Oh-9, Oh-9, Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-9...

I had my very first "Senior Portrait" shoot today. I was so incredibly nervous -- mostly, I figured out, because I have no idea what all the young kids want nowadays. Looking at other photogs' samples I became a little distraught. "I can't put a teenage girl in a Hustler pose," I said. "I can't airbrush some perfectly fine kid into oblivion."

So I decided to approach it like I have weddings: Do what I know how to do, and produce photos that I would like. Some of them turned out pretty nontraditional, like this one:

I took her to this abandoned field during the "magic hour" before dusk. The lighting and the girl were both gorgeous; it wasn't hard.

This was another one of my favorites. She was as uncomfortable posing as I was posing her, so she kept breaking out into this adorable embarrassed teenage laugh, which gave great expression to the photos.

Some were a little more old school. I present to you:

That's one for dad's desk. Plain and simple.

I like the sweet-n-gritty in this shot:

Between you and me, here's one of my competitors -- the self-proclaimed HQ for the Class of 2009. I have yet to figure out how to do the flaming card/aces in the sunglasses effect, so I don't think I'm quite in his league. But I'll get there, dammit, I'll get there.

Bon soir, mes amies.

Turquoise beauties

Took this one at Circus World Museum. I love the ladies on the antique circus wagons. Righteous but luscious, right? I think I might put this one up in my new office.

P-A-R-K it

Nothing much to say -- I took this while waiting for Erik to pull the car around the block in downtown St. Paul. I like the texture and color and gritty imperfection of a cityscape.

You know we belong to the land

I made my mother-in-law pull over in the almost-rain so I could get this shot on the highway shoulder in North Dakota. I don't think she saw what I saw because she said something to the effect of, "Um, Christina, I don't understand what you're doing..." but this is everything I love about the North Dakota landscape. I didn't appreciate it when I lived there, but it's embossed on some part of me and I fall to pieces when I look out the window and see this now.

Reagan Ruth

So I returned from vacation, and good lord, did I get a lot of crap for not updating my photo blog as of late. A) Can't a girl take a vacation? and B) Someone actually reads this thing?

I filled a 2 GB card with photos from the trip, everything from the boys tubing to my husband's 94-year-old grandma to the ND landscape to weird trucks-in-the-sideview-mirror shots. I'll stagger them throughout the coming week.

The first installment are some I'm really excited about: My longtime friend Christina's five-year-old daughter Reagan. It was especially fun because she looks so much like Christina did at that age, when I first met her at J. Nelson Kelly. And she has a little playhouse in her backyard, just like Christina did. And she was wearing Christina's completely '80s plastic heart bracelet. And she was sassy and hilarious, just like her mom.

As soon as Erik's able to I'll be putting up a gallery on my website of all the photos, but here are a few of my favorites:

Yeah, she's totally fake sleeping in that last shot -- you can tell by the super-scrunchy eyes -- but adorable, nontheless. Thanks, Christina!