Archive for the ‘children’ Category

when stacey approached me about photographing her family, we talked about the usual things in an interview… personalities, places for the shoot, and {since this is the season of christmas family sessions} how we could collaborate and develop a christmas theme. surprisingly, stacey said that was a sort of by~thought. to include it would be fine, but what she really wanted to begin for her young family was documenting yearly the changes… marking time. yes! indeed the best answer anyone could give a photographer. so here is the product and matching of her heart’s desire. i love this family’s beginning ~ married 4 years, daughter at age one. AND a lil’ merry christmas tah boot!


love love LOVE the weeds of texas in november!!! you could not pay for something better to shoot through and around… cough and sneezes aside 😉








this next series will end our most lovely time. i want to say here that this one didn’t ‘just happen’… when i was rearranging the load of props in my car i pulled out a chair that i decided against and with that my camera rolled out of my bag and dropped to concrete 3 feet below as did 2 lenses. a weird habit for me is to keep a hood up on my lens when i put it down. that hood and the filter of my 85mm lens were destroyed, but all else intact. within an hour of this event a friend texted me to say that God had put me on her heart… wanting to know if there was something specific to pray for. it is common, almost casual and ordinary to say that God is good, but to say that God is intimately involved in the details of our life everyday is almost intimidating. and if nothing less, it is surreal. but this afternoon two weeks ago, i got to know His intimacy. He overcame me. He overcame everything that was against this moment. dear lynlee, thank you. also thank you jenna and craig for being part of the praying for this shoot <3


lemonade days ~

September 15, 2012

addisyn ~ here you are! your joy makes me smile everytime i take a rest and look through this folder of our lemonade day. it was the sweetest!! i mean when was the last time your mommy gave you the sugar jar and said ~ “pour…as much as you want” :} i know you remember me as miss sally, the lady who takes your pictures. i will remember you always as i read this verse: “On your feet now — applaud God! Bring a gift of laughter, sing yourselves into His presence.”psalm 100:1


how can you resist walking in a field of flowers after making lemonade all morning??

i cannot end this without the ladies that became very interested as i was setting up the lemonade stand… a simple misidentification of a hay bale ;} thanks to our lemonade stand visitors ~ andrew and adam ~ for rounding them up for us!!!

lemonade stand, apron and large flowers made by hand ~ by sally owens

two lil’ tom sawyers ~

August 8, 2012

as i have come back to complete this blog i’m taking away my original words. it think i need to declare {first} that time is precious. we let it go by easily… the saying usually associated with money, “like water through our hands” is more appropriately applied in reference to time. all this just to say i photographed these boys one year ago. beth reminded me of this as she sat at the computer viewing her proofs. it stunned me as the image of tyce being where zayd is now and zayd being in a basket by the railroad tracks. a. year. ago. impossible. i didn’t choose the theme of this shoot based on the epiphany above, though i now know i see more through tom sawyer than i once did. he is representational of capturing childhood time ~ where we all wish things could stand still just a little bit longer. mark twain makes me smile. he accomplished that with stories of boys. maybe this shoot would have done him proud. i am convinced this shoot has value. for beth and trey. for zayd and tyce. for me.

which brings me to {second} learning that i am not a ‘mini’ session photographer. i was originally going to do three mini sessions with beth’s children, but switched to two normal well-developed sessions putting the boys together. this is my first storybook shoot. on this summer morning two little boys wandered a limestone road… without concern, without attitude or thought of the heat or of my being near ~ they worked hard at white-washing the picket fence, rested at the fishin’ hole and enjoyed their napsack lunch. the air wrapped them up in a delicious creamy~yellow light that came to a stand-still, poured over the tree tops and sparkled across the water. at the ages of 18 mths and 2 1/2 yrs, brothers zayd and tyce came into their moment in the likeness of ‘tom sawyer’. the cutest characters that ever walked out of a book! as i held the camera i thought ~ could i have asked for more? it was an abundant and good day. i am soul satisfied.





Woven in her womb…

September 1, 2011

carrie is mom to annika, eden and nora ~ still within. i met her almost two years ago when she came for the newborn session of eden. she meant so much to me that i still have several enlarged images of eden in my office, which i will surrender soon and hand them over to you, carrie!

noted from our first meeting, carrie is a textile artist. there is absolutely nothing she cannot knit or crochet so i knew first that i wanted to incorporate yarns and textures into this shoot. every thing the girls are wearing in these first few images, carrie handmade! i also felt with carrie’s whimsicality, i wanted to add something that would be a little more fairy-tale. this was outside of knowing she would have princess crowns for the girls. simply, confirmation. the crowns were brilliant! i haven’t met a more content mom – ever. a woman happy to have less in order to have more with her daughters and husband. she doesn’t have to do anything to prove it. you will easily see her connection to the girls, not because i am taking pictures of them, but because the bond strongly existed long before they came to me.



as i was cleaning and converting the living room into a studio, i dusted a photograph of my daughter when she was 9 years old. she was eating an orange in it. i was struck with this memory: shortly after it was taken (some 15 yrs ago) i had found a poem by a mom written with imagery while eating oranges with her child. ownership of this poem now being lost i will credit it to ‘an amazing anonymous’. i am dedicating this poem to carrie. here in these photographs annika and eden enjoyed completely a bowl of oranges just so i could create the poem in pictures.

Eating Oranges ~ for you, carrie

Eating oranges with you is amazing ~
Worth the cessation of the interminable laundry foldings…
And infinitely rewarding in contrast.

Five minutes with you like this is a parenthetical event,
(unplumed, but persuasive in it’s simplicity).

The brilliance of this moment, infact, throws into the shadow
the tears (yours and mine),
the exhaustion,
the endemic clutter,
the smiles at my occupation, (even)
the here-to-fore glaringly obvious dearth of spending money.

You are oblivious to such miracles, of course.
Thoroughly juiced you sit cross-legged, absorbed in your third orange.
This is sweet! you say overcome.
I know,
I know.
I have tasted these years fully.

belly painting – carrie’s idea… woven paper floor – mine!



once again the day here in south dallas proved to be too hot (106) to make a pregnant woman spend much time outside… so my front yard had to suffice for part…ugh! i think it fell short of what i had envisioned, but that’s just got to be let go of.


the reward!

THE END!!!!