A Curly Cutie!

Meredith and I had so much fun with Ellie this weekend...



Which led to these...

A couple more side projects...

Meredith saw the photos I did of Courtney (see: post production) and she wanted me to do similar ones for her...

I love this photo of her...

Post Production...

Today I was inspired to make a creation using some portraits I took a little while back. I love the way they came out. Photoshop is so fun!

What I've been up to...

The last few weeks have been SO weird...

Last Thursday, we should NOT have had school! I was heading to school (when I should have been in bed!) and slid on ice and ran into an F150. It tore the front of my car to pieces which flew all over the road. I honked to have the other driver speed up or move their car in any way possible, but he said he didn't hear (AWESOME!). Anyway, to sweeten the deal, my insurance agent did NOT add renter's insurance to my policy after I asked him to 4 months ago.

I learned Flash a couple weeks ago when we got out of a full week of school due to weather. While most people were likely being unproductive (due to electricity outages and/or laziness), I studied the program for the entire week and remade my website: www.benfieldphtography.net - Check it out!

To brag on myself, which I rarely do, I'm very pleased to say that a magazine for yearbook advisers all over the country receive contacted me about writing an article. The article, "Creating Custom Backgrounds in Photoshop," will be published in the upcoming issue. Also, I'm currently writing an article about photographing high school seniors for Rangefinder magazine. It is for their April issue, so I'll have to keep you posted about that.

I've been booking weddings pretty regularly since the wedding fair Meredith and I attended in Springdale, AR, a couple weeks ago. It looks like it's going to be a pretty busy summer, which is good because I'm not sure what the plans are with teaching next year.

One more thing... Crowder College hired me as an adjunct faculty member to teach photography courses. It has been quite a blast! I'd love to do more teaching on the college level.

Bringing in the new year in Paris!

My FAVORITE photo!

There are absolutely too many stories about Meredith and my trip to Paris from December 26th to January 1st to recount for you. There's a great blog on Meredith's MySpace about eating at a restaurant in complete darkness. We went to about every area of Paris to get the full experience. I've chosen a few of our favorite photos to show you. Enjoy!


The view from our hotel room:


On "Le Metro"



Meredith's Photoshop fun:

Photographing Grandpa's present...

For Christmas, my dad got Ellie this super-cute pink car. We HAD to photograph it, so the first nice day we had together, Meredith suggested we go to this old truck graveyard to take some portraits of Ellie. I really liked the idea!

The Future of Benfield Photography???

My favorite Christmas present for Ellie...
She loves her new digital camera!

Rowskabouts "Triumphant Reunion"

The Joplin Globe caught wind of my high school band's reunion concert and deemed the show "triumphant" which caused many a jokes among the group. It was, however, an amazing show and we filled Old Chicago to capacity. We played great, especially for not being together but three times in the past 7 years. More importantly, we had a blast seeing each other again and hanging out with old friends!

Being Crafty...

Meredith, Elizabeth, and I joined some family members to paint pottery at Different Strokes in Fayetteville. I painted a frame, Meredith painted a plate with polka dots, and Elizabeth painted a bee. You can see the bee at the bottom right of the photo of us. She was insistent on using so many colors, the bee ended up a lovely brownish. Less is more, I guess.