Family Baseball Night + the 40mm f/2.8 Pancake Lens

Tonight we had a blast heading out to watch our local baseball team with our good friends Jen + Jonah and Jenny + Will, and our gang of loinfruits. It also gave us an opportunity to try out our newest lens, Canon's 40mm f/2.8 Pancake. This lens just came out yesterday, so don't be surprised if you've never heard of it before. We've been wanting a good lens to take with us when we travel or when we do fun family stuff, and this little guy fit the bill perfectly. It's barely bigger than the body cap on our cameras, and it's relatively fast, and as it turns out it has fantastic image quality and is very useable in the real world. We're actually planning on writing a full review of this lens sometime next week after using it at a wedding this weekend. Keep an eye out for that. Here's a few of our favorites from tonight.

Munchin' on some hot dogs...

Jonah was freaking out that a foul ball might come our direction...

Tonight was family night, so all of the kids got free hats...

Mindy and her ladies...

Now, Holden made quite an impression on this guy from the other team. They played catch and slapped five through the fence all evening, and then he gave Holden one of the game balls. Cute overload...

This goofy looking guy needs to trim his beard, but notice the lovely background blur that this little lens produces.

ONE // Holden's First Birthday

Our little buddy is one year old! What an incredible blessing it's been to see this little guy grow up so much over the first year. It seems like just a few days ago we were posting his newborn pictures. It's been a bit of a whirlwind, but we want to slow down and thank our parents and friends for supporting us and watching Holden for so many of our wedding weekends. We've learned a ton about ourselves, and we're sure to learn a lot more as he continues to grow and learn. We're so excited to see what God has in store for this little man! To celebrate he got to wear his new shoes and his new hoodie to the Newport Aquarium! He absolutely loved the fishes (and I'm pretty sure he's going to swim with the sharks someday).

Afterword we ran around outside! This kid seriously never stops moving. Pose for a picture? Yeah right dad!

As you can see we were the ONLY ones around... Oh, and watch out... he growls. Just ask our friend Phil.

Clearly Holden loves kisses from Mama...

After some obligatory shots with mom and dad, it was time for some blankie snuggling.

After some shopping we went home and had another photoshoot. And what better occasion than this for daddy to play with some new lighting toys. Obviously we have the cutest baby in the history of mankind.

Yeah... he's got some CRAZY hair in the back. Carseat + Curls = Madness.

The MANY faces of Holden James...

A mini meltdown called for some snuggle time from Mama.

As you can see, he was super into this book picture...

SO grown up. Man, this year has absolutely flown by. We couldn't have asked for a better baby!

Now, for those of you who are friends on Facebook you know we started out the year with photos of Holden with a book. Each month the book had a different cover, but the scale would help us see how much he's grown. We got... umm... WAY behind on posting them, but we were pretty diligent about making sure we took a picture every month. Well, minus month nine. Whoops.

Well, we're updating the Facebook gallery, but here's all of his pictures plus his brand new fancy shmancy ONE YEAR picture!

2011 - Our Best Year Yet.

With every new year, we always like to look back at the previous twelve months, reflect on what we've learned, figure out what we can do better, and enjoy remembering the highlights. We could not be more thankful for the year we had in 2011. January brought the birth of our first son. This summer we met some of the most wonderful people and have many clients that we remain close friends with. We were so blessed to be able to take some great photos for people. Cameron's little sister got married. Holden's first cousin was born. In December Mindy was able to quit her full-time job to dedicate her time to Holden and the business. Not too shabby... 2011 was such a great year, and here's a taste of some of our favorite images that we created last year. If 2012 is even better (and it's already looking that way), we're in for a real treat!

And now, the moment we've all been waiting for...

We're so incredibly proud to announce that as of today, Mindy is now a full time part of BRAUNphotography!!! Today is our 5th wedding anniversary, and we couldn't think of a better way to celebrate! This is a HUGE goal that we've been working toward for a few years now, and we couldn't be more thrilled. God has blessed us with some of the best clients in the world, and with so many friends and family that support us and believe in what we're doing. Thank you.

We can't wait to see what 2012 will bring! Holden gets to have his mommy home, Cameron gets to have his honey home, and with our powers combined, we think we're can create something truly special, both for our family and for wedding photography in the midwest.

The Clarks // Dayton Family Photography

These guys are some of our favorite friends that we never see. It's a shame that we don't get the chance to hang out more often, but we were thrilled when Ryan asked us to do their family pictures for Asher's first birthday. He's the second cutest little boy in the world (after Holden of course, IMO), and you can tell that Ryan + Sarah just love him to pieces. It was awesome to be able to shoot these exactly one year after he was born! And for those of you who don't know, Ryan is possibly the best designer in Ohio. We went to college together, and I've had a huge amount of respect for him as a person and as a professional for years now. You can check out his work on his website, Ryan vs. Clark.

WELCOME Holden James Braun

We’re proud to announce that BRAUNphotography finally has a third member! Everyone, please welcome our brand new baby boy, Holden James Braun. He was born on the morning of Wednesday, January 26. Mindy and I have been looking forward to this moment for so long, and now that he’s here we honestly couldn’t be happier…

We had been planning on doing a natural birth, with no drugs or pain medication. Well, Holden had some plans of his own. Mindy’s water broke on Monday evening, and by Tuesday afternoon no contractions had started, so the doctors informed us that to maintain everyone’s safety we needed to work a little harder to get him out. That meant Petocin, a drug used to stimulate contractions.

Now, here’s the crazy part. Petocin stimulates the contractions to start (or get stronger depending on the case), but it also increases the pain severity of each contraction. That’s why normally Petocin is followed up with an epidural. The pain of childbirth, only worse. But Mindy isn’t normal. We both wanted to avoid as many artificial stimulants, so Mindy decided to continue with the natural water birth.

I am so incredibly proud of her strength and determination. Not only did she birth a baby with no pain meds, but she was on a drug that made it hurt worse, and Holden came out at 10 pounds 1 ounce! He was huge! She’s seriously a super-human, and I love her for it. I just can’t say enough about how pleasant she was all pregnancy and how much I appreciate her and her drive during labor. Please, next time you see her, tell her she’s amazing. Because she is.

These black & white shots are from inside the delivery room just minutes after he was born.

And of course, as soon as we got home we got to work. Holden is four day old in these next photos. We stuck in him one of our baskets, and covered him in one of the craziest looking blankets we’ve ever seen. I think it’s perfect.

I hope it’s okay with you guys, you’re going to be seeing a lot more of this little guy around here. The most important thing in our lives was changed in an instant, and we can’t even express how much we love him already.

Thanks to everyone who’s visited, brought food, and congratulated us so far!