Kim + Jonathan = Vintage Viva Las Vegas Vow Renewal Awesomeness | Las Vegas, NV

I have some pretty awesomely silly and fun friends!  One of my best friends in the whole wide world is Kim.  We did cheesy-as-all-get-out showchoir together in high school and for the last 16 years (yikes!) she has been like a sister to me.  Ten years ago, Kim married the Yin to her Yang, Jonathan, and this year they decided that they wanted to do something super fun and silly for their anniversary, so they planned a trip to Vegas to renew their vows in Graceland Wedding Chapel with none other than THE KING HIMSELF officiating the ceremony.  Phil and I were SO IN for this, and drove up to meet them in Vegas for a weekend.  Kim loves all things vintage, and wears victory rolls in her hair like all the time in real life (she is a h.s. theatre teacher, after all...she has to have a bit of flair) so we decided to dress up early 1950's for the vow renewal, and it was a BLAST!  If you ever get the chance to go out in Vegas decked out to the nines, take it and run with it, and dance in the streets, and find you an Elvis to renew your vows.  You will not regret it!  Here are my faves from the photo session that we did on the way and at the chapel, and the fun at the post wedding highfalutin' dinning experience.  You don't want to miss these!

There was this massive photo of the Rat Pack in their hotel hallway, and lighting be danged, I was going to make it work!  Respect to the past!

The view from our hotel was bomb!! (Do people still say "bomb?")  This one is my favorite!!

The Desert sun can be pretty harsh, but these two knew how to werk some sunglasses!   Okay, this one might be my favorite, I lied before!

Unfortunately I wasn't allowed to take any photos in the actual chapel because they have an in-house photographer named Abe (who was super cool, hey Abe!) and don't allow outside people to take any photos.  But let me tell you, it was so much fun, and I think when Elvis had them promise to be each other's "hunk a hunk a burning loves", and "never leave each other at Heartbreak Hotel", I felt a little teary.  And since it is a well known fact that Vow Renewing makes you super hungry, we stopped off at the local watering hole known as In and Out Burger so that Kim could experience it for the first time.  YUM!!

Okay, this next black and white image is kind of fuzzy, and kind of weirdly composed, but look at Jonathan's face... You guys, that is the way he looks at Kim all the freaking time.  After ten years of marriage, I swear, he is still puppy-dog-so-very-flipping-in-love with her and I know this because I see this look on his face ALL THE TIME.  It's the same way he looked at her the first time we ever went to post-bar pancakes at IHOP in college, and to see it now, in this booth on this night was just so special, so I had to include this photo.  Ahhh... I LOVE LOVE!!!

On the way home we took a little detour to stop off by the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas Sign and took a few super quick shots. I wanted to share them so that you could see the amazing job Kim did on my hair!  

This was one of the most fun nights ever, and I am so glad that Kim and Jonathan allowed me to bring my camera along on the wild Vegas ride!  You guys are so great, and here's to the next ten years.  We are going to have to outdo this for your 20th!!!

Bangarang,

EEB

Ty's EP Record Listening Party- Phoenix Event Photography

I am so lucky to count some amazing artists as friends.  I have amazing photographer friends, amazing actors as friends, amazing designers as friends, and now I have an amazing recording artist as a friend.  Ty and I have known each other for a few years, and he is an awesome guy all around, but an amazingly talented singer.  Basically, Ty is the guy that you go to a dance club with...any dance club... and he will know six people and their life stories within an hour, get you free drinks from his new bartender friend, and have the person who started the night sitting sulking in a corner alone out of the floor twerkin' before the night is through.  You think that is hyperbole, but let me assure you, that's just a night out with Ty!  

For the past year, Ty has been writing and recording music, and he is very soon going to be releasing an EP entitled Greenhorn.  For a little bit of publicity, he asked me to join him for the listening party to launch his EP!  I couldn't resist, and when he got up and sang live for a song, my ears were in heaven!  I'm so proud of you, Ty!!  Enjoy some fun shots from the night and check out some of Ty's music experiments on soundcloud.

Starting off with a few of the man of the evening!

This is Ty's old roommate and partner in awesomeness crime, Keisha.  Much like Ty, Keisha is a beast on a dance floor... but like a really pretty, sexy, beast!

Ty sang the last song on the EP live, and it was a treat for everyone involved!

After the EP played it was time for DJ Keisha to hit the stage!

Wobble, baby.  Wobble, baby.  Wobble, baby.  Wobble it!

The Erickson Family = SWEETNESS | Phoenix Family Photography

When Vanessa asked me to come take photos of Rebekah for her birth announcement, we decided to do a few shots of the whole family.  I LOVE these shots of the growing Erickson clan!  Little Henry was so sweet and tender with his sister, but also so excited to run around like the two year old toddler he is, and Steve and Vanessa are simply ridiculously good looking... like seriously!  I hope that you guys treasure these images of the very beginning of your time as a family of four!

Besos!!!  Henry couldn't get enough kisses!  It was adorable!

She already has him wrapped around her little finger... and can you blame him?  So much love here!

We were able to catch some quiet moments with Henry.  They are few and far between with a two year old boy, but he was very interested in the rain outside, and how his baby sister was doing.  I love how they turned out.  I want to just eat him up, he's so adorable!!

And then, a few of Mama and her new baby girl.  I love the serenity and calm that these make me feel.  Vanessa and I bonded a long time ago over the "pale-skin-dark-hair" complexions we share.  People would always tell me how striking that combo is, and looking at these photos of V, I must agree with them!  Vanessa, you are simply georgeous as a woman, and as a mother and as a friend!

Steve came in to join, and the amount of love surrounding these two as they looked at their baby daughter was palpable.  The amount of laughs were palpable, too.  I tend to think that love and laughter so often go hand in hand!

Thanks so the Erickson Family for welcoming me into your home on a rainy Saturday morning.  I am so glad that I was able to capture some of the beauty that is your everyday with little Rebekah, and super fun Henry.  I hope that you will enjoy these reminders of this time in your life for years to come!

Bangarang!

EEB

Won Family=LAUGHS | Phoenix Family Photography| Indian Steel Park

I was so very lucky to get the chance to second shoot a session with my good friend Angela over at Angela Dimler Photography.  She had met the awesome Won family through friends, and we spent a super fun Saturday morning capturing the first professional photos they had taken as a family ever!!!  I was mostly kiddo wrangler for the morning, so this is a short post, but I was able to get a few good shots in and wanted to share them.  Enjoy!!!

Vivi decided she would rather "climb daddy" than pose for a photo at that moment.  She has such a big personality, and I know she will be a little leader wherever she goes, this photo just captures her so well, I think.  I hope everyone is laughing about it when she is a teenager!  Sometimes the moments between the "traditional" photos turn out to be my faves!

You guys, Andy was SO HAPPY that he found this leaf.  SO AMAZINGLY HAPPY!!  I'm pretty sure we were all smiling and laughing as he took it around to show everyone this SUPER EXCITING LEAF!  Unfortunately leaves are delicate, and a two year old boy doesn't always jive with that concept...but it was a beautiful relationship while it lasted :-).

It was ballet recital day, so she had to practice her moves with daddy.  I melt when I look at them.  Phil (my super cute boyfriend) saw these photos, sighed, and said that he wants moments like this when he has a daughter...and I just completely turned into a puddle on the floor.  

Hello Won Family!!!

I mean, can you even?  Such a little cutie!!!

So I'm gonna get on my little soapbox here.   Angela was running the kiddos around for a few shots, and so I got Leah and Mike (aka Mom and Dad) to pose for a few shots with me.  After we got them, Leah said "We haven't done that since our wedding photos!"  And the heavens rejoiced because now they have an updated photo of their love in present day!!  So often I have parents say "Oh, you don't need photos of me" and my answer is always the same.  "I might not, but you do and your kids do, too!"  Can you imagine growing up with this reminder of how much your mom and dad adore each other on the wall? I'm getting all puddly on the floor again...

I don't think anybody in the history of the world has ever been this happy to have some princess bubbles.  I wonder where he gets all this enthusiasm from...

Ahh... there it is ;-).

And we end with my two favorites.  SO MUCH FUN, THIS FAMILY!  I hope you enjoy your photos, and that we get to play again sometime soon!

Rebekah = Beautiful | Newborn Photography | Phoenix, AZ

Rebekah is a girl after my own heart with all that dark hair!  About a week after she was born, I came over to her house and we got these beautiful shots of this beautiful little girl.  She was such a calm baby, dealing with all the outfit changes and positions we put her in so well.  Her mom had some great props that she had borrowed from a friend (love the mommy network for those types of things).  Rebekah decided that she didn't want to sleep during the newborn portion of our session, so we got some bright eyed views of this little lady which I LOVE.  As fun as it is to get beautiful sleeping shots of babies, I always love the alert eyes and watching them discover the world around them... Enjoy!!

They are called baby blues for a reason, and Rebekah knew how to work 'em!!!  I just love how inquisitive she looks, like she is seeing the world for the very first time... because she is!

We had to get a shot with Grandma's quilt in her nursery.

Big smiles!!!

Rebekah is just precious!!  I'm so honored that Vanessa trusted me to capture these photos of the beginning of her life.  I can't wait to watch her grow!!!  And just wait, there is a whole family session for the rest of Rebekah's family that will blow your mind, it will be up on the blog soon.  Bangarang!--EEB

Cassie + Mike + Aiden + Oliver = LOVE | Family Photography | Phoenix AZ

What do you get when you add a super awesome, laid back mama, a hilarious dad, and two energized boys under the age of 4?  YOU GET THE BREECHERS!!!  I have loved this family for a long time; ever since the day Cassie and Mike got married in my backyard.  Cassie is a great friend, and her dad is a professional photographer, so I was extra nervous to get some great shots of her family.  And if I do say so myself, I think we got some pretty good ones!!  If you are ever looking for a hell of a workout on a Saturday morning just run through a park, feed the ducks, play peek-a-boo, snuggle up to a good book, roll around on the grass, and eat some chocolate chip cookies with these boys!  After our session, I was BEAT and I can't wait to do it again!!  Check out my favorites below:

One of the sets of grandparents came to help entertain the boys and grab a few photos, I just love photos with multiple generations!

"How do you blow kisses?"

Oliver was very interested in that particular fish... don't you just want to eat those cheeks?!?!

While the boys went to look at ducks with Grandma, Cassie and Mike were kind enough to show me what love is like with two young boys out of sight... it was lovely, and involved only minimal incidents of nose picking... just check it out...

This next photo was a moment that was completely not staged... when the boys were looking at the ducks, Cassie came up behind Aiden, and he was so happy to see his mama and snuggle into her... I love this love.  I want a photo of me and my mom like this, and I'm 31...

Check out Aiden's face... cheeeeesetastic!  We have so many photos of my brother making the same face in photos and they are special treasures to us now that we are adults!

So then, Oliver pulled out his "Baby GQ"  look and all us ladies were a swoonin'...

And we ended the session with basically the definition of a happy family.  Thanks so much Breechers for coming out to play with me and my camera, we both had a really great time!!

Bang to the rang, friends!--EEB

So How Long Have You Been a Photographer?

When I was a kid, I stole my parents' camera, took it out into the backyard after a snowstorm, and tried to photograph the snow stacked on mom's statue of the Virgin Mary and the icicles hanging off the eaves.  When I was doing this, I remember thinking, "These are going to be SO AWESOME!!!  I bet if they were in black and white they would look JUST LIKE photos in Life magazine".  They did not.  Not even a little bit.  But I kept trying to get awesome photos, taking my friends into the backyard to do photoshoots in our dress-up clothes, trying to get a really good face out of one of my baby cousins, and if you think that mirror selfies were invented recently, then you are greatly misinformed.  Inevitably my dad would take the film in to get it developed, and I would get a speech about how it was expensive (three dollars a roll OMG!!!) to develop it, and I should not be wasting it taking photos of nothing, so I wouldn't do it again...for like two weeks.    

By the time I was in college, I was the nerdy girl in the theatre department who always had a point-and-shoot camera with her at parties.  I would get double prints from Walgreens and try to make my friends love me by giving them what I thought were awesome photos from their latest play, or the latest party we had all attended.  I figured the drunk eyes would make for good memories someday (I was right) and since I was still willing to shell out the three dollars to develop the film, I became the unofficial-and-sometimes-avoided historian of my friend group.  I have boxes and boxes of the good times at KU's University Theatre, and if any of those friends ever end up famous, I can write my ticket, if you know what I mean...

Then, in 2004, something amazing happened, and on a trip to Greece for summer study abroad, two whole people had these amazing things called digital cameras...ooooooooo.  We could take AS MANY PICTURES AS WE WANTED, and it didn't cost ANY MONEY as long as we uploaded them to the 25 lb laptop we had brought with us.  I kicked myself for stupidly going out and buying my first film SLR camera and 18 rolls of film before the trip!  How could I be so stupid?!? For that kind of money, I could have gotten a Sony Powershot with 4 whole pixels per photo!!!  Luckily my best friend had the digital camera, and I had my SLR, and over the 9 weeks we spent in Greece, I found a way to love the beauty of taking only one photo of things with my SLR and then stealing her camera to take like twenty more.  She really likes me, and didn't want to take photos of everything from every possible angle and totally was not bugged by this at all (I just called and asked her, and she told me so, but she might be lying because I brought her tacos the other day and I think she's hoping I'll do it again).  I knew on this trip that travel photography would continue to be a huge part of my life and I NEEDED one of these digital camera things.

Then came college graduation, and the onslaught of congratulations cards with checks included.  I totally used all of that money to buy my digital point and shoot, and now I was taking photos of EVERYTHING.  I documented my whole life of living with my parents for a year (I'm technically a millennial, so I think it is in the rulebook that you have to).  Then I documented my time touring the northern midwest as a professional actor and theatre teacher.  Then I documented my move out to LA to become a professional movie star.  Then I documented my time in LA working in a real estate office and having a super fun time being not a movie star.  Then I documented my move to Phoenix to work in a real job because I was definitely never going to be a movie star.  

By the time I moved to Phoenix, I had thousands of photographs of my life, and any of the photography skills I had learned on my SLR were long gone.  I realized that while I loved the snapshots of every day, I was missing the experience I had of taking beautiful, well thought out photos like I had with my SLR in Greece all those years before.  I ordered my first digital SLR on ebay, a Canon entry level Rebel with a kit lense, and I set out on groupon photography workshops and classes at the local center for the arts to learn the art of REAL photography.  That was five years ago.  

My friends still put up with me taking their photos everywhere, except now I'm using a professional level Canon digital SLR and lenses that cost the same amount as my first car.  Now I have the knowledge to tell them to move into the light before I snap a fun photo of us at a party (we still party, we are not dead, they just end a lot earlier and quite often a lot soberer).  Now I can go out with a family, and direct them to have so much fun with each other that I can push a shutter and they will always have that moment of joy that they can frame in their home and pass on to their children when they are grown.  Now I get to see the sweet moments between a couple in love and build a guest book full of these moments that they will use at their wedding and keep forever.  Now I know what the hell I'm doing, and you know what?  I love it so much!!!!  I get to do this for a living, and I am amazed by that every day.  

It took me my whole lifetime to gain the knowledge of how to do it the way I always wanted to, but from the first time I stole my parents' point and shoot out of the drawer and went in to the back yard to capture the snow, I have always been a photographer.   --EEB