

As I was preparing this blog post I was “feeling” the pictures more in black and white. I know that might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but that’s okay, photography is art and art is subjective.

I’m going to let the pictures show the story, from backstage preparations to Miss Jenny accepting her much deserved applause, I hope you enjoy them.

Us!

Alicia — Mon, 07 May 2012 02:26:09 +0000

A few years ago I made a promise to myself that I would make the time and allow room in our budget to have family pictures made of me and my girls. I take lots of pictures of them, but obviously we don’t have a lot of pictures of us together. And here I am, as a photographer, telling people how important it is to have family pictures, so I should practice what I preach, right? Also, I feel like I can always learn something from other photographers, and it’s good to remember what it feels like to be on the other side of the camera sometimes. So…with all that in mind, I asked my photographer friend, Linden, to take some pictures of us this year. Here’s a link to her facebook page if you’d like to check out some of her other work https://www.facebook.com/pages/Linden-Claire-Photography/121669327892608.

And these are my favorites from our session…I love these black and whites.

But we weren’t all posed and serious, I also like this silly one of us falling on the ground.

We took a little stroll…

And had a race. Of course Samantha won, she always does!

If you don’t know what these are I’m sorry, but you’re obviously not cool .

Since I don’t often get pictures made of myself Linden took some extra time to get some of just me. In the meantime my children ran around like monkeys that had escaped their cage at the zoo.

But Linden managed to capture these cute shots of them. Seriously, I was feeling bad because she had to chase them so much!

We finished up with this pose, us looking all composed and Vogue-ish…

But it quickly turned into this, haha! And I love it!

Thank you for capturing these for us Linden!

Great Wolf Lodge

Alicia — Wed, 02 May 2012 09:00:46 +0000

Yesterday we spent the day at Great Wolf Lodge and I was too tired last night to prepare a proper blog post. They say to write what you know, so this is what I know right now…we had sooo much fun! Usually, a ticket to Great Wolf Lodge wouldn’t be in our budget, but a couple of times a year they offer a special day pass promotion and the proceeds benefit Big Brothers and Big Sisters. We get to go spend a whole day riding water rides and sliding down slides and swimming in the wave pool and sitting around eating fried pretzels and maybe even catching a nap somewhere in there. The staff is extra friendly and nice; we are always surprised at how much they bend over backwards to help out.

I didn’t take my camera because (hello!) there are water slides there and I intended to ride every one multiple times and I really didn’t want to have worry about keeping up with my camera, or getting it wet, or it getting stolen, or anything else. I did, however, have my phone and did snap a few quick little snapshots for memory’s sake.

Aubrey, Madeline, Claire, and Samantha

Suzannah, Abigail, Megan Samantha, Madeline, Aubrey, Claire, Hope, and Sarah

Jessica and Charlotte

Madeline, Claire, Charlotte, and Megan

I tried to get a shot of Samantha in the wave pool and this is what I ended up with. Oh well, you can kind of see the action.

And one cute little shot of Samantha and Charlotte.

Like I said, we had so much fun, but we were soooo tired when we got home. I braided their hair so it wouldn’t get so tangled, but it was still snarled up in knots by the end of the day. I guess going down water slides over and over will do that. Charlotte said she went down the “Howling Tornado” ride 42 times; it was her favorite. Samantha’s favorite was the “Canyon” ride, but she didn’t know how many times she rode it.

McCoskey Family

Alicia — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 09:00:32 +0000

If you’ve been following my blog for a while you might remember the McCoskey family. I first photographed their family in 2010 when Barbara was battling cancer, then again last fall, and most recently earlier this month to celebrate the arrival of a new family member! Baby David joined their family in March and they wanted some updated family pictures. I was so happy they called on me and absolutely loved meeting sweet little David!

We started out with a few baby shots of David…isn’t he precious?

After we finished the baby pictures we went outside and took advantage of the pretty neighborhood walking path for some family pictures…

Todd, Barbara, Elizabeth, Matthew, and David…it was wonderful seeing you all and congratulations on your new family addition!

Mom and Dad

Alicia — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 09:00:36 +0000

Back in November Mama asked me to take some pictures of her and Daddy for posterity’s sake. I was probably more nervous about doing these pictures than any others I’ve done. For some reason it seems harder to take pictures of people I know well and it was really important to me to try to capture their true selves. But I was really happy with these that I’m showing you today. And I’m right proud to call these people my parents .

Dance To You – Part II

Alicia — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 04:22:10 +0000

Last week I shared part one of my favorite individual shots and here is part two, the last of the dance shots for this year (I think).

Again, I’d like to thank Dance To You and the parents of the dancers for the opportunity to be your photographer again this year!

Abigail

Alivia

Claire

Layla

Madeline

Maggie Jo

Margot

Mariah

McKaylan

McKaylee

McKinlee

Mia

Molly

RehSade

Ryley

Sarah

Savannah

Sophia

Suzannah

Sydney

Sydney (again)

Victoria

Zeta

Dance To You 2012 – Part I

Alicia — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 09:00:33 +0000

For the fourth year I was asked to photograph recital portraits for Dance To You Dance Academy in Mint Hill, NC. I enjoy it every year, it’s always fun to see how they’ve grown and to see the newest members of the groups. I appreciate so much that the parents of the dancers trust me to take their daughter’s portraits and I hope they treasure them every year!

I showed some of the group shots in a preview a couple of weeks ago and here, in no particular order, are a few of my favorite individual shots from part one of the recital portraits.

Abby

Abigael

Addison

Jessica

Amy

Caroline

Courtney

Elizabeth

Ella

Gracie

Haley

Hope

Jasmine

Josie

Kayla

Kayla (again)

Lillie Kate

Lindsey Kate

Isabella

Janie

And last, but not least, Aubree

Vaughn family

Alicia — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 09:00:33 +0000

It’s not often that a family has a chance to get a five generation picture, so I was honored to have the opportunity to capture one for this family. Here’s sweet little Emma with her dad, granddad, great-grandmother, and great-great-grandmother.

Shortly after we took the family picture Emma needed a break, so she took a little nap…

While I took a few pictures of her aunt Courtney…

It wasn’t long before Emma woke up and gave me some of the sweetest expressions. I love how little babies aren’t camera shy, they’re just themselves.

Sweet little piggies…

Emma with her mom and dad.

And Aunt Courney…

And Mimi LeAnn…can you tell this little girl gets lots of love?

More sweet little baby expressions…

I think this is my favorite…

And I love her solemn expression and soulful eyes in this one…she is such a sweetheart!

Thank you all for asking me to take these family pictures for you. I hope you enjoy them for many, many years to come!