Shooting Fashion spreads for Weddings Magazine is good time. The process usually begins about four months prior at a yummy lunch where we dream up the theme and look of the shoot. This year's shoot was about as opposite of last year as you can get. Last year we shot to a slightly sarcastic fairy princess theme and had a painter create the whimsical scenes over my photographs. This year there was no running theme, but the look was muted color, a tiny bit gritty, with elegant styling and setting. Huge thanks to the crew for making this happen! Sophie for your flawless makeup and magical abilities with big hair . Nikki and Finley for "workin' it", Robyn for pulling all together and not cutting corners, Maureen for not having your baby during the photo shoot and finally Meridith for helping me be in two places at once.
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You may have noticed that the W&W blog has come to a bit of a screeching halt lately. It's not for lack of things to show. We've had lots of sessions, a few magazine features and even a magazine cover that we'll get around to sharing. I have semi, sort of/ kind of, unofficially turned this blog over to my awesome wife Meridith. This time of year my attention usually turns to my personal projects and this year, one of those projects is a new blog. It's not a wedding blog, it's a photography blog. Think of it as the photography version of a man cave, where I can geek out about the kind of stuff that most of our wedding and portrait clients wouldn't care to read about. A place where fellow photo geeks can get together and learn about new stuff, talk about the good old days and yell at each other if they want. It's called: The Beat-up Camera and can be found at www.thebeatupcamera.com Weird name huh? Well, I noticed a long time ago that people who had really nice well cared for equipment in mint condition rarely had many decent images to show. Their camera spent most of it's life in a case because the person was more interested in either the technology or just in the prestige of owning an expensive camera. On the other hand, those whom I've met with outstanding work, the kind of work that makes it obvious that they practice a lot; those people had the kind of equipment that made me wonder how it was held together. How could cameras and lenses that mangled and ugly produce such amazing images? Turns out, it's never been about the cameras or lenses. It's about the eye behind the camera. There is no set schedule or format for The Beat-up Camera blog, but if you want to know what I'm up to, that's a good place to start. Right now I'm talking about assignments that I'm giving my commercial photo students. It even has a Twitter feed so you can keep up with my every move. (stalker!) You should still come back here for all the official W&W information as I won't be cross pollinating content between blogs, but for now, check it out and leave a comment. See you there!
Well, it's official and the word is out. Raleigh Wedding Cars is here and ready to roll! In fact, this past weekend was the official launch at the 2010 Bridal Expo being held Saturday and Sunday at the fairgrounds in Raleigh. The whole thing started with the thought that it would be really cool to be able to photograph our clients not only in beautiful places, but also with really awesome classic cars that reflect their personal style. A few months ago, we happened to be at a wedding in Wilmington and heard that our bride Jennifer had searched high and low for a classic Rolls Royce that could drive her and her Groom Patrick around town for the day. She finally found one that would travel from another town a few hours away. The car was beautiful, classic, and since it was black, made for a fantastic backdrop against her white dress. The other thing I liked was that it looked different from the 1950s style Rolls Royce you see so often at weddings. It looked more modern, but still very classic. I found out later that day that the car was for sale and by the following Monday we had bought it. It's funny how things fall into place sometimes, because a week later, just after I wrapped up a meeting with a local wedding planner I got an email from our friend Joe. It said "Hey, I hear we need to talk, do you have a new project cooking?" It turns out that Joe was in the process of doing the exact same thing but with a very different type of car. Next thing we know we are dreaming up a company that will be supplying the Triangle with the coolest cars available for weddings. There's something for the regal and something for the rock 'n roll crowd. Check out www.raleighweddingcars.com to see what we've been up to.
So before anyone wonders or asks, the answer is no. No, I won't be personally driving the cars on wedding days, no, we won't be offering cars in our photo packages, and no, this will not take any of our attention away from our photography. We have a dedicated manager and she will be running things for us. One fun thing though is that now we have some super cool props for *E* sessions! We plan to add another car by summer and are currently shopping. Do you have a type of car you would like to see at weddings? Give us a shout and we'll give it some thought.
The Rolls is a 1969 Silver Shadow. The image below is from Jennifer and Patrick's wedding day, just three days before RWC was born!
This is our 1966 Lincoln Continental Convertible. It has suicide doors and is almost twenty feet long!
So I’ve waited a while to post about this because I wanted the storm to pass before stirring the pot. A few months ago, we and some of our wedding colleagues were approached by a local news stations to be interviewed on how the “bad economy” has affected the wedding industry in our area. When the day came for the crew to arrive, I decided to split at the last minute because I didn’t have any bad news to report and I got this feeling that the interviewer was looking for a specific doom and gloom angle. Plus the camera makes me look fat.
Sadly, I was right. (on both counts)
When I returned and spoke with the other folks who were interviewed, they confirmed that the interviewer was asking questions specifically related to how bad things were. Any time someone mentioned that in their experience and interactions with their clients, things were not as bad as the media suggests, the interviewer shrugged it off indicating that any possible good news was just not convincing right now. So instead of going out to report the news (which wasn’t all that bad by the way) the people at the news station wrote a story that fed on the public’s fears and went out to find some convincing looking people to support that story regardless of facts. It’s like the news was sponsored by Prozac and their job was to keep people completely depressed.
I don’t watch the news any more. It’s just another reality show gone bad.
If it’s a big story, I’ll hear about it. I heard about Ed, Farrah, Michael and Billy. I’m sure I’ll hear if we go to war with Korea or Iran. Either way I will keep doing what I’m doing and wish the best for everyone. When mom said that everything on TV was pretend, I had no idea it meant EVERYTHING on TV was pretend. Apparently so.