Confessions of a Wedding Photographer

I confess.... I have empty picture frames in my house.

It's not for a lack of photos, that's for sure! We have thousands and thousands of digital pictures, which vary in importance from a 1,200 pictures of our dog to our wedding photos. All are living on our computer, stuck in digital photo land.

Take our wedding photos for example. Brian and I, like everyone else, were waiting to order prints when we got our CDs of all of the images. That one day we would invade Walgreens or Target and go on a printing spree. Heck, we might even get EVERY picture printed!

Well, that wasn't the case with us. Life started getting in the way. We got a dog, moved into a house, and vacation pictures got the printing priority. Our poor lonely wedding photos just sit in a folder on our computer.

My point in all of this - print your pictures! Enjoy them! The CD I provide for my clients is intended so that they use their photos, not let them spend eternity on a computer. The online gallery I provide makes it easy, and they'll come right to your front door.

I give you permission to go on a crazy printing spree right now. You'll thank me in a few months. And I promise to do the same.

Sunday Ramblings...

Good Sunday morning to you! I've spent my morning deleting old photos off of my computer and reorganizing other photos, and after looking through my folders from January and February and seeing all the cold and snow - I'm sure glad it's spring!

In a little while I'm going to be headed out the door to two engagement sessions with two awesome couples! But I wanted to share with you a few things first. And in no particular order:

I won! Thanks to you all of you who took the time to vote for me in the Youngren's 19 frame challenge, I really appreciate it! This morning when I took a look at their blog it was surreal to see my name on it. These are two photographers who I have followed and admired from afar from a while, it is truly an honor to be featured by them. You can see the blog post here.

With being mentioned on the Youngren's blog, I have gained a few new followers out there. Thank you and welcome! Hopefully I can keep you entertained enough to stay! I am also on Facebook and Twitter, so please follow me. I'd love to follow you back, just leave your info in the comments! (Click on "Facebook" and "Twitter" to go to my pages)

I had an awesome engagement session last night, it was just one of those that all came together. The perfect location, the perfect light, and the most AWESOME couple! The above picture of the tulips was taken then (I think it's begging to be a motivational poster, something like "Be Different" or "You're one in a Million"), and of course, this little sneak preview below!

(A side note. During our session we saw two couples walking at us, the guys in tuxes, and the women in long dresses. One girl was wearing a beautiful white dress. I, being the wedding photographer that I am, thought they had just gotten married. I took it upon myself to wish them a "Congratulations". All four of them stared back blankly and kept walking. One of the guys muttered "That was the second one". Yes blog world, they were prom go-ers. I don't know who was more mortified, her or me! If you are out there white prom dress girl, I am sorry :) I'd be happy to take some pictures of you in that gorgeous dress for free if we ever meet!

Mental note - it is prom season. Do not tell random people congratulations. End of note.)

I hope you all have a great Sunday! Ta ta for now

Blackhawk Photography Group

One of the things I love doing is getting to know other photographers, and I am fortunate enough to attend a church in Madison that has a whole group of them! We get together once a month to review photos and work on our skillz. (Yes, skillz with a "z" - yes, I know I'm a nerd)

This month we were working on stopping motion - how to convey in a still photograph that something is moving. Here are some of my pictures from the workshop:

Technique #1 for showing something in motion - capture the object at it's peek motion - like Steve here jumping

Or Matt here, however an unfortunate pants fail happened after this photo!

Technique #2 - Do the same but add flash. We were also concentrating on making sure we caught the runner/jumper in motion - so it didn't look like they were just standing still. I like to call this one "Jumping Super Canon Man!" ahm... sorry...

Ok, how about a Drive By shooting?

Some of our group members checking out their images:

Technique #3 - Stopping motion with flash. For this one, I had a four second exposure, and the motion was stopped by the firing of the flashes (from someone else)

If you'd like to see some more photos from the afternoon, or want to see some super sweet ones of me riding my new bike - check out our group's flickr page here.

Vote For Me!

I would never be one to try and beg (vote for me), or plead (vote for me). Or bombard Facebook with messages and status updates (vote for me). I won't tweet four times a day (vote for me), or I would never think of using my blog as a means of winning your vote (did I mention vote for me?).

:)

Many of you many have read my blog post on "19 Frames", a photo challenge I entered last week. The contest has been opened up to your votes to choose the winner! So, head on over to the Youngren's Blog, view all the entries, and for who's photos you like best!

Click here to go vote

Thank you in advance!

Since all posts are better with photos, here is one of my 19 images from the challenge

Birthday Hiking

It was my birthday on Sunday, and thanks in part to all of your well wishes and Happy Birthday's I had a great day! One of the things I am aiming to do this summer is to spend more time in the outdoors. To soak up a few more rays of sun and spend a little more time in front of a campfire under the open skies. So, when it came to what I wanted to do for my birthday, I knew I wanted to head up to Devil's Lake for a little hiking. I was blessed with a beautiful spring day, so we packed up the car and made the short drive.

We brought Edie, our 8.9 pounds of terror (aka terrier) with us. We weren't quite sure how she would handle climbing up the rock face to get to the top of the bluffs, but she handled it like a champ! If she had it her way, she would have dragged and pulled us all of the way up the bluff!

We had such a fun time, I thought I'd share a few photos.

The view from the top of the bluff:

Our little poochie mountain climber!

And then if the day couldn't get any better, we topped it off with a trip to Buffalo Wild Wings (to feed my chicken wing addiction), and bought a little Dairy Queen cake - oh it was so good!

Thanks everyone for making it a great day!

Nineteen Frames Challenge

As you all know, I love to blog read and another one of my favorite photographers to follow is the Youngrens, a husband/wife team from San Diego. Recently they took a vacation and Jeff happened upon this desert beach resort (insert photographer flip out here), and realized he only had room for 19 pictures on his memory card. You can read more about his adventure here (and add them to your reader/bookmarks while you're there - you'll want to check back often!)


Anyhoo, Jeff posed a challenge to all of us photographers out there to approach a scene and only take 19 pictures... with an extra added challenge of no looking or deleting. In other words, pretend that we were shooting with film and make each frame count.

I will admit that sometimes I do get carried away with digital images - the fact that each picture is "free" and I can snap as many as I want doesn't always make me a better photographer. I know if anything, this challenge and my 365 project have taught me to slow down, observe a scene and take one or two interesting photos of a scene instead of 1,590. Because really, who needs 1,590 pictures of a leaf? :)


I had been keeping my eye out for a scene for a week or so, and was wondering where I was going to go when I happened upon this place last Saturday. I was shooting some photos for one of my groom's bands BOWSER (but more on this later), and they led me to these abandoned buildings in downtown Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin (insert photographer flip out here). I knew it was perfect. Lots of old stuff. Lots of falling apart stuff. Lots of stuff in places that don't make sense.

But I'll let the pictures do the talking.

Here are my 19 photos!















So there you have it! This is a contest among other photographers - so leave me some love so they know who to pick! :)

Also, if you'd like to participate, the contest is open through Monday, so get snapping!

Photo Friday!

I'm happy to report that I did much better this week at taking a photo every day than last. For those of you just joining us, my goal is to take one photo a day for a year - and here are my photos from last week.

I hope you all have a great Easter weekend! I can't wait to have Peeps and Cadbury Cream Eggs for breakfast on Sunday :)

3.27.10

This is an alley way I stuck my couple in for our engagement session last Saturday. I wanted them to sit on the chair before I realized it had no seat!

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This little guy is Peyton, I had a session with him and his family on Sunday.

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The mirrors in our hallway, reflecting the large print we have in our office.

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No eggs yet!

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The trees are budding! This was taken our our evening walk around our neighborhood.

4.1.10

Um, no joke here, this little guy is a cutie! This is a sneek peek from my session last night.

Puerto Vallerta - Mexico Trip

Well, we made it back home safe and sound, and had great time in Mexico! We have been taking the beginning of this week to get caught up and back to the real world - including adjusting for Daylight Savings time. Mexico does not observe it until April 1st, so we were on "old time" until we got back. It's amazing how just one hour can throw your body off so much!

I've had a lot of requests on facebook to share photos (what do people think I'm a photographer or something?!? :P), so I thought I'd share the adventures of our trip to you, my favorite blog readers :)

The first picture at the beginning of this post was taken upon our arrival in PV last Saturday. This was literally the only gloomy weather we had the entire time. This is looking down the beach toward the city, which is located on a 35 mile wide port. Hence the "puerto" part of the name I guess :)


These are my parents at dinner the first night. They came to PV last year with friends, and loved it so much that they ended up buying a timeshare!


While we were eating dinner, the sun was setting and it was just gorgeous. On the right, our waiter Samuel made us a delicious dessert with some sort of liquor topping (which adventally requires being lit on fire!).


My mom (aka Salsa) and my dad (aka Nacho) on the beach the next morning.

Here's a little video of the just being goofy



Brian and I on the beach. He does look a little tanner now :)



These were the views around our gorgeous resort.


On our way to Mexican night, and proof that the international sign for "Party" is a balloon arch!

Watching all of the performers at Mexican night was a lot of fun. They definately made you want to get out of your seat and dance!


And this guy really liked his dancing, and was very entertaining!


The next day we went on a Cultural Tour of the city. It was really interesting to get a look into how the Mexican people live, and know that it is not totally All Inclusive Resorts and pools.



One of the three churches we saw when we were there. This one is Our Lady Gudalupe in the town square of Puerto Vallarta. It was a beautiful church, with lots of gold foiling, sculptures, and stain glass. My favorite part though? The electric candles that you could light at the front of the church for a peso. My mom lit one for a friend who accidently ate meat last Friday - what a hoot! She also lit one on a more serious note for her Grandma who would have gotten a kick out of the electric candles :)



We then ventured onto the "Flea", a market full of goodies for the tourists. It did take some getting used to that all prices were negotiable, but by the end of the week, we had the bargining down pretty well and I wasn't as intimidated by it. I also learned not to pick up anything unless you'd like to buy it. You'd have one of the merchants over there right away ready to bargin! I had to keep my hands in my pockets, because I LOVE touching things when I shop, Brian makes fun of me all of the time!

Here is a picture of the outside, and then inside of "Flea"


Through a little research, I found out this is the River Cuale. Right now PV is waiting for their rainy season to hit, so the water was very low.


The Dutch welcoming committe on the tour :)


I think I could have walked around all afternoon and taken pictures of doors...


This drink my friends is a Cocoloco Nut. It was a toss up between this or the Pink Chi Chi. Yes, for those of you who know Spanish - that was the actual name! And to offset the quirkyness of the drink, some of the beauitful flowers that we saw...




We had extra flowers, so my brother was the lucky recipiant! Don't worry Aaron, it's a "Racing Flower" :)


While we were back at the resort, a cruise ship started to make it's way into the port. When my Dad had told me how large they were, I thought I understood. No way did I think they were THIS BIG! It was crazy! I think while we were there 3 cruise ships docked, bringing lots and lots of visitors to the PV area.


This is a shot looking back at our resort


Down the shoreline towards PV


Our next tour we took was a Cultural and Tequila tour, where we started off by visiting the small town of Ixtopa.



My handsome man at the Tequila Distillery (check out those glasses - got them on the beach. The vendor made a good deal just for us :P)


This is a close-up of a Blue Agave Plant. They essentially grow this plant for the root, burn the root, squeeze it and distill the liquid to make tequila. I didn't realize this, but we were actually staying in the area where tequila was invented. How about that?


A little video of my mom during the tasting


And here is the face that followed after I stopped shooting!


Brian took this close-up of the root of the blue agave plant.


On the left, is a picture of the little tourist area they had set-up at the Tequila place, and they served some wicked good tacos, just ask my brother who ate 4 while we were there! We also bought some of the flavored tequila - which we had no idea existed! On the right, my parents and I walked the beach every morning - it was really relaxing.




And just for you, a mini 30 second vacation on the shores of PV:


On Thursday we ventured downtown again to the Malecon, a 2 mile beach front boardwalk filled with sculptures and art - not to mention great views!




There were these awesome sand sculptures on the beach, but note there are no shovels and small pails here - check out the backhoe!


Brian took these few shots:


I like this one, you can barely see the resort through the first arch on the left. These arches are also a popular symbol for the town of PV.


This is a market along the river front. Notice the Chicago Bears pancho. My dad was really tickled that he could travel thousands of miles and find a similiar Green Bay Packer pancho. So tickled that he had to buy one. It was pretty funny!


And when you go on vacation with a professional photographer, you get to take fun pics like these! This is my brother and girlfriend:



I LOVE this picture of my mom and dad


Brian and I


And everyone!


I think what I've taken away from this trip is a need for simplicity. Once outside the walls of the resort, you realize that the people of Mexico keep it simple. There are no elaborate houses, even not elaborate ways of running electrical wires (which scared my dad slighty!), or even no real hurry to get anywhere (although the city buses sure move fast!). I definately left with a better appreciation for the culture, and although it is easy to feel bad for those who live there, I almost feel bad for us. We make everything in our society so complicated, so materialistic, and often unatainable. We are so unhappy with so much. It definately gave me a little something to think about.

Thanks for reading about my trip! I have had a lot of fun sharing it with you - and it's been amazing the comments I have gotten from people who have been to the same area!