Expecting in April!!

Ross James Photography Workshop

 Here are a few shots from Ross James Photography workshop I attended last weekend.  What an amazing experience, I left totally syked about off camera lighting, studio lighting, and new posing ideas.  Ross and Melissa were such gracious teachers and so easy to be around. 

Harley Alexander, our hired model above, was such a natural in front of the camera.  So naturally beautiful and down to earth personality. All around a rewarding and inspiring afternoon, thanks Ross and Melissa!!

DIY Camera Bag

So excited about my brand new camera bag, looks like a purse, fully padded to house my nearest and dearest possessions for only about 40 bucks!!  I found the purse at TJ Maxx and made sure to find one with good construction, strong handles, and a detachable shoulder strap....

Then....I found these two laptop bags at Goodwill for a few bucks a piece and stole all the padding from each....

Then, I snipped the bottom of the outside pocket to stuff the padding between the outer layer and inside liner of the purse.. 

Then I stuffed the padding to line the bottom and each side of the purse....

 I also gathered all the mismatched pieces of camera bag padding and organized the inside of the camera bag. Then using Velcro pieces I organized the inside of the bag to hold one camera body, two lenses, one flash, and memory card wallets.  The bag will fit two camera bodies if needed, but I wanted the extra space for lenses.....

 You'll have to excuse my messy amateur sewing job here, hopefully no one will look at the inside of the pocket and see how crooked my hem is here......

 And viola, camera bag that looks like a purse for under 40 bucks!  I have already used it and love the design and comfort of the bag.  Way fun!! Enjoy!

The Horse Named 56

Yes, his name is a number, but lacking personality he is not.  As the newest member of the herd, he is the lowest on the totem pole, snubbed by the other horses, making him super friendly to his human friends.  In fact, he was extremely hard to shoot as he kept following me around. As much as I love my prime nifty fifty lens, you have to use your feet to zoom in and out, so I was trying to get some distance.....he didn't want that, he wanted some lovin......so I gave it to him......

Wylie Coyote

Wylie, artist formally known as cash until we realized his two inch overbite.....might be the coolest border collie we've ever had.  He may look quiet, peaceful, and possible sleepy......but that's his disguise..he's only pausing between periods of deep defense mode.......chief of feed truck defense......beware of sleeping dogs....

Snobbery

This is Beau.....my mother's champion athlete....varsity point guard of the Gress squad (like my random mismatched sports jargon)......Every time I have my camera in hand, Beau will try desperately to ignore me....case and point....or do you think he's posing??  Either way.....he's still pretty.....

Isolated in the fog....

Ughh....The fog.....

The one time of year the wind doesn't blow in Ellensburg brings this heavy isolating fog that makes me want to stay instead with a cup of hot cocoa and miss the sun. Instead of staying in this state of insanity, I decided to take some inspiration from good ole Ansel Adams and get out and start shooting. This was was taken off Reecer Creek Road......I think I broke my winter blahs for now anyway....

My Wedding Ceremony

After many requests, I decided to post some more details about my wedding on Sept 19th. After planning for over a year and a half, I got many ideas from wedding blogs and fellow brides.

Cooper and McKinley Mays! Quite possibly, the cutest ring bearer and flower girl ever!! I know, I am bias. With both of them being under the age of 2, we considered ourselves extremely lucky that they both made it up the aisle. Both Stacy and Mel, their moms, gave them yummy treats and prizes at rehearsal, which really helped during the big day.
Sheppard's Hooks with mason jar lanterns. In 90 mph winds the darned candles did not want to stay lit, but they were still pretty neat.

photography by Rick Spencer

My Wedding Details

All of our barn wood signs were hand painted by my friend Sam. She did an amazing job....
This was the pie table that took many to accomplish. Not only did 8-10 women help gather and cut pie slices prior to the ceremony, but the pie tier and cake stands were all DIY projects I attacked that summer. The table, vases, and plates were all found at a second hand store and painted.
This cake topper was used by my mom and her mom before her. I was very proud to carry on the tradition....she even looks like she has a cute lil cowboy hat in this picture.....

Groomsman gifts. Relatively cheap and very popular with the guys....
My something borrowed was the leather necklace strap from my sister, in picture above.
Instead of the traditional signed portrait guest book, I found an old barn wood window frame from my grand grandmother that I put our engagement photos in. Now, I can pick out 4 wedding pictures to exchange for the engagements!
Despite the amount of work this photo clothes line was, it turned out pretty neat.
Our bouquet of silverware. We wrapped them in napkins and tied them with rafia. A few bottles of wine and many laughs later, we had over 400 finished......

My Wedding Reception

The Barn....
Here's the main set up of the barn. We used baskets full of red and green apples as centerpieces. Very cheap and very simple.
We also used vintage cream cans full of tall weeds for door accents. Free, gotta love free. We used a lot of decorations we already had. The curtains were my favorite touch, lent to me by a very gracious friend.


We loved the gift truck, it was by far my favorite photo background. The little house sitting on the back is our card box. My grandpa found old barn shingles and attached them to an old gunpowder box my mom had for her junk mail. Again...used what we had. Plus, it rained on us that night, so many of the cards were wet or separated from their gift. The cards in the box stayed dry.....These were taken of the memorial table we made to pay tribute to those who could not be there. My sister, pictured above.

I collected old wedding pictures from both sides of the family. I even found my great, great, great grandparents wedding pictures.....a lot of work, but really paid off.
These were the bridesmaid and HLIC (Head Ladies in Charge) gifts I found on Etsy. I picked the fabric and got a group price from the seller. Very quality items, so cute. Find them here....

Our wedding favors, custom beer cozies....unfortunately we didn't order enough and they went really fast....





So glad to finally post these, hope some of you get ideas and feel free to pass them on. I took them from someone else and made them my own and I will hopefully now return the favor.

Kevin Parks Memorial Slideshow

Kevin Parks Memorial Slideshow from Hailey Gress on Vimeo.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the friends and family of Kevin Parks. He was an amazing and wonderful man and will be missed.

My Wedding Photos by Rick Spencer Photography

I finally got my wedding pictures back from Rick Spencer and LOVE THEM!!! He did such a great job. Here's a few.....more to come soon.

Honeymoon in Italy (Part 2)

These were taken outside Cortona, close to where we stayed. These were the few sunflower fields that hadn't been tilled yet.
Walls outside of Cortona.



I took this from the car going about 50 miles per hour. We rented a little Fiat (we named her Bella) and drove around Tuscany for a few days when we stayed at a friends near Cortona. It was really hard for Brent to pull over to take pictures, so I got pretty good at shooting from the car at high rates of speed. Fast shutter speed........
These were the tiny boats the fisherman in the Cinque Terre would use. The seas had 5 to 6 foot swells, I can't imagine what that would feel like in one of these lil boats......
Venice.
Venice.