cindy cieluch photography . blog

Champagne.  Sunset.  Beach.  The perfect way to wrap up our last weekend in Florida.

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend filled with family, friends, food and fun.  Thank you Matt for being my best friend.

When we busted out the champagne, we got attacked by seagulls!  They stole the cork!!!

After the seagulls realized that we didn’t have any food, they left us alone.  We just hung out dipping our feet in the water and watching the sun go down.

Cindy picks seashells by the seashore.

Matt skips seashells by the seashore.

Matt wanted to take some pics of me and I didn’t even put up a fight.  I wanted to remember how peaceful I felt on this night…

My turn! 

LOVE that smile.

Cornball alert.  Matt has his eyes wide open and I’m laughing!  See you soon, Montana!

A huge, gigantic THANK YOU to my clients friends!

This Thanksgiving week, I’m thanking YOU.  I’m thankful that you ask me to be part of your lives.  I’ve witnessed fun, emotional, moving, intimate, special, hilarious, sad and memorable times of your lives.  Births, weddings, new homes, engagements, deployments, anniversaries and life celebrations.  I’m blown away by all of the people I’ve met this year and can never thank you enough.

Here’s one way I’d like to thank you…a 20% SALE!

Prints, Standouts and Canvas Gallery Wraps are 20% off until November 30th (the sale will end at midnight on Nov. 30).  If you’ve been waiting to buy that huge canvas wrap for your home - NOW is the time to buy it!  The discount is already activated in your online galleries, so order away.  Your discount will be applied when you check out.

November 30th is also the Christmas deadline cutoff.  Prints and standouts will make it on time for Christmas, but canvas wraps will not.  To check out my old post on standouts and wraps, click here. Please let me know if you have any questions.  Start crossing everyone off your Christmas shopping list!  Enjoy!!!

P.S. Posts look boring without photos, so here are some that Matt and I took in Destin and Mexico Beach.  I’m loving the sunsets here….but not as much as in Montana. 

Destin Beach

Destin, off the side of the highway

Mexico Beach

This summer, I had the incredible opportunity to hang out with U.S. Senator Jon Tester on his ranch near Big Sandy.  I was hired to shoot some images of Tester for Outdoor Life’s 25 program, which honors 25 men and women who’ve changed the face of hunting and fishing.  Read more by clicking here. I worked with Tester back in my news days, so I was excited to collaborate with him again!  He’s one of the nicest, funniest and most approachable politicians I’ve ever met.  A genuine Montanan.

This is the photo the magazine picked for its November issue.

Here are a few more I liked…

This one was a request by Senator Tester.  It’s his favorite truck.

His dogs loved helping out.  

I told Brooke to bring it.

It was brought.

How gorgeous is this dress???  All of her clothes, boots and accessories are from Brooke’s mom’s sweeeeeet boutique in downtown Great Falls: THE BLUE ROSE.  Go now, go often.

You might recognize this set from my new website when I launched it this summer.  Yep, this shoot was done back in August. 

Are you kidding me with those lashes?!?!

Classic, stunning.  Her mom loves this one. 

Thank you Brooke for laughing so hard that you were making ME laugh!!!  I had such a wonderful time hanging out with you!

Next to flying in a jet, riding in one is as good as it gets!

On Friday, I spent the day at Tyndall Air Force Base getting an inside look at what my hubby does on a daily basis.  He’s been down here since July learning how to fly the F-15, after flying the F-16 for nearly 8 years. If all goes as planned, he’ll wrap up his training in a couple of weeks and we’ll be back in Great Falls!

The 95th Fighter Squadron held a “Spouse Taxi Day,” so all of the wives could suit up and take a quick spin around the runway.

I’ll kick it off with my favorite photo of the day.  THANK YOU “Stiff” for the ride (STS) and taking this awesome photo.  Also, a huge THANK YOU to the 95th for making this possible.

We started the day at 7 a.m. with a quick brief.  Each one of us had to practice putting on the helmet, buckling into our seatbelt and shoulder harness and climbing out…just in case it caught on fire or something.  “EGRESS, EGRESS, EGRESS!”

We were told to NOT touch anything that’s black, red, yellow or green.  I decided to just smile and keep my hands to myself.

All of the girls went in different groups.  Here’s Group #3: me, Courtney, Angela and McKay.

“Stiff” was my pilot.  THANK YOU for putting up with me!!!

I would like to be a pilot in my next life…

THANK YOU to the entire crew who helped us out!

I felt like Goose from Top Gun.

I tried to bribe Stiff into taking off for just a second, but he didn’t want to go to jail.

Matt said I kept looking down whenever he tried taking a picture.  I was just in awe of all of the buttons/knobs/levers/gauges/switches in the jet!  Cool cool.

I could not be more proud of you, Matt!  Note: I’m wearing his name patch.   :-)   Since I first met you in your uniform, I’ve looked up to you.  You’ve come such a long way and worked your butt off to get where you are today.  We’ve spent a lot of time apart (training, alert, Iraq, other deployments) and it’s all worth it.  Thank you for serving our country!

Before the A Team broke the record for the fastest and fastest-MOVING session, the title was held by the Heck Family for 2 straight years! Kylor is constantly jumping, laughing, poking, digging and running (away from me, of course). 

They’ve made summer family sessions a yearly treat and that couldn’t make me happier.  Especially knowing that next summer…there will be an addition!!!  Congratulations!

The first one is MY FAVE because it’s so-something-a-2-year-old-boy-would-do.  Here’s the setup: I told mom and dad to kiss Kylor on the head…they moved in…I moved my camera up…and Kylor looked at me with a little twinkle in his eye….and did this!

Meet Armando, Arisdelis, Amanda and Andrea.

This session goes down as the shortest shoot in my history: 40 minutes!  Big sister Amanda’s high energy kept us moving fast and laughing the entire time.

That’s a leaf. 

Baby Andrea’s facial expression cracks me up!

Could they get any cuter?!!?!?!?

Tonight’s sunset.  Actually, it was after the sun went down.

For you photographers out there, I took this with my Canon 5D Mark II at 2.8, 1/15, ISO at 6400.  It was allllmost pitch black.