Jessica Lemmons Photography Blog, Longview Washington (Wa.) photographer.

So I totally loved the soundtrack for this particular wedding – Beatles songs and covers played for quite a few of the events during the wedding and I haven’t been able to get the songs out of my head since!

Judah and Becca had a seriously BEAUTIFUL wedding.   Everything was so classy and stylish.  The couple was amazing too.  Judah I’ve known….well, forever – we were childhood friends, I guess we were even dedicated together as babies (though I don’t remember that far back).  He’s just one of those genuinely nice people that you can’t help but like.  Becca I just met two weeks ago, and I have to say that I was definately impressed by Judah’s pick for his bride!  She was so sweet to me throughout the whole day and had been to me throughout all of the last minute planning too.   I don’t think I’ve ever had such a laid back and friendly bride.

I had a wonderful time…weddings can often be stressful to photograph, but that was SOOO not the case with this wedding.  Every thing was planned so perfectly ahead of time (their wedding planner Molly Guler did an awesome job there!) and so all of the key events just rolled right along.   It was amazing just getting to be a part of it!

Thank you so much for having me Judah and Becca!  I was honered to get to be a part of your day and I hope you enjoy these photos for years to come!

Saturday I got together with 7 lovely models and 3 other local photographers to do a Trash the Dress session in Kalama.   The shoot went amazing, lasting about 6 hours total.    I got some amazing photos and models totally ROCKED it!  I still haven’t even had a chance to go through everything that I got, but I didn’t want to make the gals wait forever to see a preview so I pulled one real quick for each gal to share on here.   There will be lots more to come later this week!

I met up with the “N” family last week for a family session out in Rose Valley.   Mrs “N” was my old neighbor from when I was a child.  We did the session out in the pasture that is in between her parents house and my parents old house.   I hadn’t been out there in years and couldn’t stop remembering all of the good times my siblings and I had growing up in some of these very spots that I was shooting in! 

When Mrs. N first contacted me and said she had 15 month old twins, I got nervous inside – 15 months is a tricky age to photograph no matter how great the kids are, but two of them….wow! But I’m pleased to say that I was pleasantly surprised by these sweet little gals!  They were amazing the entire session and both of them gave me lots of adorable little smiles and giggles.  It was great!

A big thank you to the “N” family for having me as your photographer! I hope you enjoy your preview!

Mr. K is one week old today!  I met up with him and his mom for a newborn session this morning.  He did so awesome the whole time -  Great little sleeper and just so precious!   Newborn sessions are always my favorites.  I joke around that getting my baby fix with all these newborns is what keeps me from having another one right away. 

Thank you Mr.K and family for having me as your photographer and I hope you enjoy your preview!

This gal was just adorable – super sporty, yet totally girly at the same time!  She brought some great ideas with her, one of my favorites (you’ll see it) was with her catchers gear.  We walked around the school campus and sports fields and found some great little areas there to shoot at, when we were finished at the high school we went down to the Columbia River to a little park and finished up the session there.

We lucked out and got a BEAUTIFUL day yesterday, I was able to wear a tank top and flip-flops to the shoot – haven’t been able to do that since September and it felt great!  Hopefully more beautiful weather is on it’s way!

Thanks again Kaylie!  I really enjoyed meeting you and I hope you enjoy your preview!

Kaylie is a catcher for the R.A.Long softball team, I LOVE how these two turned out!

Lisa is graduating from Kelso High School this year, I met up with her yesterday to do her photos.  I have to say I was super excited to do her session!    She had some great ideas going into the session, and I was more than willing to accomdate.

I always love the sessions where the seniors show up with their personality – the ones that have ideas and know what they want.  As a photographer, I definately have my own ideas of how a session should go, but it’s all me and my art, and I can’t necessarily drag my clients personality out of them (though I sure try sometimes!) So when a client shows up and says “Hey, I want to wear a dress and jump in the river!” or ” I want to wear my converse and sit on a dumpster.”  I’m super excited because not only am I taking a photo of them, I am taking a photo of who they are! I get an oppurtunity to capture something that embodies them.  Those are the photos I love, those are the photos my clients love, and more than likely those are the ones I can’t wait to stick in my portfolio because they are just flat-out cool!

So if you’re booking a session with me and have ideas, share away!  I can’t wait to hear them!!!!

Thank you Lisa!  I hope you enjoy your preview!

As you may know, I recently participated in the first National Charity Model Search. The contest’s goal was to discover America’s cutest kid and to raise money for charity.

It was a huge success, 2,000 model’s images were submitted to the contest, and most importantly, the competition raised $164,775 for the Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep (NILMDTS) foundation.

The competition was so much fun. We were thrilled to enter our community’s cutest kids into the contest. The feedback from clients has been overwhelmingly positive. People were enthusiastic about my philanthropic efforts to partner with NILMDTS. So many folks have experienced the loss of a child or know someone who has. Raising money for NILMDTS was an effort everyone supported.

The 50 finalists have been selected. Photography and modeling industry experts will select the grand prizewinner, which will be announced on May 1st. The finalist gallery is available for viewing – just click here.

This has been such a positive experience that we plan on participating in the National Charity Model Search next year. I hope that just as many of you step up to partner with me in this fun endeavor, and that we raise even more money for NILMDTS in 2010.

I met up with Preston this last weekend for his senior session here in Longview. He did amazing for the session – he was one of those guys with a wonderfully natural smile that made my job as the photographer so easy. I really enjoyed getting to meet him and his Mom and thought the session went great! I’m so glad that the weather decided to hold up for us!

Thank you Brenda and Preston for having me as your photographer and I hope you enjoy your preview!

I had a lot of fun processing this one! The sky was just so dramatic behind him and the clouds were in just the right spot….I LOVE it when that happens!

So I’m a day late in posting this since I tried to take the day off yesterday in order to celebrate Christs resurrection and the amazing gift of salvation that He has given us!  I am so incredibly thankful for the gifts that He has given me, the most important being his life on the cross over 2000 years ago that has made it so that I have the free gift of eternal life through Him.

I thought in honor of that I would share with you a quick video clip from youtube.   Our church did a version of this skit yesterday – it was awesome and powerful! I was so moved by it that I felt like I should share it with all of my readers.

It is very real to life in a few parts so probably not good for small kiddos to be watching.  Thanks for understanding.

My kiddos and I spent my day off this week out at my Mom’s house.   We have a tradition every year of going out there for the day just to dye eggs, and then on Easter Sunday we have dinner at my folks and my kids spend the evening hunting for the eggs.

I love having family traditions in my own family now!  My grandparents lived out of town, so big family get togethers on the holidays were a very rare thing for me while I was growing up.  I think because of that my mom was always great at making little family traditions for us  and we always looked forward to those little things every year.  Now I’m enjoying making my family traditions for my kids with my own family.  With being married, I have lots of big family get togethers to go to now which are super fun and I know my kids love.  But there’s something about the little, sometimes silly, things that we do with “just us” that are so important to me.  I love the little traditions.