It’s Monday morning and it’s gorgeous outside. What a great way to start off my kids’ spring break. Getting this one blog post done before I tune out, slightly, till Wednesday. My best best best best friend from college is coming to visit with her two little girls. I haven’t seen her in 2.5 years, and I’ve never met her youngest daughter Ruby. I’m really excited. My kids are really excited. We’ll all be on a mini vacation. I plan on taking lots and lots and lots of pictures.
If you too happen to be on spring break this week, then I highly suggest taking your kids strawberry picking. I love to pick strawberries. It’s nearing the end of the season here in South Florida, and there’s nothing that compares to that “right off the vine” strawberry. (Although strawberries don’t grow on vines. Strawberry plants are just that…small plants.) I got to spend a couple of hours with my favorite family on Saturday as we ventured south to strawberry pick at Knauss Berry Farms and then stop for fresh fruits and smoothies at Robert’s. I never actually saw or met Robert but was reminded repeatedly that, in fact, “Robert is Here.”
Meet baby Jack. He arrived 10 weeks early much to the surprise of his mom and dad, and spent over two months in the NICU at Baptist Hospital. It was a long road, but Jack’s a fighter, and is now home where he belongs.
A couple of months ago I got a call asking if I would be willing to donate a gift certificate for the Greg Wohrle Foundation‘s “The Feel the Love Fest” fundraising event. Kim Heller, began telling me about Greg Wohrle and the mission of the Foundation. Taken from their website “The Greg Wohrle Foundation is a non-profit organization whose mission is to provide funding and education for brain tumor research and respite to those most in need.
Our efforts are focused on enhancing the everyday lives of families, affected with brain tumors, through emotional, financial and physical support.” I dig that! But as our conversation continued and she told me about the man/father Greg was and just about how awesome “The Feel the Love Fest” event is for families, I knew I wanted to do more, get involved. Anyone can stick a gift certificate in the mail. So I went. Took my camera and took casual portraits of the families and kids really spending quality, wholesome time together. I was blown away by the scope of the event. Hundreds of people coming together to celebrate the life of Greg all while raising funds for such an amazing cause. I was kicking myself that I didn’t bring my own kids. It was really a fun family time for everyone.
So that being said, the complete online gallery from the event can be found on pictage.com. All monies earned from sales of the images will go directly back to the Greg Wohrle Foundaton.
Embarrassingly enough I shot this family the first weekend of December. But if you were to look at my blogging habits for the month of December you would see it was terribly lacking. But I really love this session. Lifestyle sessions really enable me to capture those little details that you want to remember forever.
I am 5 for 5 this week on the blog! Which I’m really excited about. We had been experiencing blog difficulties since the new website debuted, and now that everything seems to be straightened out I can finally celebrate the studio’s new look. We have been super busy here, and we have so many amazing sessions to share, some being way over due. So stop by often, you never know when you might just see you!
This is the third time I’ve photographed this family in the past year. You can see them here and here.
Ask most 11 year olds what they want for their birthday, and chances are they’re NOT going to ask for a portrait session with their big sister. Well meet Alex. All he wanted was a portrait session with his older sister. Ask, and you shall receive.
“Her work is distinct and holds a special place in our home.”- Marcy Hirsch -
“Courtney's photographs had a huge impact on NCLR and helped us raise over $1 million in December 2014. Her work is beautiful and engaging and shows the central goal of the fight for marriage equality -love."”- Ace Portis, Major Gifts Officer, NCLR -
“Courtney truly captured the uniqueness of our family and created beautiful, original works of art that we will treasure always.”- Darlene Giol -
