Thanksgiving Holidays

Hi, everyone!! We're back from several days away from the computer (and phone, too... there's a story...) and we had a wonderful time with Holly's family over the super-long weekend. Holly's brother Micah was in town briefly courtesy of the Air Force, and we packed in weeks' worth of fun in just a few days.

No turkey was eaten at all this year... Holly's dad suggested steak and everyone wanted to take him up on it, and we're sure glad we did. I think it was his best batch ever and we had no trouble eating steak with eggs for breakfast and leftovers for lunch and dinner! =) Funny, but I think we could all get used to that new tradition.

I'm pretty sure the pilgrims wanted steak for the first Thanksgiving ever, but they couldn't risk losing their milk cow, so they settled for turkey.

Anyway, on Saturday afternoon, we decided to all go out and watch a movie down at Harkins Bricktown Cinema. I responsibly and courteously turned my phone on silent and then proceeded to lose it while the movie was playing! I think the B.O. wafting down from someone in the row behind us must have distracted me, because I didn't even notice until I got home and couldn't find it. I frantically called it and searched everywhere, but to no avail. I even called the theater and had them search the seats we were in, but nothing turned up, so I temporarily suspended my cell phone service so nobody could use it.

Well, if you ever lose anything at Harkins, you may want to keep in mind that there's a hidden tray between each seat that catches fallen stuff. I saw more quarters and candy wrappers than you could imagine could ever fall between seats. =) After searching with a flashlight at like 2:10AM, we finally found it in one of those trays full of wrappers and trash next to the seat I was sitting in.

Whew! What a relief! T-Mobile was great to work with throughout the entire process and they had the phone's service restored immediately after I found it.

Anyway, if you tried calling late on Saturday and got a funny message from T-Mobile, that's the story.

Hope your Thanksgiving was just as enjoyable as ours and as filled with love and family!

Wes & Serena: Destination Wedding

We had a really beautiful day to shoot Wes and Serena's engagement portraits. I have a handful of other sessions still to retouch before I get to this one, but as I was looking through them these four caught my attention and I wanted to share them with you.

Since Wes is a pilot, and since they're having a destination wedding in Florida next year, what better place to get some great engagement photos than at the airport next to Wes's favorite super-sporty Cirrus airplane?





At one point in the session, I was laughing because Serena & Wes were talking about the plane like any other couple would be talking about a family car. Serena wasn't sure it would hold all of the kids comfortably, with gear, etc. I'm not much of an airplane aficionado, but Wes told me later that this Cirrus is like the sports-coupe of airplanes, so there's no way 3 kids will fit in the back.

Wes and Serena, thanks for a fun, unique photo session! I'll be retouching your photos right after Thanksgiving so you'll be seeing the rest of them soon!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

Cable vs. DSL, take 2

Who would have thought that one of our blog readers would be married to the data engineer manager at Cox? Thanks to Joy, one of our readers (and a fellow photographer - you can see her work here), we're enjoying fast cable Internet speeds like never before... So, after saying that I felt Cox was overpriced and slow, I feel I should follow up with what I've learned.

Richard, Joy's husband and the data engineer manager, did some checking into our neighborhood cable and actually uncovered an issue that was interfering with the cable speed and reliability. After fixing that issue, he emailed me (within one day... talk about customer service!) and inquired about our speeds. It didn't seem to make a really big difference to me, so he offered to swing by and check out our setup here at home to do some further testing/investigating.

Embarrassingly enough, it turns out that I was mistaking "KBps" for "Kbps." Yeah, I can hear you all saying, "Hey, those look the same to me." Actually I had forgotten, but the small "b" stanks for bits and the capital "B" stands for bytes. One byte = roughly 8 bits, so 100KBps = roughly 800Kbps. That was my issue. I was expecting upload speeds of 500KBps when I was getting around 100. Turns out my 100KBps is actually more than the expected 500Kbps that my level of cable Internet comes with.

So, besides a little helping of humble pie, we're doing really well with our cable Internet speeds after all. And in the not-too-distant future, it sounds like we can expect to have increased burst speeds uploading, which will be very nice indeed!

Thanks, Joy & Richard, for being so proactive and helpful! I'll tell ya, it's really nice to have such well-connected readers! =)

Happy Thanksgiving week, everyone!

Another Oklahoma Sunset

Just had a minute to finally share a beautiful sunset from a couple of nights ago. Yet another Oklahoma sunset picture taken from my own front porch.


There are a lot of prettier places to live in the world, but not many that have such beautiful skies, sunrises and sunsets as Oklahoma.

BTW, no retouching at all was done to this photo to intensify colors, etc... just posted straight from the camera after putting our border and logo on it.

We're working hard to get as much done before Thanksgiving as possible! If you're waiting on proofs, we'll be working on yours very soon. Thanks for your patience during this time of the year! It's always busiest right around Thanksgiving, gearing up for the holidays. The slow months (January and February) are looming, but we're actually kinda looking forward to it. =)

Saints Foundation Ball & Auction

Last Friday, I helped the Saint Anthony Foundation by photographing their big Charity Auction and Ball downtown at the newly renovated Skirvin Hotel. It was a lot of fun and we got a lot of great pictures of the evenings speakers, bidding, mingling and fun!

Here are a few just for fun, but you can click on any of these photos to see the rest and even purchase some of your favorites if you attended. Or, just paste this address into your browser: http://pictage.com/398112

Details from the dinner tables

The silent auction tables

Silent auction bidding

More fun details

Capturing a fun moment in time

The most impressive auctioneer!

You know, it's actually quite hard to catch bidders in the act

I loved all of the intense colors and great decor. The Skirvin staff seem to know how to put on a good event!

And, oh, what a dessert table!

Now it's back to retouching weddings and portrait sessions... Thanks for stopping by!

Lauren's Senior Pictures

Lauren has been so patient with us as we deal with our normal Christmas rush (the busiest ever for us!). I just started retouching them this morning and I was loving the first three, so I thought I'd post them right away to share them! =)




Lauren, the rest should be ready a little later today!

Today is going to be a party here at the Sangree's... Addie turns 3 today and I think she's really enjoying the extra pampering and accommodations today already. But that's how birthdays should be. =) I'm already anticipating tomorrow when she wonders what happened to all the special treatment and gift-giving? =)

Happy Wednesday!

Photos in the Park

Thanks, Kevin, for grabbing this action shot of me last night during our engagement session at the park! We had great weather and the Fall colors are just brilliant right now. The couple in the picture, Paula & Matt, are wedding customers of ours and were a lot of fun to work with. I can't wait for the wedding next Spring!

After the engagement session, I had about an hour to burn downtown, so I hit one of my favorite hangouts, Brew Ha Ha coffee shop, to play a little Guitar Hero before heading down to the Skirvin to photograph the Saint Anthony Hospital Foundation's charity auction & ball. Fun times!

Then I ran into another couple whose wedding we'll be photographing next Summer over at the Art Museum. They invited me to swing by and crash their party since they had hired out the entire Art Museum and they were just walking around enjoying the art. I couldn't resist since I hadn't yet seen the museum, so I headed over there and walked around with them for a few minutes before heading home.

Was a long afternoon, but it's fun to have so much packed in.

And now, speaking of packing in, it's just about time to head out to another wedding!

The Higgs-Forgey Wedding

So far, the award for the smallest wedding party including guests and everyone goes to Julie & David with their intimate wedding downtown at the Crystal Bridge with the reception at Nonna's.

As much as I'm dying to finish up retouching the entire wedding so that I can post more about it, Julie is dying even more to see the pictures, so here are my faves from getting ready that day.

Shot through the crack between the door and the door frame. =)

The bride's shoes on top of a cool lamp in the room at the Skirvin.

Okay, this bow was hand-tied by the bride's friend (pictured below). Although they didn't have a wedding party stand up with them since it was such a small ceremony, I've never seen a better maid of honor! She was one of the best attendants I'd ever seen.

Tying the big bow. An amazing art/talent in itself!

Right before the ceremony...

More to come, but I have to run out for another session, so check back again soon!

Available on Nov. 14, 27 & for Christmas Parties

So Blogger has been giving us fits for the last few days, making blogging next-to-impossible. If you happened upon our blog yesterday at just the right time, you may have seen three of the exact same post, up for your reading pleasure. =) They appear to have it working again since I was able to actually post something moments ago, so I thought I'd let everyone know that we have a couple of spots come available this month: specifically November 14th and 27th.

Of course, we never like to hear that one of our customers is having to deal with sickness or a death in the family, but our customers are always happy to hear that it's okay to reschedule and we understand that the unforeseen is bound to happen from time to time.

So, if you've been putting off calling us or have been discouraged due to our busy schedule, now is your chance to get on our photo calendar!

Also, today I was able to meet briefly with one of our corporate customers (Bronco Drilling) who has booked us to cover their corporate Christmas party. I think it's going to be a lot of fun since it's going to be a "Cowboy Christmas" theme and jeans are going to be everywhere. =) Maybe it's time I bought myself a cowboy hat so I'll blend in well with everyone. =)

Bronco Drilling seems to be a really cool, up-and-coming business. They just moved into a new building just about a mile South of us on May Ave. and they're buying out the entire building in the next couple of months to expand their offices. Just walking in and meeting the two people I saw, I was impressed with the enthusiasm and excitement that seemed to be there in the office. It's great to work with progressive and forward-thinking companies that are taking care of business and their own employees so that even an outsider can tell when they walk in.

Plus, their logo looks Apple-esque, doesn't it? =)


Keep us in mind if you have a Christmas party or other event coming up and if you could use some good photos of the event.

DSL vs. Cable Internet

I'm kinda thinking about switching to AT&T's DSL internet service since my cable internet is kinda slow and maybe a bit overpriced from Cox. Any of you have any advice or experience comparing the speeds of the two? I've never used DSL and I've always thought it was slower than cable, but I've been hearing conflicting reports.

Anyway, if you have any thoughts on the subject, I'd love to hear them!

Technorati and a Picture of Storie

So I had this idea to submit our blog to Technorati for inclusion in their daily listing of blogs about certain subjects. Art and Photography are both subjects they cover, so we'll see what happens!

To get the ball rolling, I need to post this link to our Technorati Profile, which, incidentally, has not yet been set up.

If you've never heard of Technorati, it's worth checking out!

~

EDITED: 10:52AM

Okay, we're set up, but it would help if everyone would click on the following link so Technorati knows that we actually have readers! (All 5 of you, you know who you are... =)

Here's the link:



I'm not going to lie to you, if you don't have a Technorati account, they're going to ask you to come up with a username and password (it's free) so it's not just a one-click deal, but it's not painful if you decide Technorati looks cool and you'd be interested in checking it out anyway.


Okay, and no post is complete without a photo. Here's one that Holly did of our youngest, Storie, recently. You have to love Canon... We had the camera set at 1600 ISO accidentally when we should have had it at maybe 400 ISO. With the Nikon D200 we used to have this picture would have been unusable. But due to Canon's masterful high ISO functionality, there's no noticeable digital noise (or grain) even at that high ISO. Pretty awesome!

Okay, I'm powerless to resist. I can't post just one picture of her. We'll start with her most flattering pose...




Oh man, I can already tell I'm in for it. I mean, look at these eyes!

Baca Family Preview

Last night we had the privilege of meeting and photographing the very fun Baca and Wallace families. Andrea called us a few weeks ago to set up a time to get her entire family together including kids, siblings and parents and I think they earned the award for the best sense of humor all week. We laughed for a good part of the session which always facilitates the best photos.

Turns out, Andrea's mother is about to have an article published nationally, so we quickly retouched these two photos to be included with the article.



Mark & Susan, let us know how you like them! I'll send the high-res files on to the publisher for you once I get your okay. =)

It was a pleasure helping you guys out and we'll let you know just as soon as we have the rest of the photos retouched and ready for you. You have such a beautiful family!

Kindest regards,
Christian & Holly