• Betsy King Photography

    Hi, I'm Betsy, a portrait photographer in Fort Wayne, Indiana. My photography is all about capturing the beauty that resides in real life. 

    This is my blogsite where I showcase everything from client shoots to my everyday life with my husband, John, our son, Miles and our two pugs. 

    As much as I love photography, I limit the amount of work I take on to keep my creativity fresh and be available for my own family time. I am currently all booked for 2009 and have not opened my calendar for 2010. 

    Thanks again for stopping by and come back often as I update this page many times a week. I hope you leave a comment if you like what you see or just want to say hi!  


Lily’s Senior Photos

Lily is graduating this spring with already so much experience behind her. She has traveled the world, dreams of doing more of that and has a heart full of artistic inspiration. Oh, and has an absolutely beautiful and contagious smile.

Lily 19

Lily, your eyes are so beautiful.

Lily 20

Happy! Happy! Happy! Happy! That’s how this photo makes me feel.

Lily 04

Lily told me that her mom wanted a photo of her with a big huge smile. So I’m thinking this fulfills that wish. (How did I do, mom?)

Lily 59blog

I love how carefree Lily is here.

Lilywall

Lily 13

Lily 48

Lily has this map in her room with pins all over it showing where she has been. So we had a little bit of fun with it.

Lily 64

Lily 55

Lily 54

Lily 37

Lily has so much creative energy and so much to say that I thought I would play around with the words she wrote to me when we were getting to know each other for her shoot.

Words

Here’s the highlight slideshow, with music written by , my husband, John.

Best wishes on the rest of your senior year Lily and beyond!

February 5, 2010 - 12:20 am

LO - yep.. these are probably my new favorites!

she is soo sooo sooo sooo cute/beautiful/full of life

im in love with these.

February 5, 2010 - 12:26 am

bobbi - That carefree shot… in my new favorite betsy king photography favorites. It’s perfect.

February 5, 2010 - 1:14 am

carly - Any girl in a pair of adorable TOMS is a superstar in my book! And, as usual, these are butter-scrumptious! …What? I like butter…

February 5, 2010 - 6:57 am

Gail - WOW WOW WOW! This senior is off the hook gorgeous! I love her Tom’s!! (I’m getting to see Blake speak here at BSU in March – yeah for Toms!)

February 5, 2010 - 7:02 am

nicki - These are beautiful. I love how you can get the people you photograph to open up so that you catch the real them. The lighting in all of these is just magnificent. I’m sure she and her mom are loving them all!

February 5, 2010 - 9:04 am

jess@studio3z - she’s amazing!! there is such a light pouring out of her. these are brilliant Bets!!

February 7, 2010 - 11:45 pm

Mark W. - Great work Betsy!

Miles sandwich…and burrito

This past was written the night before Miles’ birthday, Feb. 1, but our host was down and therefore, so was our website. (BOO!) So this post, minus the last two sentences, were written last night


Miles likes to be made into a Miles sandwich. You pile on the cheese, a yellow blanket, the mayo, a white blanket, the lettuce, a green-ish blanket and I guess the slices of bread are just colorful pillows. Then John picks him up like a big sandwich and takes a big fake bite. Miles erupts into giggles.

Couchsandwhich

If you didn’t know, sandwich making can make your nose itch.

Noseitch

Today is Miles’ last day to be two! The best birthday present he could give me is he is still taking an afternoon nap. It’s really a gift to himself because when he naps, the evenings are so much fun. But when he doesn’t nap, it’s just a big ‘ol grouch-fest until bedtime finally happens. So THANK YOU Miles for being such an awesome napper!

Three years ago John and I had no idea we were hours away from being parents. We foolishly thought we had plenty of time before Miles came. We went to bed with nary a bag packed and my hair was the most matted mess you could imagine. Boy were we surprised at 3 AM, running around like crazed lunatics throwing things in bags, calling my parents to watch the pugs, texting my friends (just because, that’s what I do) and of course, pausing to breathe through contractions every few minutes. John and I laugh now at how stupid we were to not be prepared a mere 16 days before he was due. (Granted, we had just found out Miles was breach and had JUST planned his delivery for the 8th.) But still, we learned our lesson and will have our bags packed PLENTY of time ahead for King baby 2.0! There were other crazy things that happened the day and week Miles came into the world (I’ll spare you the details) and as much as that clouded my birth experience, I have come to realize that for me, having a birth that was the opposite as I had planned was my first lesson as a mom to let go of my control. Who knows what Miles will grow up to be and do. I can guide and suggest, but he’ll choose his own path, just as he did when he chose the way he was born. Sometimes I think the one lesson I need to learn in life is just letting go of control. It seems to be the one thing God has been teaching me over and over. So I imagine Miles, a boy with lots of passion, energy, curiosity and yes, his OWN plans, will continue to give me lots of ways to continue to learn to let go of control as we both grow.

Regardless of Miles’ crazy beginning, I still find myself looking back on those first few days we had Miles and loving the memory of his sweet little newborn baby preciousness. After Miles’ bath at night, when he is all wrapped up in a towel, I can’t help but think back to his first days after he was born when he was all swaddled up like a burrito. He’s such a sweet punkin and I just love him more every day.

Here he was, a few days old, once we finally got him out of the NICU and into our room. Our little “banana burrito,” as we called him. (Yes, we are weird and make up the strangest nick names.)

Burritobaby

Happy Birthday to Miles! Two was such a great age, but I have a feeling being three is going to be even better. It already is!

February 2, 2010 - 4:57 pm

Sherry - What a glorious day!!! Remembering all the ways, John learned how to make that baby not cry!!! Hilarious.. The two of you did good. I am so greatful for the times ,I got to be there….love & hugs

February 2, 2010 - 5:10 pm

Gail - Ahhh…a Miles sandwich! I want to make one!!! :) LOVE this post my dear…too sweet.

February 2, 2010 - 5:21 pm

bobbi - That Miles sandwich made me laugh so hard I think I have tears in my eyes… :) You guys are such fun parents. :D Thanks for sharing all of this… made me smile. :) Oh, and… HAPPY BIRTHDAY MILES!!!!!

February 2, 2010 - 5:33 pm

nicole green - I can’t get over the Mile’s sandwich! That is too cute and such a funny picture. :) He is going to loooove looking back at your blog when he is older! You do such a wonderful job of documenting such great moments!

February 2, 2010 - 8:53 pm

nat - Find the book Pete’s a Pizza :-)

Happy Birthday, Buddy!!!

(Ellie is 5 and still naps. We find the drama is much less even if it’s just 30 minutes of reading in bed and 30 minutes of actual close the eyes and rest.)

February 2, 2010 - 9:54 pm

Sarah - He is soooo adorable!

February 3, 2010 - 9:16 am

Pat Quinn - Such a sweet post. There is nothing like a birthday to make you remember a birth. What a sweet baby and sweet boy. May you be as lucky as I was and have to choose morning kindergarten (if it still exists) because my kids took afternoon naps.

February 3, 2010 - 3:46 pm

kelli - Love the Miles sandwich!

February 3, 2010 - 3:47 pm

kelli - Love%20the%20Miles%20sandwich!

February 3, 2010 - 3:48 pm

kelli - I don’t know what happened, sorry for the duplicate post, and the weird % signs.

February 4, 2010 - 2:40 pm

Maya Laurent - Soo sweet. How did he get to be three already?!

February 4, 2010 - 5:50 pm

Becky Earl - LOVE your work! And your blog is such a fun place to be! :)

miles (little) big 3 bash

Chalk

Miles’ birthday is on Groundhog day (yes, I love that both of our birthdays are on random holidays, mine being April Fool’s day and my mom’s on St. Patty’s day) so we had a little party today to celebrate. I decided to go super small with the festivities and had just our little family, my parents, my mother in law Barb (Andy’s mom) and my sis in law, Becky. All day long it was kind of killing me I didn’t have a big blow out like last year and then once it came time for the party Miles was super shy with even just his closest family around. So John and I breathed a sigh of relief we kept things simple. In no time, he was thrilled to have 100% of even a small audience.

His biggest gifts (other than his Mickey, Minnie, Goofy and Pluto stuff toys, which were a HUGE hit) were his floor drums. These are the same ones he plays in Kindermusik and he FLIPPED out. He actually played them so passionately, he had a blister on his hand within the first ten minutes of playing them. Guess we have to find some little garden gloves for him!

Drum

At Christmas time my friend Jen mentioned to me that her son was nuts about Mickey Mouse. Well, in the past month Miles has gone from 0-60 nuts for Mickey and his gang too. We had actually tried for the first 2.5 years of his life to go licensed character free with his toys, but we have since jumped in entirely. It’s amazing, he has never seen the movie Cars, but he still can name all the characters. Trying to keep that stuff out of your life is pretty much impossible. So jumping on the Disney bandwagon meant getting a Mickey Mouse cake. Um, I totally forgot that meant FLESH and BLACK colored icing. Oh, it was gross looking! (But still yummy!) So black teeth and lips for all of us!

Cakesmile

Well look at this, a photo of Miles and me!! A very rare thing! (I didn’t even photoshop it! Which is another rarity.) I was thrilled John snapped this pic. (Thank you John!) I worry that Miles’ childhood will look like he has a single father with all the photos I take of the two of them together!

Momandmiles

Ok, those photos were just a sampling, watch the video for full coverage! I was excited too that John picked up my camera and took some fun shots of Miles eating his cake. I like seeing our life through his eyes too.

Oh, and there’s only one photo of it in the beginning of the slideshow, but we filled Miles’ room with balloons while he was asleep last night so he woke up to balloons first thing in the morning. He LOVED it! It’s such a fun tradition, that I can’t wait to do it again. Miles kept saying it was like Christmas. You know, the very first birthday I can remember is my third birthday (I got a dancing ballerina doll with a pink tutu) so I hope Miles remembers a bit of today as well.

Thanks for joining our party by watching the show. Next year I think I’ll go all out again. Maybe i’ll do big parties every other year. Remind me of this next year when I have a six month old baby around too.

More on Miles and his birthday and all my mushy mommy feelings to come. Bed is calling now, I’m BEAT! Have a great weekend!

PS Miles’ awesome “THREE!” t-shirt came from the very cool online boutique, Paperlili.

January 31, 2010 - 12:16 am

jess@studio3z - awwww, so precious!!! I just loved the slideshow! And perfecto song with it!! Happy Birthday to precious Miles! Can’t wait to meet the little man sometime. :)

January 31, 2010 - 5:01 am

Jenna - what fun birthday photos. my mom allowed us to have a big bash every other year as well. I thought it was a great system and think I’ll carry it on with our kids. Glad to see you made it in one of the photos!

January 31, 2010 - 10:19 am

Gail - SOOOOO sweet!!! I love these! I can’t believe that cake. I love that you broke the food rules for the day. That’s what birthday are ALL about – black icing and all :)

January 31, 2010 - 3:38 pm

Monika - Happy Birthday to Miles!!!

And by the way, my daughter (10) was watching the slide show with me and when the picture of you & Miles popped up, she asked “Who’s that?” to which I answered “That’s Miles’ mom”… and she exclaimed “Maaaan, she looks young!!!!”.

January 31, 2010 - 6:11 pm

Becky - Betsy–what a great day for all of you to remember. I love the pics of Miles feeding you his cake, along with his appropriate T-shirt. Happy Birthday from The Hulls.

January 31, 2010 - 11:29 pm

Tori Piercy - Love the messy face! Happy Birthday Miles!

February 1, 2010 - 4:56 pm

Jackie - Oh my goodness Bets – I can’t believe Miles is 3 – WOW. He looks like such a big boy – how precious. I love him feeding you cake, how cute is that. Something to look back on when he is older – you will both love it!

February 2, 2010 - 10:42 am

bridget - ahhhh – sweet 3 year old now! the slideshow is great! I love simple parties. puts the kids at ease too I think! And I do bigger parties every other or every 3 and it works out nicely. love the icing photos!~

February 2, 2010 - 5:00 pm

nicole green - happy birthday to miles!! :) loved the slideshow!

February 4, 2010 - 2:38 pm

Maya Laurent - Oh he is just adorable! Looks like he had a wonderful birthday! We tried the no-licensed characters too and the grandparents broke that. It is impossible!!!

can’t believe I forgot this one!

How could I forget this little gem from last night?

 mg 8361

January 28, 2010 - 11:48 am

kelli - That is awesome!

January 28, 2010 - 12:12 pm

Jeremiah - Wow! This one was my favorite! What perfect timing and such great lighting! I still dont know how you do it! You must have great windows or something cause it seems like your light is spot on in each photo! Keep up the great work! I love reading your blog!

January 28, 2010 - 1:49 pm

Renee Lyons - Haha, I LOVE it!!

January 28, 2010 - 1:59 pm

olivia - LOLOLOL! Love. It. :)

January 28, 2010 - 2:06 pm

Tira J - Priceless!!!!!

January 28, 2010 - 2:09 pm

Vanessa - Too funny. :)

January 28, 2010 - 3:41 pm

Sarah - LOL!! That is so funny!

January 30, 2010 - 12:04 am

Erica - That’s awesome! They all look thrilled:)

January 30, 2010 - 10:08 pm

LO - i think that john’s purple bandaid and the smushed pug in the corner make this photo. hahaha i looove it.

January 31, 2010 - 10:22 am

Nicole - Hahaha this photo cracks me up!

January 31, 2010 - 12:12 pm

Michelle - Perfection!! Slobbery gross perfection! ;)

February 2, 2010 - 10:42 am

bridget - omg = funny!!!

February 8, 2010 - 10:27 am

jenny - LOVE this!

February 8, 2010 - 10:27 am

jenny - LOVE this! haha

Tuesday night photo shoot for no reason

Two years ago today (Wed, actually) my sister passed away. I have considered blogging about it, but it’s just so insanely personal and so very sad. I was going to go to her grave today, but instead, I just stayed home with my family. I ate comfort food with Miles, distracted myself with cleaning the floors and napped. I laid down on the couch thinking about the afternoon of 2 years ago and just let sleep take it all away. After dinner I did a little shopping therapy and thought about my sister while I had some alone time in the car. (Thank God for alone time in the car!) Tonight, instead of writing about my sister or my grief, I really just wanted to process and post some photos of my family. It’s probably not the right or appropriate thing to do, but today I just allowed my little world of the 3.5 of us in our own little island, without any death or sickness in it, to just let me escape a bit. Maybe next year I can talk about it. So tonight, I bring to you what brought me some happiness tonight and pulled my heart out of a sad place.


Miles is in his “NO PICTURES!” stage, so anything I get these days, is considered a miracle. The night I attempted to take these photos, all Miles was interested in doing was dancing in front of his reflection in the sliding glass window to his dance mix on the ipod. I told him he was allowed to jump on the couch, to entice him to pose for me, which is very precarious since it’s an antique. He got one jump in, about fell off from the wonky springs in the ancient cushions and he was like, “Yea, I’m back to dancing…” You can see how much his feet sink into the cushions, it’s pretty squishy. The couch is a recent find for the studio. We LOVE it. It’s going to be perfect for snuggling families, lounging seniors, sitting babies. Can’t wait!! For now, my family is test driving it. Oh, and it’s crammed in our living room as we await the studio to be finished. (Our house, with all the studio stuff hanging around would drive my type A friends BATTY. I’m pretty laid back and it’s starting to drive ME insane.)

I want to eat that sweet, snuggly boy. (If only I could catch him!)

Milescouch

You have to be so crazy fast when photographing 3 year olds. You don’t get to take your time doing much composition. Just gotta grab it. Thankfully my light is as fast as he is.

Layingcouch

I figured some shots of the boys reading would be sweet. Stamp couldn’t stop kissing John. It was hilarious.

 mg 8359

The boys made ties out of the plastic that the backdrop stand came in. Of course.

 mg 8339

There’s that crazy tongue coming out again.

 mg 8355

How hilarious is this? It’s a standard classic portrait of John and the two pugs, but I wasn’t fast enough to catch Miles before Miles decided he was outta thee.

 mg 8322

What is it about reading out loud that makes you so insanely tired?

Yawwwn

Whisper is so squishy. We don’t let our pugs up on the furniture, but she just has a way of slipping off your lap and right into the perfect nook for her. You can’t say no to her. She’s so spoiled. Look at her cute little paw and smooshed face. I also love how Miles is in the middle of saying something here. He LOVES Curious George stories and always has so much to say about them. John and I just roll our eyes at how stupid and irresponsible of a guardian that Man in the Yellow hat is. It is fun to hear Miles quote those stories all the time, especially when he is exclaiming his favorite quote, “SAVE THE CHOCOLATES!” as loud as he can. (Anybody else read Curious George and the Chocolate Factory?)

 mg 8368

Ok, I indulged in a much too long post when I should be editing client photos. But it’s so much fun. Thanks for stopping by!

PS For those of you wondering where our third pug, Leelu, that we are dog sitting is, she doesn’t like her photo being taken. She’s still here, being dog sat, but no worries, Zabel Family, we try to include her in the photos, but she just doesn’t get into it like Whisper and Stamp do.

January 28, 2010 - 1:15 am

tami - what a beautiful family bets! and the sweet side stories always crack me up!

January 28, 2010 - 4:08 am

Cassie - I think celebrating your beautiful family is a very appropriate thing to do today, Bets. These photos are adorable! I love the one with John yawning–he and Miles look so much alike in this pics! I can’t wait to see what you do with your studio this spring.

January 28, 2010 - 5:45 am

amanda fales - oh my gosh, I LOVE theeeeeseee! And I love that they’re reading Curious George. :)

SUCH cute keepsakes for when he’s 16. You’re awesome.

January 28, 2010 - 8:14 am

Shelly - These are some of my favorite pics of your’s all year! I love them all. You are very talented but also assisted by the fact that your family (including the woofers) are just so freaking photogenic!!

January 28, 2010 - 10:15 am

Sarah - We are so going through this 2-3 yr old stage and it’s drives me nuts!! Love that bright couch against the dark brown walls.

January 28, 2010 - 11:07 am

Gail - I totally spaced on the importance of yesterday Bets! D’oh! I do love these though…so sweet, you Kings.

PS – I think Miles is REALLY starting to look like you these days!

January 28, 2010 - 12:44 pm

Jenny Miller - I love your blog! I try to channel you when taking pictures of my kids with my husband. A “perfect picture” isn’t always a perfect picture.

January 28, 2010 - 3:11 pm

Amanda - YES! Curious George and the Chocolate Factory! Our little guy adores Curious George too, and I agree, it is amazing the Man with the Yellow Hat just keeps giving George all that freedom. HA! Very funny! Beautiful photos, gotta love the doggie tongue.

January 28, 2010 - 4:54 pm

Sarah - This is soooo adorable!

February 2, 2010 - 10:45 am

bridget - your hubs, the pugs, the yawn (makes me sleepy too – so thearputic!) and then miles! all big reasons to stay. and everyone handles grief in a different way. I think you handled it the way you know best – and having these blessings around, it’s the way to go! big hugs!!!

February 4, 2010 - 9:35 pm

Leigh Kinne - Betsy, you’re so awesomely real. I love reading your blog. I can feel your pain and sense your joy through you writing. Thanks for being so honest and refreshing. I’m terribly sorry to hear you suffered the loss of a sister. It’s sad that life gives us so much love and the same time that it gives us the pain that goes with that love. Never stop posting. It’s not inappropriate to share if you feel like sharing. We are here reading because we appreciate you. Sincerely, Leigh Kinne

t w i t t e r
a t t e n t i o n