Kelly McCord Photography Blog

I'm here!! I just had a baby!

It's true, I'm here and alive, and I am still a photographer, despite not having blogged about any of the recent portrait shoots or weddings I've done. I'm not gone,  I'm just on maternity leave with my beautiful new son (which brings total McCord kids to a [final] three). So I am still shooting family/engagement portraits (even on maternity leave) and I'm shooting weddings later in the year, and am signing up couples for weddings in 2012. I also just created a facebook page for Kelly McCord Photography, and despite being on maternity leave, am planning on starting to blog again very soon. Thanks for your patience, and check back soon to see some of my recent weddings and photo shoots.

 Here's Jack:

V-B-S is F-U-N

Every year for the last at least 20+ years of my life, (with a break of a few years when I was away at college), basically since sixth grade, I've been volunteering at our church's Vacation Bible School. Specifically for the last 4-5 (or six?) years, I've volunteered as the VBS Photography Director, and have had the privilege of shooting the 250+ kids for the entire week; every day, all day. It's exhilerating, exhausting and SO fantastic that I get a chance to volunteer for (and serve) the kids every year. I love it so much, and it's an ongoing debate whether we (the adult volunteers), or the kids (at the camp) have more fun , and I'd say it's a wash -- we all have a great time. It really is something very near and dear to my heart, and we eargerly anticipate the week-long fun every year. In fact, it doesn't feel like summer until we've experienced VBS.

The Santa Cruz Sentinel comes every year, to document and write about all the F-U-N that we have, and this year was no exception. What's kind of fun (for me, anyway) is that the picture they in the paper this year was of me!  So, if you've been wondering where I've been, this photo is a good illustration of what I get to do all week.  And while VBS is D-U-N, =) wedding season has ramped up, so while I've been very bad at updating my blog, I'll try and do better, despite being in the midst of my busiest time of year. I still haven't told you about so many of the fun weddings and cool portrait sessions I've shot; so stay tuned for lots more photographic phun! =)

Note To My Clients...

I have been out of the office for the past 3 1/2, almost 4 weeks, (which, truth be told. was much longer than I'd planned), due to some health-related issues, and Christmas/New Years.  I want you all to know I have not disappeared, I am not ignoring you, and I haven't been kidnapped, I have just not been in the office.  I started back in the office yesterday, and have begun going through the hundreds thousands(?) (man I hate spam!) of emails, and voicemails, and I'm going through them all as fast as I can, but at the same time, I want to answer emails and your calls thoroughly, so it's taking a little longer than I'd anticipated.

So, I just wanted to let everyone know that if you've called or emailed in the past 3 1/2 weeks, that I'm working on getting back to you.  There are a lot of people to respond to, via email and phone call, and so if you haven't heard back, please know that I'm hoping to return all emails and phone calls  this week.  Thank you so much for your patience and understanding, and I'm looking forward to catching up with all of you!! Also, just as an FYI, I'm uploading weddings back-to-back, because even though I was technically 'out' of the office, I was editing weddings (thank goodness for laptops),  and wedding uploads generally take about 48 hours to upload. I'm not kidding; when you consider most weddings hover around 1,000 images, and are between 2-5 MB's each, (and dropped connections, etc., which happens much more often than I'd like), it's a very long process. I'm uploading in the order I shot, so hopefully it won't take too long, but I've already begun the uploading, so I'll hopefully be posting links soon, as they continue to be uploaded.

Also, here's our family Christmas card, if you'd like to see a personal, 'year in review'.  As always, just click on the photos if you want to see them larger (and yes, we put photos on every single side of our cards, you shouldn't be surprise). =)

   

    

Also,  Happy New Year!

Missing Messages, Dr. Phil and My So-Called-Life...

Just a quick note to let all my clients know, if you've tried calling me in the last week, to two weeks, I've switched phone services, and it's resulted in some missed calls, and some messages that weren't received.  I'm very sorry for this, and it should be all squared awayvery soon!  Email is the best way to reach me, so drop me a line if you need me, and I'll call you back!!  And I'll be posting another shoot or wedding very soon.

I have SO much to tell you all; I just shot another celebrity wedding, and some of my wedding photos from a few months ago are going to be on Dr. Phil, and some of my other photos are going to be in a magazine, and a gazillion other things to update you on, but alas, not at this moment, but I promise to write very soon about all of these fun (and crazy!) things!!

And I'm starting to book up for next summer, so if you're wanting me to shoot your next wedding, drop me a line, so we can get you on the calendar!!

And because I'm me, there has to be at least one photo in every blog, so  we're breaking form for this post, with a bunch of personal shots of (crazy! I know! I do actually have a personal life) me and my family.  I've got so much more where these came from, (our trip to San Francisco, going to the SC County Fair, the girls first days of school, etc., etc.), but I don't have time to edit all of them at the moment, so I just grabbed a few highlights (with the hope to have more of the family shots posted fairly soon-ish, or at least time to go through all of them). And these aren't super-artistic, or anything of the sort, these are more in more in the vein of  I'm-so-proud-of-my-kids-aren't-they-the-cutest-ever
type of mom photos. But what can I say??  They are the cutest kids ever.  There seem to be a lot of sequence-type shots in here, I'm not entirely sure why, but there you go.

Just as the cobblers kids never had any shoes, so too, does the photographer never have formal portraits of her own family.  These days, I'm just happy if we're all in the same general vicinity together and I'm able to get a shot or two of my girlies,  which is why I'm so joyfully posting 'family album,' type shots, because my kids and husband mean more to me than anything, and yet, family life has definitely taken a hit with all my working for the past five months.  Needless to say, I can't wait for our impending  family vacation to Ireland!!  So enjoy some of my more personal shots, and I'll post more of my professional-type stuff soon...

And there are a bunch more family photos after the jump, to see them, click on 'continue reading...' below.

Josh Fox -- The Photo Session

 

I am incredibly privileged to be related to many talented and gifted people.  One of those people, Josh, I am related to by marriage, and he's someone that is not only an incredibly great guy, and married to a wonderful woman (my adorable cousin, Dani, pictured below the jump), but he's also worship leader and pastor at Vintage Faith church. He's incredibly talented; both as a singer and a songwriter.  He's going to be speaking at a massive pastoral conference, for pastors all over the U.S. in southern California this next week.  We've been talking for awhile about doing a photo shoot, and so we finally did it. 

We had SO much fun shooting all over Santa Cruz - we went from the Boardwalk, to Cafe Pergolesi, to Vintage Faith.  Josh was so much fun to shoot; not only is he a fun guy in general, but he was game to try anything. And because it was a artsy/music-y type of shoot, I could really push the limits of fun and funky photography, not only during the shoot, but afterwards during post-processing. I had SO much fun just letting my imagination go crazy with colors and whatnot, as you'll see below. It's pretty rare to be able to really just let loose, since I'm usually shooting engagement or family portraits, so when I get a chance to be super-creative and have fun, I go for it. I love how they turned out!  Below are just a few of my favorite shots.  If you want to see all of the favorites, you can do so by clicking here (and these aren't all, but Josh asked me to edit a few of my faves, and so that's what is posted currently).  If you want to see more, there are  more after the jump.

Merry Christmas, and I hope you have a wonderful, fabulous, incredible 2007!

Napa Getaway Weekend

Click here to see all the photos from our Napa trip!

Ross and I had the privilege to be able to go on a long-weekend to Napa at the end of August, with our dear friends, Kiersten and Brad. I've finally posted a pictorial, on flickr, if you want to check them out, click on the link above. And if you want to read a little more about the trip, you can read about it on my personl blog, by clicking here.

I love this photo, that I took at Kunde Estate Winery, a lot.

 

The Seven Year Itch

(I posted this on our personal blog, but thought I'd post it here, too).

Did you know that Ross and I have been friends for almost ten years?  It's true!  And even more fun, on Monday, we celebrated our seven year wedding anniversary. We went out to dinner at one of our favorite restaurants (although we haven't been there in years and years), La Fondue, in Saratoga.  If you're in the Bay Area, and you haven't been to La Fondue, I highly urge you to check it out. Not only is a fondue feast tons of fun, but it's the best salad I've ever had.  So we had our dinner at La Fondue, and we exchanged gifts. Because we just got Ross his flat-screen T.V. (that he got for his 30th birthday), I got him a gift certificate to Amazon, to buy a bunch of new movies.  Well, image my surprise, when I opened up a this gorgeous diamond necklace.  I've wanted this necklace for a few years, but was shocked (and started crying) when I opened it. Not only was it a complete surprise (and if you know me, you know it is next to impossible to completely surprise me), but it was so unexpected. And here all I got for Rossy was a GIFT CERTIFICATE!! I was slightly embarrassed, but he said he just wanted to surprise me, and tell me how much he loved me. Well, color me surprised, and blessed.

I haven't taken off my necklace since he gave it to me. (I'm like that.)  But I also made a slideshow of our years together. I can't believe next year we'll have been together for 10 years. That's 1/3 of our lives. Wow. I am so incredibly blessed that Ross is my husband. He is one of the most special men I have ever met.  And he's made me a better woman.  It's funny, because he made me better from the start. I think I've written about it before, but when I first started dating Ross (I can remember this distinctly, my mom, sister and I were in the Gap downtown), and Lindsey made a comment that has stuck with me. She said, "You know, Kelly has become more Kelly, again, since she's started dating Ross -- she's more relaxed, and more fun, again."  I think it's still true. He makes me more fun, and nobody can ground me like he can. He's my champion, my love, my best friend and the funniest person I know.  Aren't I a lucky girl, to be married to him?

 

To view the slideshow, click here. 

Ann and Peter

Sorry I've been so absent, I've had a crazy month -- I'm not sure if you've read my other blog, but I've had three weddings and Ross' 30th birthday week, where we went away with our family to L.A. and Disneyland (some family shots from Disney/L.A. here  ), so I've been seriously working, but not seriously blogging, by any means. So forgive my absence, but hopefully here are some fun shots for you to check out, and I should be posting said weddings shortly...

I recently shot a couple who goes to my church, and who I've known (well, Ann anyhow), for ages.  I think I met Ann when I was in high school, and she was a youth worker in my youth group.  So I've known her for a long time, and in that time, I've never really seen her with a super serious boyfriend, until she met Peter.  And can I just tell you how great it is to watch someone you've known forever, finally find the guy of their dreams? It's just so fun to watch them interact, and see just how ga-ga he is about her, and how very loved she is and is feeling. It's so great.  It's so fun for me to get to see couples interact on such a personal level when I'm shooting them, even if I have known them for 15 years or so. I just feel privileged to take part in something so important in their lives.

Anyhow, I digress.  We had a great time shooting them. We initially shot on West Cliff Drive (that's Wesssst SiiiiIIIIde for those of you in Santa Cruz - there's always been a weird west side/east side thing in Santa Cruz, having to do with the surfers and their territory.  I didn't try to understand it when I was with a surfer, and I don't try to understand now). But anyway, we were on the West Side, and it was a gorgeous location that I'd never shot before -- beautiful tree and cliff running down to the ocean. From there we drove a short ways to main beach, by the Boardwalk, and finished up their shoot there. I'm so happy with  how the photos turned out, and how beautiful they both look (and, from a total camera-geek perspective -- oh MAN I am in love with the gorgeous pastel colors, and bokeh of my my brand new, awesome (85mm, f1.2) lens.

Also, Pink Sun Drops asked me last post, how I always get people to do jumping shots, and the answer is almost always, they've seen my work and ask to do the jumping shots (or dipping, or running toward the camera - those are other ones that get requested).  And if I feel like the shots have been a little standard, or not tons of pizazz, I usually try and think of fun stuff to have people do, to make the shoot their own, and also just to make it a little more fun and interesting.  I think I've talked before about how at every wedding and every shoot, I challenge myself to do something different, or see someething in a new way, and so while I always try and mix it up and see things fresh, there are some shots that a lot of people really like, and ask to do again and again, and the jumping shot is one of those.

This is an example of trying to do things a little different, they were being so playful and silly with one another and I suggested Peter pick Ann up and swing her around -- well, he was more than happy to do so, and just totally went for it, this is one in a series of these, and I just love how it turned out, the movement, the colors, the joy on their faces...

More photos after the jump...

Sweet Isabella

This wedding was taken at Seascape Golf Club, in Aptos, (the ceremony was there). It was my cousin Mia's wedding, and that is a photo of my daughter and Mia's neice walking down the aisle together. There are so many great elements to this picture: the aisle, strewn with flowers, their beautiful little dresses and headpieces, the awesome arch, all the people oohing and aahing as they walk down, and my favorite; that they're holding hands. It's such a sweet shot, and while you don't see their faces, I don't think it matters - you can see the smiles on the people's faces, how Bella seems to be determinedly pulling Michaela down the aisle, while the crowd laughs and takes pictures. There's just so much going on -- I love it. 

And below, a shot of just Bella, moments before the photograph above was taken, because, well, she's my daughter and I think she's the cutest little flower girl ever. I'm so proud of her in this moment; she's got this big smile on her face, (which is slightly crooked, just like her daddy's smile) and she looks lovely and proud of herself at the same time. It's one of my favorite shots of her.