Welcome to the family, Pico!

On December 19, 2015, Lacie and Eric welcomed their first "baby" into the family! Little Pico is a Pembroke Corgi. Lacie has been obsessed with Corgis for a LOOOOOONG time. She found a local breeder and got in contact with her. The breeder took a liking to Lacie, so as soon as her new litter was going to be born, we all knew the Childers family would be growing!

Pico and his brothers and sisters were born on October 7, 2016. Though we all wanted to get that puppy immediately, he had to stay with his doggy mommy for a few months!

When it came time for Lacie and Eric to meet the puppies for the first time, Lacie fell in love with the one who immediately ran up to her. They knew that he was going to soon be theirs!

On that chilly Saturday in December, Lacie and Eric made the short trip from Knoxville to Walland to adopt their new baby boy!! They brought him back to Holmes Manor, where the rest of us got to meet him for the first time! That first night, Pico was so shy. The Holmes dogs, Mela and Snickers, did not like him!! They're very protective of each other and their humans, so this little furball was just annoying to them!

Pico very soon warmed up to the whole family, and the other dogs eventually started to like him... A little bit, anyway! Mela enjoys rough-housing with him, and Snickers really only likes him when he's laying down asleep! He's definitely a great addition to the family!

We all love Pico so much. He's grown a ton since we had this photoshoot!!! :)

Disneyland, July 2015

We went to Disneyland in California a few weeks ago for our annual Holmes family summer vacation. Disneyland is currently celebrating its 60th anniversary! Everything was decorated up so beautifully for this wonderful diamond celebration. I took several photos around the park over the course of our trip. I'd love to share my favorite shots with you! Enjoy!

(Three of them are in black and white because I had edited them for a previous project and only saved the black and white version, lol!)

Still Life in the Spring

I found these photos I took last spring for my photography class. It was for a still life shoot. My favorite compilation is the teapot!

Lakeside Beauty

Just stumbled across these photos. I took them for a landscape photography assignment last semester and forgot I had them! They were taken at two different lakes on two different days, but both were very gorgeous locations.

Allie's Senior Prom, 4-11-15

My sweet little sister had her senior prom this past Saturday. I was able to run home from work and take a few pictures of her and her friends before I had to jet off to my next job.

These are just a few of my favorites!

Amy, Head shots

I recently took some head shots for my beautiful sister-in-law Amy for an audition she is going to this weekend. Fingers crossed she does well and that she gets the job!!

Britni and Trevor's Knoxville Engagement, 7-13-14

Finally some edited photos! All the photos I ever upload to this blog have been unedited, until now. I'm very excited to show off these beautiful photos of a very awesome couple!

Britni and Trevor's love story all started with the two of them throwing pine cones, books, and boots at each other. They had met one day through Britni's brother, and things only went uphill from there.

Trevor first asked Britni out by using the song "Call Me Maybe" by Carly Rae Jepson. Instead of the lyrics "here's my number, so call me maybe," he used "here's my heart, so girlfriend maybe?" Ever since then, Britni has been head over heels in love with him. They have been together two and a half years now!

Trevor proposed to Britni while they were at Myrtle Beach. He popped the question while the two were out enjoying the beautiful ocean. So romantic!!

The beautiful couple will be married on September 20 at Walden Grove in Sweetwater.

I had such a wonderful time with these two. They both have such sweet and goofy personalities, and they fit so well together. You can really feel the love between them! I hope I was able to capture their true love in these engagement photos! :)

Lacie and Eric photo session 3-24-14

Photos of Lacie and Eric taken for fun and as part of my class assignment.

Allie Flies, Mini-Session

Shots of Allie doing some fancy cheerleader moves.

The "Wolf" Camero, Mini-Session

Panning motion shots taken of Allie's car.

Ean, March 2, 2014

Family members are the best subjects for photography projects.

Winter's Beauty

Various outdoor shots taken during February-early March.

My Pets Photo Session, Feb. 2014

Here are a few shots of my pets, taken at the end of February.

HVA vs. KHS Basketball tournament, Feb. 22, 2014

A good nearly four years after I graduated high school, I (willingly) attended my first high school basketball game (which doesn't include all the in-school ones I had to watch). Though KHS is my alma mater, I wore an HVA shirt... I should have cheered for my own school because they won! Oh well.

(I had to take stopped motion shots for class, and I figured basketball would be a really good thing to photograph... The lighting was hard to work with, but I did the best I could.)

Enjoy.

Snow Day #2, Feb. 12, 2014

A few weeks after we got our first huge snow in a long time, we got an even bigger snow! It happened on Wednesday night (Feb. 12) and was 100% melted by Sunday (because it got super warm that weekend). This snow was HUGE. I only got pictures a few hours after it had started snowing so it wasn't that big yet. I got a few the next afternoon, but it had already melted a significant amount by that point. I snapped a photo of the snow on my phone right as the snow was ending around 8 on Thursday morning and it was incredible. Unfortunately, it melted as fast as it came. But I did get some nice pictures before it all went away!

Self-Portrait

Okay, I caved. Here you go. This was the first assignment this semester for my photography class. I HATE self-portraits, but I figured I'd go ahead and share. Why not.

Gatlinburg, February 7-9, 2014

We went to Gatlinburg this weekend, and I also had a shooting assignment that focuses on depth of field. I decided to take advantage of the beautiful mountain scenery and use it as a backdrop for my photos.

I shot photos mainly using f/22, f/8, f/5.6, and f/3.5 aperture settings.

I like this photography 2 class because we can use whatever settings we want. Last photography class I took, we had to use ISO 400 ONLY, and certain settings for certain projects. Now we are free to use any ISO, aperture, and shutter speed. It helps me produce better photos tremendously because I have the freedom to get the correct exposure based on my surroundings. This teacher also gives us the freedom to just shoot. The first assignment was a self portrait. She didn't care what settings, where you were, what they looked like... we just had to get a good exposure by taking a photo of ourselves! I MAY post those, we'll see. I hate photos of myself... This assignment was basically shoot anything you want but use different selective focuses and depths of field. We also have to shoot all of our photos in RAW which gives us more room to edit. Shooting in FINE allows the camera to make some initial edits, then it saves your photos to a .jpg file.

So without further ado, here are my photos.

Snow Day 1-28-14

Knoxville never gets snow, so when it snowed all day on Tuesday, it was incredible. I got photos after only a few hours of it snowing. By 11 pm that evening, we had about three inches. It's been YEARS since we've seen this much snow! Now, three days later, it is 50 degrees out, sunny, and about 98% of the snow has melted away. I'm good for the rest of winter, now. Haha!

Cades Cove 9-1-13

I had to do a photo slideshow for a journalism assignment this semester. I decided to do it on air pollution in the Smokies. I posted the slideshow a few months ago. You can see it here. These are some of my favorite photos from that shoot.

Disney Cruise, July 2013

These are the photos I took with my DSLR from our excursions on the cruise this summer. I have more on my Sony point-and-shoot that will come in a later post. These are just a few of my favorite shots.