Happy Anniversary to two of my most favorite people!

You guys probably know me from, well, yesterday and all those other times she's blogged about me, but it's super fun to have the keys to Shuttersmack if even for one day.

Choosing just one image to share with you was pretty difficult, true story. I settled on this one because it so perfectly captures their playful, loving personalities... and, um, do you see that light?! We had the most beautiful, most wonderful sunset light that did things to their photos that were almost illegal in some states. Leslie will be thrilled.

I'll definitely be posting more photos of them in the next week or two, but I hope you enjoyed this sneak peek of their beautiful selves as much as I enjoyed taking the photos.

xoxo
~sopheava

What is going on here? Today... today was a bit of a role reversal. See, tomorrow (or rather, today since it's past midnight), Jamie and I have been married for twelve years. TWELVE YEARS. As my buddy Julie says, "Well, it's ok. Everyone knows that you get married at 15 in Kansas anyway." Ahem, right.So for his big gift, I hired my fabulously talented buddy Margaret to do a couples session for us, because we never have photos of each other *together.* Sure, I have about five gazillion photos of Jamie (which is nothing on what I've got of the dogs), but I rarely let myself get photographed. Here's the secret: I hate having my photo taken. I know! Right?But today, we were good sports and posed and kissed and hammed it up for Margaret. The light was lovely and the scenery was perfect. And maybe you want to see one of these photos? Well, I have a treat for you. First off, here's a sneak. Secondly, I'm taking tomorrow off for the first time in the history of forever, and I'm handing over my photoblog to Miss Margaret herself. So she'll post her favorite shot from the day here. (See? I get a day off and you still get a fresh photo. Everybody wins!)We will return to normally scheduled programming on Tuesday, when Jamie and I are nestled deep in the south of Tennessee. Maybe you'll get scenery. Maybe you'll get hillbillies! Who knows! It's an adventure!Oh yeah! And tonight we went and caught the always fabulous Frank Turner playing at the Triple Rock. Hey boys of the world, here is the perfect equation to win the ladies* heart: 1) Arm tattoos 2) Guitar skillz 3) European accent 4) Love of punk rock. I mean, really, how can you go wrong?To see photos from the show, I posted them over here. Knock yourselves out! And I'll see you on Tuesday...*Ok, Ok, my heart

Mmmm... a lovely autumn Saturday. First things first, I shot all of today's photos on my phone using Instagram because my shoulders were killin' me and I didn't want to haul around my "real" camera. That's one thing about the weddings -- my back is usually pretty sore the next day from carrying so much gear around for 8 hours. I should probably get some sort of rolling bag. But I think they look dorky, so there ya go.Jamie and I decided that since it was officially the first day of our vacation, we should treat it as such even in Minneapolis. So we went out to lunch, off to the Electric Fetus for a little shopping and then over to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts to take in the photo exhibit (which was on wide-angle photography, hence the panoramic dental x-ray). Then we came home, made an amazing steak dinner, had some ice cream (cuz we're allowed to break the diet on occasion while on vacation) and are now heading off to the movies. Fun Saturday for the win!

I spent all of today photographing a beautiful wedding up at Silver Lake nature preserve. Wow, is that a lovely spot for a wedding, people. Not only is the park amazing, but they have this great patio with an enormous fireplace surrounded by rocking chairs and then the bride and groom supplied jack-o-lanterns, s'mores and wool blankets. Talk about cozy!

Tonight, after a long day of photo work and client meetings, I stopped by Mere's for some dinner. She made this amazing soup inside of a pumpkin. Yes, you read that right. Pretty remarkable, eh? It was just a small dinner with girls, and it was much needed after this week.

Now that it's autumn, the morning light is... um... pretty dark. Which makes it so hard to get out of bed, am I right? But today it was just getting light out and I noticed how nice it was over near the plants.I planted these succulents in my pots outside in the spring, figuring it's Minnesota and succulents weren't made for this and I probably just blew $60 but I liked them and they were pretty so whatever. And they thrived! And do you know what? I watered them like twice all summer! Now THESE are plants I can get on board with!So as our nightly temperatures started dropping into the 30s, I couldn't bear the thought of losing them, and I brought them inside. I really don't have a great spot in the house for them (still trying to figure that out), but I like them too much to let die. Plus? Photo subjects for the dull winter days! Yay!The other big news around these parts is that I am on vacation from the Star Tribune until November 1. Halle-freaking-lujah. Now, all these other weeks that I've taken off from the paper I have stayed home and worked 50-70 hours on Shuttersmack The Business. NOT THIS WEEK. I'm actually taking a vacation. And all the photos I take? They will be for ME. I cannot wait, people. So stick around. It's about to get interesting (come Monday).

Man, I know I keep going on and on about how much I love this time of year, but one thing I don't love? I am freaking SLAMMED with work. And entertainment. And things I'd rather be doing. All these books and music and tv shows and movies and concerts I wanna go see and then ... so much work to get done! Not enough hours in the day, I tell you. Good thing I have a vacation coming up, eh?I did have time to meet up tonight with the lovely Stacy. It had been weeks since we'd been able to hang out, and we had to book this like two weeks out. Ridiculous!