Northwest Indiana Photographer

About Me

Donna Grass is a professional photographer born and raised in Valparaiso, Indiana.. She owns and operates DGPhotoDesigns currently located in downtown Valparaiso. Donna specializes in portrait photography and weddings.

Donna loves to go camping, bike riding, bonfires, and almost never goes anywhere without her camera..

DGPhotoDesigns is located in Valparaiso, IN in the downtown historic Valpo Tech bldg. The studio is located inside door A down the hall on the left along with Bella Studios.

Follow @DGPhotoDesigns

Headshots

Chickens

Mackenzie loves to visit her Great Grandma and see the chickens. She couldn’t understand why they didn’t want to play hoola hoop.

August 18, 2016 | Day In The Life Project

Second half of the assignment to shoot a DITL with our camera. The goal was to post 50-60 images from your day of shooting, I think I narrowed mine down to 49. I didn’t get to shoot as much as I would have liked to, like when we went to lunch at Panera (and the ones from there were with my cell phone because it was so crowded and I was not able to leave Mackenzie alone for a second to even try and capture many images from this moment out.)

We started our day out heading to Mothering by Nature because they were holding an event to make banner for Garth, a little boy who swallowed 2 magnets. He is going in for surgery and they wanted to decorate his room with a home made banner of well wishes….

We then headed to pick up Mackenzie to spend the day with her. When we arrived she was in her room playing and she didn’t know we were on our way there. I opened the door and said, “Mackenzie, where are you?” As soon as she walked out the expression on her face just said it all, she is so sweet!!

Our first stop was Barnes and Nobles. Mackenzie loves books and the last time we went here she had a blast and I’m pretty sure she did again. She played with trains, looked at books, played with toys and even made a stop at Starbucks for a cookie and strawberry-banana smoothie.

I love her excitement as she holds up her new found love, DORA!

I did not pick her up as fast as she would have liked me to. She sat down and started yelling UP UP to me and flapping her arms.

strawberry-banana smoothie

Reese peanut butter cookie and smoothie…yum!

Mackenzie loved the Curious George pop up box but when she closed it….

she pinched her finger and Auntie had to comfort her.

She found water lol I love her tip toe action here.

Panera for lunch. Brocolli cheese soup and bread for everyone.

We headed to Walmart to get Auntie’s hair trimmed and while we were there we visited the arcade. When Aunti was getting her hair done we received a text message that our neighbor we babysit for fell on the playground at school and broke his arm and was in the ER. Justin & Rachel wanted to get Dacian a get well card, gift and balloon. (I did not get a picture of them looking for cards or his gift..sigh)

We then headed home for a quick nap before Papa got home.

Once Papa got home and Mackenzie woke up we headed next door to see our little buddy.

After some time with Dacian we headed home for a bath, snack, and some playtime before bed.

August 16th 2016 | Day In The Life Project

I know I posted about the class I am taking when I blogged about Mackenize @ Target. But I have to shout that I still love this class! We had two assignments to do this week, one was to do a DITL project and only use your mobile phone. The reason to shoot with your phone, so that you didn’t worry about crappy lighting and to just focus on your composition and story telling. The goal was to take a photo every hour, not sure I did it every hour but definitely tried to keep with it telling a story….

My husband is one of the hardest working men, sometimes to a fault as a workaholic, I have ever met and we are truly blessed as a family to have this man in our lives…

Thyroid meds, every morning before I even get out of bed.

I almost hate to have to wake them up…

i love my early morning coffee on the porch in the summers and I am already missing them as I think of winter quickly approaching

on the road to Nana’s house

kids are raiding the candy and cookies already 🙂

Making the drive to Tinley Park for my physical therapy. I hate that I have to suffer with this and that I have to take 2 days out of my week to make this drive.

Making the drive to Tinley Park for my physical therapy. I hate that I have to suffer with this, I have the words Pelvic Floor Dysfunction and that I have to take 2 days out of my week to make this drive.

10 minutes of heat…

the view as I wait…

here we go

all done…

starting my stretches

pit stop at walgreens before I head home

salt & vinegar pringles, my favorite

Well the stress of driving, and next thing I know I ate almost all the pringles

Trying to remember to shoot every hour was a bit dificult, I missed picking the kids up but once we got home and settled I turned on the laptop and starting watching some of the material from class.

I realized I really needed to wash the bedding on our bed even thought it is a bit late to be starting this.

Spotted Lulu in the window because she was playing with the blind cords.

Ending my project with my husbands work boots, because this means he’s home 🙂

Mackenzie at Target

So I am taking a class over at clickin moms called The Documentary Approach and we are in week 2. I have to say this class is very good and my head is spinning with all the information. One of our assignments is to do a short photo essay. It is suppose to be 10 images or less but man I had a hard time narrowing mine down to just 10! So I will post my 11 but then I made a little slide show with my favorite images.

We made our way to Target to attempt our essay…toy shopping. Mackenzie had so much fun having the run of the toy aisles, she mainly stayed to two sections and kept coming back to minnie mouse as you will see more in the slideshow. I think I have found our birthday present for her 🙂 We may have to do this again closer to her birthday and see if she still picks the same toy. Either way we had a fun time watching the joy in her face.

Fun with polka dots at the beach

I have had this outfit that I bought Rachel this past

winter and I have been wanting to do a portrait session

with her in it for a while now.

I had the perfect opportunity when a client and friend

booked a modeling session for her daughter,

Madison. So I stopped by Party Outlet in Valparaiso, Indiana

to see what they had that I could use for this session, and as

usual they had the perfect thing! We headed up to the

Indiana Dunes in Chesterton, IN and had a blast capturing

amazing portraits for 2 hours.

Here are some images of Madison from the session, modeling bow from Stork Bows Boutique

I just have to say I love red and teal at the beach!!!

Justin & Kimmy are tying the knot :)

I am so in love with how this custom guestbook that I designed for Justin & Kimmy turned out! I ordered this book today and cannot wait to see it in print.