photography – Page 2 – Jo McVey Photography

Cooper’s Cake Smash {Hendersonville, TN Baby Photographer}

Hendersonville, TN Baby Photographer | This was a special cake smash session for me. Cooper’s mommy and I are in a Facebook group together because our older children were born in the same month. Actually, they were born a week apart! I also did her daughter’s cake smash session three years ago. Time sure flies! Happy 1st birthday, Cooper!

Cooper was all about his cake, and was so generous that he was constantly trying to share with his mommy.

Well done, Cooper. Well done. HAPPY 1ST BIRTHDAY!!!

Hendersonville, TN Baby Photographer | Joanna McVey of Southern Daisy Photography specializes in maternity, newborn, baby, child, and family photography. Contact me today to schedule your next session! Email me at [email protected], or contact me by phone (615) 294-6867. You can also follow me on Facebook and Instagram.

Southern Daisy Photography serves Nashville and surrounding areas, including Hendersonville, Gallatin, Goodlettsville, White House, Madison, Hermitage, Brentwood, Franklin, Murfreesboro, Smyrna, Bellevue, Old Hickory, Donelson, Mt. Juliet, Lebanon, Castalian Springs, East Nashville, Germantown, Nolensville, Green Hills, Ashland City, 12 South, Belle Meade, Cool Springs, Clarksville, Greenbrier, Spring Hill, Dickson, Portland, Fairview, and all other Middle TN areas.

Afternoon Shenanigans {Hendersonville, TN Family Photographer}

So many things have happened since my last post! On March 9th, I turned THIRTY!!!! I know, I can’t believe it either. I used to think that thirty was SO old. Like, when you turn thirty, you are a legit adult. I mean, being a wife and mother of two boys had me doing a lot of “adulting” already, but once I turned thirty it’s like I could feel my youth being sucked from me. Haha! Don’t get me wrong, I still feel ever bit as young as I always have, it just feels like I have to be more responsible now or something.

Another big thing was that we moved from our large, beautiful home into a much smaller rental house while we, Lord willing, build our dream home. Our new house is going to be everything we have always wanted in a home, and I will even have my own photography studio separate from our house! That will be such a blessing! I can’t tell you how many times I have apologized to clients because of all the toys that were scattered around, or the dishes that were left out on the counter.

Our puppy, Skye, is now a huge 73+ pound giant of a dog, and is steadily gaining between 3 to 5 pounds a week. It won’t be long before she passes up Kaylee, our St. Bernard. Here’s a snapshot of her growth so far.

Speaking of Kaylee, she and Skye had quite the play session the other afternoon. Here’s a little bit of what went down.

Well that’s just ridiculous. And could Kaylee look any more like a senior citizen? I mean, she is eight years old, but she looks at least twelve in this picture!

Grayson wanted to get in on the action.

Not sure what Kaylee is doing here. Probably gagging on a stick. Don’t worry. She’s fine.

See? What a goober.

Then there’s this precious face. I mean, how could you stay mad at a face like that?

We just love her. She’s been a great dog so far!

Grayson says she’s his dog, and loves her a lot more than Oliver does. Oliver doesn’t like when she comes up to him when he didn’t invite her. He basically likes her only on his terms. Whereas Grayson doesn’t care what she does. He just laughs and snuggles with her and tries to play. It’s so cute to watch. I’ve heard him say on many occasions, “I love you, Skye!”

Then there was the time I told him to give Skye a hug, and he did this. Haha! We’re still working on appropriate positions for hugging dogs. Luckily Skye didn’t take offense.

Oliver would much rather play with a dandelion than take pictures with our dogs. Which is fine by me. It made for some great photos!

Love these boys. I often get asked if they are twins when we’re out and about, and although they are almost 20 months apart, I feel like they’re twins most of the time. The only difference is that Grayson can communicate better than Oliver and is potty trained. Hopefully Oliver will be trained by two and a half just like his brother. So we’ve got three months to work on that. 🙂 So far he isn’t interested.

Before and After

Besides God and my family, photography is my biggest passion. I picked up my first DSLR camera in 2011 — a Canon Rebel XTi that I bought, along with some lenses, from my extremely talented sister-in-law and wedding photographer, Stacey Pentland. Seriously, she’s amazing. I would know. She photographed my wedding in 2011, and if you’re getting married in the Bay Area in California, you should definitely consider hiring her to capture your wedding. You won’t be disappointed! I know I wasn’t!

Anyway, I’ve since upgraded to a Canon EOS 5D Mark III and have tried to learn as much as I can about photography and editing in the past 4+ years. I am mostly self-taught, and my only education has come from some online video tutorials.

My favorite part of photography is post production, or editing the photos. I love taking a mediocre, or even sometimes a horrible, seemingly unsalvageable photo, and turning it into something amazing. (Although I try my best to get it as close to perfect straight out of the camera as I can.) I always start my editing process in Lightroom, and then change over to Photoshop. I would say I do about 10% in LR and 90% in PS.

So, without further ado, I wanted to show you some of my favorite before and afters.

This photo was taken at a local pumpkin patch, and the sky was so beautiful that evening. It was getting pretty dark, and I knew that if I set my camera to expose for the subjects (Grayson and me) so that we’d be bright enough, it would blow out the sky and make it just a bright white, instead of showing any of the beautiful pink clouds. So I exposed for the sky and hoped that I could fix it later. Thankfully, I was able to.

Here’s another fun one. I had to expand the floor, delete the cable, make the floor a darker, warmer color, among other things. This photo turned into one of my favorite photos I have ever taken, and it was even featured on Greater Than Gatsby’s Facebook page!

This was a shot I took of our boys playing on the beach in St. Augustine during our vacation this past summer. The lighting was just perfect, and the sky was beautiful, but I underexposed just a bit to make sure I didn’t blow out any part of the sky or beach. I love how it turned out.

This one was quite a challenge. I don’t typically shoot families in my studio. Normally it’s just newborns and babies one year old and younger. The reason for that is because I don’t have any backdrops big enough for more than one person at a time. Trust me, I want to by ALL the backdrops! But at the moment, I can’t justify spending the money when I’m only doing about 8-10 sessions a year. (I’m taking this time to focus on raising my two crazy boys while they’re young and not in school). Normally when I take my parent shots, I have them standing in front of my tan wall, which acts as a backdrop. But for this photo, I had them sitting down so that they would all be on the same level. I must have a lot of confidence in myself to think that I could pull this off, when I looked at the back of the camera and thought, “Yah, I got the shot.”

And of course, a before and after post wouldn’t be complete without a composite of my two crazy, hilarious, lovable boys. Rarely do I ever get a good shot of them both at the same time. So more often than not, I have to swap out heads, bodies, you name it. Anyway, this was their official Christmas picture that I took for the calendar I make every year for their grandparents and us. This was “December.” As you can see, Grayson was not cooperating while sitting next to Oliver, so I had to take his photo separately and then swap his body into the photo with Oliver. These boys make me work, I tell ya!

Anyway, that’s my fun little before and after post for today. I wasn’t sure if this would be my last post of 2015 or my first post of 2016 since we’re nearing midnight, but it looks like 2015 it is! I wish you all a very Happy New Year! Stay safe and take lots of pictures!!!