Y'all! I bought a Shinobi!

Well, here it is! My first Shinobi! This pen was definitely an impulse buy (I was actually saving for something else... something much less cool) but I haven't had one second of buyer's remorse. For those of you who don't know about Shinobis, they are custom pens made by Shawn Newton of Newton Pens. There are plenty of blog posts explaining the Shinobi and Shawn (here, here, here) so I'll just skip to the specifics of MY SHINOBI!!

MY SHONOBI (can you tell I like typing that?) is made from black and "dijon" ebonite and has a super wet medium nib. I've heard so many people say that once you get a custom pen it's hard to go back to buying factory products and I can totally see why. This pen writes like a dream! I am so, so, so glad that I snagged this thing. I really feel like it was made for me, even though... it wasn't. :) Take a look at the pictures below and then head on over to Newton Pens and start working on a design of your own. Jb

I'm baaaaaaack!

I wrote the following post exactly one year ago and never even posted it. Let's try this again.

Well, I'm back!! After two years of graduate school, papers, internships and traveling back and forth to class a few times each week I am happy to report that I have graduated from the MSW (Master of Social Work) program at USC and have passed my licensure exam. I am legit. I tried to blog on and off during graduate school but never could get back into the swing of things when trying to balance it all so after awhile...I quit trying. So much has happened in the last two years and hopefully I'll be doing some posts in the coming weeks to catch everyone up on what's been going on. I'm going to try my hardest to finally finish updating my banner and side links this week sometime but I'm sorry to say that JennaBrownPhotography.com and my photography career in general are over. While I loved trying my hand at being a professional creative, the lack of health insurance, crazy schedule and always changing money situation proved to be too difficult for me. I'm still shooting here and there and there is a small chance that in the next few months I will have my very own darkroom (!!!!!) so I'm not done with photography altogether but for now, I'm not shooting weddings or babies or anything like that.

A doodle from HeyMatthew

Anniversary Art

Last year HeyMatthew and I started a tradition of making a piece of art each time we celebrate our wedding anniversary. We've only been married for two years so there isn't much to brag about at this point BUT our piece from this year is AMAZING!! We started brainstorming about what we would make a few weeks before our anniversary and eventually decided to pull leaves, sticks, and flowers from our yard and make a collage! We don't plan on living in this house for more than another year or so, so we thought it would be nice to always have pieces of our first yard as a married couple. Here are a couple of shots from the process. Please excuse the fact that these are from my iPhone.

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Blueberries!!!

Mark and I took our annual trip to the Stevens' house for some blueberry picking. We always have a great time and end up with enough blueberries to make smoothies for months! Here are a few shots from our morning. Jb

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Study Mix

I think that it is safe to say that I've failed at being a blogger. Thank goodness for the random success of the melted crayons art on Pinterest or the internet might forbid me from hanging on to this space which is being so carelessly ignored. Graduate School is much more time consuming than I imagined and sadly every spare moment is spent studying or shooting images that will never see your computer screens because there isn't enough time to post them. Le sigh. I hope that all of you are out enjoying this beautiful weather but if you, like me, are stuck inside... this is for you.

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Ali & Kyle | Vendue Inn + McCradys Wedding

I don't know how to even begin telling you how much we LOOOOVED photographing Ali and Kyle's beautiful Charleston, SC wedding! This couple is definitely one of our all time favorites! Not only are these two gorgeous (and so easy to photograph) but they are both so sweet. I had a hard time narrowing down the photos for this post so look out for the second set tomorrow. We wish Ali and Kyle all of the best in marriage and in life! Back tomorrow with more! Love. Jb