caitlin elizabeth photography | virginia photographer | misc.

sometimes i feel like the man in this car.  squished into something so small and confining, in a big 'ole world.

[this was taken in a square in the heart of rome - i stood here for AT LEAST 15 minutes waiting for people to get out of the way, praying that the little car wouldn't drive off and the moment wouldn't pass by un-captured.  too bad i almost got COMPLETELY lost in the process... i wouldn't have waited for me either]

sorry ya'll i've been sick this week so i haven't been able to post much. 

BEACH SHOOTS THIS WEEKEND THOUGH HOLLA 

get ready for some beautiful people to hit the blog next week

caitlin elizabeth photography | personal | virginia photographer

yesterday i turned 23.

one of my best friends called me all the way from the equator to wish me happy birthday.

i awoke at 6:46 to a 'happy birthday' serenade. 

i received an email that made me tear up with the out-pouring of love it contained.

my 13-year-old sister called me old.

my daddy told me he was proud of me.

and i spent the evening at bible study.

what a wonderfully simple, beautiful way to turn 23.

[these pictures are from our church's annual valentine's day supper - this year, featuring a photo booth and 'minute to win it' competition... these women keep me young, and remind me every day that i can be a dynamic individual, regardless of how old i am or will be]

grandmama - this woman is going to be 87 this year and she is lookin fabulous and still active.

my mama - the best mama in the world :)

my aunt betsy and mama - they remind me a lot of my sister and me... we're goofballs, we make each other angry, and we love each other unconditionally.

happy friday ya'll :) if you're looking for something to give YOUR mama for mother's day - check out the sweet mini sessions coming up!

"love is a mix tape" [personal]

i remember sitting upstairs with my sister for hours on saturday afternoons listening to the radio.  we sang along, making up words for verses we couldn't remember.  i had a cassette player / radio that we cranked up and danced shamelessly around our pink carpeted floors to; the local country music station jamming.  when an absolute favorite came on the airways i would hit 'record' and capture the tune on one of many blank cassettes i kept stacked beside my modern day music box.

and that was the very beginning of my obsession with mixed tapes.

in high school i made mixed cd's as christmas presents. each song selected for the recipient.  it either reminded me of them or i thought they would appreciate it in ways others may not.

when i went to college i brought stacks of mixed cd's to play on my laptop (i thought bringing my AM/FM radio would be completely UNcool).  most of them were exclusively country, but with a new school and chapter in my life came exposure to a much wider berth of melodies.  i found out about the wonderful world of iTunes and YouTube.  and so my taste in music expanded.

the first mixed cd i made in college included ice ice baby by vanilla ice, fat bottomed girls by queen and our song by taylor swift.  i know, i was all over the place.

when santa brought me an iPod for christmas that year, it only got worse.  playlists ranged from "study musica" which was solely classical, to "2:10 a.m." containing everything from parachute's she (for liz) to conway twitty's i'd just love to lay you down to r kelly's remix of ignition.  naming the compilations of diddies was just as fun as pulling songs for them: underwear (alternative music), exception (songs dedicated to the perfect boy who didn't seem to exist), papa (old country), soundtrack (songs i would have in a movie about my life)... just to name a few.

then i made a new friend.  who also loved mixed cds.  and she started making mixed cds for me.  birthday cd's, christmas cds, getting over a boy you liked who played with your heart and strung you along only to let you down cds, just because cds... there didn't really need to be an occasion... even the simplest of things warranted pulling together tunes from various genres and putting them together to tell a story.  there were falling in love cds, falling out of love cds, party cds, bawling your eyes out cds, summer cds, winter cds, songs to live by cds, don't let what anyone says get you down cds...

danny, my red-headed little brother, even knows the power of a mixed cd.  if you ask him how he's going to get the girl he loves to fall in love with him, his answer is: i'm going to make her a mixed cd with she don't know she's beautiful by sammy kershaw on it. [middle school girls - you have been warned].

mixed cds: the premise is so simple. and yet they hold so much power.

my best friend from high school would always say: 

the boy who gives me flowers, that's the boy i'm going to marry. 

i'm not much for store bought bouquets... don't get me wrong, a handful of wildflowers will make me smile any day, but i always thought the boy who made me a mixed cd would be the one to truly steal my heart.

you see, mixed cd's might seem simple, but really, they're quite complicated.  

when they're done right they tell a story.  

you learn about yourself.  

the person who made it.  

and your relationship with them.

“But the answer is simple. Love is a mix tape.” 
― Rob Sheffield, Love is a Mix Tape

i want better [personal]

everyone has these posts.

you know, the ones where i promise to be better about blogging more consistently and spend more time editing personal photos and telling you more about myself.

a year ago (well, slightly over a year ago) i wrote a post exactly like that.  i listed out things that i wanted to accomplish in the year 2011. [it's a joke, but here it is if you want to read it - i've accomplished exactly 2 things from that list... i'll let you try and figure out which two ;) haha] 

but i also wrote another new-years-y blogpost.  i wrote a "letter to me." in it, i told myself that i wanted to read it just before 2012 set in.  [you can check it out here]

boy was that trip down memory lane a somewhat-disheartening-albeit-enlightening experience.

just like my 'list' of things that i wanted to accomplish in 2011, many of the things in my 'letter to me' didn't happen.  i have the same camera.  i don't have a "little black dress that makes me feel invincible."  i didn't move out of virginia.  i still can't walk in heels. and i probably don't really qualify as being cool.

so i failed, right?

nope :)

part of my personal theme (people can have themes, right?) of 2012 is that 'i want better.'  when mama asks me what to expect out of a 9-5 job when i complain about not getting holidays off and not being appreciated for the hard work and effort i put into accomplishing what is expected of me - i tell her 'i expect better.'  when i get feedback from clients letting me know how much they love my images and can't wait to order prints, all i seem to think is 'how can i make it better.'  when someone tells me that it's normal to be struggling with a job search in this economy, i still 'want better.'  when i get down on myself and throw little pity parties for myself and my situation, i want to remember to slap myself in the face and shout 'i am better.'

don't take this the wrong way.  it isn't that i'm not content with what i have.  i am incredibly thankful for what God has given me and am beyond happy with where my life is right now, but it's going to get better.

a lot better.

mostly because through the grace of God an my own tenacity, i'm going to make it that way.

big things are comin folks - i can feel it in my bones. 

happy 2012 ya'll

  

footied pajamas and the polar express [christmas 2011]

when my sister and i were little (like: look cute in footied pajamas and pigtails little) we would always stay up to try and see if we could hear santa's sleigh bells. we could hardly fall asleep christmas eve and were then up wayyyy too early the next morning to see if the jolly old man in the big red suit had eaten all of his cookies.  one year (i think i was in 1st grade, because that was the year that we had an awful ice storm, the power was knocked out, and i got to read the christmas story from Luke by lantern light on christmas eve) mama and daddy told us it HAD to be light outside before we could get out of bed... torture, i tell you.  i distinctly remember kristen sitting on my lap at the top of the stairs waiting to hear mama and daddy stir below so we could bound down the stairs.  when danny was born, he use to sleep with me. but then, when i went off to college he only slept with me when i came home for the weekends, and eventually hardly at all.  but still, every christmas eve night, he would grab rusty (his bear) and i would get hippo (my hippopotamus) and we would read the polar express under the covers and then fall asleep waiting for santa to visit.

this year, there were no footied pajamas, no polar express read with enthusiasm and different voices for each character, no snuggling with a freckled red-head and my hippo. instead, on christmas eve, i crawled into bed alone and set an alarm. at 5:25 a.m. on christmas morning my phone blared some nondescript piano rift and i leaped out of bed.  i threw on my muck shoes, fed gambler (the horse) and the cats (sissy and grayson) and put shep in the back of HOSS. i drove the 20 miles home and pulled into the front yard at 6:03 a.m.

that's right, 6:03 a.m.

and i wouldn't have it any other way. somehow i managed to get there before danny/kristen woke up and christmas morning was just as exciting as the 20-some before.  i'm excited for what christmas futures have to bring, put christmas present was pretty awesome (i guess it's christmas past now, but you get my drift). 

i have some goodies coming to the blog soon (christmas presents were delivered, so now i can share goodies with ya'll!!), but until then, enjoy some of the photos from christmas 2011.

conner, our little mini model :)

danny got a potato gun, thanks david haha

family photo!! (i know this isn't the greatest, but it was taken at 10:00 at night, outside, with no flash... we do what we can ;)

merry christmas ya'll!!

words. [personal]

i've never been a science person.  memorization just isn't my thing. that test in AP chemistry where we had to memorize polyatomic ions? you don't even want to know how many times i took that before i passed.  it was embarrassing. for serious.

and math? well... i just couldn't see the point.  i know it's useful for some folks, but really? i do NOT need to know how to set up proofs to function on a day to day basis.

(tehehe... function...)

now, history and i got along fairly well, but again, memorization... it seriously hindered our relationship.

so i graduated with an english degree.

collective response: hold up say whaaaaa?!!

this'll probably come as a shock to some of you - i mean, as long as we're being completely honest, i'm a terrible speller, tend to use entirely too many adjectives, have a general lack of enthusiasm when it comes to punctuating things correctly and only capitalize when absolutely necessary...

but i really like words.

and writing.

more specifically: handwritten words.

when i was in elementary school i wrote letters to my best friend, even though i sat next to her in all of our classes and saw her five days a week.  at GA camp, i wrote to nana and pop-pop every day - even if it was just to tell them that my swimsuit bottoms had fallen off when i dove off of the side of the pool.  i gave my christmas list to santa in paragraph form. when my long-term high-school sweetheart broke up with me, to get over it i wrote.  in college, when i needed a distraction or i didn't know how to handle something, i picked up a pen.

point being [pun totally intended]: i've always been a writer.

i recently received a PACKAGE of letters (yes, a package - there were a total of 8 i think) and it was one of the best surprises ever :)  there is something about the written word - it's personal and touching.  so inextricably you. so undeniably yours.  there is no getting away from it.  and every mark has a story that goes with it.

and that is why i write.

notes to myself, letters to others, thank you cards, on my hand, in my journal, on mixed cd's and scraps of paper... anywhere really.  the margins of my books are littered with questions, comments, doodles, punctuation marks.  if there are post-it notes within arms reach, you better believe that the top one has something, anything, written on it. 

in a lot of ways photography resonates with me just as deeply as writing.  through both i create.  through both i tell stories.  but through photography, i express what, occasionally, words cannot.

caits

sweet.simple.southern. [photography]

i'm a sucker for the traditional.

christmas eve services closing with candles and silent night echoing from the walls of our little country church, spending the last few minutes of christmas day gathered around the piano - mama playing and all of the girls serenading her with carols, decorating the christmas tree with my sister and brother (daddy untangles the hooks and mama is on empty-space duty... ensuring that there aren't huge gaps between ornaments... legit we've got this down to a science), making mounds and assorted cookies with three generations of phenomenal women crowded into our kitchen... it all just seems so magical. 

and it amazes me how these things happen every year, but it never gets old.

i think that's why i love this picture so much, along with all of the feelings it evokes.  i can't remember a christmas when my aunt didn't have this on her tree.  it's so simple.  so beautiful to me. completely timeless... in more ways that one.  

she's frozen.  her unassuming beauty breathtaking.  she has no idea she is adored year after year - previously by a little ballerina and now by a twenty-something young professional who secretly wishes people look at her and see what she sees in this little glass ornament... something that, although simple, is captivating.

and THAT is what i want to capture with photographs. the beautiful simplicity of the ordinary. 

i need to be held accountable...

i just got back from NoVA (northern virginia - i know - it's weird) a few hours ago and i am INCREDIBLY tired. HOWEVER - i'm also incredibly MOTIVATED! (yeah - caps were totally necessary for that). so, i'm compiling a list of things i'm going to do this week (and probably next? it's already basically wednesday...), and since i need to be held accountable, i'm going to start blogging my most pressing tasks so that maybe i stop putting things off (i can't take credit for this idea, the talented katelyn of katelyn james photography does this monthly! - ps you are not allowed to compare my photographs of hers because i look like a kindergartener with a polaroid compared to her amazingness)

- workflow, workflow, workflow

- pool time with danny. this is very important.

- edit business plan and financial projections with new info

- revise portrait contract

- finish a super cool photo project (don't worry - i'll share my secrets as soon as it's complete!) and then blog about it

- blog about Conner (SO STINKIN CUTE)

- update resume (officially a small business owner say whaaa?!!?!)

- finish editing Jess' pictures (and blog)

- contact folks about using their property to shoot on

- thursday portrait session

- clean my room

- find someone who will let me second shoot a wedding

- look into getting a NEW COMPUTERRRR that's good for editing

these aren't in any particular order, but they all need to get did. and i'm pretty sure there are about 30 other 'to-dos' that should be on my list that i just can't think of right now.

i'm also gonna start a few 'installments' on the blog SUCH AS... 'fun friday' when i do a fun fotography (see what i did there?!) project *not every friday, but some. and random 'things i love' posts. kindof SERIOUSLY JAZZED about these.

i'll leave you with this: a picture of me and my sister (kristen) that we took one day when i was taking her back to school. i made her stand there while i set up the tripod and played with settings and then i said 'pretend like you like me!' i miss her. a lot. *this TOTALLY counts as my first 'things i love' post.

howdy ya'll

welcome to the blog! i'm probably one of the most technologically challenged individuals i know (with the exception of my mother) so you'll have to bear with me as i try and figure out how to blog my photography. thank you for your patience and understanding :)

i have SO. MANY. portrait sessions coming up in the next two weeks, so you'll be seeing a TON of william and mary seniors on here!

<3

ps - i'm a terrible speller, tend to use way too many adjectives, have a general lack of enthusiasm when it comes to punctuating things correctly (one more reason i probably shouldn't have been an english major) and only capitalize things when absolutely necessary. hope you can deal with that :) much love!