Calling All Sprouts!!! It’s Model Time…

roon brown photography {model search}

This is your little one’s opportunity to strut their stuff, play dress up and be featured as one of the hippest kids in Carlsbad…heck, the WORLD!

This is an Open Call. That means this is open to all little ones within the age and size range. You may bring your little one at any time during the hours we’ve listed, however this has become a popular event and we recommend coming as early as possible.  We will be taking names on a first-come, first-served basis and we will stop taking names at noon.

roon brown photography {model search}

Who: Boys and Girls

Sizes: INFANT -Size 8

When: Sunday, March 28, 2010 from 8:30am-12pm

Where:  Rock’n Sprouts

2835 Roosevelt Street

Carlsbad, CA 92008

What: The Model Search will be an open call opportunity for your child to be chosen as one of the handful of models I will be photographing for the Rock’n Sprout’s Spring/Summer Line.  All children wishing to be in the final shoot are required to be photographed by me (Roon), March 28th. I’ll be taking 3 photos of your child to help us determine who has the right look for our concept.

*** You (parent) and your little one MUST be able to commit to the photoshoot date of April 11th.  You will be asked to sign a contract that guarantees that if your child wins a spot, they will show up on the shoot date.***

and, drumroll, please…

THE PRIZES:

The winners of the model search will be featured in the Rock’n Sprouts store, online and in print ads for 6 months!

roon brown photography {model search}

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This is a super fun event and can get really crowded…come prepared to hang out with your kids and other little munchkins for at least an hour.  Can’t wait to meet all of you and your rad kids!!

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On Pandora: Neil Young

And the Winner is:

roon brown photography

my husband…

roon brown photography

Okay, okay… please let me explain:

I was so excited all last week with your fancy and genius entries coming in.  With notable names for my photobooth like, “Let it Loose Booth”, “Amuse Booth”, “Peek a Booth”, and “The Nut Hut”, I was stoked to choose a winner.  Rob and I sit on our computers at night and geek out–me with my work, and him with whatever he’s into that night.  (Right now it’s vintage trucks on craigslist.)  I asked him to help me compile the list and we tried all the names out loud, (loved the Loony Roonie Box!).  At the end of the list, Rob made his own suggestion saying, “How about The Hot Spot?”

I didn’t even hesitate.  I knew it was right and there you have it… The Hot Spot it is.  I’m in love.  And excited!

So…this leaves me with a mini-session to give away, and since I am SO grateful for all of you readers and for your creativity…I assigned each and every booth-name-entry a number, (so if you entered 7 names, you got 7 numbers and 7 chances to win).  I put all the numbers in a random number generator and out came my winner:

Aja Simpson!!!

(for the entry, Crazy Roon’s Wild Room, our 6th entry, if you must know)

I am totally looking forward to sharing more photos from The Hot Spot coming up this year.

***If you are dippin’ in the mustard and can’t ketchup, check out the post here for more info on this contest!

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There will be a fun, (bi-annual…hint, hint), announcement tomorrow.  See you here!

roon brown photography

More um…Crazybooth…but not

To inspire your creativity…a free mini-session with a disc and rights is up for grabs! (Read here for more info…)

These photos were all taken by my second shooter, super rad Steve Thrailkill, (check out his wedding portfolio to see a little of what he’ll capture on wedding day)…

roon brown {photobooth wedding)

roon brown {photobooth wedding)

roon brown {photobooth wedding)

roon brown {photobooth wedding)

roon brown {photobooth wedding)

roon brown {photobooth wedding)

roon brown {photobooth wedding)

Crazybooth, but not…

you picture me photography {crazybooth wedding}

So I was really excited when I saw that The Image Is Found, a local photographer team, was offering a tutorial on their popular and super rad Crazybooth. I waited almost a year before taking them up on their offer, and now I can’t imagine what I would do with this offering for my wedding clients!

So Sarah and Jason were my very first wedding clients EVER and I was so grateful that they trusted me enough with their images from a day they had thought about for years…when I told them I could bring my set up to re-create the inside of a tiny little photobooth they were totally game. Now…I was nervous about the shoot that day…about directing a second shooter and being in charge of such an important and un-repeatable event.

But I was truly nervous about this Crazybooth. Because, while the majority of my friends and family would definitely use the word crazy in some form or another to describe me on any given day…to have the pressure to “be” crazy or influence strangers to be crazy is intense and totally not something I felt I could pull off. My idea of “being” crazy is shaking my head back and forth with my tongue wagging…kind of frat-boy-downed-a-kegger-on-football-night-crazy.

How was I going to run this booth?!

But it worked out…because everyone was so stoked to give the bride and groom something to forever remember the day and their guests and the energy of the night.

So here comes the *Crazybooth, but not…* part of my heading for this blog post. Within the tutorial, I was asked to come up with a new/different name for my own CrazyBooth. I’ve not come up with something yet that truly describes the booth the way I’d like it to be thought of so I was hoping one of you all could help me come up with a name. So far, I’ve thrown out GoofBooth, SillySpace (really?), and a zillion more that my husband Rob has rolled his eyes at or just said, “no.”

If I use Your suggestion of a name for my CrazyBooth from your comment here on my blog, I will give you a free mini-session complete with a disc of 8 photos from the session along with the rights to your photos. It’s THAT important to me! You must make the suggestion here on this blog in the comment section to be considered for the prize.  (If you already have a session booked with me, you can pass the mini-session to someone you love or cash in on 2 16×20 prints from your already-booked session.)

I would like the name to convey: fun, silly, crazy, cool, uninhibited but not, like, smutty. And it doesn’t have to have the word Booth in it, but that’s what it’s meant to look like, so anything similar would be fine.  Yay! I know you all are word geniuses out there…bring it on. Hey…how about the Bring IT Booth? … (Rob? : no.)

UPDATE: I will be choosing the name and announcing on Monday, Feb, 8th, the winner and the new name of my photobooth…so keep those suggestions comin’!

you picture me photography {crazybooth wedding}

you picture me photography {crazybooth wedding}

you picture me photography {crazybooth wedding}

you picture me photography {crazybooth wedding}

(That’s me up there in the bottom shot getting kisses/thanked by Sarah for being a good CrazyBooth leader.)

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On Pandora: Led Zeppelin

Moving Ahead

you picture me photography {child photographer}

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Happy New Year to All!!!

I love the chance to start clean or at least re-invent…  I have a lot of personal challenges ahead in this new year. Can’t wait to hear all of your new hopes for the new year…

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you picture me photography {family photographer}

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Thanks to all of you: my clients and friends and family for making last year magical and overwhelmingly overwhelming and sweet and exciting.  I’ve never felt so supported in all of my life…or as crazy.  But each time I share something that I think may just be downright ridiculous about my life or my family or my brain, you all assure me with your own craziness, that we are all in this huge pot of good times mixed with the chaos of family life in America.

Here’s a link to a little video for the New Year for my little Naya.

http://vimeo.com/8541219

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you picture me photography {family photographer}

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On Pandora: (completely addicted to) Neil Young Radio

Looking to the Better

Sean and Erin are getting married on the Winter Solstice. When I heard this I was gently thrilled and secretly jealous…(must put that on my ever growing list of things to do when I get married to Rob again!) What an amazing day…what a bold and pronounced statement to the world. Better things to come…the day after the wedding will be longer than the one before. The sun will shine a little longer and a little hotter. A solid, positive way to start a life together.

And by the time we wind down to Winter Solstice again next year, they’ll have built a solid nest together to welcome the darker days.

This is a little preview of the cheer Sean and Erin are planning to do at the alter…ha! Wish I could be at THAT wedding…oh…wait…I will be there!!!

*****UPDATE: Went to the wedding. (Rad, Amazing!) Sean and Erin informed me that they still loved me EVEN THOUGH I posted the photo below of them jumping…I just can’t bring myself to take it off, but know that the bride and groom think it’s ridiculous.

you picture me photography {engagement session}

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On Pandora: Beck

Power to the People

you picture me photography {brown life}

The power went off around 11 pm. 11:03, to be exact. Rob was still up and I had gone to bed early hoping to sleep off a yuckiness that had been hanging around me for a few days. I awoke to pitch black and wandered into the hallway just in time to meet Curren coming out of his room. He says: Mama! I have been trying to open my eyes ’cause it was so dark that I thought they were closed, but then I realized they ARE open.

Rob and I spent the next few hours hanging out on the couch, doing crosswords by flashlight, wondering what the heck was going on and taking turns going in and out of the kids’ room. Naya kept yelling out: It’s too hard to go to sleep ’cause I can’t see anything!!! They were fascinated by the lack of hum…by the lack of slivers of nighttime light…by the lack of the city’s energy, silently coating all of us as we move through the day and sleep through the night.

you picture me photography {brown life}

The outage lasted 12 hours. It was long enough to remind us of how much power we actually use…and how many things are powered only by us…by our strength or imagination. We don’t have a TV so that wasn’t missed, but the dishwasher, heater, computer, fridge and garage door were all still for a while. I am SO thankful for the discovery and harnessing of electricity…and at the same time, our family could use a full week of no electricity to remind us of our own ingenuity and resourcefulness. (Um…Like getting pizza and salad take-out for lunch…can anyone say, BooYAH! Okay…so that wasn’t that resourceful…but our garden is bare and my weaving loom is nowhere to be found.)

Our power is back on now, but after walking around turning off lights last night after the little ones went to bed, I thought about the true silence that had settled on us the night before and wished for more of that gentle warmth for my family.

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On Pandora: nothing…we had no power…Piano Time!!!!! (It really is possible to play The Entertainer 187 times.)

Holden is Lucky

you picture me photography {newborn portraits}

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Here’s a look into a Mini-Session for the Livesay family. If you are wondering what you get when you ask for a mini-sesh with me…be confused no more…Here is what I presented to them for their newest addition to the fam:

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you picture me photography {newborn portraits}

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Big brother showing his stuff…(When Curren, my little observer, saw me working on this photo he goes: OH MAAAANNNNN…that guy’s COOOL!!!!!!! ha!)

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you picture me photography {newborn portraits}

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you picture me photography {newborn portraits}

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you picture me photography {newborn portraits}

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you picture me photography {newborn portraits}

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you picture me photography {newborn portraits}

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you picture me photography {newborn portraits}

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you picture me photography {newborn portraits}

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you picture me photography {newborn portraits}

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you picture me photography {newborn portraits}

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you picture me photography {newborn portraits}

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you picture me photography {newborn portraits}

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On Pandora: Monsters of Folk (wink wink

Families together make me cry

you picture me photography {holiday portraits}

Living in San Diego means that if our family is not part of the military world, often we are connected to families who are. I’ve been sharing the recent developments in my family life – my anxiety/stress/guilt/whatever comes to mind – and yet, I have the support on a daily basis of my husband, Rob, who rocks my world and also nourishes 21 other little lives each weekday in his classroom. What would I do without him? I would put one foot in front of the other, is the answer…

But how do my friends whose husbands are in Iraq or overseas DO IT?

When I was 2 1/2 my mom and I lost my dad to Crohn’s Disease. I have no recollection of that time and I don’t “miss” my dad the way you miss someone whom you have memories of. I think of him. Who he was. How he must have interacted with me. As a wife now, I think of how he and my mom ,must have lived together, parented together, dreamed together, worried about me together.

My mom didn’t have a lot of support from him in taking care of me during those first 2 years of my life, as he was very sick for most of it. She was constantly going between the hospital and home and work. I know she must have been on auto pilot because that’s what us moms do. Did she stop and take a breath when she layed her head on her pillow at night. What were her thoughts before she finally fell asleep?

What do these women whom I watch taking care of their families 24 hours a day, with their men gone, think about at night?

you picture me photography {holiday portraits}

I just completed a private group of mini-sessions for a local mom’s group. I’d photographed most of the families before, but this was the first time I met some of the dads who had been in Iraq at our last mini-session. I get easily overwhelmed with emotion and, I didn’t…but I wanted to give everyone the biggest hugs…and cry and tell them how amazing all of them are.  To endure separation…to still be kind to your children, to strangers, to your friends and family. To come back together and still click…still feel connected AND to parent your children together.

The crying I wanted to do, and did do as I was Super-RAD-on-izing their images, wasn’t sad-crying. It was overwhelmingly joyous-crying. Grateful-crying. That these babies have their family back together. That these families are sacrificing daily for me, for my family, for our country. I’m so thankful and deeply moved. Their faces are in my thoughts when I lay my head down for the night.

you picture me photography {holiday portraits}

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you picture me photography {holiday portraits}

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you picture me photography {holiday portraits}

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you picture me photography {holiday portraits}

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you picture me photography {holiday portraits}

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you picture me photography {holiday portraits}

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you picture me photography {holiday portraits}

** Not All of the families in the Mom’s group are military families…but/and they are an amazing gathering of families who have watched their littlest ones grow over the last year and a half.

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On Pandora: Frank Black

Now THAT’s a family photo

I’m struggling. It’s personal. It’s professional. I’m dealing with What I’m doing…what I’m REALLY doing in photo-land. This holiday season I have been fantastically overwhelmed with requests to take family portrtaits…and I’ve been Thrilled to No End to do them for families of all flavors!

But as I was putting my own Roon-style on some of the images I shot in the past couple of weeks…of families…sweet, kind, beautiful families….I started wondering if the style of photography I shot this year is truly representative of me…of THEM…the families.

I’m vowing next year to focus on shooting families as they ARE… Maybe no one will sign up… Maybe no one will put their photos on their Christmas cards… who knows… But I know I’m ready to have some fun, man…some serious creative fun.

Thank you, lovely Holiday Customers…hope you’ll come back next year for something new…that’s not really new at all…not NEW. but YOU!!!!!

This perfect post is what inspired my thoughts. And here’s my favorite photo of the bunch from photographer David E. Jackson:

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Right?!?!?!??!?!?