EUROPE // Part 3

Now that it's around 2 years since I got back from Europe, I'm going to finish my last post about Europe. 

This is the post where I throw in a few more "real camera" pictures, but after that I will share the pictures that show more of the moments and the people I hope to never forget. They aren't the best quality, but they captured the realness rawness of our trip to Europe.


So hang with me for a bit longer while I share these last few pictures.

We did get to tour the inside of Neuschwanstien. Let me tell you, that castle was a DREAM!
I would tell you all the crazy details and all of that, but then you might not want to go yourselves, so I will refrain from spilling the juicy details, so that you want to go yourself.

"Little townnnn, it's a quiet villaaaage."

That's what these two pictures remind me of... Beauty and the Beast.  There is something about the narrow cobbled streets, the vines climbing up the Hotel Reichskuchenmesiter - it just seeps disney princess town. 

The End.

Not actually though!

Now I'll let you all see the behind the scenes phone pictures! Some of these ended up being my favorites, just because of all the memories.

^^ This is us singing in Holland. 

That was a day with many lasts in it. The last concert in Europe. The last time the program would ever be sung. The last "goodbye's", "I love you's, and "I will miss you" to new friends. One last "see you someday," because who knows.... Maybe I will get to see more of these people again on earth. I have already gotten to see one sweet lady who came to visit the United States, and that was such a sweet reunion. 

These scene below is one that happened over and over. These are just a few of the people who welcomed us with open arms, took care of us, and loved us, and then sent us on our way with many prayers. I know the likelihood of me ever seeing them again is so low, but I still exchange emails with many of them!

<3

These girls.

Thankfully, speaking the same language isn't required to be friends. Sometimes, friendship comes from tickling, laughter, being around the same hight, and laughing at trying to speak each other's language and failing... But that's okay! Through many different words and actions, they managed to tell me that they would miss me, and the feeling is extremely mutual.

I still email back and forth with them and when a friend recently went to Germany, they sent back a card for me. I keep it in my Bible, and every time I see it, I pray for them.

My trip to Europe was incredible. And now that I've actually finished posting about it, I will have to start working on a post about my trip to Africa. 

But that trip is still too close to my heart and describing just how much Africa changed me is impossible, so it will have to wait. 

xoxo,

Anna Rose

SaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSave

Iowa Bridges and Frostbite

 "But it's freezing outside!" Laura looked at me like I was crazy.

I didn't worry too much. Crazy was a word I was familiar with. 

I could have cared less that it was less than 10 degrees outside.

"It'll be quick, promise!"

And so we went. "Take me anywhere that's pretty," I told her and she did a smashing job, I would say.

We drove to the creek and poked around for a few minutes before we decided that the numbness in our hands meant that we should move on to the next spot before frostbite set in. 

We made sure to stop by the hay bale snowman standing outside of the grain bins. Desperate times call for desperate measures and the lack of snow had driven one farm boy to bring some Christmas cheer to the world in this simple way.  

Our next stop was the bridge. Ever since the first time I saw this bridge I knew it was destined to be the subject in some of my pictures. 

And this was certainly the perfect day for it too! The sun was shining and the sky was blue.... By this time I couldn't feel my fingers, but I wasn't about to turn around!

The ice in the river had frozen in beautiful circles, proving to how cold it really was- don't let all that sunshine and blue sky fool you!

Finally realizing that there was no way I could work the dials on my camera anymore we decided that heading back to warm up was probably the best plan of action, and so we did just that. 

It seems crazy that this happened just this week... and now I'm 1,420 miles away from this beautiful, COLD state, in an equally beautiful and slightly less cold state. 

But I'm still just as thankful for the warm house and wood stove today as I was on Tuesday. 

And now, I'm off to watch The Nativity Story with my family. 

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a goodnight!

xoxo,

Anna Rose

Jacob { Class of 2017}

“You're off to Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting,
So... get on your way!” 
― Dr. Suess

     

When did this crazy cousin get this tall, this handsome, 

and since when is he allowed to graduate?!

Just kidding. I'm proud of you, kid!

xoxo

-Anna Rose

David + Emily { engagement }

David and Emily are one of super special couples that a photographer just LOVES to work with! 

I met Emily several years ago. We were both taking a module at college, and I quickly learned that she is one of the absolute sweetest people I would probably have the honor of meeting. 

That's why, when I saw on Facebook that she had started dating this guy named David, I knew he was probably a pretty cool dude - because Em wouldn't date just anyone. 

Fast forward to freshman year when I learned who was on a team that my college sent out to summer camps. There were 3 guys and 3 girls, including me. And David was the team leader. 

Then I found out, that Emily would also be working at the same camp where the 6 of us would be for the summer. 

That summer was amazing! My team became my best friends, and my family, and Emily came a very good, close friend. Their engagement, and their wedding (okay, so I'm a little behind on blogging) were so beautiful, as is their marriage!

Okay, enough gushing. Check out this super cute couple for yourself!!

See what I mean? :)

-Anna Rose

Europe || Preview

Now, since I've told you a little about what will be hitting my little blog, I'm going to leave this picture here, and give you a little taste of what Europe looked like. 

This is along the Rhine River in Germany.

Pretty incredible, huh? 

Stay tuned for more. :)

-Anna Rose

The Editing Process >> For Photographers >> In which I get outside my comfort zone

I decided to leap outside of my comfort zone and show ya'll these unedited, partially edited and then finally, fully edited pictures. Before I show you the pictures though, I want you to understand something.

My goal with editing pictures is to make each image look as close to real life as possible, a camera, no matter how good, cannot capture exactly what it looked like, so my goal is to recreate the real setting, and make it look real again. 

Okay, now that we've gotten that out of the way, I'm going to start with this picture. It's a favorite from a recent engagement session. 

To start out with the composition... I love the rule of thirds, but I also believe that it should be broken. 

I also love using depth of field, which is why I left the tree in the foreground. I could have easily taken a step to the right and taken it out of the image, but it adds a certain amount of interest, and it breaks up the picture a little bit.

Okay, so the original. 

Then I added my favorite homemade preset, which basically just pops the exposure, clarity and contrast. This is almost always the first preset I go to when editing. It's my fav. :) 

Okay, now you'll notice that in her flannel and in the trees, there's a little bit of purple, that's actually not there in real life and the purplish color clashes with his red flannel, so I removed the slight chromatic aberration and that fixed it right away!

Okay, now that those steps are taken care of, I simply do a little bit of dodging and burning, and brush on a little bit of graininess into his beard, so it stands out and I'm done!

Even though I love this tree, I think it's a little bit distracting, so I stuck it in black and white and that took care of it right away!

And that's it! Super easy, simple and doesn't take much time at all!

Have fun editing!

xoxo,

Anna Rose

Shoot and Share // Photo Contest >> Personal

Let us rewind to last year. 

There was this photo contest I had heard about. 

I was too scared to enter, so I just watched and voted for my friends pictures as I saw them.

I thought this photo contest was great! It was created by photographers, but there was something just a leeettle different about this one.

For this contest, the people were the judges. 

Here's how the voting worked:

1. 4 pictures appeared on the computer screen, they were chosen completely at random. Since there were 110,000 pictures, I very rarely saw the same picture twice

2. I clicked on my favorite picture of the group of four and then I did it over and over and over again. 

3. The pictures with more votes stayed while the pictures with fewer were eliminated. This went on for weeks and weeks. 

I did not go into this contest with the expectation of winning or becoming a finalist. So although I did not win, becoming a finalist (with not one, but two of my pictures) was *super* exciting!

So now that the first year of college is over and I actually have a little time here and there I decided I would show you a few of my shots that I entered.

You remember Hannah from her senior session in August?

And Dakota from her senior session.

Heres another shot from Hannah's session.

Here's Abby from this summer.

Another one of Dakota.

This was a funny shot from Thomas and Erin's wedding. 

All the groomsmen wanted to play football with the bouquet.

This ring shot was from Scott and Rachelle's wedding the day before I left from college.

All in all, it was a lot of fun entering and it was fun seeing how my pictures did in the contest. 

And now, I'm off to try to finish a different blog post about this entire semester... We will see how far I get. 

-Anna Rose

>> End of the Year Review and Christmas All in One!

So much has happened this year I don't think there is really any way to remember it all. 

The newest change is that I am now spending most of my time in Iowa at college.

Obviously that means I graduated from high school. That was definitely a highlight... and for some crazy reason I decided to go back to school for another 4 years.

I'm not going to spend ages and ages telling all about my year. I'll just let you sift through the pictures and see for yourself.

Now I'm off to go spend time with the family. 

Merry Christmas!

My wonderful year started right off with Hannah.
You've seen her on my blog many times before because we happen to be great friends!

She has such a cute little laugh!

The end-of-the-year post is often one of my favorites because this is when I get to share all those random pictures that I love, but they don't really fit in most posts, so I just let them "gather dust" in my computer.

I'm always excited when I get to take some pictures of my brother... especially when he's in his firefighter gear. 

In May I had the amazing opportunity to second shoot my very first wedding with Jessica Lauren Photography. I had no clue that by the end of the year I would have photographed two more!

As far as traveling goes, I guess I did my fair share.

I visited a few midwestern states in the spring. 

Driving to Iowa gave lots of opportunities to sight-see. I shot my first destination wedding in Minnesota. 

And then there's the flight HOME - I always love that one.

There were several spontaneous trips up to the mountains this summer to explore and see what we could find.

This session ranks pretty high on my list of favorite sessions.

First, Abby is super cute.

And second. There was a ukulele involved

and third, it was golden hour.

Yup. It was great!

This is one of my favorite places in the history of ever.

Yes sir... this little desk is where I do all of my editing, designing, and dreaming.

Miss Hannah graced the blog with her presence TWICE and I'm so thankful!

Guys, she is going to graduate in just a few months and I'm so excited for her! She's pretty excited too and to celebrate the momentous occasion we decided to have a coffee date/photo shoot.

Dakota >> August

Another girl that you've probably seen a lot of. This was another coffee date/photoshoot. Except this one also included Hannah.

Scott and Rachelle >> August Wedding

I second shot this wedding two days before I left for college. Thankfully, I had some time on my hands on the way to college and spent most of my travel time editing....or sleeping. :) 

Mount Rushmore was a stop on the way to college. Apparently I've been there before... but since I was too little to remember we stopped again!

Erin and Thomas >> September

I shot this wedding in Minnesota during the very beginning of college.

Because it was my first wedding AND my first destination wedding I was especially excited!

It was a dreamy wedding with the reception in the family's beautiful barn!

Unfortunately, at college I didn't take very many just-for-fun pictures. Most of them were of sports or activities at school. Next semester I will try to do better. 

Maybe. ;)

Bethany >> November 

Bowling during thanksgiving break with friends and family is never a bad idea...just don't expect me to win. :)

Stephanie >> December

"I'lllll be hooooome for Christmas!"

This song (especially the version sung by Josh Groban) *might* have been on repeat in my room for around 3 weeks before Christmas break. 

maybe. ;)

Flying always requires coffee. ;)  

...and this time my layover also included a spontaneous redesign of my blog.

Not much, just a few things here and there. You'll understand why soon.

And then I was HOME!

And here's when the post turns to Christmas thoughts...

During a conversation at lunch, one of my friends at college posed the question:

"What if Joseph hadn't trusted the angel?"

Everyone listening stopped and thought about it a minute. What if Joseph hadn't trusted him?

God would have worked it out for good, but it would have been so different.

Someone else then piped up and said, "But He did! And see what happened!!"

And they are so right! Just look what happened!

A baby....not JUST a baby, but a Savior was born! Then that Savior, Jesus, died on the cross... and that is the real reason behind Christmas. 

Don't get me wrong, it is a celebration of his birth... but it is also a celebration of his life, his death and his resurrection!

And that's what Christmas is all about!

Merry CHRISTmas!

Anna Rose