Vail Proposal - Vail Back Country Tours

This winter, I was given the opportunity to start with working Vail Back Country Tours.  Like me, they deal with a lot of proposals.  Given that a lot of people want photos of their proposals, it was a natural fit for me to help.  That means I sometimes get to snowmobile for work now.  Yeeeha!

The locations that you can access during your snowmobile tour are breathtaking.  You won't find these views skiing down the front of Vail Mountain, so I highly recommend taking one of their tours.  

I jumped at the chance when I was asked to help Jimmy with his proposal near Piney Lake.  Luckily the handlebars on the snowmobiles are heated because the temps were unbelievably frigid.  Taking my gloves off to put my camera together left my hands completely numb.  Look at the view though!  It was absolutely worth it and so was the hot chocolate afterwards.  

Visit the website to view more Vail Engagement Photos.

Beaver Creek Family Photos - Beaver Creek Mountain - Singal Family

When Alka contacted me to take photos for her family, she told me that they would be celebrating a 1st, 9th and 70th birthday during their first ever trip to the Vail Valley.  What an honor to be capturing so many special birthdays.  

Our shoot was scheduled for early in the morning, which can lead to tricky lighting. The sun was already high by the time I arrived.  To counteract the light, we took a short walk to a huge aspen grove on one of the work roads, that doubles as a cat track in the winter.  There was plenty of shade and some great back lighting with the trees blocking most of the sun.

After a while, we ventured out of the shade to grab some photos with mountain views.  Although the light wasn't in our favor, we still managed to make the most of it and we got a few really great bonus photos.  

Sibling photos on Beaver Creek Mountain

Family photos at Beaver Creek

Visit the website to see more Vail and Beaver Creek Family Photos

Vail Senior Photographer - Kasey's Senior Photos at the Betty Ford Alpine Gardens in Vail, Colorado

Kasey has been coming to Vail for vacations her whole life, so I was honored when she asked me to take her high school senior photos on her recent trip here.  We initially thought we'd take the photos on Vail Mountain, but later decided it would be easier and just as beautiful to take the photos at The Betty Ford Alpine Gardens.

Kasey came to the shoot extremely prepared.  She'd hired a beach cruiser from Vail Village as a prop and she'd done a walk through the day before with her parents to look at different locations within the gardens and to figure out which outfits she'd like to wear at each spot.  Needless to say, it was one of the easiest photo shoots I'd ever done because she knew exactly what she wanted.  Perfect!

These are some shots of the gorgeous Miss Kasey that I particularly liked.  I mentioned in a recent post that I had a lot of new software to learn, so excuse the blatant overuse of my logo in the pictures below.  I'm still trying to figure out these new templates!

She Said Yes! Wedding Proposal at The Betty Ford Alpine Gardens in Vail, Colorado

Mike contacted me a couple of weeks ago to let me know that he wanted to propose to his girlfriend, Mary in Vail and he asked for my help in capturing the big moment. We had torrential rain in Vail all day long and Mike and Mary were driving up here from Denver in a terrible mix of snow and rain. I spent most of my day checking on the weather radar and fretting.  Poor Mike - can you imagine how hard that must have been on him! When I used to help plan weddings on Vail Mountain, we always said 'the nicer you are, the better the weather will be'.  It would appear that Mike and Mary are the nicest people every because amazingly, we got a break in the weather and everything turned out perfectly. Especially seeing as she said yes! Here are a few of the photos, taken at The Betty Ford Alpine Gardens. Look at all of the fresh snow on the hills in the background.

Click here to see more engagement photos from White Starfish Photography

Photo Display at the Avon Library in Avon, Colorado.

This week marks the last week of my 2 month display at the Avon Library, featuring 50 of my favorite photos from the last couple of years.  It took a while to get the logistics of the display organized, including hoarding photo frames for about 6 months leading up to December (much to my husband's dismay, due to the lack of room in our garage!).

Given that our closest Michael's is in Denver, I surprised myself by being able to make it down there 3 times over the fall to collect numerous supplies including spray paint, mod podge, brushes, canvases, ribbons and a couple of frames.  A lot of the frames were given to me by friends or found in thrift stores, which gives the display an eclectic look.  I based the color scheme on a pad of scrap book paper that I found in Denver.  I was hoping to cover some of the frames with the funky designs, but that didn't go according to plan and alas, the pad is still sitting untouched in my closet.

For 2 weeks I was getting up at 5am to paint, repaint and frame the photos.  I had to get up early to do it before work and also before Maxwell woke up.  Although he wouldn't have made a good helper in the paint department, he was a great helper when it came to hanging the display, handing me nails and the hammer whenever I needed them.  Russ was also a big help in making sure all of the frames were safe and sturdy and not likely to drop off the wall!

Seeing as I'm in the photography business and not the framing business, I learned a few lessons the hard way.  For example, if you don't smooth everything down with Mod Podge, it will bubble up on you and you'll be forced to order re-prints and you'll need to pay extra to have them rush ordered.  I'm hoping to show the photos again in the Vail library later on this year.  That can only mean one thing...storing the photos in our little garage for little while longer!  Oh well :)

The Bailey Family in Beaver Creek. Through the Lens Series, Entry 39.

We're nearly at the end of the holiday season for another year, and now that Christmas is over, I can post some holiday card photos.

The Bailey's had requested for their photos to be taken at the Hyatt at Beaver Creek in front of their fabulous fireplace in the Great Room.  We took the photos on Thanksgiving afternoon, which meant there were plenty of people in the Great Room area coming in from their day on the slopes.  Luckily, we didn't have any problems getting in front of the fireplace and we were able to re-arrange the furniture.  We had plenty of bystanders watching us and even helping out a little and the photo shoot was done in half an hour.

I raced home afterwards to collect the boys and to head out to a friend's house for Thanksgiving dinner.  As soon as I pulled up to my house, I realized I had left my hand bag in the lobby, so we had make a pit stop back at the Hyatt on our way to dinner.  Luckily it was still there!

I hope everyone is having a fun holiday season and enjoying time with family and friends.  We're freezing here in Vail with a high today of 14 degrees (-10 Celsius).  Wherever you may be and whatever temperature you find yourself in, happy holidays to you and yours from me and mine!

Haley's Maternity Photos in Edwards, Colorado. Through the Lens Series, Entry 37.

It's a been a few weeks since my last blog post, but I have plenty to post about.  I've been really busy with lots of photo shoots for christmas cards, so there will be more to come on those shortly.  I have a 50 photo display up in the Avon library (which took some time to get together with a lot of help Russ) and I'll post some photos of that soon too.  In the mean time, I'm going to go back a few weeks and post some photos from a maternity photo shoot that I did in Edwards for Haley and Mike.

To get the maximum effect from a maternity shoot, you don't want to do the photos any earlier than 36 weeks.  I've done a couple of sessions before that, but 36 weeks seems to be the general rule of thumb.  Haley was right at 36 weeks when we took the photos.  These were taken right around Thanksgiving and we didn't really  have much snow at the time, but we found a nice patch of snow outside Riverwalk and we took the rest of the photos around the Riverwalk area.

I loved the red top that Haley chose to wear.  It looked great against the late fall, early winter colors.  As I've mentioned before, I always love it when husbands take part in the session and Mike did a fantastic job helping Haley through the snow.

Here are a few of my faves from the session.  

I love the lighting on this shot.

To see more maternity photos, go to The Maternity Collection

The Hood's Fall Photos. Through the Lens Series, Entry 32

I'm way behind on blogging (again), but we've been dealing with our first rounds of the flu for the winter, lots of fun travels, Halloween and even a trip to the Pumpkin Patch at Osage Farms.  There'll be more to come on all of this in a later post, but I wanted to put up some photos of my last Fall photo shoot before we lost all of our beautiful aspen leaves.

I don't usually bring Maxwell along with me to photo shoots (for obvious reasons), but we were shooting his little friend Emma, so I figured he'd be a good assistant.  He stood behind me a lot of the time and thankfully was making Emma giggle for most of the shoot.  You can tell where he was standing by following the direction of Emma's eyes in some of the photos.

Here are a few of my favorite photos from that day.

One of the many amazing meadows around the Vail Valley.

Guess where Maxwell is standing.

Chief Kiss Blower.  He loved rolling around in the dirt, which made for some very grubby kisses to Emma.

Here he is acting as my caddy with suggestions for which lens to use and when to add a flare protector.

Click here for more Family Photography by White Starfish Photography.

She Said Yes! Matt's Wedding Proposal to Amy at the Betty Ford Alpine Gardens. Through the Lens Series, Entry 31

It sounds hokey, but you have to be a romantic to be a wedding photographer.  So when Matt emailed me a couple of weeks ago asking me to capture his proposal to Amy, of course I wanted to do it!  Matt and I emailed each other several times leading up to the big day and we decided the best way for me to photograph them, was for me to play the role of a random tourist.

Matt and Amy had never been to Vail and we had never met in person, so the preparation involved figuring out where to meet and what they would be wearing.  As they started walking towards the bridge I was so nervous for Matt that my hands were shaking!  Luckily the aspens were looking gorgeous and it was a classic Colorado bluebird day.  Of course she said yes!  About two seconds later, Matt introduced me and we took a few photos around the gardens.

Here are a few of my favorite photos from the shoot.  Congratulations Matt and Amy!