Nancy Lynne Photography

You know how sometimes it happens that someone walks into your life, and you just CLICK? Miss Brooke came into my studio a few weeks ago to hire me to photograph her wedding later this month. We sat down, started talking and really hit it off. A couple of the biggest things we have in common is our love of horses and dogs. And her mom just so happens to train both professionally. So she decided that she would like to have a coffee-table book filled with images of herself, her groom and some of their horses for a guest book. So here are a couple of favorite images that will go into her book. She also decided she wanted to do some portraits of herself with her groom's favorite horse, so we took a ride up into the hills and did some nice images on a sunny day last week. I love this shot, this is one happy mule. A nice headshot of Shane... the groom's horse. I love horses' eyes. They have so much detail and depth and character. And Shane has the most wonderful speckled li...

Freckles and I hit the beach this evening, and the sand is washing back in so it looks more like a beach now. She always has so much fun down there, she literally runs circles around me. She greets everyone she sees and likes to dash at them full-speed then fake them out and veer at the last moment. What a dog. I'm usually walking along with my eyes at my feet, looking for little treasures. Tonight I found a shell-shaped agate. The snail shell had long ago been filled with what eventually became agate, then most of the shell part has worn away. Very nice.

I had this lovely couple in for a session a few days ago. It feels really good to be back to work. I did a new headshot today, too. Looking forward to a busy wedding season and getting to work on the senior portraits. They are so much fun. When is YOUR appointment?

from my friends. My hysterectomy on Monday went without a hitch and I am recovering amazingly fast. Today I have almost no pain, just a little tenderness, and am surprised at how good I feel so soon. My sweet girlfriends have sent me beautiful flowers to cheer me up (THANK YOU!), and Freckles' sleepover with her friends has left her worn out and sleeping almost as much as me. I'll be back to work on Friday, booking more family sessions and weddings, and am very much looking forward to having a camera in my hands again. Yay.

I was treated to a behind-the-scenes tour of the Oregon Coast Aquarium last night, what an amazing place. It's one thing to see the exhibits and such from the front, which you know I love, but it's quite another to see it all from the backside. AWESOME. This is the Passages of the Deep exhibit as most people never see it. See the walk-thru acrylic tunnel? Also in Passages, in the section called halibut flats, this large halibut was swimming in circles at the surface. In the shark section, they were nosing up at the surface, checking us out... as soon as the lights were turned off, something really big jumped out of the water and made a lot of noise. Was pretty amazing. This is a lion fish, he is waiting to go into the new Oddwater exhibit. This seahorse is also in a holding area for the new exhibit, which will debut on Memorial Day weekend. I'm looking forward to my next tour, which we'll do when it's daylight out, and I can get some more photos. It was al...

Sunday, Freckles and I met up with our friend Kim for lunch in Corvallis. Then we took a stroll around the park by the river... a nice, warm, sunny day. Felt so good. We've decided to make it a regular thing. Yay!

The days are getting longer - yay! - and will be noticeably longer after this weekend's change to daylight savings time. Double yay! This picture of Jamie was one of the very first High School Senior Portraits I took. As we were walking out to the beach that day in May of 2005, she asked me, "So... how many seniors have you done so far?" To which I replied, "You're the first." She wasn't very impressed with that answer, but she was very impressed with her portraits. That's how it all started. If you have a High School Senior in your family, or know someone who will graduate this year, get on the phone (541-336-2606) and get your date reserved. You'll want to make sure you have your prints in time to include them in your announcements and invitations. Let's get out there and take advantage of this nice weather to create some beautiful Senior Portraits! Check out the new website layout . It is much cleaner, faster to load, and to the ...

First off, Happy Birthday to my friend Kim. Now she's as old as I am. Newport's Seafood and Wine Festival was this past weekend, and was a huge success. The weather was great, the people were out and spending money, and the festival theme was piratical, so it all came together as a great time. I poured wine for the local Sweet Adelines , and this is the figurehead that was created to decorate the booth. Everyone wore costumes and they (we) looked very much in the spirit of the event. What fun! Yesterday Freckles and I met up with our friend Guy to traipse around on the beach and check out what fun things we could find down there. With his assistance, I found some AWESOME fossil pieces and brought them home to grace my backyard. If you are interested in fossils of any kind, I highly recommend taking a field trip with Guy - he is an absolute expert. Miss Freckles enjoyed the two hours we spent down there too, she was a very happy dog. She laid down when we got home and ...

Freckles and I took advantage of the warm sunny weather on Sunday morning and enjoyed a stroll around the horse pasture together. This is what we saw. These daffodil buds are only about 4 inches tall. The appearance of the skunk cabbage is always a welcome sight. The creek that runs through the pasture supplies the horses with their drinking water. A resident blue heron keeps a watchful eye on us. He's standing on one leg. He likes to hang out at the pond and pick off the baby ducklings and goslings when they are out and about. On the other side of the creek live two more horses, this one is a small Fjord horse - very cute. And this is his buddy, a large pure white horse... gorgeous. Back to wintry weather today with drizzle, gray skies and wind. *sigh* Come on, spring!! Oh, and I just had to share this from a recent family shoot. What a doll.

Freckles and I took advantage of the nice weather, and the fact that we were in Newport this afternoon to hit our favorite spot of shoreline. I don't really think of it as a beach this time of year because it is completely scrubbed free of sand. The upper shoreline near the bank is smaller rocks, where I find agates and pretty jaspers, and the closer to the ocean you get, the rockier it gets, and more solid. Very beautiful. These were taken with my cell phone and have a wonderful watercolor effect to them. Miss Freckles loves our trips to the ocean. As I was standing there on the rocks, drinking in the sunshine and the gorgeous place I that was in, a bald eagle flew directly over my head toward the south. I watched as he wheeled around and dropped nearly into the surf before pulling back up and continuing on. And I think to myself, what a wonderful world...

We finally had some sunshine and warmer temps on Saturday, so after our meeting and breakfast my friend and I went to the Yaquina Bay Lighthouse to capture some photos. She is doing some research on the history of the lighthouse and wanted some shots for a paper she's writing. I just wanted to shoot the scenery, it's been so long since I've been able to do that. We watched some surfers having fun near the bridge... the ocean was way too rough for surfing that day. Then, we were treated to a luncheon at our friend Polly's house. Her husband donned a tux and waited on us hand and foot. What a blast we had. That's a summoning bell in her hand... Then, as mentioned in my previous post, I attended the dedication of the signs proclaiming Business Highway 20 as Sharon Branstiter Memorial Drive. There was a good turnout of folks and the weather again was beautiful. Here is our interim Mayor Jim Chambers reading a long list of improvements that Sharon has accomplished for To...

This is in today's News Times. Front page, above the fold, and a color picture. I am, to say the least, honored to have been asked to participate in this tribute to an amazing lady. And, on a personal note, the special man mentioned in my last post has turned out to not be the person he represented himself as. C'est la vie, life goes on. I'm just glad I found out early on this time. Onward and upward!

That is the expression often used by one of my good friends. And it keeps popping into my head these days. I seem to have a lot to be excited about lately. Toni, the friend who used this expression so often, and I worked together for several years. We became close friends when I was moved to her part of the building and we talked every day. Even when she was going thru a rough patch in her life, when we’d talk, the conversations were always peppered with “How Exciting!!” Toni moved away several years ago and we have lost touch. I still think about her all the time and it’s her voice I hear in my head saying, “how exciting!” Before she moved away, Toni gave me a gift that has become an amazing catalyst for this transition period in my life. It is a copy of Rosamund Pilcher’s ‘Winter Solstice’. I happened to find it on the bookshelf at the perfect time. The two or three days I spent reading it transformed my way of thinking. I realized that people really could love each other, ...

Monday morning I woke to a beautiful snow shower. So I bundled myself and Miss Freckles up, grabbed the camera and went for a walk around the neighborhood. This is what we saw. This is a pansy in my back yard. I hope it keeps on growing. Brrr. Was pretty while it lasted tho. Now we're back to just rain. Come on, spring!!

I finally did a new self-portrait today, since I keep getting my hair cut shorter and shorter. It kinda felt like false advertising to keep running pictures of me with long hair. So here ya go. The new me. I'm showing a lot more of my face now! I keep getting compliments on it, and I really do love it myself. I've been really busy with community stuff here in Toledo, the Chamber of Commerce is organizing the annual banquet/auction, and this year it's a luau theme... that's on February 2nd. That should be loads of fun. I've also been active in Toledo CERT , and the Toledo Development Association . Lots of 'hometown proud' work. And I love being involved and being active. The networking doesn't hurt either. This weekend my mom and I are going to this exceptional fundraiser , which I'm very much looking forward to, and then I'll be participating in the Women for Women workshop with a display table and lots more networking. The studio has...

Thank goodness for it. Eric and I are divorcing. These last few months have been very difficult. But I feel like I'm over the hump and headed back up into the sunshine. Whew. Sunday was sunny and warm, and I spent some time in my backyard, pruning, cleaning, checking out what's growing. There are some neat things happening out there. I am going to have a HUGE mound of strawberries this summer. This is a small shoot. The calla lily is doing well, even though it's only January. I should have lots of flowers come spring. This pansy is actually blooming. I was amazed. I hope all my pansies survive the winter. They are so beautiful. This is my rose. I was really surprised to see the bud on it. The clematis is also blooming. Spring is just around the corner. Yay! Oh, and I hit my 25 pound mark on Saturday. Onward and upward!