Kari Dawson Photography

… you were a challenging year!

Welcome 2010! First post of 2010 and there is so much to share with all of you. First, on the business side of things, I will be refining my portrait policies and setting stricter guidelines for the number of edits, expiration dates for online galleries, and a few other items so each new and returning client will receive my updated policies this year. Session fees will be $150 across the board. There will also be a 25% price increase for prints as well. I’m not shooting this winter with the exception of indoor newborn sessions because although I ‘CAN’ shoot indoors I just prefer not to. However, should any of you out there choose to brave the weather and head into the snow for a session I’m your girl. So for now, with the exception of outdoors sessions I will not be booking until this coming spring and my schedule will resume as usual.

On the personal side of things, our family is moving… finally. There may be a few of you who have followed my personal blog and know we’ve been in a temporary living situation with my parent’s for the last 18 months. There are no words to articulate just how grateful we are and forever will be for their patience, love, endurance, and support over these months. They welcomed us into their home, made room (more like, let us take over), and when I tried to say “it’s your house” they’d promptly interrupt and insist this is “our home”. So our home it has been for 18 months. Our family is relocating from one of the largest cities in the Detroit Metro area to the middle of know where, I mean on some acreage in Romeo. We’ve been members of an awesome church in Romeo for many years and it’s a small town. Like the small towns where everyone knows everyone which is exactly what we’ve been waiting for. My kiddos are all excited to know they’ll go to church with a couple of their cousins and with friends from church and at peace to know they’ll be riding the bus with some of those kids too which settles my heart to know the transition should be smooth.

There are a few things in this life that really make me happy. I generally love the sun and the beach and warm air and summer nights. But, there is something really glorious about a sea of tress that have been kissed by snow. When I first stood in the living room of this home, looking out at nothing but trees I said “I bet that is really beautiful when the snow falls and sticks to the branches”. So I find it fitting that on the weekend I can get into the house and do my thang that each of the trees has been freshly kissed by snow. Light is another thing that makes me happy. Lots of glorious natural light that just dances its way into your windows. And, when I say I looked out the window, what I really mean is the entire backside of the house (which gloriously faces west by the way) is windows from the floor all the way up to the vaulted ceilings. Seriously, you can’t possibly get depressed! Not to mention, the level of light and the direction it faces is a natural light photographers dream. So to say we are over the moon with excitement would be an understatement. But I can’t lie, it’s bitter-sweet. And here is where my eyes begin to flood. I’m totally going to miss my parent’s. I feel guilty even for leaving them. This morning I found Hailey’s (our youngest child) first pair of munchkin jazz shoes that she wore her first year of dance and I cried. If I cry because my daughter has grown out of her first pair of dance shoes then I can only image the sting my parent’s hearts will feel when their daughter leaves the home again and even worse, takes their grandchildren with her.

So that’s how awesome our 2010 has started and what’s a post without a picture right? Michigan winter… through my lens.