Valentines Day Preview :D

I laughed aloud when I quickly skimmed through my two engagement sessions this weekend and picked two pics that caught my eye and next to each other they look pretty similar. I guess on certain days you are attracted to similar things   I hope everyone has a super fabulous Valentines Day!!! Love your loved ones because it’s nice to love!  I talked to my besties, brought my mom a pretty tulip plant, got tulips from my hubby and got to spend the morning at a Valentine’s Day Tea Party at school with my two favorite heart-adorned children… plus all their super cute classmates, and saint-like teachers   Such a great day so far!!!  What have you done today?! Do you have any traditions for Valentines Day?

xo-Amanda                 www.heartsandhorseshoes.com                  facebook

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

W Family

Oh happpppy Sunday! It sort of feels like Saturday with this three day weekend ahead of us. Well not me, but for the kiddos, so only partially a three day weekend   Enjoy this adorable family on this fabulous cloudy Sunday!

When I found out Spanish Oaks Ranch was the chosen place for this family shoot I was thrilled! I love the doors, the white fences and the beautiful oaks everywhere! It’s fabulous! This family has three of the most beautiful little girls! And their dresses were the cutest things with their belts & boots! I could’ve spent the day with this adorable family!!! Love you guys!

xo-Amanda         www.heartsandhorseshoes.com      facebook

It was hard to get EVERYONE to be serious

some people don’t know it’s silly

recently i received an email from a fellow photog stating their frustration with peoples perceptions of nice cameras making the picture. it’s hard when anyone can spend a pretty penny on a camera, stick it on automatic and shoot away thinking they are a photographer. and in a sense i guess they are. but a real photographer knows how to use their camera, and doesn’t shoot in automatic or p modes, they know what setting to use to achieve the look they are going for.  i go to weddings and see people with bigger, maybe nicer cameras than mine, and i used to feel bad about it, but now i just think, well i know how to use my camera as a workhorse to get the pretty pictures i want. what more could a girl ask for?!

of course this doesn’t mean i wouldn’t gladly except, love, cherish and revere the new D4, but i won’t let it take credit for my shots    the camera doesn’t really matter, it’s what’s behind the camera that counts.

have you ever been a victim of camera stereotyping?

I found this little clip that kinda makes the statement   xo.amanda    www.heartsandhorseshoes.com   facebook

waking up early

 

it’s necessarily waking up that i don’t love, but just leaving my warm cozy bed that’s always hard for me. the morning of miranda & kyle’s engagements we planned on meeting at 7am, and it was in the 20s outside when i hopped into my car. since i was a kid it’s been drilled into my brain that you need to move to stay warm in the cold… but seriously?! move when it’s 7am and in the 20s… grrr! it felt painful for a few minutes, until we started moving, and until that first peek of sun came up from the hills. it was so beautiful! they were so beautiful with it in the distance behind them. i see the sun rise most days in the winter and it’s always beautiful, but something about being outside snapping pics of these love birds in the freezing cold, and the warm sun gliding over the hills, was the most beautiful thing i have seen in awhile! i can’t wait for their big day… it’s going to be just as beautiful as that morning… but hopefully a little bit warmer

xo.amanda      www.heartsandhorseshoes.com    facebook

{C + R} = <3

 

I love these two. They compliment each other perfectly and talk to each other so sweetly! It was awesome watching them interact and I’m so excited to be there on their big day… which is next month! YAY!!!

xo-Amanda         heartsandhorseshoes.com       Facebook

P Family Love

My most frequent family is also one of my favs! I get so excited to see how they’ve grown in the last 6 months… we’ve been doing these shoots since before they could sit by themselves… look at them now! This was one of those shoots where they were screaming, no one wanted to sit together (except obviously Shannon & Josh)… and yet when I looked back at the pics I would never guess. Another successful family shoot… filled with adventure

xo-Amanda         heartsandhorseshoes.com       Facebook

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Little Baby A

I love this family to pieces! I was so excited to meet this little bundle! I’m sure she will share her families crazy athletic abilities… after all her mom is back training when she is 10 days old… so what better place for her than on the bike, which ironically was THE only place she would fall asleep. Maybe when we are little we already know what makes us the most happy, besides food, love and warmth of course

xo.Amanda

www.heartsandhorseshoes.com

 

Wedding Wire

 

{Templeton,CA} – January 23, 2012 – WeddingWire, the nation’s leading wedding Marketplace, is excited to announce Hearts %26 Horseshoes Photography has been selected to receive the prestigious WeddingWire Bride’s Choice Awards™ 2012 for Photography!

The esteemed annual awards program recognizes the top local wedding vendors from the WeddingWire Network who demonstrate excellence in quality, service, responsiveness and professionalism within the wedding industry. While many industry awards are selected by the organization, Hearts %26 Horseshoes Photography was selected based on its stellar reviews from past newlywed clients.

Hearts %26 Horseshoes Photography is recognized as part of the top five percent of wedding professionals in the WeddingWire local vendor community, comprised of over 200,000 wedding professionals throughout the United States and Canada. The Bride’s Choice Award recognizes  the best local wedding vendors across 20 service categories, from wedding venues to wedding photographers, based on their overall professional achievements throughout the past year.

“WeddingWire is thrilled to honor the success of the top-rated wedding professionals within the WeddingWire Community,” said Timothy Chi, CEO, WeddingWire. “Since the launch of the Bride’s Choice Awards™ program four years ago, thousands of outstanding wedding professionals have been recognized by the bridal community for their supreme service and dedication to the wedding industry. It is with great pleasure that we congratulate Hearts %26 Horseshoes Photography for their continued professionalism and commitment to enriching the wedding planning experience for engaged couples.”

We are happy to announce that Hearts %26 Horseshoes Photography is one of the very best Photographers within the WeddingWire Network, which includes leading wedding planning sites WeddingWire, Project Wedding, Brides.com, Martha Stewart Weddings, and Weddingbee. We would like to thank our past clients for taking the time to review our business on WeddingWire. Thanks to their positive feedback we were able  to receive the WeddingWire Bride’s Choice Awards™ for 2012.

For more information, please visit our WeddingWire Storefront today at http://www.weddingwire.com/biz/hearts-horseshoes-photography-templeton/8ee6d9f4b06efd9a.html.

To learn more about the Bride’s Choice Awards™, please visit www.WeddingWire.com.

About WeddingWire, Inc.
WeddingWire™, the nation’s leading marketplace serving the $70 billion wedding industry, is the only online wedding planning resource designed to empower both engaged couples and wedding professionals. For engaged couples, WeddingWire offers the ability to search, compare and book over 200,000 reviewed wedding vendors, from wedding venues to wedding photographers. WeddingWire also offers a comprehensive suite of online planning tools for weddings, including wedding websites and wedding checklists, all at no charge. For wedding professionals, WeddingWire is the only all-in-one marketing platform for businesses online and on-the-go. WeddingWire offers one simple solution to build a professional network, improve search visibility, manage social media and reach mobile consumers. Businesses that advertise with WeddingWire appear on WeddingWire.com, ProjectWedding.com and other leading sites, including MarthaStewartWeddings.com (NYSE: MSO), Brides.com and Weddingbee.com.

What it means…

I recently switched cars with my dad so I could use his truck to get hay, and he made the comment, “Wow you didn’t have to clean it out for me.”  *enter sarcasm*   I spent the next day thinking how often we throw around that statement “YOU CAN TELL A LOT ABOUT A PERSON BY …this or that”.  And I wondered what can you tell about me because I don’t wash my car. Well some people might say that its gross and I clearly don’t care about my appearance. But my response would be, it gets me from point a to b, it takes my kids to school, it transports my dogs all over the place, I sometimes get hay in it, I move all sorts of stuff in it, so it’s it doing its job?! Why must it be sparkling clean to do those things? I see a car as a only those things above. I have it serviced when it’s due to be serviced… isn’t that more important than it being clean?  So can you really tell anything about me by how clean my car is? No not really, but you can tell my priorities don’t lie in it’s outward appearance.

Then I started thinking about how I see other people and how I probably assume the same things about other people based on their priorities. For instance I’ve seen someone dropping their kids off at school and think to myself, wow someone should’ve woken up and had some coffee before school, only to learn that they had just gotten off a 12 noc shift at the hospital, so instead I thought wow what a great parent that can do all of that and still bring their kids to school. We really don’t know what’s going on with other people’s lives, we won’t ever know. And though my story is petty about my filthy car (thankfully it’s raining right now) it’s meant as a reminder to myself that “you can tell a lot about a person by how they judge others” … give our fellow humans a break. Everyone has a different priority. Now you know cleaning is not at the top of my list.

{a + r} = love

April & Rodney got married at the Loading Chute in Creston, one of my favorite places. Because remember I secretly (not so secretly) want to be a farmer, and so I have a slight obsession with Creston, and the Loading Chute, and the Loading Chute Sunday Brunch.  What I loved most about this couple is that they were super mellow and just wanted to have fun. These of course are my type of people because yes there are many important parts about your wedding day, but if you aren’t having fun during the process you aren’t going to look back in fond remembrance of your big day.  One of my favorite things about their wedding decorations was the wall of photos of family pictures & pictures of them together. I love these two and wish them a million years of happiness… and I know that will come true!

xo-amanda       www.heartsandhorseshoes.com               facebook

 

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