4th of July fun in Sacramento California

Happy 4th of July to you!!!  The fun, friends, family and food were great, not to mention the fireworks!  Oh and also…I think now is a good time to mention that I am now based out of Sacramento, CA not Orange County!!! While the weather is MUCH hotter than the OC, the advantage is that I can photograph my favorite little one anytime I want.  :)

Although I am working full-time in a non-photography environment, I will always be a photographer at heart and will shoot as much as I can.  I look forward to hearing from you and capturing life (taking pictures!) at your next family get together.

Check out the pics from the 4th!

Yummy watermelon!  Love the watermelon face!

They love each other so much!

Someone set off a firecracker and they had to see what was going on.

Well, it may not be the biggest smile, but at least I can see his eyes!  :)

Caleb, you are getting SO big!  And you are so smart.

All grown up

One week.  Just one week is all the time I had to photograph these baby birds and then they were off.  I did say my good-byes before they left since I had a feeling the time was coming.  It would have been fun to see the process of them leaving the nest.  Did Momma kick them out?  Or did one of the little birds wiggle a little too much and, oops, one of them fell out and instinct took over?  The mystery of the process.

Baby Birds

Always have your camera with you!  You never know what opportunities will present themselves to you.  It has been at least ten years, if not fifteen since I have been this close to a bird’s nest with babies in it.  Last time it was a hummingbird nest at eye level, only inches away from the path!  My photography skills (equipment, knowledge, creativity and patience!) were such that I only captured blurry shots and discovered that when I received the prints back after processing (yes, the good old days of film only).

Time changes some things!  I must say, I am pretty excited to have captured these photos.  Enjoy!

Family photo session with twins! – Orange County Family Photographer

Finally posting some more family photos from the fabulous four that I photographed in Irvine.   The twins have SO much energy and they are a blast to be around!  I love this age where kids are checking everything out, things that we adults would walk right by and totally ignore – they stop to examine.  So much fun!!!!  Check it out:

Another one of my favorites:

Getting their smiles ready!

Grass angels…because we don’t have snow in Irvine very often!

We attempted to do this picture at the end of the session, but it was just too funny for everyone so we got a fun picture instead!!!

Checking the weather.  Making sure it is good for jumping off a wall:

Can you see the love in these parents’ faces?  They adore their boys!

ANNOUNCEMENT!!! New stock photo site!!! – Burk Images

It is my great pleasure to announce that I have fulfilled a dream (with much help and support from friends)!  Over the years I have taken thousands upon thousands of photos across the US and in a few different countries of big and small things, important and insignificant, beautiful and bland.  Most of those photos have not served any purpose except to bring me joy in the taking and the reflecting.  BUT, for a few years now I have wanted to have an outlet for my work as well as a way to make some money from these photos that I take through life’s journey.

So it is not without a lot of hard work, frustration and good old perseverance that I can announce today that my site is here and it is the beginning of something great, big, grand, glorious and FUN!!!!  You can now buy my photos online, right now, and easily download them onto your computer!!! Check it out!!!!  This is just the beginning!!!!

CLICK IT!!!!

Race on the Base – Los Alamitos Photographer

Wow!  What a wet day!  This morning two friends and I arrived at the Joint Forces Training Base in Los Alamitos before the crack of dawn to set up my vendor booth at the Race.  The rain was intense and the wind was right there with it.  After standing in the rain for about 5 minutes I made the decision that I did not want to set up my booth even though I had a SUPER CUTE display!!!  There was just no way all of the photos would survive that weather.

So we improvised and walked around meeting people and passing out this card:

back:

It always amazes me to watch athletes compete in their sport despite the odds that are against them, be it physical limitations, weather or sheer challenge of the event. Today was no exception as I watched hundreds of people start the run portion of the reverse triathlon just as it started pouring.  The kids’ run, which was earlier in the day, went off well though with no rain!  It was cute watching the kids’ personalities… some of them were hard core, some of them were just having fun, some didn’t really fully get what was going on, but they were enjoying themselves none the less (well, most of them).   Check out some pics from my iphone!

Finally stopped raining around 7am:

Jumping in the river!

Reason number 49 that I am glad I did not set up my booth!

10k In-line skate/wheelchair race:

Kids’ race warm-up:

And they’re off!!!!

random iPhone pics from my travels

The last few weeks have been crazy busy with lots of good stuff!  Needless to say, I have not been faithful to update the blog with all the cool pictures of the kids I love, but I will soon!  I promise!  For now I thought I would post some iphone pics since they are oh, so handy.

You might remember Andrea from the beach photos here.  She is still so full of joy and fun and she has the best facial expressions!

I LOVE driving!  Even the grapevine was beautiful to me.

Sometimes you just need a little bit of open road in front of you!  And every road trip is different.

LOVE this kid!  (And his mom.)  Do you remember Caleb?  Click here to see him about a year ago.

And his new baby sister.  She has grown a lot since the last time I’ve seen her.  I love her too!  Can we say super cute!

The drive home was gorgeous too!

I managed to catch a few Southern California sunsets before I hit the road again.

My friend Esther and I (in St. Louis, MO).  It has been two and a half years since I’ve seen her.  Read the story here and here.

Driving in the rain in St. Louis!

Real photos and the full stories coming up soon!