Day in the Life of a Momboss with Velvet Sage Phototography

I am so excited to share this month’s Day in the Life post, because it’s all about one of my favorite ladies, Katie of Velvet Sage Photography! Katie has such an amazing style and her passion for photography seeps through every single image. Whether she’s documenting a wedding or a birth, the emotion is strong and the images always make me FEEL something. Aside from her mad photography skills, Katie has two little guys who call her momma, and a husband with whom she shares such a strong bond with I sometimes find myself wanting to hashtag her posts with #relationship goals (he also happens to be in an awesome band you can check out here). Wait until you see the sweet newborn shots at the end. All the feels!

Day In The Life: December 29, 2016

Filling my house up with the smell of coffee this morning I realize how much I instinctively rely on that smell alone to determine how my day is going to go. If I never get around to making it, busy, stressful, aggravating. If it’s the first thing I do, it’s a lazy couch day. The days I wake up knowing I’m going to treat myself to a coffee house, yeah usually Starbucks- but sometimes not, are the best days. I wake up with determination and pride, I am about to go have so much fun! Every morning begins the same though, no matter what the coffee situation might be.

 

Then of course, you have my beautifully crafted, amazingly talented, and determined to drive me crazy before 10 am, children. Always. There. They are the biggest reasons why I have to start my day hours and hours before I need to be anywhere. Once I finally am able to get through my morning routine, wrestle clothes on the littles and bribe them out the door with a promise of a day at Nana’s, I know it’s going to go pretty smooth from there. I do all of my prep work the night before, which makes it easier to get out of the door the next day. My camera gets charged, memory cards formatted, lenses cleaned and everything packed and ready to go. My Pinterest boards are generally the last thing I see before falling asleep the night before to get me energized for whatever shoot I get to be a part of.

I’m one of the lucky ones. I was raised by two loving parents who continue to love and support my every move no matter how old I am. It takes me 15 minutes to get to my mom’s house and she is ready and willing to accept my children at her door whenever I need her to. I know she is tired, I know she can’t get anything done when they are there, I know they are wild, but she NEVER lets any of that burden me. All there is for me to do is walk them through the door, settle them in their Paw Paw’s chair for a snack and devour their faces with my kisses.

Once I am out of that door I feel 10 years younger and so alive. I hate how wrong that makes me feel sometimes, I love my kids and I have a beautiful time with them every day. However, when I have s chance to be alone, get a “gourmet” coffee and go create something beautiful, I feel like anything is possible!

 

The day I decided to chronicle is especially close to my heart. Exactly a year ago I received A call from a family who is going through the most unexpected, traumatic experience of their entire lives, they had just experienced the loss of their first child. Now, I had always considered joining Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep,  which is a beautiful organization that gives free photography to parents who lose or are about to lose, their little ones, but I wasn’t sure if I was made of tough enough stuff that it takes to be able to give parents that kind of a gift.However, when a family contacts you directly, asking you to give a piece of yourself to them, you do it or you find someone who can. I cry to myself in the car all the way to the hospital that morning so that when I got there I was hoping that I would be empty of tears, I wasn’t but it was OK. I did what I could for the family and hopefully gave them a piece of him that they can keep with them forever. Very soon after they unexpectedly got pregnant and now a year later they are welcoming their second son into the world, and I get to be a part of it.

Something interesting happens to me at the beginning of my creative flow for a job. When I get in that mode suddenly, everything about the world and my surroundings is magnified. Especially its beauty. I see things the way I imagine a child sees things, full of wonder and magic.I try to encompass that feeling and everything that I do and when I am called to document something in a person’s life I make sure to document the atmosphere surrounding that event. These are things that would normally go unnoticed, they normally wouldn’t be cared about, but I care about them because I don’t document an event for only one generation to enjoy. The imagery I create is a historical record that future generations can look back on.

This is what Fort Worth, Tx looked like on the morning of December 28th, 2016 from the Baylor All Saints parking garage. If you were born that day I hope that you find this.

His parents had a scheduled delivery, which means they parked in that garage and likely found themselves walking through it seeing it like this.

I work my way from my parking space to my destination with a critical eye taking the time to look at everything, which is also the reason I show up about an hour early to everything.  Now that I have begun to include video to create that true feeling of a life that was lived I pay attention to not only how something looks but also how it moves.

After each session, I take some time to sit with myself in the environment and process it all. In this case, I was in a hospital and I just let all of the emotions of everyone around me wash through me. To really understand how I want to put their story together.

The entire process is exhilarating and completely exhausting so I am glad to fall into my husband’s arms every night.