No, I have not fallen off the side of the planet. Just been very busy with lots of little side projects during this cold winter month. I’ve been to a photography conference in Nashville, getting lots of little business things in place for 2010, and have been working on wedding albums. All fun, but as you know, photographers love to be shooting. So I had to get away from the computer for a day and pulled out the camera and then coax two unwilling subjects to be my models for the day. It has been a while since I’ve done a real shoot with my sons, Ryan and Cooper. They usually are good for a little bit, but get over it very quickly. Guess that is what I get for having a camera in their face since birth. We played outside for a while and when it got too cold, we retreated inside and played with some different lighting setups. As long as I let them make some funny faces, they usually cooperate. A little edible bribery never hurts either.  Having grown up an only child, I never experienced growing up with a sibling, so it has been a wonderful experience watching Ryan and Cooper’s sibling bond grow. Yes, there are times that they drive each other crazy, but over all, they get along so well and that is something I’m very proud of. That was something I was trying show in these portraits too, and I hope years from now, they will cherish too. Enjoy.

As always, Cooper has to do things his own way. He loves to show off how old he is now!  Okay, enough of my boys. Things are getting ready to crank up again and I have a full week of shoots ahead (providing the weather does not get in the way), so the blog posts should be back on a regular schedule. See you soon!

Okay, time to take a break from work and have a little fun. The real fun was a few weeks ago when we celebrated my son Cooper’s third birthday. We couldn’t decide where to have the party this year since it is always an issue with December parties. Coop is not that big on those bounce places and everywhere else just seems so expensive. But it is hard hosting and entertaining at home during the winter too. What to do? Well, after a large box of canvas prints arrived one day, I left the box out for the boys to play in while I went on a shoot. Marcia said the boys played in the box for hours. That gave her an idea and we ran with it. A box party! What kid doesn’t love to play in boxes? So I set out across town collecting appliance boxes at several of the home improvement stores around town.  5 refridgerator boxes, 5 washer boxes and a number of TV boxes and a roll of duct tape later, our garage had turned into one heck of a cardboard fort. Needless to say, the kids loved it, as well as most of the dads that attended the party. I was sure we had lost the garage to the kids for good.  Kudos to my mother and brother-in-laws for the help in the construction of the fort. The party was a perfect. The actual theme was Buzz Lightyear and Woody the Cowboy, Cooper’s favorite characters right now. The cake was modeled after Andy’s bed from the Toy Story movies, and was made by our friend Jason Yarbrough. We just can’t beleive our little Cooper is already three! Where does time go. Since I had a bunch of photos to show off again, I went with the collage method again. But first, here is our little Coop, out playing in the snow before his party started.

Cooper’s Box Town

Party fun.

Thankfully we have boys, and as much fun as they had playing in the boxes that weekend, like all boys, they have a knack for destruction. So once we told them it was time for the box fort to come down, they didn’t complain one bit, and jumped right in to help knock it all down. Gotta love em!

Well, thanks for letting me show off my family fun. I hope you have a wonderful Christmas and make lots of family memories of your own this holiday season. I thank all of my clients for letting me into your lives to help preserve your memories throughout the year, and I look forward to catching up with you again in 2010. Merry Christmas from the J. Davis Photography family!!!

I hope you all are having a wonderful day with your families. I wanted to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving, and let you know how thankful I am that so many of you have chosen to include me in your lives. I truly am honored to share special moments in your lives, weather it is the joy of a newborn, the little giggles of a toddler, the joy of being a family, or your unique wedding day. This past year has been wonderful and I am thankful for the new friends I’ve made, and the opportunity to catch up with old friends. Again, I wish you all the best this holiday season.

Of course I am also very thankful for my own family, especially my boys. So, I thought I’d share a few recent portraits of them. If you think some of your portrait sessions are stressful, just imagine how mine go sometimes. Just like the stereotypical preachers kid is the wild child, the photographer’s kids never want to pose for portraits. After much convincing, I was finally able to get some good fall portraits as well as Cooper’s third birthday portraits done. Enjoy, and thanks for letting me show off my pride and joy for a change.

Love Love Love that late afternoon light in the fall. I could not decide which of these I liked better. See, I have that problem too!

I wanted to do an updated portait of the two of them similar to the one that I used to have at the top of my old blog. Never quite got a good smile out of Ryan but I liked this one, especially Cooper’s sweet grin. Of course, this is what they wanted to give me…

I can’t believe how fast time is flying by. Cooper is turning three, so we did some portraits of him to celebrate. He is big into Buzz and Woody right now, so we are looking forward to Toy Story 3 coming out next year.

Cooper giving it his best Buzz impersonation. And a salute to being a big three-year-old.

Thanks again for dropping by. Busy busy November is spilling right over into December so I have a lot of great sessions to blog about in the coming weeks. See you back here real soon. Up next is the dynamic duo of Jake and Ryan.

Okay, it has been a long summer and things are gearing up for a busy, busy fall. Start thinking about those fall family and holiday portraits. I will have the 2009 Christmas cards ready to show off soon, so stay tuned. But I wanted to take a quick moment to be a proud parent and show off a few photos of my kids. We took a quick trip down to Isle of Palms on that last weekend before Ryan started kindergarten. The boys had an absolute blast on the beach, and Ryan found his inner water dog. I think he spent at least 3 straight hours one afternoon playing in the surf. Then of course, it was time to come home and start school. We still can’t believe that our not-so-little boy is old enough to be going to school. But he is, and he loves it. Cooper also started parent’s day out and is finally getting used to his new class. On the last day before Ryan started school, I took him to the zoo and gave him one of my cameras because he has been expressing interest in taking photos. Yea, I’m one proud papa now. He did pretty good over all considering this was his first attempt with an SLR camera. Will have to work on his focusing, but I just loved watching the excitement in his face as he explored the zoo with that camera in hand. And to top off an exciting start to fall, Ryan started playing soccer too. It is entertaining watching a bunch of 5-year-olds run around the field chasing a ball. Ryan did pretty good in his first game and is looking forward to playing more.  Okay, I’ll quit yakking and let you look at some photos.

Cooper hangs ten on the boogie board.

These are some of Ryan’s photos. Not bad huh? Looks like I’ll have a second shooter before too long!

And last but not least, here is the little slide show from Ryan’s first day at Kindergarten.

Thanks for letting me share some of my family snapshots with you. I’ll be back soon with more babies and kids!

I still can’t believe I have a 5-year-old. It just doesn’t seem like it has been 5 years since I was holding him for the first time in the hospital room. But these past 5 years have been some of the richest years of my life, with more treasured memories than I could have imagined. Ryan is growing up too fast in my opinion, but instead of regretting it, I’m going to embrace it and live every moment to the fullest with him. And, as much as I want to slow time down, I’m looking forward to being able to do more things with him, and Cooper as they get older. And Ryan is so excited about starting kindergarten this fall and you just can’t help but be excited with him (I’m not so excited about having to have him there by 7:30 since he likes to sleep in till 9 though). Anyway, this past weekend we had his 5th birthday party, a Dinosaur themed party, complete with a fossil dig, dinosaur masks and another awesome cake by good friend and cake maker Jason Yarbrough.  Here are a few photos from his big day!

Ryan and his new bike on his birthday.

The Dinosaur & Volcano cake by Jason Yarbrough.

Hanging out with Anut Nickie and Uncle Sam

A wild bunch of Dinosaurs. Notice the only one with out a mask at all is Cooper, my little rebel down in front. Gotta love him.

Thanks for letting me share a slice of my life and show off my growing little boy!