Kimberly Petersen Photography Blog

The Castro Family

Over the weekend, a family in my neighborhood asked if I could do some family portraits for them.  I will be totally honest--family portraits absolutely terrify me.  It's not that hard to make one or two people look good on film, but when you've got seven people who have to have their eyes open at the same time it gets a little tricky!  But these guys are such a fun family to be around.  I've known them for years and it's been fun to have the chance to get to know them again after being gone so long.  So, I had a good time taking these.

 

Aren't these the cutest sisters?  You may recognize Katie (on the right) from some earlier photos.  They are the most photogenic girls ever.  They seriously look good in every single picture.

 

This one makes me laugh.  The expression on the face of the littlest guy cracks me up.

 

At this time of year, the light goes quick!  We were seriously chasing it down by the time I took these.

 

Quick Senior Guy Preview

I still have lots of work left to do on this recent session with a great senior guy who was such a great sport about having his photo taken (I definitely know this is not something most guys love to do!).  But I know his mom is anxiously waiting to see how they turned out, so here are a handful that I've finished since yesterday.

 

(Now you have "Bittersweet Symphony" going through your head, don't you.)

 

Jason is a running freak, so, of course, we had to do a few at the high school track!

 

 

Katie C.

A couple of weeks ago, I did a Senior session for Katie, who I've known since she was a cute five-year-old (oh, the funny stories I could tell about Katie...).  We've been friends with their family for a long, long time, but it still amazes me how lovely Katie has grown up to be!  She was so fun to work with and knew all sorts of out-of-the-way places to take photos, so I had a blast with this one.  Here are some of my favorites.

 

Are we hard-core enough to add custom graffiti to our neighborhood just for an awesome photo, or has Kim been at it with her mad photoshop skills again?  I'll never tell.

   

 

 

This is my sister Shanda's fave (Katie and Shanda have been friends for as long as I can remember).

Blues and Reds

I almost forgot to mention something kindof exciting.  I entered a few photos in the Idaho State Fair a couple of weeks ago, and two of them won ribbons!

I won the first-place blue ribbon award in the "Portrait-Couple" division for this photo:

 

And this photo got the red ribbon (third place) in the "Portrait-Woman" category.

 

There were a ton of entries in both divisions, so I was thrilled about it!

WLU Law loves UVA Law

It may be a couple of weeks before I finish all of these, but here's a quick preview of my most recent engagement session of not just one, but two Virginia law students, one from UVA and one from WLU.  That's right, folks, this is Virginia's newest up and coming power couple!  They are so very obviously completely in love with each other, which made my job so much fun!  It's really great to see a couple so happy together, especially when they are both right in the middle law school finals.  Yikes!

I asked them to "make out like monkeys" for this shot, and they did not disappoint!

Thanks again, guys!  Can't wait to work on the rest of these!

Christopher and Ashley 2.0

Just realized that I never got around to posting the rest of these, but better late than never.  My friend pointed me to this old abandoned dairy farm just outside of Lexington, and it was such a cool place!

Gotta get one with the "Bumblebee" car, of course.  (If you know any boys between the age of 3 and 23, you know exactly what I'm talking about!  Any vehicle even remotely resembling a Transformer is a big hit with Matthew, but he also has a thing for Mustangs, so he gets especially excited when he sees this car cruising around Lexington.  He was quite envious that when I told him that I got to go for a ride in the Bumblebee Mustang.)

 

Shanda, minus the Beast

Got a chance during a trip to Idaho to take some photos of my sister Shanda in her Prom/Jr. Miss dress.  Here are a few of my faves:

 

Aww, I think she's so pretty!  Always nice to have such a gorgeous model to work with, haha.  I heard several little girls on location exclaiming, "Look, Mommy!  It's a real live princess!"  Can't imagine where they would get that idea...

More Engagement Photos

As promised, a few more photos from Christopher and Ashley's engagement session.

Something about this one I just love . . .

Christopher and Ashley

Hey!  It's been awhile!  We've been recovering from some major computer issues around here, but I'm still taking lots of photos!

Today I did an engagement session with Ashley and Christopher (the chef and namesake of the very tasty Christopher's Restaurant here in Lexington).  They were a really sweet couple and very good sports!  I had them climbing up and down rocks, sitting in a cow field, all sorts of fun.  I'm glad they were willing to put up with me!  Here's a quick preview, since I'm sure they'll be excited to see how their session went today.  I'll have more to show soon!

Steph

This is my cousin Stephanie.  She is 10 years younger than me, but I lived right next door to her until she was six or seven, and she was always my little buddy.  It's weird enough to see my own younger sister blossoming into this gorgeous young woman (and I have some great pictures of her to show and tell later on, too), but it's even weirder to see how much Steph has changed since I don't see her as often.  She really is a lovely girl, and was so much fun to take Senior photos of!  I can't believe she is going to graduate this next year.  So weird.  I'm only about halfway done processing this session, but here are a few more of my favorites so far.

The weather was really ugly the day we took these, but she was a good sport, and the gloominess kindof added this cool grunginess to the photos.  She's so cute that I think it actually makes kindof a fun contrast.

We were lucky to find this train engine just sitting right behind the old Blacker's building.  Couldn't pass up getting a couple of shots there!

Pink Cinderella dress, anyone?

I love photography.