Here it is, way too late at night once again. However, I did manage to finish the first draft of Michelle and Ryan’s wedding album. Here are some of my favorite 2 page spreads from their album. I’m too tired to create the album show and will do so in the next day or so.
Last Saturday I was privileged to photograph Michelle and Ryan’s wedding. Other than it being the hottest Saturday of the year, everything was great. Just in case, Sheryl decided to have our baby, I hired an associate photographer, Mario, to step in should I be called away. Lucky Michelle, she got two photographers for the price of one!
Mario normally works for another studio. They allowed me to use him for the day. It was interesting to see how another studio works and was a reminder of why I have my own studio. Mario was constantly asking to include specific images to fit his employer’s normal requirements.
Since, Mario was with me, Sheryl decided to hold off on going into labor. If I was by myself, you know the baby would decide this was the time to arrive. The important thing is that no matter what happened, Michelle had a wedding photographer. Here are some of the photos I took at the wedding:
Finally, I had just walked back from my car after putting the first load of equipment away when I overheard somebody say, “Oooh, Fireworks!” Not knowing how long before the fireworks show ended, I ran inside and asked my bride and groom if they wanted fireworks photos. “YES!” We all ran outside. Here is the result:
It has been a rather busy week and I got side tracked with a couple of other projects. So please forgive me for not getting a new post up sooner. On the personal front, the family is anxiously awaiting our new arrival. We have nowhere to put the baby but I don’t think that will stop him from coming when he pleases.
Meghan has spent all week at summer camp. I drop her off at 9:00 and pick her up at 3:15. She is having a lot of fun. One day when I picked her up, the kids were working on lanyards… When I went to camp, we called it boondoggle. I still have a box of the stuff hanging around the house. The kids, especially Meghan were surprised at all of the different stitches, knots and braids which I knew how to do. Somehow, I think I will be spending a morning at camp teaching them how to work the strands.
On Thursday, my new camera lens arrived. It lets me do some cool special effects. I can’t use it all the time but there are a couple of times during the wedding when it will provide a neat effect.
Yesterday I photographed Miriam and Paul’s wedding. Miriam had some absolutely stunning flowers. See for yourself:
Then there were a couple of times I was able to play with my new lens. See how much of the church is included in the photo!
Now I just need to practice with this lens a little more to see what else I can do with it.
Congrats to Jason and Maureen who just got married Saturday. I was fortunate to photograph both their wedding ceremonies. They had a traditional Christian wedding which was followed by a handfastening ceremony in the park. It was nice to see something new.
As is my practice, I let the wedding party see some of the photos on my camera’s monitor after I take the picture. This week was no different and yet it was. One of the bridesmaids is planning her own wedding for April 2007. She was travelling back home to Kentucky on Monday. So we planned a meeting for Sunday evening. After seeing me work and the images I showed her, she decided she wanted me as her wedding photographer, even though the wedding is in Indianapolis. She booked me on the spot at our meeting! So welcome Kristen and Brad.
Today we celebrated Mathew’s 3rd birthday, with his Nana and Poppa. They drove in from Milwaukee to give Mathew his gifts(mostly clothes with Thomas on them). Charles and Harriet gave Mathew his first bike when we visited them last week. They couldn’t wait to give it to him.
We even had something for him from Grandpa Allen… A train table. Did I mention that Mathew loves trains? Especially Thomas! Meghan helped me put the table together as well as a 5 year old can. Anyway, for some strange reason, she thinks that her grandpa, Allen, invented the Allen wrench because it is named after him!
We had a great day. I’ll post the photo, including the Thomas cake, in a day or so.
I just finished the first draft of Jenna and Chris’ wedding album. There were so many great images, that I had a hard time decided what shouldn’t be included in the album. I guess that Jenna and Chris will have to tell me what to do next.
You can view the album at http://www.mmpix.com/Webpages/showpages/Jenna.htm
If you have not already done so, you will be prompted to install the Photodex Presenter in order to view the album. I hope you enjoy it.
I finally sorted through over 1100 pictures from Jenna and Chris’ and selected the 900 best photos for them. Now, I have the difficult task of further reducing these photos to select the absolute best ones and design the first draft of their wedding album. Here are 3 of the 9 spreads (2 facing pages) which I have completed so far.
I’m sitting here waiting for the files from Jenna and Chris’s wedding to be complete their backup and thinking back on today. It was wonderful! We could not have had a better day for a wedding. Everything was perfect. While I had mentioned that I wanted to try using mylar with the flowers, I couldn’t find any. I used aluminum foil instead. Totally cool Take a look at the results! Just wait until you see the other photos with the aluminum foil. As you can see from a very small sample of the over 1000 photos we shot, it was a great day, from start to finish!
I just completed the initial album design for Cara and Michael. This means my album design backlog is now less than a month. Currently, I have one initial design to complete and three album redesigns which were requested. Hopefully, I can knock these projects out in another couple of weeks.
In the meantime, I’ve got several office projects to complete. Including cleaning the office, completing my business plan for the upcoming year and writing some articles for the state professional photographer’s magazine.
Furthermore, I’m thinking about creating a special line of parent albums which will be orderable via my website. The parents will select a predefined number of photos and they will be placed one to a page. However, that means making some changes to my website’s on-line ordering system. The work never ends.
Finally, I also need to create a couple of new sample albums. I’ve been selected as a preferred vendor at Starved Rock and Pheasant Run resorts. I’d like to create sample albums specifically for those venues. In addition, my current samples are getting just a touch out of date. I really think that Cara and Michael’s album will make a nice sample with some minor adjustments. You can view their album
By Clicking Here
Anyway, here are two of my favorite spreads from their album
Late last week, my friend Michael Fisher from Studio West called. He unexpectedly found himself short a photographer for his studio’s Saturday wedding schedule and wondered if I could help them out. After making sure my schedule was clear, I said “of coarse!” Even though other studios/photographers are competitors, I try to help them out when I can. I do it for the couple and I never know when I’ll need a favor returned.
Anyway, our bride and groom were Kim and Mark. They were a really nice couple. The wedding was held at the Kemper Center in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The reception was at the Eagle’s Club, also in Kenosha. What a beautiful day for a wedding. Not too hot, not too cold and just the right amount of sun. Kim and Mark were great to work with. With the permission of Michael at Studio West, here are 4 of my favorite photos I took at their wedding.
Sometimes, I get lucky and I’m in the right place at the right time.
We were by Lake Michigan which brought back memories of my own wedding.
Notice Kim’s reflection in Mark’s sunglasses!
Even the sunset cooperated with us. All in all an absolutly perfect day for a wedding!
Delivering a wedding album to a client is full of mixed emotions for me. On one hand it is fun to see the look on the clients faces for the first time as they explore each page and relive their wedding day as they turn the pages. Meanwhile, I’m a little sad because, I grow close to my clients during the time we’re working together. Now with the delivery of the wedding album, my clients will be on their way. If I’m lucky, I get to see my past clients when I’ve been referred to photograph one of their friends or family member’s weddings. It is always nice to see previous clients.
Anyway, today I delivered albums to two clients. Deanna/Jim and Beth/Mike. Two sets of very different clients. Deanna and Jim both have children of their own who are about marrying age. Meanwhile Beth and Mike are just starting lives apart from their parents. However, I enjoyed seeing the looks of their faces as they saw their wedding albums for the first time. Beth practically cried all over again when she saw this page in her album:
So now it is time to archive all of the computer files from both weddings. Then the paper files get packed away. Time to look forward to this year’s clients and the new friends I’ll make.