I’m not a doctor, biologist, or scientist.  I don’t have the knowledge on how to help cure the many facets of the disease called CANCER.  But, I can walk to help raise funds for the many people who do have the knowledge to  find out more on how to beat this disease.  This year my husband and I have made a conscious decision to help our kids learn to think about others.  That they have been blessed with many things and that even at their young age they can help make a difference in the world today.  In the last couple of years Cancer has touched my college roommate, my 2 sister-in-laws, my friend, my client ( a newlywed who is fighting to celebrate her one year anniversary), and my best friends daughter who was born with this disease.  Yes, I said born with it.  Who ever knew?  I’ve watched and my family has watched as each of these loved ones have had to fight their own battle/or are currently fighting with this disease.  It doesn’t just affect the one with cancer but those that love and support them.  The boys and I decided just last night that we wanted to participate in the RELAY FOR LIFE and we wanted to walk for them.  A this point I could spout off all the statistics etc. about cancer  but I know many of you now a lot already the effects of this disease. It may have already touched your life in one way or another.   Our journey is to help fight this by giving just a hour or two of our time by doing the simple act of walking we can help make a difference.  WE do have a very short time to raise our funds of $100 each and we hope you can help us reach our goal.    The Walk is this FRIDAY, APRIL 30-May 1. I know times are tough for everyone right now.  I’m not asking for huge donations, just the cost of your morning cup of coffee or your $5 foot-long at Subway.  In fact, if just everyone on my facebook page alone donated $5 to one of us we could easily raise over $2000.  If you feel moved to donate more we would love to raise as much as we can.   I just really want my children to learn that by a simple act of walking for someone and especially people they love,  they can help make a difference.  Please help us with just not fighting this disease but teaching a new generation to think about others and that by a simple act of kindness and time they help make a change.

Donating is simple and easy.  All you do is have to click here!  You can either type in by team which is Carlton Kids Care and find one of our names. Or type in Jill, Cole, or Aidan Johnson and it should lead you to our team page and show you how you can participate with us on this fight against cancer.  Please look over the site for ways that you may be able to double your donation through your companies match a gift, or sponsor a luminaria.

If you can’t help us financially we would love any prayer support you would be willing to give us as we try to reach our goal in such a short time, and as we walk.  We will be walking Friday night around 6ish.   I would also love it if you could share this blog post with anyone who you might want to help us.

Thank you so much for your support, love, and prayers.  We are excited to be doing this!

We had so much fun shooting Teresa in her last couple of weeks of pregnancy.  She wanted to do a classic beauty shot but she also wanted to try something a little different. She mentioned that she had heard of getting henna on your belly when your around 8 months pregnant.  Well, I went on a search and was referred to a wonderful woman, Ravie Kattaura (510-453-4393).  Her work was amazing and she was one of the fastest artist I’ve ever seen.  I’ve seen Henna done before but never from such a talented artist and never done on a pregnant belly.  It was really beautiful and I loved the colors and glitter she added to the design.  I also loved how Joe, the dad, was all excited about getting his henna done on his arms.  We asked about the blessing and was told that the  patterns used are acknowledged to bring health, protection, and luck to the new mother and her child.  I just know that we were blessed to be part of it all and to be able to create some beautiful images of their first pregnancy together.

As always this turned out to be a fun and adventurous shoot as Tia and I lugged the bed and headboard out in to the grassy field, caused only a slight traffic jam as everyone was interested in what we were doing, and I didn’t even mention that little case of trespassing.  But the field was just to pretty to pass by.   Better yet, a client of mine drove by and yelled my name out. I had to laugh that someone even recognized us because it really wasn’t a part of town that I frequented very often.  She called later and said I saw someone with furniture in a field taking pictures and thought it had to be Jill Johnson.

These days you don’t see many large families so it was so fun to be able to shoot this crowd.  Yes, they are all siblings ranging from 6 months up to middle school age.   Being the youngest of 6 myself it was great to see the different dynamics among the siblings and how each of their personalities came out during the shoot. We kept busy trying to keep their attention but it was a lot of fun.  One of my favorites is them walking on the hill.  It shows alot about a big family.  I love how the one boy is making faces at the baby, the other two are occupied with each other and big sister overseeing it all. You know this house if full of fun, laughter, and I”m guessing a few disputes once in a while.

It has taken only a year for Noah’s mom and I to get our act together to photograph Noah.  But we finally did it and I love it.  I just have to say I love Noah’s hair.  It has a mind of its own and when I heard he wanted to cut it I said if we can only find 15 minutes we have to do this.  Noah did great and I have to admit he is the shyist kid that I have ever photographed but he did such a great job.  He was such a great listener and has such a sweet person he was a joy to be around.  To view some more of his session click here.

This shoot is by far the fastest kid shoot I’ve ever done in my life.  If I wouldn’t of had 4 other adults, an expedition, and a break in the weather I never would of been able to pull this one off.  We went to Minnesota to visit our good friends and their new baby.  The plan to spend some quiet days up at the cabin, relaxing and having fun.  Well of course we have to throw a photo shoot in there somewhere because why not add to the chaos.  Well we had a time and day planned but the weather didn’t agree with the schedule.  So, we were expecting rain and not sure how we were going to pull this shoot off  when low and behold while cooking dinner the sun peaked out.  I turned off the stove, looked at my friend and her mom and said “get the kids dressed asap” , the dads loaded the couch in the expedition and we were headed out within 20 minutes to a field right up the street from their family cabin.  In fact, if you look down the road that is  Uncle Ernie’s cabin.  I laugh when I say that the session was less then 20 minutes because it could of been shorter. It was all a whirl of barking out orders and doing silly things to keep the kids attention.  We had a 5 day old and three other kids under 9 with more storm clouds coming and us battling a swarm of mosquitos.  Of course we forgot to spray the kids so dad ran back to the cabin to get some OFF while I snapped and mom batted mosquitos away with a burp rag.  If someone was taking video I’m sure we would of won the $10,000 award.  As you can see from their legs and arms that they had battled the blood sucking beast all summer but what would a midwest summer be without mosquito bitten arms and legs. They are the battle scars of youth!  You have to do what you have to do.  They are only that small once in their life.  All in all it was a memory and I was blessed to be the first to take Miss Emma’s first photo shoot with her siblings.  Welcome to the Chaos Miss Emma!