I'm officially a professional!

Before I thought I could call myself a "professional photographer", I figured I'd have to get a few more years of experience doing photo shoots and rack up a whole lot more photography knowledge. In order to give myself the same title as the big wigs in the photography industry who make $20,000 per wedding (crazy, I know!), it just seemed critical to add more experience and more knowledge to the equation. Well, I was wrong.

I shot two weddings with Rodney Cool of Aesthetic Life Studio last weekend. We had a long weekend, but a fun weekend that resulted in over 4,000 pictures! When Rodney handed me a check to pay me for helping him at the weddings, he said, "Now you're a professional photographer!" WHOA! I was kinda blown away when Rodney told me this. As I said before, I thought I had to accomplishment a whole lot more until I could be one of the privileged to call myself a "professional photographer." What a milestone in my photography career! Needless to say, I was flattered and super excited!

Before Rodney, I had never gotten paid for taking pictures or for even helping anyone take pictures. When I would tag along with my mom to her weddings, I might get $20 at the end of the day after carrying her equipment and pushing one button on the camera, once. Jessica Fike, Professional Photographer. Has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?

Yesterday I took on a new photography challenge: shooting action sports! I took pictures at the Gettysburg Youth Soccer Club's Memorial Day Weekend Soccer Tournament. I was assigned to two fields from 8am to about 3pm. I was fortunate enough to borrow the 100-400mm telephoto lens from Liberty which allowed me to get shots from one end of the soccer field to the other. I made commission off of each picture that I sold and left the fields with $50. Parents and players can continue to buy pictures from gysc.smugmug.com over the coming weeks, so there is still opportunity for more commission to be made!

Shooting action sports was definitely a new experience for me and I'd like to try it again sometime soon. Would anyone like pictures of their sons and daughters playing their favorite summertime sports? I would love to help you out! Here's one shot that I particularly enjoyed from yesterday's soccer tournament.


Happy Memorial Day, y'all!

Sneak Peek!

I just cannot wait to share a SNEAK PEEK from Josh and Angie's engagement session! I had so much fun with them and everything seemed to just fall into place. As of right now, I have four favorites:

I was so excited to see Josh and Angie's creativeness and personalities come out during the shoot: Angie helped pose this picture and they brought John Deere t-shirts!

Angie wanted color and blooms, so I gave that girl color and blooms, and awesome sunlight!!


How friggin' cute is this?? Might be my all-time fave!

One last sneak peek. After a little kiss on the cheek...

I can't wait to get down and dirty with Josh and Angie's pictures in Photoshop! I'm gonna be gone most of the weekend so I figured a sneak peek was better than no peek. I also have my first wedding of the season with Mark and Andrea (of Imagery by Andrea) to blog about, too! Post-production is going to get the best of me over the next week. Look for more soon!

I held a chainsaw today at work...

There is a first time for everything. Today was the first time I held a chainsaw. Chainsaws usually leave me with a scary-texas-chainsaw-massacre-feeling. Chainsaws make me think of the times when I screamed in a haunted house or haunted hayride at Halloween. My chainsaw experience today was not scary. This time it was kinda fun!

Liberty Mountain Resort is working on many different projects during the spring and summer months to get ready for yet another ski season. For the past couple of days, the mountain guys have been working on getting rid of the treeline that stood between the Admin offices (where I work) and the slopes. We now have an amazing view of the mountain! Since I was lurking around taking pictures of the project, the mountain guys asked if I wanted to have my picture taken with a chainsaw. A photo opp for me?? I'm in!

I am a mountainous-looking woman! Notice the snazzy sunglasses on my head, the springy outfit and flip flops. I was totally ready for some chainsaw action!

Another resort project involves cleaning and inspecting the chairlifts. Eventually, each chair will be taken off the line, cleaned and repadded. I'm glad that project isn't on my list of things to do!

When I arrived to work yesterday morning, I was greeted by a family of geese. I first found the family in the parking lot and they quickly made their way to the sidewalk and then to the road. Yes, the family of geese crossed the road. It was actually quite a fascinating and cool thing to watch. Drivers yielded to the geese with a smile as they crossed the road which was awesome! The little family was just so cute!

I got a little artsy with the images...

There was actually a second family of geese! This family decided to stick to the water instead of trying to cross the road...

Spring and warm weather are just beautiful things and it's such a great time for photo shoots! I'm taking Angie and Josh's engagement pictures on Friday and cannot wait! We're going for late-in-the-day sun and lots of color and greenery. Happy spring, warm weather and photoging!

BUSY!

BUSY! One word to describe my last week and my weeks ahead. Between work, taking pictures, hanging out with friends, and performing the daily duties of being a wife and adult, there's not a lot of chill time. I like to be busy, though. It keeps me on my toes and it's a chance to practice my time management skills. Besides, I've got some very exciting happenings coming up over the next few weeks!

Two weekends ago (I know this post and these pictures are long overdue), Brian and I went to Cowan's Gap with some of friends from church. Cowan's Gap is a beautiful state park located northwest of Chambersburg, PA. April 25th brought one of the first summer-like days of the year and we took full advantage of the gorgeous weather.

Chris and Brian catchin' some rays...

Hanging out like beach bums.

Doing what we do best: volleyball! And we always have enough players for two teams.

The newest addition to our list of couples, Jessica #2 (there are 3 of us total!) and Matt.

Some of the guys decided to take the "polar bear plunge" into the freezing cold water...

This past Tuesday, I organized a Cinco de Mayo gathering at work. Who doesn't love an excuse to eat delicious Mexican food? I asked everyone to bring in a special dish to share and we ended up with a lot of food, including homemade Carnitas and guacamole topping from my boss, Anne. I felt like I was at Chipotle!

Here's my boss, Anne, chopping away at her avocados...


Ken, our Human Resources guy, was very excited for Cinco de Mayo. He put the icing on the cake with his sombrero and homemade non-alcoholic margaritas!

I was invited to attend the American Heart Association's Go Red for Women Dinner on Wednesday. A few of us ladies from work attended and had a lovely time together. Look how pretty all the red looked in the room!

This year's poster kids for the American Heart Association were at the dinner. Here they are with their Mom. They were the two cutest little girls I had ever seen!

Sorry the colors aren't real swell in this picture. I wasn't using a flash, the room was filled with red and there wasn't a whole lot of light to work with. Oh, and I handed my camera over to a lady that had to get her glasses out to look at the LCD screen on the back of my camera. She didn't understand the concept of the little red focus box. :) Anyways, here is a shot of me and some of the ladies I work with at Liberty.

Well, that's my busy week in a nutshell, with pictures! Ah! I forgot to mention my Saturday in Winchester with my roomie Sharon! Ok, that's material for my next post. Anyways, I have a few busy weeks ahead so there will be plenty to blog about in the near future. I hope everyone enjoyed Mother's Day! Adios for now :)

I'm Published!

It's official! I am now published! The first edition of Peak Season magazine comes out this week and one of my pictures is in it! This is pretty darn cool!! OK, so maybe I cheated by being employed by one of the resorts that actually put the magazine together, and maybe my name isn't below the picture, but still! Over 50,000 people are going to look and read this magazine and that's a lot of eyes on my picture. Hopefully as people scan over my picture they think to themselves, "Wow, that's a pretty nice picture! An expensive professional must have taken it." Haha - just amusing myself. :)

Peak Season is "The Magazine for the Mountain Resorts of Liberty, Roundtop and Whitetail." It's a bi-annual publication that used to be separated into two pieces with two completely different names. The purpose of the magazine is to tell others what our three resorts have to offer all year round, not just during the winter months.

In an effort to make the publication look cleaner and more polished, our three resorts decided to ask RidgeRunner Publishing of Hagerstown, MD to help us with the project. They also publish Hagerstown Magazine, HM Bride and Celebrate Gettysburg. (If you visit the RidgeRunner link, you'll find Kate Rader - Publisher, Creative Director and Editor-In-Chief; I am actually helping to take her wedding pictures with Rodney Cool of Aesthetic Life Studio on May 17th, but that's a whole other blog! Exciting, nonetheless!)

As Marketing Assistant at Liberty, I had the opportunity to give my thoughts and opinions on the magazine materials as the project progressed. And when the time came to take a mug shot of our GM Eric Flynn, I quickly volunteered! Peak Season magazine looks spectacular and we got the first peak at the finished product yesterday:

Here's the picture I took of Eric Flynn - General Manager of Liberty Mountain Resort and Chief Operations Officer for Snow Time, Inc. (our parent company). Sorry, it's not the best picture of a picture, but I tried.

Here is the actual picture - I thought RidgeRunner would do some editing, but they didn't really. Hmm?

Here are a few pictures of one of my favorite features in the magazine. Our Food & Beverage staff at Liberty is awesome and Chefs Dwaine Wishard and Dave O do a great job at making some very unique and delicious dishes (I raved about this in my previous post and included some great images). The pictures for this feature were actually taken by my friend, Rodney Cool, who I mentioned above. Great job, Rodney!

Happy Thursday - the weekend is almost here!

Liberty Mountain Food Photo Shoot

On Friday, I visited the kitchens of Liberty Mountain Resort to perform my first food photo shoot! We, in the Marketing Department at Liberty, decided that we need to start stocking up on pictures for the "Groups & Weddings" section of our website. I informed our Chefs and they kindly invited me to join them while they cooked up some of their most unique and most popular food items. And what's better than photographing delicious looking food? Eating the delicious looking food. That's right! I got to sample the selection! YUMMY!

First menu item up for order: Grilled Pita Bread with Hummus & Olive Tapanade

No meal is complete without a salad. I love salads.

Now for the main course: Bourbon Street Shrimp & Chicken Skewers. Unfortunately, I did not get to sample this delicious looking plate!

How delicious does this look? Raspberry Swirl Cheesecake with Fresh Berries and Raspberry Coulis. Don't forget to wipe the drool from your mouth.

I'm not sure of the fancy official name for this dessert, but it's some kind of cheesecake with berry sauce. I got to sample some of this and it was delicious! Brian and I both enjoyed this one :)

Now on to another main course: Stuffed Chicken Breast, which was delicious, and Maple Bourbon Pork Loin.

Not too shabby for my first food photo shoot, eh? These pictures make me wanna go have a delicious dinner! "Delicious" sure was the word of the day for this blog post, wasn't it?

Well, there ya have it folks! Some of Liberty's finest food dishes. We've got plenty of room at the resort for banquets, family reunions, group retreats, corporate meetings, and weddings (our specialty). *Like the plug-in for my place of employment?

Visit our website to find out more! Have a delicious day!

Weddings, hot dogs and rain...

I haven't blogged in a while so I have a BUNCH to talk about. First of all, HAPPY MAY! Summer is just around the corner and I cannot wait for four plus months of sunshine and warm temps.

This time of year also brings grilling hot dogs on the grill which I love! Brian and I actually kicked off hot dog grillin' season with a few dogs tonight. He was a bit upset because I bought turkey dogs. One turkey dog has 0 grams of fat while regular beef hot dogs have like 16 grams of fat! I stuck them in the refrigerator thinking he wouldn't notice, but he did. Oh well, they were still yummy!

You know what else comes during the sunshiny days and warm temps of May? WEDDING SEASON! I love weddings and cannot wait to be a full-fledged wedding photog someday. I shot my first wedding of the season yesterday with Mark and Andrea of Imagery by Andrea, formerly Cozzoli Studios of Hagerstown, MD. I shot with them last fall and was excited when they invited me back for this year. I won't be shooting a whole lot of weddings with them, but I will learn a ton! As soon as I have some of those pictures ready, I'll post 'em!

I was excited for today because I was scheduled to do my first ever engagement session! My friends Angie and Josh are getting married in July and I volunteered my photog services to them to hopefully get some awesome shots of their oh-so-cute young love. Unfortunately, it rained almost all day. Way to rain on my parade, rain. There will be a future post with their engagement pictures included, don't worry. :)

Back to weddings....I finally finished editing the pictures I took at Steve and Tiffany's wedding. I haven't been able to even look at the pictures over the past few days until now. I took a lot of pictures and cannot wait for Steve and Tiffany to see them! Here are some more of my favorites since my previous post:

Steve and Tiffany invited us over their (new!) house after rehearsal and dinner which was WAY exciting! Brian is jealous because they have more than an acre of land which requires Steve to use a riding lawn mower - we have a push. Of course, we played corn hole!

Look how perfect Daisy's posing is right here!

On to the wedding day...

How cute is this picture of the flower girls walking down the aisle!?!

I captured this moment of Tiffany's dad walking her down the aisle as I was stretched out of my seat trying to be a discrete guest photographer. I was determined to get an end seat and not let anyone steal it! Mission accomplished. :)

The ceremony venue was very pretty! I loved the chandalier in the middle of the room.

This might be my favorite shot from the day! I think this really shows the love and energy that Steve and Tiffany were feeling on their wedding day. They were just so happy and so in love. YAY!

This might be my second favorite shot. Tiffany and her Matron of Honor Rachel being all cute!

This is my crazy husband, Brian. He was all over the dance floor at the reception. He likes to brag that he got second in the limbo contest.

Boys being boys...after a few drinks and with the encouragement of others...

Click here to visit my web albums page to see more of Steve and Tiffany's wedding. Steve and Tiffany - I'll be sending your picture CD in the mail soon!

I'll soon be posting pictures from my first ever food photo shoot! Liberty needs a nice stock of banquet and wedding pictures for the website so I started by visiting two events at the resort on Frfiday evening. Good thing Liberty has someone who works for them that's got a nice camera and some photog skills ;)