Amber Lea Russell Photography

Welcome Octavia! {birth session}

Amber Lea Russell — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 17:23:35 +0000

My dear friends told me that they were expecting the day I came home from the hospital with my own new baby. Like us, they had two little boys, close in age to our own, and I was certain they would be adding a girl to their family as well. I was right!

Birth photography is one of those things that brings me indescribable joy. To be there, rejoicing with the child’s parents, being struck again, and again by the miracle of birth is an experience that words cannot aptly describe. I was blessed to be at the birth of little Octavia. Here are a few of my favorite moments….

Congratulations my precious friends! Love you all so much! Amy you are a rock star mama, birthing that baby girl without any medication and barely making a sound! I am so proud to have participated in Ocativia’s arrival. Thank you for blessing me with that experience!

xoxo,

Amber

Dunlap {Family Session}

Amber Lea Russell — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 04:45:10 +0000

Meet Silas! He belongs to the ridiculously talented Betsy Dunlap and her dashing husband Nick. I am just smitten with little Silas. I am currently hatching a plan to marry this tiny hunk off to my Louisa…look at him! He is just precious!

My favorite shot! I love baby yawns!

Hey there handsome!

I just love these expressions on his face!

Thank you so much Nick and Betsy! I loved spending time with you at our session. Your family is beautiful! God is so good!

With Love,
Amber Lea

Callaway {Family Session}

Amber Lea Russell — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 15:33:28 +0000

I met up with the beautiful Callaway family a few weeks ago for a family session. What a fun family to work with! Here are a few of my favorite captures from our time together….

Adara {Class of 2013}

Amber Lea Russell — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 15:02:32 +0000

Meet Adara. Now, memorize her face, because she is going to to be famous one day! Don’t believe me? Check out her Facebook music page to see for yourself. This gal is talented! Adara is also beautiful, inside and out, and a real natural in front of the camera! I loved our session together, it was really hard to narrow down my favorites to a reasonable post length!

Thank you Adara for having me do your senior portraits! Keep me in mind when you start needing photographs for all those album covers, okay?

Johnson Family

Amber Lea Russell — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 05:52:05 +0000

I love this family. In additional to being some of our closest friends, they are also some of my most ardent supporters. When I dreamed of quitting teaching to do photography full time, Annette made it her mission to promote my new business to everyone she knew. I am so thankful for their encouragement and support over the years. What a blessing they are to my family!

Here a few of my favorite pictures from our session!

I love seeing Daddys with their little girls! How sweet is this girl’s smile?!

We finished out their shoot with a mini smash cake session for Katherine in preparation of her first birthday….

FETTE FAMILY {MOUNT LEMMON MINI SESSION}

Amber Lea Russell — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 05:49:01 +0000

Carrie Fette of Carrie Fette Photography and I met through a dear mutual friend who assured us both we would love each other and she was right! We spent the better part of a baby shower talking photography and by the end of party, we had arranged a photography swap. I love what she captured of my sweet family (for a shameless plug of my sweet children, click HERE) and I had a great time photographing her beautiful family as well!

Thank you Carrie for entrusting this year’s family photos with me!

Here are a few of my favorites from our mini session…

Nichole & Wesley { married }

Amber Lea Russell — Sun, 28 Oct 2012 22:28:00 +0000

Nichole & Wesley’s backyard, vintage inspired, literary themed, DIY wedding put me on a photographer’s high that lasted several weeks! If I were to share all of my favorite moments and details, this post would be impossibly long, so I have attempted to narrow it down to a handful (or 2…or 3….) of favorite images from their wedding day.

From candles floating in cups of tea as table center pieces, to stacks of them used to make up dessert tiers, vintage teacups were tucked in to every important part of this wedding tea party…..

I am completely enamored with Nichol’s dress….

Ummm….Nichole? You are gorgeous!

Wesley wrote a little message to Nichole on the sole of her shoe…

Speaking of Wesley….

This sweet couple decided to have a first look. Since the wedding was literary themed, and the bride is a librarian, it seemed like a good idea to do their first look at a library….

A few wedding details:

Cake: Stephanie Brown

Flowers: Occasions Custom Floral

Bridal Makeup: Staci Strait

Catering: Coming Soon!

Starla & Joshua { married }

Amber Lea Russell — Sat, 06 Oct 2012 05:36:05 +0000

What a blessed thing it is to be able to not only witness, but to capture as well, the union of two perfectly matched souls. I am not going to lie, I teared up more than once, and a laughed twice as often as I cried, while I photographed their special day. I loved every minute of it!

Warning: This post is LONG. I just had too many favorites to narrow it down. Enjoy!

God’s blessings to you, Mr. & Mrs. Otto, as you start your life together in South Dakota!

Love,
Amber Lea

The light in this home was amazing, and Starla’s dress was so beautiful, I couldn’t decide what dress picture I liked best, so I included them all. Many thanks to Lori at Any Occasion Creation for the custom hanger!

There is a story behind this next set of photos…..

Steve, a friend of the family (and our friend too, Hi Steve!), created a special wedding day video for Star. Steve dressed as Starla’s father, sang the entire song “Butterfly Kisses” and posted it on Facebook. She actually teared up a little. It made my day.

Yeah, those are super hero cuff links. How rad is this couple?!

Quite possibly my favorite shot of the night….

Sarah & Donald [ e - session ]

Amber Lea Russell — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 21:45:09 +0000

Sarah and Donald have an awesome story. She saw him from afar, but was a little too shy to talk to him. He was working a job and didn’t want to break protocol and approach her. Fortunately, Sarah’s friend could see this was meant to be and took matters into his own hands. The rest is history and now this perfectly matched pair is planning their November wedding. Yay for God’s planning, because otherwise, this never would have worked out!

I loved hanging out downtown with Sarah and Donald. The first thing I saw from being with the two of them was how completely smitten they were with each other. I loved how Donald’s smile would only come out when he was looking at her. You can see how perfectly he loves her. When Sarah spoke about Donald, I could hear the pride she had in Donald and how talented he was at his job. I am so excited to be a part of their wedding, because there is nothing I love more than celebrating love with two people that are meant to be together!

We are going to start off this post with my favorite shot of the day…..

You might recognize my newest favorite downtown Tucson spot in the next few shots. I love the light up here!

Congratulations you two! Looking forward to spending more time with you in November!

Blessings,
Amber Lea

Andrea & Dominic E-Session

Amber Lea Russell — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 05:33:04 +0000

I can’t even begin to describe how thrilled I am to shoot Andrea and Dominic’s wedding in January. They will be my first wedding of 2013 and they are setting the bar pretty high for fun and unique-it will be the perfect way to kick-start the new wedding season!

They have such a great love story and I can’t wait to share more of it after their wedding. For now, let’s start with their engagement shoot. Many of their favorite moments together are centered around Downtown Tucson. This is where they had their first date, where they like to go out to eat, where they go to concerts together, where Dominic’s band frequently plays. Andrea told me on our first meeting, “Downtown is so….US!” I have to agree, it suits them to a T!

Dominic took Andrea to Che’s Lounge on their first date, so we made stop by there too!