A Fun Idea!

I have been seeing more an more weddings that use a photobooth at their wedding. It is so fun because people can be goofy, the lighting is good, and everyone loves a photobooth. What a fun way to get pics of all the guests!

Check out RED CHEESE to reserve your own booth!

Free Wedding Website

Here is a link to a link to get one! Also, this link explains why they are awesome!

http://www.beckersblog.com/index.cfm?postID=408

Want to Lose Weight?

I just found this awesome website at fitday.com And it's FREE!!!

It's all about burning more calories in the day that you consume. I have been using it this week and lost 4 lbs! So, here is how it works, you make an account and enter in the info they ask for. The site makes a general estimate of how many calories you burn a day based on your answers. You can record the foods you eat during the day. A pound is about 3500 calories, so if you want to lose a pound per week, eat 500 less calories than you know your body burns on it's own. If you want to lose 2 lbs per week, eat 1000 less than your body burns. There are some really cool reports that will show you how much you have lost over a given time and for me, that is motivating.


taken from the biggest loser website (my favorite show these days!)

I have been trying to lose some weight myself because there is this really awesome, exclusive photographer club called the "cool shirt club." Actually, my sister and I made it up, but it basically consists of the really "cool" photographers that we meet at conventions (they are all very hip and they wear really arty shirts)(OH! And they all have Macs, so we are saving our money). There are about 100 reasons why Mel and I don't think we will ever be a part of the cool shirt club, but we are hoping that if we lose a few lbs, we might have a chance! Please don't take me too seriously, it's all in great fun--but seriously, I do want to lose a few.

The other really cool part of fitday is that you can make your journal public and create a support system of friends or family that are working on weight too! You can see how the other people in your support group are doing and encourage each other.

Anyway, just wanted to let everyone know so that I wasn't hogging all the fabulous online discoveries.

Basic Wedding Planning

I have been wanting to share some basic ideas and logic about the sequence of events on a wedding day and what I have observed to be some good ideas. Granted, everyone will and should plan their wedding the way they want it to be, these are just some thoughts...

Plan for the bride and groom to get ready somewhere near each other. It makes it a lot easier for us to get the groom getting ready that way. The groom usually only takes about 15 minutes to get ready, so if we are trying to drive to their location, we might miss it altogether (don't worry, we can fake a few pics for the album), just something to think about...Also! The bride should give herself more time that she thinks she needs to get ready! It takes about 20 min just to get the dress on and looking right, but not only that; we want to get some pics of just the bride in the dressing room. When we get a brilliant idea, we will want to execute it, but if there is a huge time crunch we might keep it to ourselves because we don't want to make you even later than you may already be running.



Plan for at least two hours with the bride and groom and the photographers. That is how we get such awesomely creative stuff for you, it's because of you! When the bride and groom want awesome pics enough to dedicate part of their big day to get them, we go wild getting the best stuff. For me it's my favorite part of the day! This should also happen before the ceremony if possible for reasons explained below...

Family Pictures should be done before the ceremony. After the ceremony, the bride and groom are surrounded by people who love them and want to say hi. Not only do they want to talk to the bride and groom, however, they also want to talk to the extended family. Your mom might see an old friend and get to chatting and so does everyone else in both families. It's chaos! Happy, friendly, loving, and fabulous chaos. When we try to round up the family for pictures while this is happening, our best efforts are undermined by good wishers and it feels like the family disperses before we even get started. This isn't the case every time, but most of the time, so that is something to think about...

The reception is just a fun time to talk with people and enjoy your time. Most the work is done, take time to eat and soak it all in. If there is a sunset taking place during your reception we will probably ask to steal you from the reception for 15 min to get some pics with awesome light, so, we hope you plan for that. Just a thought...

We are more than happy to look at your plan for the day and offer suggestions and we will never be offended if you don't follow them. It's YOUR day!

We LOVE Mole Skin!

Mel and I shot a wedding on Friday and it was absolutely beautiful! The bride was stunning and it wasn't pouring down rain! I must share with you all a little tip that I wouldn't have have even thought about except that the wedding party did think of it and they were amazing!

The bride wore her shoes the day before the wedding to break them in and on the wedding day, she had blisters on the heels of her feet! It would have been excruciatingly painful for her to have forged through the wedding in such pain (what a way to make a memory of your wedding, ya know?). Luckily one of the brides maids had a backup stash of mole skin.

After walking around outside to take pictures and after the ceremony, the bride reported that couldn't feel the blisters or any pain at all, so it totally worked.

Even if you don't do something to cause blisters right before the wedding, it would be a good idea to have it handy in case you do develop them at the wedding. You can see from the picture above that they weren't even noticeable, so maybe you would consider going into the wedding with it on so that it doesn't become a distraction later.

Getting Ready, Mess it up!

They had this dress on the bed and her jewelry laying out when we arrived to take pictures

The getting ready pics are some of my very favorite, there are a few tips to make them look really awesome.

-take a minute to prep the room. Messes are great, as long as they are wedding related, so take all the wedding stuff out of the boxes (and get the boxes out of the room). Any non wedding messes should be cleared (most applicable when getting ready from home). Hang the dress without the bag over it so that we can get hanging dress pics too.

It's really nice to have window light in the dressing room, but if that isn't possible, you can bring a beautiful ambient glow with candle light around the room. If there is furniture that isn't beautiful, you can cover it with white sheets. Sometimes when the window light is too harsh, with the sun shinning really brightly into the room, a thin white material over the window will soften the light and will look perfect (it will also block the view of people outside without blocking all the light).

-It's helpful for us if the guys are getting ready nearby so that we can get a few pics and then get back to the girls (who take a lot longer and are much more fun to hang out with :). But seriously, the guys are so fast getting ready (generally) and if they are far away, it's really easy to miss them. We have given specific instructions that they should tell us right before they go so that one of us can follow and get the good shots, and they don't tell us and by the time we realize they left, they are all ready and we missed it! If you don't care, then, whatever, it doesn't matter, but if you really want those shots, it makes it easiest if the guys are getting ready close to the girls. If the guys are getting ready far away and the shots are really important we will have to arrange for a shooter to hang out with the guys the whole time for the getting ready shots.

Just some thoughts for the day...

Inspire Yourself with Magazines!

I often look to the lastest issues of Vogue, GQ, or Bride Magazines to get ideas for lighting and posing. While I may spend time doing this, I don't always incorporate everything I see or all the ideas in my head because I know it wouldn't be right for everyone I shoot.

I would like to invite you to compile images from a few magazines or from the internet (which would make it easier to send to me) that represent how you would like to see yourself in pictures. The more you bring your personality together with my ideas about how to make it work, the more awesome the pics will turn out.

It's also an exercise for me in learning better your style and how to best develop a vision for your wedding day. How awesome would that be? I am all about it!

Oh! I almost forgot the most important part! Tell me why you like the images you bring or send to me. If you love the light, I might think you love the pose and that would be counter-prodective