Want to see what I’ve been up to?
Well, first there were a few Ivy Tech events; one in Bloomington at IU and one in Indianapolis…
Then I had a senior portrait session on a gorgeous day with Marissa. This is one of my absolute favorites from her session. Don’t you love her eyes?!
And an engagement at the park… Jennifer and Tom were great to work with. Jennifer was a little camera-shy at first, but I think we’ve got some pictures from their session that they will really treasure.
And then I had a session with Sopia, who is just nine days old here. I photographed her parents’ wedding a few years ago and I was glad to see them again and meet their little one!
This picture is also proof of how crazy I am for good pictures… I saw this wrap online and with three hours before Sophia’s session, I sat down and crocheted one for us to use. It worked like a charm, once we figured out how to get her in there!
I just knew that if I added a blog to the website, I’d have a hard time keeping on top of it! 
I guess I am going to have to make a promise to myself to update once a week, or once every two weeks at a minimum. My personal blog is falling behind too, so…!
Though I haven’t had a huge number of photoshoots in the last few weeks, I have had one or two. Mostly I’ve been dontaing my time to create a new brochure and poster for the Millcreek Civic Center, a great place for a reception on a budget. The civic center is part of a repurposed school. It shares the building with the Police Department and the utilities office for the town of Chesterfield. Millcreek has several rooms for rent for different needs, but Memorial Hall is where most wedding receptions are held. It’s a huge room with restored hardwood floors and twenty-three foot ceilings. The volunteers at the civic center have remodeled the restroom and kitchen there and the layout is ideal for guests. There’s plenty of parking, and the people who run the civic center are very friendly to boot!
In the past, the civic center’s brochure has been all text, printed on standard printer paper. The new brochure has tons of pictures and information about each room, as well as the amenities that the civic center offers. Sharon, the board member I’m working with on this project, was very excited when she came over and picked up the proofs yesterday. The board meets tomorrow night and will make any changes or approve the brochure. I can’t wait until the printed pieces arrive here – I love the smell of fresh ink!
The other main thing that’s kept me from posting more often (aside from just enjoying my family!) is an addictive new hobby I’ve gotten into: needle felting. While I’m fortunate to have photography as a way to make income and still stay home with my girls, turns out I’m too crafty to stop with one medium. So I’m playing with wool these days and making little wool animals, two or three a week. I have three pieces currently commissioned and one project that I’m making for Emily for Easter to keep me busy for the next two weeks. Then it’ll be time for spring sports photos, senior pictures, and wedding season again!
Filed under: Weddings
The Wedding March 2009 was yesterday afternoon. It’s the second year I’ve gone to this show… Last year I was sick as a dog with Abby, so I enjoyed it a lot more this year. The venue was much more accessible, although less romantic. There were a lot of great vendors. I tasted some delicious cake and ate a tasty little number called a parfait shot. Photographers were well represented and were by far the largest portion of wedding professionals there. Ten of us, I believe… When most of us had been told that there would be a maximum of five. So if you were there yesterday and thought, “Wow, there seem to be a lot of photographers here!”, it’s because there were.
Sometimes I wonder if it’s a good idea for me to do those shows. I much prefer being a photographer to being a salesperson. I feel like my work should speak for itself… And I’m not sure that my work gets heard over the carnie-like cries of the booths around me. It’s something I am going to have to consider before I sign up for shows in the future.
What do you think? When you planned your wedding, did you really fall in love with professionals that you found at a wedding show, or did you find that more of your professionals came from research you did or word of mouth from your friends?
Edit: Just found this clip of the show. I’m talking to the Herald photographer, who was holding a little P&S cam. I had no idea that I was being recorded, and from the looks of some of the other people in the video, they didn’t know that either. Heh. I’m at 1:00.
Filed under: Portraits
This weekend, I had a session with three kids – Landon, who’s three and a half; Jenna, who’s six months; and Austin, who’s just five weeks old. I’d photographed Landon before, but his sister and cousin are new to me. I’ll be honest… getting three kids, two of whom don’t take directions, to look in the same general direction and *not cry* isn’t the easiest thing in the world! Still, we took our time and I think we got some pretty good images. And what cute kids!
Filed under: Portraits
I’ve been photographing Aida since she was a newborn, and it’s been a lot of fun to get to see her as she grows. She’s become a very busy little person! She and her mother came in for Aida’s two-year pictures last month and we had a wild time getting her to stand still long enough for me to get a few snaps. Right before her third (and final) outfit, Aida had a little meltdown. It looked to me like Collette was getting a bit frazzled, so I suggested that she step out of the room while I worked with Aida. Sure enough, as soon as Collette was out of the door, Aida stopped fussing, sat up, and let me finish photographing her. Collette peeked through the window while Aida gave me some of the biggest smiles of our session. What a goofball!
Here are a few images of Aida hamming it up for me:
I will be the first person in the world to tell you that I have a great job. I have the *perfect* job for me. I do basically the same thing every time I go to work, from loading my gear to setting up my camera to working with people, yet it’s also something new every time. I meet new people, photograph new faces, try new ideas and work in new locations. It’s taken me a while to come to terms with myself as a “professional” anything, but here I am as a professional photographer.
I’ve often flippantly told people that one of the best parts about my job is all the wedding cake I get to eat. And I have eaten some really good cake. But I’ve also done some other cool stuff. I’ve photographed the Governor of Indiana. I’ve photographed the Indiana Secretary of State. I’ve been on the floor at Conseco Fieldhouse and on the field of the RCA Dome (which was imploded last month). I’ve done pageants and football. I’ve spent two solid days photographing wrestling on my knees. I once photographed a fashion show where the models walked the runway with kitchen faucets and bathroom shower heads.
Still, and I want desperately to be able to say this without sounding cheesy… The most important part of my job is capturing the memories. I was telling Mark the other day how I feel about this. I am one single person, but the product that I create is something that will be looked at twenty-five or fifty years from now, or maybe even longer. I have family pictures that go back to the 1800’s. It’s entirely conceiveable that someone will be looking at my work in the middle of the next century. Someone is going to want a picture of their great-great grandparents’ wedding. Someone is going to wonder about the styles that were popular when their grandmother was a senior in high school. Someone is going to laugh at a picture of their dad as a bare-naked baby.
This is the responsibility of my job, and I feel it as an enormous one. I am taking pictures for people to help them relive how they felt, who they were, what happened. I take pictures for children who aren’t born yet, to show them how happy their parents were on their wedding day. I take pictures for the years to come, when someone’s father or grandfather has passed away, so that they can look back and remember.
Isn’t that a great job to have?
Filed under: Weddings
Coffee table books have definitely become a major trend in wedding photography in the last few years. People are using these instead of the more traditional wedding album to preserve and showcase their pictures.
Although I’ve been offering them for two years, I’ve just recently had people actually ordering their books. (This happens a lot, clients waiting to order their wedding images, and that’s okay.) I finished one for Katie and Alex this week and I posted it to the Bow Tie Photography website photo gallery for everyone to take a look at. You can see it too, by following this link, then choosing “Photobook” on the drop-down gallery menu.
These are two of my favorite pages from their book:
One thing I really like about digital photography is the power of Photoshop. I can often fix closed eyes, easily touch up a blemish. Sometimes I take a good face from one picture and lay it on top of a goofy face from another. Something I’m very proud of from last summer is this family picture, which never actually happened. We took a picture of Penny and their daughter, and we took a picture of Rico and their daughter, but neither Penny, Rico, or I remembered to get the three of them together. Penny called once she saw her proofs and mentioned that she wished there were an image of their family, and I told her I’d see what I could do. I think it turned out great!
Well, the new website’s online, and now it’s time for some feedback! If you’re surfing through it and see any bugs or anything you think could be improved or done away with, please let me know. I’d also like to have a “gallery” of raves from clients, so if you’ve got something you’d like to say about the work I’ve done for you, I’d love to hear it.
Mark found someplace online that had screenshots of previous incarnations of the Bow Tie website. We’d never saved them, so he snagged them for me and I wanted to post them here. We’ve made some definite progress over the last five years. Honestly, I look at those early ones and think, “Who on earth would have hired me based on that?!?”
We’ve hit a small hitch in our forward progress. The gallery that we had chosen is a Flash gallery, but it turns out that it’s not customizable without the Flash program. So, boo. Mark’s spent two days looking for a replacement that I feel is as good as what we’d originally purchased. He thinks he may have something; now it’s just a matter of me resizing some images so that we can test it out.
