Imagination Mountain and being outnumbered

It is currently Tuesday and we are back from another weekend in nature. This was back to back weekends of camping with friends. The weekend before last was spent in Hot Springs, NC with Wes and his family, and this past weekend was spent in Cosby, TN at Imagination Mountain with the Terry's. We stumbled upon this campground a few years ago and Natasha and I loaded up our 2 boys at the time for the weekend. It rained most of the time then but we still had a great time. Since then our family dynamic has changed for lack of a better word. We are foster parents if you didn't know and currently are only days away from adopting Austin who is 17 and currently annoying me by playing Fortnight. Garbage game in my opinion LOL.  We also have a 10-year-old girl and I know nadda about raising a girl.
But this isn't about that.  This is about spending every second of the weekend with friends and cramming as many activities as physically possible into 3 days.  We have known Brittney forever, and Derek and their boys are more like family than friends. I could probably write an entire blog about knowing Brittany but I'll save that for another time maybe.  Between our groups, we were 4 adults vs 6 kids plus we ran into one of Atlas' best pals from school, Aiden. He was allowed to hang out with us most of the day as well. So the kids played in the creek, made friends with neighbors, terrorized the playgrounds, heated up the b-ball court, played putt putt, watched a movie, played chess, swam, had ice cream, and even visited the arcade. I'm still tired.  So tired in fact that I will stop writing and do what I do. Tell our story via imagery. Hope you enjoy and as always feel free to comment below your thoughts. All images below shot with my Fuji Xpro 2,  my xf16mm, xf 90mm, and vintage Minolta lenses. 

As always, I also took the film cameras but those will be shared another time. :)

Checking out and stepping up

As of writing this, we have been home from a much-needed camping trip to Hot Springs, NC. We were lucky enough to have Wes, Whitney, and Acston  ( no way I spelled that right lol) join us for some campsite shenanigans. We had cameras out everywhere acting a fool and just kicking back. It was just what I needed to regroup and come back swinging. We came home Sunday, and I immediately showered and got dressed for a session on the ever enchanting Carvers Gap. That session we danced among the trees and into the creeks below as the sun peeked thru the trees tops toward us. That alone would be enough to write about, but the following day I was off to another session. This time I asked my clients to join me at The Beauty Spot, and seeing as how they trust me and have never been, they agreed. I am so glad they did. The sun was still higher than I preferred but you work with what you have and that's one of my favorite parts of photography. The ever-changing light, scenery, and weather make every session special. This led to me shooting directly into the sun for the first 15 minutes which created images a little lighter than usual, but then we found our way into the shade and tall grass. We ended with silhouettes against a magnificent blue sky. Man, I LOVE MY JOB. Its currently after 11 pm on Friday the 13th, and we are mostly packed up for another adventure. I will have cameras in tow as always and phone on standby to book that next session, although squeezing them in is starting to get interesting with Fall fast approaching! I don,t need sleep though, so let's shoot! Below I will simply leave a few images from the sessions mentioned above. Follow me on Instagram HERE and our new Company HERE to see more and to catch some BTS footage too. Until the keys click for the next entry, thanks for being here.-J

The wind was working against, and also for us at times.