Kim Jones Photography

Years ago, we started dreaming about taking a big trip sans kids to celebrate our 10-year anniversary. However, the big question was “how the heck are we going to pull this off?” It’s not an easy feat to organize everything needed to leave your three kids at home and take off for two weeks, but we did it!  Greg’s mom, Sherry, came over to our home in Colorado to take care of our little cherubs.  While they were busy making their own memories, we flew over to Europe to make some fantastic memories of our own. We really had the time of our lives and had so much fun together!  I cannot wait to tell you all about it!

During our initial planning process about a year ago, we discussed all types of trips in many different places in the world.  Greg wanted a beach vacation, but I wanted to go on an adventure and do something together that we couldn’t do easily with our kids in tow.  One of my dreams since my college years has been to see the countryside of Ireland and try out driving on the other side of the road. This ended up being the focus of our trip and where we’d spend the majority of our time away.

We decided to fly in and out of Frankfurt, Germany, so that we could meet up with my parents later in our travels.  As we were trying to buy plane tickets last winter, we realized that there were not a lot of convenient flights from Frankfurt to the southern parts of Ireland, so we ended up going to Paris, France first.  From here, we were able to take a few days to adjust to the new time zone and then take a direct flight to Cork, Ireland.  This ended up being a great plan because we cut down on some unnecessary travel time and got more time to sightsee!

We left on a Wednesday morning, July 15th. It’s still the strangest thing for me to walk through the airport with little to no bags with me and NO stroller. It’s even stranger to sit quietly waiting for your flight without any distractions, diapers to change or kids to chase around. We sat in peace, talked a little and updated our Facebook pages.  Greg snacked on peanuts and I filled him in on all our stopovers. Time to leave!

We flew to Dulles (Washington D.C.) first, had a short layover and then took the big 7-hour flight over the pond directly to Brussels, Belgium.  I had the most delicious coffee here at the gate as we waited for our Lufthansa flight to leave for Frankfurt! A short hour later, we arrived in Frankfurt and I did a little “inside scream” as I realized I was back in Germany, albeit for a short period of time!  We scrambled a little to retrieve our suitcases from one terminal and then get over to the other terminal for our Air France flight to Paris. Are you counting? Yes, we took four flights to get to our first hotel stay.  I was surprised, though, I actually liked all the layovers better than being on a direct flight (which we did on the way home).

We hit the ground running and for a short time, I forgot all about the jetlag I was feeling once we arrived to France.  Our hotel was near the beautiful Jardin du Luxembourg in the Saint Germain area of Paris, so our first sightseeing stop was to visit these gardens and its Palais du Luxembourg.  I loved the Medici Fountain inside the gardens.  It was sitting underneath some tall leafy trees and flanked by tons of people hanging out and enjoying the shade on a very hot day.

We took subways all around and through the different parts of Paris.  It’s really difficult to get around this big of a city without using public transportation like this.  So while this mode of transportation is convenient and relatively fast, it is also smelly and stuffy most of the time.  We also had the added bonus of really hot weather while we were there, so that made the whole experience even more interesting. I love the art nouveau style metro signs and entrances.

And some photos of the metro from the inside. Little mazes under the city complete with tall escalators, mural paintings, cool tile work and spiral staircases.

There were so many tourists when we visited Notre Dame cathedral so we didn’t linger there very long or wait in line with everyone to see the inside.

We walked around the back of the cathedral to Pont de l’Archevêché, which is one of the many bridges in Paris where people hang their “love locks” with their names on it and throw the key into the Seine below. No, we did not attach a lock and we are still going to be “lovers forever.”

I had been to Paris a couple times already before we went on this trip, but I had never been to Ill Saint Louis, which is a small, quaint island, accessible by foot just past the cathedral.  We stopped at Berthillon, a historic ice cream parlor on the island, which is definitely worth a visit for the history alone! The ice cream was good, too!

So, that’s all for now. More stories and photos to follow soon!

I had been wanting to try out a new location with a rustic barn for some future client photo shoots, so when it was time to take Colton’s 21 month photos, we ventured over there to scout it out.  What a cool barn!  The bigger boys played in the dirt with sticks and spilled my bubbles all over the ground while Colton was as sweet as pie for all his photos and did *most* of what I asked him to do.  I cannot believe he’s almost two!

Colton just turned 21 months right after the Fourth of July, so I decided on a red, white and blue type theme for the shoot.  We had the white barn, I dressed Colton in blue and then added the wagon and flag for some red.

We started out taking photos in front of the barn, but as all toddlers do, he quickly tired of that so we walked through the tall grasses and weeds on a little adventure to check out the back of the barn.  These shots were some of my most favorite of Colton to date.  He did a great job of being his natural self and gave me all types of cuteness and sassyness!

  He found the Sophie Giraffe that I keep in my camera bag for sessions with infant clients, so we made her part of the shoot as well.  He still delights at the squeaks she makes!  We love this little guy so much and I hope you enjoy all the photos of our special little pumpkin!  

I have known Kelley all my life and she’s so special to me!  The kids in our two families grew up in Salem, Oregon, and we spent most of our weekends and summer breaks getting into so much mischief together!  I still vividly remember sitting on Kelley’s bedroom floor jamming out to Amy Grant and staying up late at their house many nights during basketball season so our parents could watch the Blazers play on TV together.

Fast forward to 2014, Kelley started dating Brian seriously in the spring and has been smitten with him ever since.  They got engaged last December and will be getting married at the end of July this year.   I will be on vacation on their wedding day and was really bummed that I cannot attend, so I got really excited when we came up with the idea to do an engagement session together.  It was really nice to meet Brian and catch up with Kelley for a bit when I was home in Oregon a few weeks ago.

We took their engagement photos at Willamette University, where I did my MBA and also where I met and married my husband over 10 years ago.  It’s a special place for me for sure and I love shooting on campus because it has such a wide variety of places to take photos!

We met for the shoot just as the sun was about to set and got some gorgeous shots of these two with the setting sun coming through Willamette’s famous “Star Trees.”

We also walked over to one of the newer buildings on campus for a few urban style photos. I love this glass wall so much.  Sometimes it looks blue in photos and other times white. They posed, the danced, they laughed!

For our last shots together, I told them to relax some more and pretend I wasn’t there.  They did a great job ignoring me and got lost in their moment together.  Sweet and special.  Just as it should be! Love it! Congrats life-long friend, I wish you all the best!

One of the things I like best about my job is that I get to see and capture my clients at all different types of life stages.  In the case with Dexter, I met his parents before he was born for a maternity session.  He was such a small little bean then!

About a month or so later, Dexter was born and I got to meet him at his home to take some of his very first photos.  Look at those cheeks!

Fast forward about a year later and he’s wide-eyed and walking up a storm!  That year just FLEW by!  He had the sweetest smiles and grins for me during his one-year session.  The first part of our session was at one of my favorite local barns.

He’s pretty excited about being one!  Kudos to his mom for taking the time to paint his little letters and find him such a cute outfit to wear for his photos!

The next part of the shoot was at an open space where we played with balloons and took some more photos with his mom and dad.  He really loved those balloons!  He wanted to touch them sooo bad!

Happy first birthday, Dexter!  Little buddy, I hope you have a great year and I look forward to seeing how big you have grown sometime soon!

My little brother is getting married in August and that means I get a new sister, Meghann, very soon! I went back home to Oregon last weekend and with the help of my mom and sister threw Meghann a little bridal shower. It was a special time! My sister, Kari, did an excellent job decorating her home for the shower and paid a great deal of attention to all the details to make sure everything looked spectacular for this special event. We ate chicken salad sandwiches, fruit kabobs, veggies and cupcakes.  Yum!  We also quizzed Meghann a bit on her relationship with Bryan and got to know them both that way a little more.  We found out that they kissed on their first date and Bryan thinks she looks the best in the color blue.  Grins! All the best of luck you two!  The invitations just got sent out for the wedding and they’ll be walking down the aisle in just 54 days! So excited to welcome you into the family, sweet Meghann.  I am glad you and Bryan found each other!

Eli is going to be a big brother!  I was already scheduled to take photos of little Eli and his grandparents and then his parents found out just before our session that they were expecting a new baby, so we added a fun little side shoot with Eli that same morning. They broke the news to their family later that morning with the message on Eli’s t-shirt. I am not too sure Eli knows what is happening, but soon enough he’ll know how fantastic it’ll be to have a sibling to share life with!  They have recently shared the news with all their family and friends that they’ll be having a little girl around the beginning of the next year and everyone is thrilled!  Congrats, Janowski family!  I hope you enjoy the adventure with two little ones!

I really like shopping at consignment and garage sales because, honestly, who doesn’t like to save a little money on kids clothes and toys? Since I have all boys, we don’t really have dolls at home, but when I saw this cute baby doll bed at a consignment sale, I had to snatch it up!  It’s the perfect prop for a newborn session!  Recently, I got the chance to use it with a sweet little girl named Elena.  I think it’s going to make a nice addition to my pile of props.  Score!

As a rule of thumb, I tend to do maternity sessions for clients around 30-32 weeks of the baby’s gestation.  This is for most mommies the best time to shoot their growing belly because it is big enough to show that they are pregnant, but it is not too big and therefore mommies are not too uncomfortable for all the different poses I have them do!

I especially like doing maternity sessions when we get to include a big brother or sister-to-be because it adds a bit of adventure to the session.  Have you seen a toddler sit nicely for any long period of time? Probably not!  So, that means for these types of sessions that we are active the entire time and I’m challenged to come up with clever and fun ways to get these little guys to stay engaged.  Siblings also add another special element to these types of shoots because most times these are some of the last captured moments mommy has with their big kid(s) until the new baby brother or sister arrives.  It’s a special time together right before another transition comes!

In a recent maternity session with some returning clients, I was hired to do a session right before their newborn son was born.  Literately, right before he was born, I think about 6-7 days before he arrived in fact!  Mom wasn’t sure she could squeeze in the session so late in her pregnancy, but we found the time in both our schedules and she was over the moon when she saw these photos with her little cutie before his brother came.  She was so glad she did them, even at 39 weeks and about to give birth, because it’s so important capture these life moments!  You’ll never get these moments back. Get in the photos, mommies, make those memories!  You’ll never regret it.  Don’t wait to take photos with the ones you love!

My photography focus is and will always be on maternity, newborns, kids and families so that’s what I will typically blog or post about. However, from time-to-time, I do like to take on other photo projects to challenge me in new ways!  So, this post is about a very faithful client, Sonata, that uses me frequently for various commercial office shoots.  Today, I thought I would take you behind the scenes to a few of my most recent sessions with them!

In the first example below, I was hired to take photos of Dr. Janowski giving an injection treatment to former Miss Teen USA 2007, Hilary.  They plan to use these photos for promotional reasons on their website.

The next round of promotional photos were done with current Miss Colorado Teen USA 2015, Taylor Kelly (with beautiful crown on), and Miss Colorado USA 2015, Talyah Polee (doing a dr. consult), who are both current clients and two of the nicest ladies you’d ever want to meet!

Also, as part of this blog, I wanted to show you a little of my “before” and “after” editing work.  The client liked this photo of their in-house aesthetician giving a treatment (unedited), but they did not like the black cord or bars in the background and asked me to remove them in my final edits.  The next photo is version I delivered to my client with the bars and cord omitted as well as other various edits done to make it a viable promotional photo.

And then one last final one with Dr. Janowski and his ladies where we got to cut loose and have some fun “Nip and Tuck” style! What a great group of people!

I really do treasure the time I get to spend photographing tiny little newborns just days after being born.  I love wrapping them up and watching them sleep!  The session itself and the time I spend with the baby’s parents are some of my most favorite memories and moments as a photographer.

As many of you would probably imagine, the majority of my post editing process with these types of sessions involves a lot of smoothing blotchy and red skin.  Sometimes this happens from the process of just being born and shedding their newborn skin, sometimes it comes from being in a warm room that I create to keep them sleepy for their session.

So for my blog today, I would like to show you a SOOC (straight out of camera) shot of two photos I took of a 5-day-old baby in the summer last year and then compare them next to the edited version that the client received.  Most of the changes I make in my post processing work with newborn are a result of desaturation of the red bits and cloning of the scaly bits.  Sometimes, as in the case of the first photo, just a little brightening of the images could help take away some of the redness as well.

In the case of these final edited photos below, I also added some warmth and contrast to both and then cropped them in a bit more. And per the mother’s request, I rounded out the top of the baby’s head on the first photo with some additional cloning work since he had a little hematoma from being born.  The end result is beautiful, don’t you agree? I really love before and after photos!