Beverly and Tim's Wedding on August 26, 2006
What a great way to start the fall season! Beverly and Tim's wedding brought us to Stuart, Virginia, the birthplace of J.E.B Stuart at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The ceremony was held at Bev's parent's home on a site overlooking the water and underneath the shade of trees. The reception took place at the Historic Star Theatre, which Bev's parents spent over a year renovating and now operate.
The highly personal nature of Tim and Bev's wedding provided many unique picture taking opportunities. My favorite part of the day was the drive from the Beasley home to the Star, Bev and Tim rode in style in Bev's father's sa-weet antique Lincoln convertible. We tailed behind and Sam hung out of our sun roof to get pictures of the drive on country roads. At the Theatre, guests found a small bell at their seat with instructions to "ring for a kiss". Family members from Japan played a big part in the day and we were told that the cake had the Japanese character for "love" inscribed at its base. Late in the evening, a slideshow was projected onto the big screen while guests danced beneath it.
We want the thank the Beasley and Miller families for their hospitality and Bev and Tim for inviting us to be part of such a unique event. To see more pictures from the day,
click here to see a slideshow of our favorites. If you would like to be notified by email when all Bev and Tim's pictures are ready for viewing,
click here. All their pictures will be released to the couple by Friday, September 8th.
Stop... Album Time!
The Fall 2006 season is about to drop so its time to get album orders rolling for our Spring and Summer clients. We've got a deadline: all orders must be placed with our respective bookmakers by NOVEMBER 1ST to guarantee delivery in time for the holidays. While this date sounds far away, we want to make sure we have the time to give each album design the personalized attention it deserves so get your choices to us by September 15th and we'll have your albums in time for the holidays.
We are excited to introduce a new bookmaker to our catalog: Cypress Albums. Cypress brings an elegant twist to the timelessness of the matted album by using exquisite Japanese fabrics for binding. Each album is bound by hand and includes a matching presentation box custom made to protect your album over time. We feel that these tactile books are a classic and romantic alternative to sleek, modern album options and a perfect addition to our well rounded catalog. Check out some visuals:
We have also updated our Asuka line with new pricing which includes dust jackets and slip covers with your names engraved. Old prices are still honored, but in case you want to upgrade, here's what it looks like:
And just for inspiration, check out the album designs we have finished most recently and put into production:
Tiffani and Denny's Parents AlbumThis is a 10"x7" 28 page Asuka coffee table book with a photographic hardcover
Jordan and Peter's AlbumA 12"x12" Queensberry Duo Album with a chocolate leather cover, sepia toned photo plate, ivory matts with chocolate pagemount liner, a vellum introduction page, a split wing opening page and a flip page (fold out three page spread) during the ceremony.
Blair and Chip's AlbumA 10"x10", 60 page Asuka coffee table book with a photographic hardcover
Jenny and Ira's Album (Sample)This was designed as a house sample. Its a 14"x10" Queensberry Matted Album with a brushed aluminum cover and b/w photo plate, a vellum introduction page, and ivory matts with silver pagemount liner
The following albums are currently in the design phase:
Savitri and Michael: 12x12 Queensberry Duo Album
Erin and Billy: 12x12 Queensberry Duo Album
Baby Larkin's Brag Book: 5x5 Hardcover Brag book, 20 pages
The following albums are ready for the design phase:
Leah and Jon: 12x12 Queensberry Matted Album
Beryl and Brendan: 12x12 Queensberry Duo Album
Caitlin and Kerry's Guest Book (from engagement session): 30 Page Asuka Coffee Table Book
To get your album into design, give us your album choice and photo selections as soon as possible - if you are torn on photo selelctions, leave the work to us. If you would like to make an appointment to see samples and review options, get in touch soon. If you need a refresher on pricing, send us an email. Albums are the best part of the process, they are the culmination of all the hard work into a finished, lasting book that will be loved for generations to come... lets get to it!
Catch Series: The Second Installment
Mayfly 30"x60" c-print
Midge 30"x60" c-print
Popper 30"x60" c-print
Nymph 30"x60" c-print
Bait 30"x60" c-print
As my opening at
Artspace on September 22nd gets closer, I thought I would build upon my last post on the Catch Series just to get back in the mood...
In the beginning, I was interested in the parallel between dating and fishing. As Sam and I began shopping for flies (lures) together, I began to ask questions about fly fishing. I noticed that our fly boxes were quite different: mine full of brightly colored critters that resembled tropical fish and exotic sea creatures, Sam's box full of smaller, earth colored insects. I learned that you want to use a fly that resembles whatever it is that a given fish would encounter in their environment and want to eat. This makes sense: if you want to catch a trout, you have to know what a trout likes to eat. A trout's diet will be different from a salmon, a bass or a tarpon. To complicate matters, their eating habits vary seasonally, according to what insects or fish are hatching or maturing.
So appearance is the name of the game in fly fishing as well as dating. If you know what you want to attract, you have to know its appetite. This prompted me to think about the many "phases" my outward appearance underwent in order to blend into my environment and coax the attention of the catch at hand.
Which then led me to think about archetypes of female sexuality: cheerleaders, prom queens, and so on. But I didn't stop with teen drama because we continue to modify our disposition as our own dating appetites shift away from youth, hard bodies and popularity towards a desire for... gulp... marriage, wealth and white picket fences. So I casted different types of women in the hopes that the viewer could imagine the type of guy she wants to attract just by how she looks.
In the beginning, I used vocabulary common to dating and fishing to title each piece such as "line", "hook", etc. As I learned more about different types of flies, a whole new world of words opened themselves up to me. If you want to get more specific, anglers tie an array of different flies: zonkers, wooly buggers, poppers, clausers, streamers, etc. Midges, nymphs and caddis' are types of flies just like the art piece references a type of woman.
Stay tuned for more... BTW, "Bait" is the piece that won the Virginia Museum of Fine Art's Professional Fellowship in 2005.
Amy and Will's E-Session on August 11th
Amy and Will met their freshman year at the University of Richmond in a Latin class. When we asked if they were going to exchange vows in Latin next May, they admitted that learning Latin may not have been their priority that particular semester...
I never took Latin (and have the SAT scores to prove it) but learned a couple Greek words for love in a theology class I took my freshman year: eros (romantic love) and philia (friendship). Seems to me that both are requisite for marriage and its apparent that Amy and Will are the best of friends, we're grateful that they were so willing to goof around with us and our cameras.
The Univeristy of Richmond's scenic campus provided us with fun, collegiate backdrops. We have lots of favorites to share both here and in a
preview slideshow.
Drop us a line If you would like to be
notified by email when their full engagement session is available for viewing. Congratulations to Amy and Will on their engagement, we're already looking forward to their wedding on May 5th of next year at the Mill at Fine Creek!
the buzz on Baby Larkin at 12 weeks
I knew Larkin was going to be a gorgeous kid but was not expecting to meet this blue eyed little bombshell last Saturday:
I've known Larkin's mom, Kelly, for a couple years now and wanted to take pictures of Larkin as a shower gift. I was pretty nervous about it since a) there's a fine line between heartfelt and tacky when it comes to homemade gifts and b) baby photography is new territory for me. But I enjoyed myself and it was awesome to encounter Kelly and Ahmet as parents:
And really, who wouldn't smile for these guys?
I'm torn between these two family shots for my favorite, I love the scale in the b/w but like that I got the "Larkin" blocks in the lower right hand corner of the color shot.
This shot is fun because you can see Kelly peeking in the mirror and you can also read Larkin's name on the cross-stitch blanket her grandma made for her:
This one caught my imagination because it seemed like the bees in the mobile are projecting their stripes down into the crib to make sweet, busy bee dreams for Larkin:
Between the furniture and the sunny colored walls of the nursery, I was seeing bee stripes everywhere. Larkin's nursery is the bees knees:
Click here to check out a slideshow with some pictures from the day. As you can tell, I had a blast so enjoy!
Caitlin and Kerry's E-Session on August 3rd
We tried desperately to reschedule but between vacations and back to school plans, we were destined to shoot during the highest temperatures of the summer so far. Caitlin and Kerry barely broke a sweat and we had so much fun on their shoot that it hardly seemed to matter. I brought a cooler with drinks, C&K brought a change of clothes, and we all managed to stay comfortable and creative despite the weather.
For one thing, C&K chose a really fun location to build an engagement session around. Both Kerry and Caitlin's father worked together to build the treehouse in the recently opened Children's Garden at Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens, which is how the couple met. This is the treehouse in the background:
Because it was so warm, we had the place all to ourselves. While we took a lot of great shots within the gardens, some of my favorite shots were taken inside the treehouse itself:
At the foot of the Children's Garden is a "hand garden" dedicated to those who had a hand in the making of the center (in terms of donations, we assume). We thought it would be appropriate to get Caitlin and Kerry's hands in there since Kerry literally had a hand in creating it. It was a lucky break that Kerry was wearing that blue shirt!
Click here to see a slideshow with more of our favorite shots from the day. We chose Idlewild's "Live in a Hiding Place" for the slideshow tune since it made us think of playing hide and go seek and seemed to fit a playful shoot. If you would like to be notified by email when the full session is available online,
click here.
We congratulate Caitlin and Kerry on their engagement and look forward to their wedding on May 26th of next year, we're already looking forward to it.
We're now part of the WPJA!
Last week was a busy week for us, we have a few exciting announcements and a couple new shoots to share so bear with us as I catch everyone up!
Most notably, we were notified of our acceptance to the
Wedding Photojournalist Association (WPJA) this past week. The WPJA is an international organization which promotes photojournalism in wedding photography by educating the public, helping couples find photographers in their area who use the approach, and helping photojournalists excel in their careers. Members of the WPJA are screened and approved for membership if their work demonstrates committment to quality wedding photojournalism within strict guidelines. In addition, the WPJA hosts contests in several categories in order to showcase the best contemporary work world-wide.
We encourage you to check out their site to see the talent that is out there and to learn what distinguishes wedding photojournalism from other approaches. We were drawn to the WPJA because of their committment to the craft so its nice to be recognized by this organization.
