I’ll be brave when you are frightened.
You’ll be strong when i am weak in the knees.
I’ll be calm when you have had enough of these rushing waves.
You’ll be the oxygen i need.
–Sleeping at Last, Tethered
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Here’s to 2012
We’ve been noticing lately that everyone’s been doing these ‘year in review’ blog posts. I’ve done this myself in years past, on my personal blog. And while it’s great fun to spend a few hours looking back on the past 12 months and picking out handfuls of photos that seem to showcase the nostalgia of the year, my delightful husband had a different idea for our end of year blog post. While 2011 was great, and we loved the people, places, and pets we’ve posted already, 2012 is where it’s at now, so here’s a quick look ahead at what’s to come on the Next to Me Studios blog.
- J
Holidays with Jack and Sawyer
New Years is just around the corner and I can’t wait to start the new year. I love the idea of looking back over the past year and making goals and plans for the one to come. One of our resolutions is to add a bit more of our personality and happenings to our blog because we thought it would be fun. That way, not only do you get to see our work, but you get to see a bit of us. So since we haven’t pulled down our first Christmas tree just yet, we thought we’d keep the spirit going with our favorite subjects, Jack and Sawyer. They are new addition to our home as of this year and this was their first Christmas (we had a lot of first this year). They are just 9 months old and still have a bit of the that rambunctious kitten in them. Because of them, we had to hang the few ornaments we have real high on the tree. And though we’ve caught them several times scheming for the ornaments, they sure enjoyed playing underneath the tree as well. You’ll see them up on things that they shouldn’t be on (if you can spot them). But before we start yelling, shooing, and water bottle squirting we always have to snap a few shots of their antics. Happy almost New Year everyone!
– C
We like to play “Where’s Jack” in these (and NO, he is not suppose to be where he is):
Engagement: Ben & Brittney
Can you believe it’s almost Christmas?! It sneaks up on me every year. But thanks to a couple of vacation days last week and the magic of Amazon.com, we have all our shopping done. It is always a good feeling to be able to check that off the list (and I love making, and then checking things off lists). We are having Christmas at my parents house, and I don’t know how your family does it, but for mine it’s an all day event filled with tons of food, hot wine, and shenanigans like marshmallow gun fights and gifts where what’s on the box doesn’t necessarily mean that’s what’s in the box. Yeah, we’re tricky like that. If you want to check out a little glimpse into our Christmas, I made a stop motion slideshow last year that you can see HERE.
In Studio news, we shot our last wedding of the year last weekend and have a newborn shoot right after Christmas to close us out. That means we shot 7 weddings and 29 other sessions this year! And we can’t wait to start our second season. We have to say a huge THANK YOU to all our amazing clients this year. Thank you for letting us share in a small part of your lives, allowing us to create our art by capturing your moments. You are all truly amazing.
Speaking of next year, Ben and Brittney are getting married in August and we can’t wait. Brittney is the cousin of the wife of one of my best friends (who you’ve seen on our blog quite a bit HERE and HERE) and we were even in their wedding together a few years ago. It’s crazy to me to find out how we are all connected. For their engagement session we went romping around the beach at UCSD and I remember Ben commenting after we had them walk up and down the beach 4 or 5 times that they must be the worst couple because they couldn’t even walk together correctly for the camera. We wanted one of them to walk in front of the other, and all they wanted was to walk next to each other. Clearly, they are not the worst couple ever. Far from it! We had the best time following these two around, and we can’t wait to follow them again on their big day.
– C
Prologue – Engagement: Ben & Brittney
“Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction”
– Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Adilynn & Braelin
My goodness! We have been trying to get this post up for over a week now! And as much as I’d like to say that we’ve been slacking and just plain lazy, it’s the exact opposite, we’ve been crazy busy. Definitely not in a crazy bad way, just in a we’re-always-on-the-move kind of way.
We had Thanksgiving up with my parents where my mom made pumpkin soup that she served in real hollowed out mini pumpkins. How cool is that, right?! Go mom! We partook in a little American crazy consumerism on Black Friday, but only for a couple hours and only in the afternoon. We did debate going out and hitting some of the stores that were opening at midnight, because honestly, we are up that late anyways. but decided that there wasn’t any to-die-for deals that were worth going out for.
The long weekend came and went and so did last week. It’s all a blur actually. But yesterday we headed out to Alpine for an amazing family shoot where we did a little trespassing (the trick is acting like you belong there) that was totally worth the risk. Right after we grabbed some amazing Mexican food (Alpine Taco Shop, people. Get the fish burrito), and took off for our 2 hour drive to Redlands because we had a dual family shoot with some very good friends of ours first thing Sunday morning.
But before all this week’s crazy took place, we had an especially fun shoot with our very favorite little model. We’ve done three shoots with her now, and Adilynn never fails to bring it. I think she’d let us take pictures of her for hours, and she always has her own ideas for good picture spots. We like clients who bring an opinion. ;) This particular shoot was to commemorate this cutie’s fifth birthday, and we found out from her mother an hour before the shoot that Adilynn was so excited, she’d invited along a friend from school! Couldn’t say no to the birthday girl, so we made sure to get plenty of fun girlie shots of the two BFF’s in their matching bumble bee dresses. Not to be outdone, little Braelin was giving big sister a run for her money in the charm department. That kid is all smiles all the time now!
Warning: The following pictures contain a super dose of charm and cuteness. We double dog dare you not to smile at the frolicking pictures.
— C + J
Prologue: Adilynn & Friend
“A memory lasts forever.
Never does it die.
True friends stay together.
And never say goodbye.”
–Anon
Wedding: Kelsey & Lauren
I can’t believe that the holidays are upon us! Jordan and I are out in Palm Springs at the moment. We shot a super fun wedding here on Saturday and decided to take the opportunity to extend our stay and make a mini vacation out of it. And though Jordan has put us under a strict “no-working-on-vacation” policy…she’s asleep at the moment and wont ever remember the soft soothing sound of my clicking keyboard.
(Jordan just woke up and commandeered this post. I guess my keyboard wasn’t so soft after all.)
When we got married last year, we loved our photographers. Loved, loved, loved them. (And we still do, so I should say we love, love, love them.) We had so much fun taking photos with them at our wedding, that sometime after we decided to take our family-and-newborns-photography business and add weddings in to the mix. We loved the idea of being part of someone’s special day and getting to capture all those special and intimate moments. Weddings are non-stop excitement, from the beginning of the day when the bride is getting ready, to the first looks and the vows, to the party afterward where everyone close to the couple comes together to celebrate, and we love getting to be there for it all. Even more, we love the part that comes a couple months later, when we get to hand over the story of their day to the happy couple so they can re-live it all over again.
While most photographers started their official wedding season around April or May this year, that’s when we started booking, so we had a wait before our wedding season began. And it’s kept us busy ever since September 10th, the day we kicked off our first official wedding season with the most unique wedding we could have asked for.
Kelsey and Lauren are some truly amazing people. Kelsey is an amazing painter and Lauren owns the oh-so-charming Kensington Cafe here in San Diego. So with that much creativity at their disposal, they really made their wedding their own while working with our good friends over at Le Marie Events. You can see many of the special details that made this day so them in the photos below, but some of our favorites include the woven afghans for the guests to sit on during their park ceremony (I love that everyone kicked off their shoes during this time- such a fun and comfortable ceremony), the orange tie on their beloved dog Iggy (who helped Lauren’s dad walk her down the aisle before running into the crowd for hugs!), and the six-foot long parchment Kelsey dropped when it was his turn to read his vows (and the delighted look on his face about his prank as he did so).
(Chris returns as Jordan gets ready)
Not to mention that Kelsey did the whole ceremony bare foot and there were vintage details and so much color everywhere. Kelsey even designed and did the rad artwork on their invitations.
Well we’re off to take in some desert culture, maybe snap some photos (more like probably) and find some amazing food. Take care friends.
(And don’t work on your vacation when you think your wife is sleeping!)
– C & J
Prologue: Kelsey & Lauren
“Keep your head and your heart going in the right direction and you will not have to worry about your feet.”
Moses Family
We are at my parents house for the annual trivecta grandfather, father, son birthday bash. Yes, today is my 28th birthday. My grandfather and father are all within 2 weeks of mine, so my family always picks a weekend to get everyone together and eat cake. Jordan has been springing little surprise on me all week, which has been super sweet and thoughtful. We are so busy after our day jobs with editing and shooting on the weekends that little things like vacuuming the house or coming home to dinner ready on the table goes a long way. Our house didn’t come with a remote to open our garage. And since I park in the garage, for the past 10 months when I get home I’ll call Jordan and she runs down to open it for me (isn’t she sweet?). But Jordan’s teacher Michelle (who you might remember), gave us a universal remote that Jordan spent over an hour to program yesterday and got it to work before I got home (I had no idea I married the hot handy chick from Home Improvement!). I’m so excited I’ll be able to just swing in now! It’s the little inconveniences of life that make it interesting right?
You guys remember Will as a newborn right? 6 months later and he is modeling his trendy hats over a full head of awesomely curly hair and smiles when Chris and Shay call him by their self-assigned nickname, “Chunky”! I’ve probably told you guys this before, but Chris is my oldest and one of my best friends in the world. We grew up on the same street starting when I was 6 years old. Some of my first memories are of us playing in the empty dirt field next to our houses. It’s funny how things come full circle, 22 years later, capturing Will’s childhood moments. And though they recently moved back to Las Vegas, you are definitely going to be seeing more of this little guy as we have a couple of special shoots coming up with his cousin Penelope that I’m going to keep you in suspense about. Take care friends.
– C
Prologue – Moses Family
“There is only one pretty child in the world, and every mother has it.”
– Chinese Proverb
