And here’s the last of my weekend valentine mini sessions….dear, sweet, Madi!

Let’s all just pretend like she’s laughing here….I wont’ tell if you don’t.

This past weekend I had my FIRST attempt at studio lighting.  Connor’s mom, Sheila, was kind enough to be one of the people who tested me out.   I had a great time photographing Connor’s family back in October for their Christmas session & I was really excited to be able to work with him again.  As many of you have heard me say, I rarely get to work with the male species.  I have two girls, I have a female dog, the only male I regularly interact with is my husband.  And I have no idea what it’s like to have a boy.  They are definitely a whole different ballgame than girls.

When Connor walked in with his amazing valentine tie, I almost squealed.  He’s just so stinkin’ adorable!  Take a look for yourself….

Over the Labor Day Holiday I had the joy of taking out a sweet friend & her family for a surprise photo session.  Kathi is a dear gal who I go to church with & she contacted me about having a session as a surprise to her dad & step-mom when they visited this past weekend.  So we planned the sneaky little surprise & had such a ton of fun.  I took Kathi, her dad, her step-mom, and her adorable lil’ sister Sarah to my favorite new place – Jonas Green Park.  A little sand, a little sunset…what could be a better recipe for fun!

Thanks for experiencing your first photo session with me.  I hope you all enjoyed your trip & all the fun and exciting new things Kathi showed you!  Enjoy your photos!

I am entering the I {heart} faces photo challenge again this week.  The theme is “Got to wear shades.”  When I saw this week’s theme, I immediately thought of the photo below of Brooke.  The girl has about 10 pairs of sunglasses!  She refuses to leave the house during daylight hours without shades covering her delicate baby blues – “It’s too sunny, Mommy!”  This shot was taken on our vacation & it’s so Brooke.  Enjoy & don’t forget to go enter yourself!

I think they call this a “fusion” video, right?  Video mixed with photography?  Well, I’m calling it that.  And if you’re a friend on Facebook, or a fan of my page, sorry for the redundancy.  I wanted to share this video with my blog readers.  It’s a 6-minute video I made on my perspective of our village trips in Ethiopia.  (Don’t worry, I’m not venturing over into videography…I just wanted to test out the video capabilities of my Canon 5D mk2).

Here it is….

Village Trip – Asossa, Ethiopia from Mandy Sroka on Vimeo.

And if you happen to know the information on this song, please e-mail me!  I’ve been trying to find it everywhere!  (hint:  it’s Ethiopian)