We photographed this session over a week ago, and it’s been KILLING me to not blog it! With our recent travels, it’s sometimes hard to sit down and give a session the attention it deserves right away, and I’d ALWAYS rather do something right than do it fast. 🙂 Luckily, Erica & Jeremy were super understanding, and they’ll still have their full collection exactly when I promised. WHEW. Business-owner crises averted!

Erica & Jeremy serve in ministry, and are also the photographers behind Illuminate Images. They’ve been following our blog and leaving thoughtful, encouraging comments for YEARS, but it wasn’t until they won a free portrait session in our 1,000th Blog Post contest that we had the opportunity to meet them in person! We had an absolute blast hanging out with these two… it’s so cool to feel like old friends immediately. They’re so talented, and SO sweet on each other, and really pulled out all the stops to help us make their portrait session awesome. Some of these images are destined for the “Best Of 2013” contest, that’s for SURE!

We started at one of our favorite spots down deep in Morgan Mill, and I was SO glad that the clouds we’d been covered in all day blew by enough to let some sun peek through!

Usually between part 1 and part 2 of a portrait session, we’ll change clothes & maybe grab a bottle of water. This time, we decided to add “move a piano” into the mix. Let me tell you, this was a seriously ambitious undertaking, as rollers don’t work too well out in open fields. I think the images we captured with this musty treasure ended up being totally worth the effort, though!

TO. DIE. FOR.

I mean, whoa. I’ve been wanting to photograph at sunset in this field with this tree for about 3 years, and never had something I felt like would be worth the trek. This DEFINITELY was!

Youth group members, avert your eyes… it got a little steamy! 🙂

Erica, I’m-a get a little weird here, but you have an amazing face. I’m sure you could tell by how many times I asked you to turn your head to extreme angles, but I’m just crazy about your jawline!

This is a real live Texas sky that we in-real-life just stood there and gawked at for a while at the end of the session. Just incredible…

Thank you guys SO much. Thank you for your years of encouragement on our blog, before we ever met. Thanks for counting us as inspirations to your own business, because THAT, in turn, inspires us to keep pushing forward. Thank you for being so deliriously excited to win the portrait session, and for driving way out in the boonies with a huge beast of a piano. Thank you for being so fun to photograph, and for our sweet gift. We hope we’ll see y’all again REAL soon! 🙂