Happy New Year!

Hi friends! 

It has been a while since I have posted. This holiday season seems as if it has been one of my busiest! I've gotten to enjoy friends, family, get togethers and outings...it's been a great time! 

I hope your Christmas was as great as mine was. We got to spend time with my mother in law and father in law and our beautiful niece and nephew who we don't get to see enough because everyone is so darn busy! We also loved seeing other family members as well and slowing down for a minute to be together and enjoy each other. On Christmas day we went over to my brother and sister in law's house for dinner and our friends came out as well so it was a really nice day. 

Now, let's talk about the new year for a minute! I'm terribly excited for this year to come to a close because 2014 is going to be even more amazing than I could ever imagine in all aspects of my life. I look forward to all of God's promises being fulfilled this year and working towards my goals! I hope all of you are excited as I am! Happy (early) New Year! 

Be safe, be well, have fun and be happy! It's almost 2014! 

Goodnight! 

Home from vacation in time for Christmas!

Hi everyone!!! Merry almost Christmas! 

I feel like I haven't posted in a long time, but for good reason! It has been a busy past couple of weeks.

4 days ago we got home from South Carolina. It's always so beautiful up there, if you'd like to see a few landscape pictures that I took while we were out and about, check out the ABP FB page here .We went up to visit family and had a really good time. I always love to visit my family, but my favorite time of year to visit is at Christmas for many reasons. One of my favorite reasons to go to SC in December is...

HOLLYWILD ZOO! I tried to make that sound more exciting than it probably is, I hope it worked. 

So here's what it is; you go to the zoo and you drive throughout the entire place where there are thousands of Christmas lights put up (which must be a really sucky job) and then you drive into this field where there are really really large cows, deer, zebra donkey hybrid things, goats and whatever else and they come up to your car and you can feed them. See below for a picture of a rather large cow hijacking someones car: 

Cool right? Well, kind of scary the first time around, but after that you realize they just want to slobber on you and eat some crackers and stale bread. The next picture is of me trying to kiss some type of llama/alpaca..but he wasn't having it. 

And here are the rest from our 2013 Hollywild December trip- 

 But not this one, this one was taken at Costco, because that's a popular place to take selfies now. Totally makes sense. 

 And back to the zoo! Here's one of me feeding the baby goat! So cute!

So yea, we had a good time! For the past 2 or 3 years, we have gone up there in December to see family and go to the zoo, so now it's becoming a tradition which is really cool because it just sort of happened that way. 

What else did we do while we were there? Well Bryan hung out with my Uncle Dave and they went to the range and stuff. He also got a new gun. Hooray. I can't complain though, I did a little shopping myself with my granny. We also got to take a few pictures of us. We don't look spectacular, considering we had just woken up and there was no coffee yet, but it was still fun. My Aunt Kris used the automatic setting on my camera, I stole the neighbors dog and we got a couple of good shots! No, I'm not kidding. I did steal the neighbors dog, but I returned it. 

The day that we got home we went and got a tree, because I was nagging Bryan about it and I couldn't wait any longer. We were going to get a live tree, but then we thought it might be easier to just get a fake one and not have to bother with it again next year, so we headed to Lowe's and picked out this guy: 

Alright, I know...the lights in the middle are out, buuuut I did get a discount because I took the display model. We can fix the lights in the middle, no biggie. 

So that's that. Now, we panic and hurry to finish the Christmas shopping, wrap the gifts and wait patiently for Santa. 

Btw...ABP is on Groupon!!! Check it out: 

Amy Barnett Photography Groupon Deal

Happy Thanksgiving and Happy 1st annual ornament/cookie decorating...whatever.

Well. 

I'm tired. 

But Thanksgiving was so good! The day before Thanksgiving Jasmine and I decided to shop until we were dying of hunger (we seriously ate fried chicken from a grocery store in my car) and then we went back to my house to clean. 

I know, you're still processing the fried chicken car thing. I'll give you a moment to take it in. 

...............

Alright, we're good now. 

On Thursday we had our family over to our place, we were missing our in laws and my brother and other sis in law, but I think plans were just kind of scattered this year because everyone has been crazy busy. We do plan on going over to their house on/around Christmas for a while so I'm glad we still get to spend some holiday time with them. Anyhow, on Thanksgiving we cooked and cooked and then ate some crazy good food that everyone had prepared. The next day we went over to my brother and sister in law's house and made little ornaments and had some wine and baked cookies. Actually, the only person that actually baked was Candi (Jasmine's mom) but the guys did help a little bit. As promised, I do have a few pictures to show you from both days, so here they are! 

Thanksgiving a.m. - Lola and hubs cozy in bed. They were clearly not participating in the cooking festivities. 

Hubs with my little brother

 Like peas and carrots (in my forrest gump voice) 

Lol.

Tearin it up in my kitch.

Okay this was the start of Friday's ornament making night. 

I know, a photographer with a blurry shot. It was my cell phone. Don't judge me! 

Yep, that was basically Thursday and Friday of last week. It was a great week, and this week is going to be super great too! On Friday we leave to go to SC. Thursday I have a shoot with Alex while she's here and Saturday morning I have a shoot with Candice.

In other small but exciting news, my Groupon deal was finalized yesterday and will be rolling out in about 4 weeks! I'll keep everyone updated. Have a great rest of your week. Talk to you soon! 

Trips,Totes and Thanksgiving

Good morning! Hope your pre-Thanksgiving is going well. 

I can't believe tomorrow is Thanksgiving...and my house is a wreck! Awesomeeeee. Okay it's my own fault, but lately I've been pretty busy, and my husband is pretty great because he helps out all the time with dishes and stuff so I'm lucky. I really should have cleaned yesterday, but I had to get some errands done and I hung out with Jasmine. It was nice to have a day off, but I'm so grateful that I have a side job that I work right now and my photography business. Anyway, this isn't the topic of this post so I'll get down to it. 

Vacation!!!

Yesssss I cannot wait to go on vacation. On the 6th we are going up to SC to visit our family and I'm so stoked! I'm also excited to do a quick shoot or two while I'm there. We hope to go up to the mountains for a little while one of the days so hopefully we will and I can get some pictures. I don't know if I'll blog while I'm there, probably will. Okay moving on..

I got this "tote" bag thing (camera bag actually) off of eBay because I love eBay and buy everything off of eBay. I thought I'd really like this bag, but I was wrong. I guess I didn't read the size of the bag because when I got it I was shocked to find that I could barely fit my camera (without the lens) much less all of my equipment also. I checked and it has a no return policy, but at least I didn't spend a ton on it. I guess I can keep looking for a better one. If any of you have any suggestions please let me know. 

So the other day I had a shoot with the Maddox family and it went well! All of us were happy with the outcome and I got some pretty good candid shots too: 

The stank face was after he had smelled the flower lol. We did the shoot at Crane's Roost Park in Altamonte where it was a chilling 85 degrees in November which was so lovely. The day of the shoot there was some Give Thanks walk going on so I had to shoot around like 450 people walking everywhere in groups which was challenging but it worked out. If any of my photographer friends are wondering, yes the tree is up at Cranes Roost for your holiday shoots. 

Well, I have to run. Hope everyone has a great day and an even better Thanksgiving! 

Holiday Season Rush

Hi everyone, hope you're all doing well. 

Can you believe that we are already nearing the end of November?! It seems like ever since September the months are going by so quickly. It's not even Christmas and we're already rushing trying to get things done. Or I at least know that I am. So since I'm already rushing anyway, I thought that I'd try to throw in a few more things to do this season. Not just meaningless things, volunteer work! A little bit of time out of your day could really mean something to someone else, even if you never know it. With that being said, check out the really cool websites I found down below. 

Hands On Orlando

Volunteer Match

On both sites you can find volunteer opportunities in the community and more info. about the organizations. You can even narrow your search by what you'd like to do. Anyways, I just thought maybe someone else would be interested. 

On a side note, I have session with the Maddox family this week and I'm super excited! 

Mondays- Backups and blah factors

Hey guys! 

Last time I left you I mentioned that I was doing a shoot on Nov. 11th (yesterday) with stylist Jonnie D. at iStudios in Maitland - which is an awesome place btw. If you've never been, I highly recommend going to get your hair did. I know a great barber there- contact me if you'd like to know more. Anyway...Jonnie couldn't make it apparently which really upped my Monday blah factor, so instead I hung out with my barber friend for a bit and opted for chinese food and a little wine instead of sulking. Hooray! 

Now, rewinding a bit to the first part of my day before I knew the shoot would be cancelled...

The previous night I decided to work from 12a-4a to get a few extra hours in. Besides that I had already worked a full day before the night shift and I had to work at 8a the next morning, so I was running off of like 4 hours of sleep. I woke up, worked some and then remembered that I had to charge my battery; which I actually should have done the day before, but I like to procrastinate so...there you go. I went to charge my battery and it wouldn't charge. No problem, right? I have a back up charger. Put my battery on the back up and plugged it in and nothing happened. I started to panic a little, but I mean there's no way that both of my chargers would crap out on the same say, right? So I tried a different plug, then I tried my other charger with a different plug, then I tried my other charger with a different cord and plug, then I panicked even more because the little light on the charger wouldn't turn on. It was like my whole world became that dark space where the light should be on my charger! I'm lying, that's too dramatic, but I was freaking out slightly. Who has TWO chargers that stop working on the same day?? So, I laughed and went to Radio Shack. I know...who goes to Radio Shack? It's less than a mile from my house so I decided to check it out. They had a universal charger for $40. Nope. On to the next store. I got to Target and the guy showed me one for $30 that included a car charger which I needed anyway so I just decided to get it. This made me sad because I could have purchase one on eBay for way less, but I didn't want to cancel and be unprofessional so I just bought it and went on my way. 

Even though the shoot didn't happen and I was slightly irritated due to the lack of consideration, I still had a good day. So the lesson learned here is always have more than one battery (duh) and always have a backup for your backups. :) 

Enjoy the rest of your day people! I'll be back later this week to share more about my adventures in Tampa that will take place tomorrow with Jasmine at the Lead and Succeed seminar. 

Photography in Orlando

Hi guys! 

I've just now posted the pics from Candi's session on www.amybarnettphotography.com and facebook.com/amybarnettphotography . If you haven't seen them yet you should go check them out! We shot these pictures on Saturday and I was thrilled when I walked outside to find an overcast day! Don't get me wrong, I really love sunny days, but every photographer that works with natural lighting loves an overcast day - less squinting, pictures are more crisp and clear, etc. Anyway, Candi wanted to shoot in Maitland at Lake Lily. The last time that I was at Lake Lily had been a while and I forgot how pretty it is. If you haven't been, do yourself a favor and go, even if you aren't taking pictures.  

Lake Lily also does a Farmers Market which you can find out more about here . 

Lately I've been wanting to venture out around the city to find some new places to shoot. A favorite of mine is Morse Park / Park Ave area in WP, but it's not for everyone and I'm honestly looking for something new. Lake Lily was nice, and I'm glad I got to visit with Candi. If anyone knows of any please let me know! I always love finding new places to shoot. 

I'm excited for next week! On Monday I get to shoot for stylist Jonnie Dawn at iStudios. I'm doing portraits for her new salon. More to come later!