05-11-12

I love it! – Our New Line of Albums

We are pleased to welcome our new line of wedding and engagement albums to the family!  As you know, we are sticklers for quality and these are the best albums that we have found.  They are a perfect fit with our style and blend seamlessly with our photography.  The cover material options are to die for!

Bookmaking and binding is one of my hobbies, so I know what to look for when I see a hand bound book.  Steve and I visited multiple album companies – in person – when we first started offering albums because we wanted to see how they were made and understand the entire process.  That said, we are very confident that you will absolutely love our new line!

Photographs don’t do these bound works of art justice.  Once you hold one in your hands and turn the pages, you will want one of your very own!

Posted in FAQ, I Love It!, Weddings

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05-10-12

Supermoon – Altoona, PA Photographer

Saturday was a Supermoon.  The closest and brightest the moon will be all year.  The kids and I laid out in the back yard on blankets and watched it rise.  They danced in the moonlight and pointed out that they had shadows.  Moon shadows.  It reminded us of one of our favorite books, The Moon Jumpers.

As they lay with their favorite blankets, I snuck around the yard photographing the Supermoon through the apple trees and around the towering pines.

My daughter then took a few photos to enter in the arts festival at the end of the month.  It was a good evening.  An evening for the Moon Jumpers.

After we came in, I looked through the photographs and thought how they looked very much like a sun rise instead of a moon rise.  I even captured a little bit of “moon flare” – see the red in the tree in the last image.  It was beautiful to be out in the yard.  To listen to the geese and frogs from the neighboring pond.  To hear the crickets create a symphony as a huge glowing moon rose above the trees.  How great is our God.

Posted in Personal Art

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05-09-12

Dana + Shane – The Casino at Lakemont – Altoona Wedding Photographer

When you attend the wedding of two people who have know each other since the first grade, there is something special in the air.  Dana and Shane are best friends.  They know each other inside and out and love what they see when they look into each other’s eyes.  After the wedding, I asked Dana what her favorite part about the day was.  Her response was, “I loved feeling so beautiful.  I felt that way because of how Shane was looking at me.”

I enjoyed getting know know Shane and Dana in the months leading up to their wedding and really seeing who they were at their engagement session.  Knowing their past made watching them walk up the aisle hand in hand husband and wife all the sweeter.

One of the things I learned about Shane is that he is the kind of guy who will always be there for you and makes decisions with his whole heart.  I was really touched when I saw him sitting all by himself in the front of the church before the ceremony.  Just thinking.

The wedding ceremony was held just around the corner from the Casino at Lakemont Park in Altoona.  For their portrait session, we went into the amusement park that is right next door.

The reception was held in the Grand Ballroom at the Casino at Lakemont.  Surrounded by family and dear friends the party ran late into the night.  The next week I received an email from Shane thanking us for being their wedding photographers.  He apologized for being short, but he was about to go up in a hot air balloon.  Attached was a photo from the sky.  I smiled as I thought of them together in the air.  Best friends, now husband and wife.

Posted in Weddings

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05-08-12

Portrait Photography – The Culling Process – Altoona Photography Classes

My Intermediate class spent last week getting hands on experience photographing people.  We had several children (including that little cutie above) and an aspiring model there to provide lots of opportunities to gain experience.

One of the things we will be discussing in class this week is how to cull a shoot.  I make a point of providing a set of unique photographs to our clients.  I make the choices for them as part of my service.  I do not send a client a gallery that includes 20 images that all look alike with only slight variations.

With digital photography, it is easy to take hundreds of pictures during a short session, thinking over shooting will produce better results.  The problem is that back at home in front of the computer you are now faced with making the decision as to which ones are the winners.  Knowing how to properly cull and shooting with the end in mind is key to producing quality work for both yourself and those you are photographing.  In a culture where more is better, it is important to learn the power of a single image.

Here are the out takes from the shoot above:

 

Posted in Children, For Photogs, Workshops

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05-07-12

Our Studio – In Progress

One of the many big projects we have been working on is our studio.  As with all of our renovation projects, I was overly optimistic with the time it would take to complete.  I thought that picking the paint color and flooring would be the big part and then the rest would just fall into place in a week or two.  We even had the big table that we are using as our work space.  Alas, finding just the right bits and pieces to surround that workspace has proven to be difficult.  I want the space to reflect me and who I am as an artist.  For clients to be able to get a clear sense of who I am as soon as they walk in the door.  For that reason, I have to love something before I put it in here.

Chairs!?!  Who knew find the right chair would be so hard?  I have purchased 6 different chairs from 2 different stores and none of them have worked out.  I am a little picky, but I want them to be right.  This is the place where I sit for hours on end creating.  I need to be both comfortable and inspired.  It is times like this when I wish I could just run up to New York City for the day to try out and find my perfect office chairs.  I am sure they are there – the big table was.

So far, the walls are painted and most of the artwork is on display.  The furniture (minus the chairs) is in place and that has made a huge improvement over the moving box storage system I had to use for a short time.  My dear friend, Rachel, drove me to two different IKEA stores across three states to help piece together the modern buffet that graces the wall under the framed prints.  She doesn’t know that I also had to make a third trip to yet another IKEA the following week, because some of the parts we bought were damaged. The risk you take when you live 3 hours away from their nearest store!

So today I give you a sneak peak of the main display wall.  More updates to follow, up just one photo for now.

Posted in Us

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