Behind every good picture...

These are the Boyce kids. They belong to my best friend Jennifer and her husband, Mike. Jenn and I go way back...in 1st grade we colored beside each other, fought over Brad Owen and played together at recess. As it often happens in life, we went separate ways in high school but God brought us back together when one day my first grader was reduced to tears by a not so nice cafeteria worker. In typical Jenn fashion, she gathered up my humiliated child, marched her up to the cafeteria worker, paid for the lunch that she did not have money for and gave the lady a good "don't mess with this kid" speech. I found out about it, went straight to her house to thank her and we have been best friends ever since. She also has a hand in me picking up a camera. Growing up in Burk, Jenn's dad, Terry Morris, was THE local photographer. Everyone knew him as Ol' Man Morris and he was a self described, crumugin. He had a wicked sense of humor, he loved history, a good martini and his family. He always took our family Christmas picture. After his death, our Christmas picture was just never the same. I look back at those pictures and how great they are...and that was before photoshop!
After I bought my camera, Jenn was at my house one day looking at the pictures. She asked me what my settings were. I proudly said the "sports" setting! She looked at me and said "you know my Dad would roll over in his grave if he knew you had this great camera and you had it on auto settings". That day changed how I took pictures. I began to study ISO, shutter speed and aperture. I took a notepad with me to volleyball games to take notes about my settings. All the while, Jenn gives me critique, advice and guidance. It feels great when Jenn looks at one of my pictures, puts her hand on her chest and says "aaah, now that is a great picture". (it doesn't happen often)
As long as we have been taking pictures, Jake is always the "tough one". He gets in front of the camera and looks like he is pain. Every shoot always has a "Jake talking to session". Jenn kept saying during our shoot, "behind every great picture is a Mom threatening to beat there child if they don't smile".
Hope you like them Jenn.