Swoon Worthy Photography Blog : Knoxville, Tn

January 15, 2009 - 6:14 pm

J Sandifer – Best of luck in 09! Can’t wait to get my 5d!

January 12, 2009 - 12:14 pm

Robbie – Ahh I know how you feel. We celebrated just last weekend with another part of the family so I finally feel like I can start my new year. Great images!

January 11, 2009 - 10:33 pm

Anonymous – Sheila~A lovely story and you should know that you were not the only person missing family at Christmas.The pictures are beautiful and I am so proud of you for being a devoted mother, exceptional photographer and a terrific daughter! For those that do not know you….as one of only a handful of applicants from across the world choosen to attend North Carolina School of the Arts in Film, declining the invitation and then graduating with two degrees in two and a half years with honors in Radiography, the brains to be a surgeon or a chemist…. and yet you choose photography.
I hope your hard work and exceptional creativity bring you all the happiness you so deserve!….Even though I did want you to be a doctor. :)Your work is breathtaking!
Love,
Mom

Expecting : Amanda & Josh

12*17*08 Posted in Maternity

This is a very exciting post for me, for more reasons than one!

For starters, I had the opportunity to shoot my first maternity session, which was fantastic. Truly, I loved every moment and I am looking forward to incorporating my “Expecting” sessions into the business.

Also, this wasn’t just any maternity shoot, this was with a good friend of mine, Amanda. I didn’t feel so alone in the newbie department though, as this is Amanda’s first pregnancy. Amanda and I first met over three years ago in a radiography science class (boy am glad those days are behind us), but it wouldn’t be until about a year later that we connected again in a class. Our friendship grew and we spent the last ten weeks before getting our BS degrees as clinic partners and haven’t stopped chatting since. In fact, we were quite chatter boxes during the shoot too! Thanks for letting me spend an afternoon with you Amanda, I loved catching up and snapping some portraits of you. *Note to self: when working with friends- more snap, less chat :end note*

There is one more reason this was an exciting day for me, I got to officially break in my brand new Canon 5D mark II!! This camera really is all it’s been hyped up to be. I was shooting at ISO’s that my Nikon D80 could only dream of, and most importantly the pictures were clear! That’s right, image noise…. not for this girl! I haven’t even scratched the surface of the video capabilities on it yet. I also noticed my edit time was about a third of the time I had been spending on a similar amount of photos from other sessions. Granted I have been practicing and really feel like I have found my “style”, I’d like to believe it’s also because of the superior image quality the mark II provides.

On to Amanda… these first two I was just setting my exposure but I thought she looked quite cute.

Alright, I know that second one is a touch overexposed, but I had to play with my mark II and I actually like the result.

This little man was such a cutie, and loved being in front of the camera.

Thanks again, I can’t wait to meet little Lucy Claire!

by admin

18 comments

January 9, 2009 - 10:08 am

Alfred – The overexposed shot works very well. Awesome work!

January 8, 2009 - 7:41 pm

Whitney Calendar – What a great variety! Love th eornament shot.

January 6, 2009 - 9:16 am

michele bowman photography – i really love the one with the Christams ornament!
awesome job!

January 5, 2009 - 5:19 pm

Sarah Wellmeier Photography – These are so Great Shelia!! I love all of them. Awesome Job!!

January 5, 2009 - 10:46 am

Brandon Perron – Great preg. shoot…I do not these shoots, cause I struggle with them…but these are very well done.

January 5, 2009 - 9:16 am

Kriea Arie – I love that last one!

January 4, 2009 - 5:30 pm

Amber – Hey Sheila! Love the maternity pics! You always do such a great job!

January 4, 2009 - 9:16 am

Anna – These are so beautiful! Love the last one, great bokeh!

January 3, 2009 - 8:49 pm

Nicole Welch – This session is just gorgeous! I love your creativity. I just did my first maternity session last month, and you’ve given me some good inspiration. Thank you! Beautiful work.

January 3, 2009 - 12:28 pm

Michelle (RedBarn Photography) – Sheila- I love the feeling in these portraits! They are so warm and full of love!

January 3, 2009 - 12:04 pm

Jessica Monnich Photography – I love these! So sweet! I love her dress, I am a big fan of peacocks! Great job!

January 2, 2009 - 11:19 pm

candice k – What a gorgeous mommy!! The skintones in these look sooo creamy 😀

January 2, 2009 - 9:41 pm

Bella Luce Photography – Wow, what a beautiful mom to be…you did AMAZING on those photos..I didn’t know you had a Mark II so now I am very jealous Seriously, they are beautiful!

January 2, 2009 - 9:30 pm

Leah Haydock – Great images and emotion

January 2, 2009 - 9:12 pm

Kayleen T. Photography – Hi Sheila. Great maternity pictures, especially the last one, I love!

December 29, 2008 - 10:02 am

Cailyn (In Retrospect Photography) – Love ’em!

Great job on all of them! Also: I AM SO JEALOUS OF YOU MARK II. You better let me play with it in Vegas!

December 27, 2008 - 10:39 pm

Anonymous – Great work Sheila! Your friends are a true example of “love”, and you captured it perfectly!

Your biggest fan~

December 21, 2008 - 7:48 am

Anonymous – Sheila,

I LOVE THE PICS!!! I enjoyed the session & always enjoy being around you. The job you did was incredible…I can't wait for our next session! By the way, my favorite pic is the one of Josh kissing my belly. Oh, yeah and the pink bow pic too.

Love Ya,
Amanda Burris

Trash the Dress : Jackie

12*05*08 Posted in Uncategorized

This is the last of the dress trashing sessions from November with some new friends: Allie and Chris, Annie and Toby, Cailyn, Amanda, and Sarah. We came from five different states and met up in Cincinnati for some photographic awesomeness.

We were losing daylight quickly during Jackie’s shoot, and that was exactly the point. We had some extra special trashing in store for miss Jackie, who was quite the trooper. For those of you, like myself, who immediately go into parent mode and are thinking “is that toxic?”, no it isn’t (I double checked). Did anyone know glow sticks are oily inside? Well, now you do. Jackie, thank you for indulging our photography curiosity, and I hope you enjoyed your neon-moisturizing facial, and an extra thank you for hanging out afterwards for some Chinese food and a random trip to the airport (thanks to Cailyn’s superb sense of direction) ;).

We were going for hot broke down bride, and Jackie nailed it.

Bring on the glowsticks!

I liked this one both ways, I tried but I just couldn’t choose between the two.

by Sheila

6 comments

January 14, 2009 - 12:12 pm

Erin – Wow, awesome shoot. Great job.

January 6, 2009 - 8:27 pm

Amy Owens – I’m loving the glow sticks and the splatter!

January 3, 2009 - 4:29 pm

photos by nick – Awesome work. Keep up the good job. I am a B schooler and would appreciate a hit back on mine. http://www.photosbynick.com/blog

January 3, 2009 - 2:08 am

Mark Hayes Photography – The splashed glow sticks is such a cool concept.

January 2, 2009 - 10:00 pm

Bob D – TTD sessions are always a blast.

December 16, 2008 - 12:33 pm

Cailyn (In Retrospect Photography) – FIRST OF ALL… My sense of direction isn’t that bad. I was actually the first to arrive at breakfast this past weekend! Take THAT!

Also: Damn, girl. Great photos! I am SO excited for WPPI.

Trash the Dress : Sarah & Sam

11*25*08 Posted in Fashion Bridal, Trash the Dress

This is another great session from a few weeks ago when I had a photography packed weekend with some new friends: Allie and Chris, Annie and Toby, Cailyn, Amanda, and Sarah. We came from five different states and met up in Cincinnati for some photographic awesomeness. After reading this post click on their names and check out their talent.

This was not only a special shoot because we were trashing an actual wedding dress but the bride was our fellow photographer, Sarah, and her husband, Sam. The trashing weapon of choice-paint. I’ll admit while editing this session I was particularly inspired by the paint, blank canvas, and thought of unique creations. I did something a bit different with the images below. I always treat each photograph as a piece of art but tend to find a particular “look” I like with most of the images and tie a whole shoot together. Well, I’m not sure if it was the paint that inspired me or the memory of something Sarah had said while we we photographing her (she and her husband planned on framing the dress and hanging it to display in the house) but I treated each photo from this session completely as it’s own canvas and processed them each individually without regard to how I had edited the previous photo. It took a bit longer than normal but I really like the result.

Also, with this post I’m trying out a new image display and watermark. I think the result is a step up, with cleaner lines, larger images, and a more simplistic representation of the company name. I’ll be using “P.S.” for some creative branding in the future so stay tuned for that.

by admin

6 comments

January 11, 2009 - 10:21 pm

Joplin Artistic Expressions – LOVE the paint! I wish I could get brides in my area interested in the trash the dress sessions. These are GREAT!

January 9, 2009 - 7:17 am

Splendid! Photography – These are so fun! It looks like you guys had a great time-

January 5, 2009 - 2:44 pm

Dave T. – Now that is a clever way to trash the dress!!!

November 25, 2008 - 7:31 pm

Cailyn – Beautiful! Great job!

I need to get it in gear and get mine up!

November 25, 2008 - 4:23 pm

Sarah Wellmeier Photography – Oh My Goodness (jumping up and down)!! I am in love with all of them. You did an awesome job on the processing! I can not wait to order some canvas. I feel I owe all of you:) These really mean soo much to us. Thank You!!

November 25, 2008 - 12:52 pm

alliemariephoto – Beautiful, Sheila!

Trash the Dress : Andrea & Lucas

11*20*08 Posted in Fashion Bridal, Trash the Dress

For those who haven’t been keeping up, a few weeks ago I had a photography packed weekend with some new friends: Allie and Chris, Annie and Toby, Cailyn, Amanda, and Sarah. We came from five different states and met up in Cincinnati for some photographic awesomeness.

This next shoot, with Andrea and Lucas, featured some food products. Specifically of the ketchup and mustard variety, and I’m not going to lie, this session had one downside. Ketchup and mustard in large quantities smells REALLY bad. At one point the breeze blew in just the right direction, sweeping mass smells of stink into the majority of the photographers nostrils who were unfortunate enough to be standing down wind. I was one of those photographers. We all took a gasp of air and let out a harmonious “ewww…”. We weren’t the ones even covered in the condiments and for a second lost our composure.

So, Andrea and Lucas, thank you from the bottom of my heart for smelling like that and still managing to look that amazing.

We started with some “clean” shots. These two weren’t afraid to get a little kissy and it turned out great.

Hotness…

Seriously? Love these shoes!

Ok, can we say canvas? Really big canvas! My fav from this shoot…

Then it was time to get messy.

I’m thinking about using this one for a promo card… or is it a bit too Hitchcock-esque?

If you like what you see leave some love

by admin

2 comments

January 5, 2009 - 12:43 pm

Erin – Love these.

November 24, 2008 - 11:50 pm

Amanda Donaho Photography – Great job, girl! That shopping cart shot does belong on a big canvas!

Trash the Dress : Erin

11*13*08 Posted in Fashion Bridal, Trash the Dress

For those who haven’t been keeping up, a few weeks ago I had a photography packed weekend with some new friends: Allie and Chris, Annie and Toby, Cailyn, Amanda,and Sarah. We came from five different states and met up in Cincinnati. It really was the perfect group, even with eight of us hovering around the models things moved along seamlessly, with the exception of running a bit late. Really though, the only reason shoots ran late is because we were just having a blast shooting. I encourage you to click on the names above, after finishing this post ;), to check out the incredible work each photographer captured and created.

On to the post. As displayed in her Boudoir post, Erin is a gorgeous model and needed very little direction. She was a joy to work with. She brought something to the shoot I never expected but I was blown away by- an artistic reckless abandonment. Erin posed for our shots with ease and then when we moved over to the mud she went one step further for us. She said “Do you want me to put mud on my face? Cause I’ll do it.”. Ummm…. hello, seriously? Of course you can put mud on your face. If only more girls were willing to get a little dirty for art.

Don’t forget to leave some comment loves.

by admin

4 comments