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Lindsey & Mike :: Oriental, North Carolina

admin — Wed, 16 May 2012 15:27:19 +0000

Lindsey and Mike had a beautiful waterside ceremony and reception at River Dunes in Oriental, North Carolina. What a great destination for a wedding. River Dunes has the most charming chapel on site that made such a great backdrop for the ceremony site. It was quite a warm day, but luckily we had some rest from the heat by some happy clouds. Let me define happy the clouds: clouds that are big and fluffy that still leave a little room for the sun to peak out every now and then. These “happy” clouds make for beautiful scenery not only for guests but for my pictures!! It seems I have been denies these happy clouds and many a wedding in the past year or so. So, I was very thankful that they finally made an appearance.

The bridal party as well as the courteous staff at River Dunes made for such a wonderful experience. Lindsey and Mike were truly fortunate that we got through the pre-ceremony pictures, ceremony, and post-ceremony pictures before it started raining. It was perfect timing because right as everyone entered the Harbour Club it started pouring down rain.

Congratulations to Mike and Lindsey and a big thank you for allowing me to be a part of your day!

This couple was celebrating their 61st wedding anniversary. How amazing is that?! I was getting a little choked up watching them dance together.

Lindsey :: Bridal Session

admin — Mon, 07 May 2012 19:04:34 +0000

Lindsey & Mike were married Saturday at River Dunes in Oriental, North Carolina. I was definitely excited about the location as soon as I drove up! Those images will be coming soon! But for now, I am very excited to share Lindsey’s bridal portraits. The location we chose was in keeping with their waterfront wedding. Lindsey is such a beautiful gal and I just got carried away making pictures…as usual. She did such a great job!

Brittany & Zach :: Morehead City, North Carolina

admin — Thu, 03 May 2012 16:05:23 +0000

Brittany and Zach had a beautiful waterside wedding at the Crystal Coast Civic Center in Morehead City, North Carolina. The ceremony site and the ballroom was filled with beach themed details all tied together with a purple and gold color scheme. Brittany and Zach are big ECU fans and had “pirate” themed elements from ECU’s colors, to pirate heads (and we had a pirate hat, patch, and hook at the photo booth…see the post before this one!), to a big ECU entrance to the reception. The bridal party came in cheering with purple and gold pom poms.

Natalie James from “At Ease Bridal” kept everything on schedule and running smooth. (You can find her on facebook too!)

I absolutely loved working with these guys…Thanks Brittany and Zach for asking me to be a part of your wedding!

It was tough narrowing these down because of all the fun details, people and events. So, here are my favs.

I used Photoshop’s Photomerge feature to create this panorama:

Zach & Brittany’s Photo Booth

admin — Thu, 03 May 2012 15:31:11 +0000

I always love it when a couple wants a photo booth at their wedding. And Heather Sullivan, my fabulous assistant who gets to shoot at the photo booth, loves it too. While I was capturing what was happening on the dance floor, Heather was at the photo booth. We switched things up a bit with this photo booth to improve it. We used a white vinyl background, rather than fabric. I was just so tired of trying to get wrinkles out of the background. I’m sure any photographer who has used a fabric background can relate. I purchased a white vinyl (Savage Brand, 8′ wide) from B&H. I wanted the 9′, but it was too tight of a fit in the car. I was definitely pleased by the lack of wrinkles and the classic white worked well with Brittany and Zach’s purple and gold (go Pirates!) color scheme. I painted a couple pieces of wood with chalkboard paint so that their friends could pass on some messages to the bride and groom. I re-purposed an old decorative frame and painted it a goldish yellow to fit into their color scheme. Heather did an awesome photographing at the photo booth…thanks Heather!

Brittany :: Bridal Portraits, Wilmington North Carolina

admin — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 17:19:01 +0000

It’s official, Brittany and Zach are married! I was so happy to be a part of their wedding and will be sharing those images soon! But just a few hints to get you in the mood…shells, purple and gold, pirates, sand… Of course, now that they are married I get to share Brittany’s bridal portraits. I absolutely love doing bridal portraits. I love that the bride is excited to be wearing her dress, I love playing with lighting, and I love the actual picture making process..so much fun! We met up with Brittany in downtown Wilmington just after St. Patty’s Day. The weather was a bit iffy, but it held out for us long enough to do some shooting at Wrightsville Beach as well. Although, on our way to Wrightsville Beach an onslaught of fog moved in. This isn’t always a great thing for portraits, but it ended up giving it a really soft glow in the background. I also broke out the video light (Lowel ID Video Light) for the first time and had a great time with that. I must say thanks to my wonderful assistant Heather Sullivan for being the best boom stand ever (meaning, she held the light, rather than putting it on a stand). And a big thank you to her super awesome friend (and bridesmaid), Olivia. What a trooper! So, here they are…

Custom Designed Album Overview

admin — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 22:47:38 +0000

One of the products I offer to my clients is a custom designed wedding album. Clients get to choose from a wide variety of album cover materials and can choose to pair different materials together for a stunning presentation. They also have the option to choose an image to adorn the cover. I give my clients 3 options for choosing the images that go in the album. The first choice is to allow me to choose the images. By the time brides get to choose their album images they have just gotten through making a barrage of choices leading up to their wedding day. I let them know that I am more than happy to put together a wonderful selection of the best images from their wedding day. Their second choice is to their top 10-20 images. They may not want to choose all the images, but they at least have a short list that they know they want to see in their album. Their third option is to choose 50-75 images. The number often depends on the size of the album and how many pages are in their album.

My custom wedding albums are clean and classic. I want these albums to stay in style for years to come. I try to stay with clean layouts using simple collages that I have designed myself.

This album cover material was a popular choice in 2011. This album designs happens to be one of my favorite designs from this past year. Aly and Alex had a beautiful wedding with so many wonderful details to capture that were sure to grace their album. If you want to see more images of products available check out the Products page!

Jacques Louis :: Frenchie Art

admin — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 23:11:12 +0000

This past semester I wanted to have a project to work on so that I could work along with my design students while they were working on their projects. (I always wished I could have watched my art teachers make their art, so I try to keep that in mind now that I am an art teacher). So, I decided to make a silhouette of Jacques (our French Bulldog) because his funny ears are unique and would make for an interesting outline. So I created a silhouette from a photograph I had taken and then painted his silhouette on to a canvas via a projector. I used clippings from old books along with layers and layers of paint. I decided rather than leaving the silhouette just plain black I would use many many rolled up pieces of paper (very close to what is known as “quilling”). Some would hate the tedious nature of this process. But, I am a process person, so I love it! I took me quite a while and I was actually sad when I was done with it. But, thankfully, I was commissioned by my friend Elizabeth to make a portrait in silhouette fashion of her dog Dowdy. Read on below for more about his project…By the way, the Jacques art pictures were taken with my new Fujifilm X100 camera…loving it!

Dowdy is a West Highland Terrier and both Elizabeth and her husband adore this dog. Elizabeth wanted my to make this piece for her husband as a Christmas gift. The finished image was transferred onto wood. The image shown is the image made in Photoshop prior to transferring it to wood:

The Bree & Ty Show

admin — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 14:55:14 +0000

So, I know it seems like the Bree & Ty show around here, but I’ve just got to get them up. Once I get these posted I will breath a sigh of relief that I am all caught up…at least with the kids pictures that is.

Last month my sister Jill came up with the kids and her hubby Chris and we had a very productive weekend. Chris and Shannon rebuilt our deck. I am still shocked at how quickly Chris threw that thing together. He has mad deck skills. Meanwhile, Jill and I spent the weekend sorting through pictures from 2011 and took the kids for their annual photo shoot. We have gotten into a routine of doing their annual pictures at the first of the year. This January we were fortunate that it was seasonably warm. Bree is quite the professional model and assistant to boot. She did such a great job helping us with Ty. She definitely got paid, not only in $$ but in Dunkin Donuts.

Hall Christmas 2011

admin — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 14:48:05 +0000

I really enjoy doing my sister’s Christmas card every year. Designing cards is something I enjoy doing. It was a bit cold out this year, but we pulled it out!

It’s Been a While

admin — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 14:47:49 +0000

I didn’t realize how long it had been since I had posted pictures of my niece and nephew. I got a bit behind editing their pictures this past year. It seems I am more apt to put off personal projects over professional ones, which is an ongoing struggle with many artists who hold professional jobs but have to find the time to make their own art. I really thought when I graduate from grad school that my life would be much simpler. I mean, all I have to do is go to work right? That would leave plenty of time to make my own art and complete personal project. Silly me. I soon found out that teaching is much harder than being a student. There was also self-motivation to deal with. Okay, got off on a tangent…back to the kiddos.

This shoot was from January of 2010. That’s right, I am that behind on posting their pictures. It must have been in the 30s when we did this shoot. Before you go judging, we had Uncle Shannon sitting in the car with the heat running. We took one kid out at a time and only stated for a few minutes at a time. They were troopers and I think it was the fastest shoot we have ever done.