Sara Gray Photography Portland, Oregon

Do you know Rosemary Stafford? If you don’t, you should. She’s a local florist who not only does amazing work with flowers, but is a really fun person to hang out with. We met earlier in 2011 on a photo shoot and totally hit it off. Just before Christmas, I got together with Rosemary and her man, Brian, and we took some really sweet couple photos in NW Portland and the edge of Forest Park.

I love their whole vibe — these guys are some of my favorite people.

Above, that’s one of Rosemary’s floral arrangements, just casually arranged on her living room table. I’ve never seen one thing of hers that I don’t love.

Thanks, Rosemary and Brian, for choosing me to shoot your photos! It was amazing and you know I can’t wait for next time.

I mean Jennifer Rand Walker, of course. She’s the face and the talent behind Face Body Beauty, and she’s the most talented makeup and hair artist I know. She’s also generous with her knowledge and savvy in the ways of business and relationships. In short, she is someone you need to know.

Face Body Beauty is just about to start work on its fifth wedding season — Jennifer does makeup and hair for brides, but also does tons of other stuff, from teaching workshops and lessons to makeup for boudoir photography and special events. She really enjoys teaching, she told me: “I teach everyday women how to do their makeup in a way that will enhance their natural beauty. Seeing them stand a little taller or walk more confidently after experiencing the difference makeup can make is extremely rewarding. I love any opportunity to help women feel more beautiful and confident.”

When she does work with brides, Jennifer said she loves working with each unique bride to create a look that works with her and the wedding.

“I love working with a bride from the beginning and talking through her vision for her wedding, her dress, her style and of course her makeup and hair,” Jennifer said. “Talking about all the details helps me put together a style and often, a plan for bringing that style to life. We come up with a plan for skin care and hair care that ensures that she will be glowing and gorgeous on her special day.”

Jennifer’s number one piece of advice to brides? Getting together with a hair and makeup artist early. When Jennifer works with a bride from six months to a year in advance, she’s able to come up with a plan for skin and hair care and make adjustments before the wedding.

I highly recommend Jennifer to brides and anyone looking for a flawless look or hair and makeup advice and lessons — check out her site here and get in touch!

You guys know the conundrum: You want to put your best face forward and make an impression on your Web site, Facebook profile, Twitter account etc. But do you actually have a current, fantastic photo you can use to communicate to the world who you are and what you do? I think very few people actually do.

Enter my new side project: I’m offering contemporary business portraits for think-outside-the-box professionals. That means graduate students, small business owners, people in creative fields and more traditional ones. For all of you who make your first impression on the Internet, it’s time to get a fantastic photo of yourself.

I’m nice, I try to be funny and my camera doesn’t bite. If you make a weird face, I promise to delete the photo forever and not tell a soul. Sessions are easy, very quick (20 minutes) and reasonably priced. You get 10-15 fully edited images in a digital format and all the rights to use them online, in print and on billboards. All for 200 bucks.

Visit my business portraits site to find out more and to get an appointment on the calendar!

Pictured above, from top: Allison McCormick, Erin McGovney, Reece Marshburn & Karen Stott.

It’s not very often that I do a high school senior portrait session — I used to, but it’s not super common these days. Sometimes, though, a lovely person comes along and I just can’t resist. Anna and I got together last week to do her senior session and I’m so happy with it, I just had to share!

Anna is a Jesuit student (my alma mater) and a super bright and talented chick. She’s going to the University of Washington in the fall and she’s going to study languages and international studies. She speaks Japanese and Spanish. She’s pretty amazing.

Because Anna has traveled all over the world, we styled her shoot to make it feel very European, including borrowing this 1951 bicycle from one of my fabulous brides, Morgan! She and her fiance have done tons of work on it and I think it’s so fun.

Anna looked absolutely ravishing — Jennifer Walker of Face Body Beauty did her hair and makeup.

Thanks so much, Anna, for coming out and being so much fun for an afternoon! I can’t wait to hear about your successes next year and beyond!

If you have been reading my blog for awhile now, you know I’m a huge fan of GemKitty. Their design-your-own process is perfect for everyday, but lends itself particularly well to bridesmaid gifts since you can personalize each piece of handcrafted jewelry. And any day now, they’ll be launching design-your-own earrings! I recently got together with the masterminds behind GemKitty to help them with some new photos of their beautiful stuff.

This is Cecilia. She’s stunning and an up-and-coming Portland model. I loved photographing her!

This model is my sister, Emily. She loves earrings and wears them like crazy, so she was so excited to be a model for this shoot!

There are so many great varieties of earrings that’ll be available through GemKitty once they launch.

Thanks, gals, for being so fun to photograph! Now get over to GemKitty and get yourself a necklace or some new earrings!

It doesn’t hurt, of course, that this month’s Dress of the Month is yellow with polka dots. Could that be any more spring-y?

Dress of the Month is a project by my friends Liz Cowin and Kirsten Collins, and sometimes I go out and help them photograph it. If this dress is calling your name, get on over there and order one before the month is up.

This is Orly. She plays the guitar. She sported this month’s awesome dress out on the pastoral goodness that is Sauvie Island.

Brianna from Wallflowers Salon (who does the styling for these shoots) said she took inspiration from Zooey Deschanel’s bangs for her hair.

Thanks, Dress of the Month Club, for being such a fun addition to my month!

Pure, unadulterated joy is what I think of when Marianna and Reece come to mind. They are wonderful people, and dear friends. I had such fun with them shooting this session in Peninsula Park.

Marianna and Reece are musicians — Marianna is the leading lady for Marianna and the Baby Vamps and Reece‘s piano skills are the backbone. The band often performs their original compositions. How wonderful is that?

She’s this beautiful, and she makes a mean Manhattan. Dare I say, she’s the perfect woman?

I just love how goofy they can be one minute and how serious and polished they can be in the next. I think this is what they mean when they say “dynamic duo.”

No, Marianna and Reece are not engaged (that I know of). But a girl can hope, can’t she?

I love how Marianna and I went to high school together and never really knew one another, but have reconnected and formed a friendship after all these years. Those are my favorite kinds of serendipity.

Thanks, you guys, for being gorgeous and loads of fun. I’m so happy to have you as my friends!

I don’t know what it’s like to have kids of my own — I don’t even have a dog. But the closest thing to it in my life are my two nephews and my niece. I was there when all three of them were born and I’ve watched them grow up over the last 15 years. It’s pretty crazy watching someone morph from helpless baby into, say, fierce water polo player who is taller than my husband (that would be my oldest nephew, Forrest). I recently snapped their yearly photos and I thought I’d share, since I can’t believe how big they’re getting.

This is Forrest. He’ll be 15 next week. That blows my mind, since I vividly remember taking him to school as my show-and-tell item in the fifth grade (yes, my sister actually let me do that).

Kailan is sort of like my soul mate — we are both middle children, but also sort of oldest since our older sibling is much older. We’re a little on the sensitive side and I love that about this guy. At eight years old now, he’s also a smart one, and he wants to be an electrical engineer when he grows up.

Draven is the wild card of the bunch. She’s six, going on thirty. She’s sassy all the time and no one can figure out where she gets it from. Neither of her parents have any idea either. In any case, she’s pretty cute.

Thanks, my lovelies, for letting me photograph you (agaaaaaaaaaain). You’d think having an aunt as a photographer would be a bonus. But you’d be wrong.

That might have been a bit of a lyric stretch, but I got a kick out of it. I’m so excited to share with you some photos that I recently shot for GemKitty — where you can design your own necklace. It’s such a fun site, and I love being able to watch their business grow.

We had loads of fun doing this shoot, running around in the South Waterfront with two amazing models (Maalaea and Stephanie) and a whole ton of necklaces.

Above, Maalaea is wearing “The Dash” — a GemKitty classic design. You can go make your own with whatever material you want.

I love including the Portland Streetcar in shoots — it’s such a local touch!

The team at GemKitty are so good at pairing multiple necklaces together in a way that looks cool.

Stephanie is a total yogi — so we went for it here. I love how part of her personality shines through.

Thanks to Arwa & Todd from GemKitty and Stephanie and Maalaea for making this such a fun day!

I’m talking about Mandi Downs and Rachelle Bell of Champagne NW. They’re full-service wedding coordinators that I’ve become friends with over the last year and I wanted to share a little info from them, plus some fun pictures.

This is Rachelle. She loves what she does for a living. Both she and Mandi were on separate paths toward becoming teachers when they found the wonderful world of weddings. They’ve both been working as wedding coordinators for several years, but their company (Champagne NW) is a newcomer on the scene.

One myth that Mandi and Rachelle want to dispel is that having a wedding coordinator is only for the rich. “The amount of money you are spending on your wedding, whether it be $5,000 or $500,000, is  a lot of money. You’ve put anywhere from 6 months to 2 years into planning and waiting for your wedding day. When it comes to the day of, do you really want your parents, best friend or family to be taking care of all of the details?”

The women at Champagne offer lots of levels of service, from the total planning and coordination level down to “day-of” coordination, which basically means they come in more or less at the last minute and make sure everything goes smoothly.

One thing Mandi and Rachelle recommend when shopping for a wedding coordinator is (surprise, surprise!) to find someone you click with. “Your coordinator will be at your wedding all day long and if you don’t have a personality match, it will be a long day!” Mandi said. I love that they mention this, since I believe this to be true about most wedding vendors, especially photographers.

One thing I love about the women at Champagne is the personality they bring to their jobs — look at them work it above! They’ve got style and character and they’re willing to buckle down and do the work, because they love weddings, they told me. If any of you reading are interested in checking out what Mandi and Rachelle have to offer, check out their Web site (click here) and give them a call.

Thanks, Rachelle and Mandi, for being so much fun to hang out with and for coming out on a freezing cold day to take some photos with me!