Hi everyone! My name is Mandy Ralston. I don't do photography as a profession. It's just a hobby. I love being albe to freeze faces in time so that years from now someone will still be able to remember a happy time in life, and tell a story from an old picture. I mostly do pictures for my family and friends but occasionally I get asked to do others. I got into photography when my first niece was little. It always gave me an excuse to go get her and spend some quality time together. I feel like I grow a little with every picture I snap.

This is one of my favories. She was almost 3 years old. We went down to my papaw's farm the year before he died and took these pictures. It was December 24th and they ended up being christmas presents for my mom and sister. We got trapped in the barn because one of the cows came and blocked the door and we didn't want to make it mad so we just waited :-) Mati told that story a million times that day!

Look at her pretty blonde hair! I straightened it that morning, she thought she was a biggon! Pawpaw made a pond and a swing set at the farm for all the kids. Gosh this makes me miss him. She has grown so much since this picture!

The farm was his quite place. And she was one of his favorites, just like me :-)

So that was one of my first "photo shoots" I guess. It was so much fun and I got so many sweet pictures out of it. No wonder I fell in love with photography! :-)