Meet Kaitlyn

Just wanted to share a few favorites from our recent session with Kaitlyn!








Congrats, Kaitlyn, on your upcoming graduation! Good luck as you move on to the next big new phase of your life!

Denise & Jarred's Snowy Wedding

This weekend, the weather forecasters from every channel were predicting the worst -- a huge snowstorm starting Friday night with blizzard-like conditions all day Saturday. Not exactly the ideal weather for a late-March wedding! We were praying along with them that conditions would improve and, thankfully, the ground had enough warmth that the snow melted almost as quickly as it fell.

The roads to the north weren't as fortunate, and a lot of the out-of-town family were left stranded up there unable to make it to the wedding. To kick off our first wedding for the year, and to help assuage the misfortune of those who missed it, here are a few of our favorites from the day!

The smaller chapel there at the First Christian Church in Edmond was a beautiful background for some detail shots. Love the stained glass windows!


Denise's bouquet was just beautiful. Her grandmother's watch was the perfect accessory for "something old."


We didn't actually set up this shot... it just kinda happened that while Holly was shooting with Denise, I noticed all of the bridesmaids in the background and thought it made for an interesting image and turned out to be one of my favorites.


I loved their rings! Denise's were just gorgeous, and Jarred's was really uniquely formed as well. It reminds me a little bit of the giant silver bean up in Chicago.


Jarred & Denise didn't want to see each other before the ceremony, but they loved this doorway and took the opportunity to hold hands and have just a moment together. They really couldn't see each other, I promise. =) The spontaneous giggling and laughing was so fun to watch, we couldn't help but laugh and giggle ourselves!



Just loving the moody feel of this image, moments before walking down the aisle...




The getaway car was really smooth... a vintage convertible Mustang. The weather didn't cooperate to have the top down, but it was a classy ride nonetheless. =) Love this shot Holly got shooting through the half-opened window.


The reception was at the Quail Creek Golf & Country Club where the girls were prepared for a little boot-scootin'. You can see here that the snow had already melted by the time we got to the reception, and it was looking like Spring again even though it was really quite cold.



Jarred looking debonair... He didn't have to try hard. In fact, it was almost funny how the ladies at the wedding couldn't stop talking about how handsome Jarred is. =) Denise and Jarred both were stunning and we expected no less of them on their wedding day!


"Something blue" appeared as Denise's new initials on the bottom of her shoes in rhinestone. We got some better close-up shots of the shoes for later, but I couldn't resist blogging this image of the two of them.


Your wedding was so beautiful, it was an honor to be a part of it and to see your love for each other throughout the day. Have a great time in Cancun!

Feedburner Issues...

Apparently, FeedBurner was acquired by Google and has since started having issues related to timely delivery of our blog posts to subscribers. This is randomly affecting those of you who subscribed to receive our blog posts by email.

It appears that older blog posts are being sent randomly and that the new posts are being delayed for a few days and then being sent out several posts at a time.

Just wanted to send out a brief note acknowledging the issue and letting you know we're pursuing how to resolve it. If it continues, I wouldn't blame you at all for unsubscribing from FeedBurner and subscribing via Google Reader.

Meet John

We had a few minutes this evening after downloading memory cards to check out a couple of favorites from today's senior session. Even though we have a few others that need to be retouched, I couldn't resist working on a couple of images that jumped out at me while we were shooting. (Sorry about the pun... wasn't intentional! =)

Anyway, just wanted to share one with you that I thought you might enjoy!


Thanks for a fun session, John! I enjoyed your sense of humor, as we talked about how funny it is that some people name their photographs. And in honor of our conversation, I'd like to call this image, "Rebel Shadow on a Red Brick Wall."

There... That's long enough to be a respectable name. =)

Food Update: Crepe Recipe & Margherita Pie

It's funny and disturbing how many of my status updates are related to food. =) Here's a blog post dedicated entirely to food. My apologies in advance to anyone who is on a strict diet!

On Saturday, Holly and I made strawberry crepes for breakfast and we got lots of comments from you, requesting the recipe. So, here ya go! If you try them out, we'd love to hear how you like them and how it goes!!

Crepes:
4 eggs
4 T. melted butter
1/2 t. salt
1 C. cold milk
1 C. cold water
2 C. flour
In a blender, beat eggs, salt and melted butter. Add water and milk and beat in flour. Mix until well blended (no lumps). Now, they say to refrigerate it at least 2 hours or overnight, but we never think this far ahead so we don't know how much better it might be if we ever did that step. =) In a heated crepe pan, pour enough batter to just cover the bottom of the pan thinly. Brown slightly on one side, then flip and fry slightly on other side. Cool and stack in layers. Crepes may be made in advance, but must be used at room temperature. Makes about 16 six-inch crepes. I prefer to make about 10 ten-inch crepes since my Mom always used to make them bigger.

For filling, we like to use fresh strawberries, cut and sprinkled with a little sugar. Holly also makes the most delicious cream cheese filling that provides a little smoothness and zest. It's just basically 8oz. cream cheese, 1/4 cup of powdered sugar and a couple of tablespoons of freshly squeezed lemon juice (half a lemon). Beat until smooth and enjoy!

We have some leftover strawberries, so I just may have to make another batch this morning.

In other food-related news... =) Matthew (from Humble Pie) came over last night and made his latest genius creation: a margherita pizza. No, not like the drink -- that's what I first thought, too. Here's a picture.


It's got an olive-oil sauce instead of red sauce, a blend of 5 cheeses, then sprinkled with fresh tomatoes and basil. It sure is a beautiful pie, and it really went down easy. =) The two of us polished most of it off without much trouble and enjoyed every delectable bite!

There is a down side to having great cooks in the family, that people probably don't think of much. It makes it harder to enjoy eating out! Seriously! Holly's Dad has ruined steak for me. His ribeye and filet are so juicy, tender and flavorful that even Ruth's Chris Steakhouse was a letdown last time I went there. Now Matthew's doing that with his pizza and Holly's done that with her Chicken Piccata, too.

Somehow, I'm sure I'm not getting a lot of sympathy from this... =)

Samuel's Senior Portraits

Well, it's late o'clock and I finished editing another high school senior session. I'm loving these images and just had to share them. My reward, once I have this post up, is dinner. =) So, if there are typos, I'll thank my amazing brother, Sean, in advance for catching them and letting me know! =) (Ladies, he's available!)







On this session, I was able to put to good use several of the great textures I got on our little texture excursion last week. Do you like the textures?

I just noticed that every picture I posted is of Sam not smiling. Sam has a great smile and most of his pictures are smiling, but for whatever reason, I was drawn to these as my favorites to post on the blog. You don't mind, do you? Honestly, I guess the non-smiling images tend to look more like art than the giant smiling images.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you had a great hump day (Wednesday). It's all downhill from here to the weekend!

The Williams Kiddos

Just wanted to share some favorites from a session we just finished editing.


Love this image of her skipping along the rocks...





It was tough to get a serious face...


...when really they actually were such hams!


Our faves are always the images showing love and interaction like the next few images.




Isn't this weather just delightful? I heard that tomorrow is going to be quite a contrast, but it sure is a sweet taste of Spring to have such nice weather.

It's funny how the warm weather prompts everyone that it's time for portraits this time of the year. We got from zero calls average per day to about a dozen or more. =) Honestly, if we got more than that, we'd probably have to hire an administrative assistant.

Food for thought... How long has it been since you had professional portraits done? Time flies! I was thinking recently that photography is, in one sense, a luxury item because it's easy to put off or buy cheaply. In reality, though, I think photography and photographs are among the most valuable things in our lives, when you remember that they top the list of things you would most likely think to save in a house fire.

Hope you all had a great St. Patrick's day! Holly and I did date night with Ted's Cafe Escondido's fajita chicken enchiladas and a full pint each of their queso and salsa. We have yet to finish the enchiladas. =)

Charles & Nicole :: Engaged!

Several weeks ago, Charles contacted me to photograph his proposal to Nicole. He had seen us at work at one of his friend's weddings and we were excited to be able to help!

Well, the proposal photos turned out below my expectations due to lack of lighting - the sun set and the proposal spot turned out to be too dark for great pictures! Lesson learned... =)

Anyway, Charles was understanding and accepted my offer to re-shoot a full engagement session to get some really great images of the two of them. Just thought I'd share a few of my favorites from the session!








Cheever's restaurant is one of their favorites and is a really meaningful landmark for them, so we worked a few in with Cheever's in the background. It really is a great restaurant... If you haven't been there, definitely try it out sometime! Nice and small, great food, and relaxing atmosphere. You might want to insure wheel locks on your car before parking it, though. =)



Congratulations, Charles & Nicole! You're a beautiful couple and I really enjoyed getting to know you! View the rest of your proofs online here.

Fun Shooting Today - Texture Hunt

This afternoon I had the pleasure of shooting just for fun, gathering textures for use in the future. It's amazing how much money can be spent on textures, so a texture excursion (I'm tempted to call it a texcursion, but does everything really need to have a witty name? =) seemed like a good idea to bolster our library.

Besides enjoying the fine company of Todd and Zach, I think we all enjoyed getting out and shooting just for the fun of it.

Here's a shot of Todd I took today with a couple of textures added for interest. I really like the texture used on the 2nd one a lot... It's in my favorite texture folder now. =)



Hopefully Todd won't hate me for posting it. It's not a bad picture of Todd, actually (in my opinion). His expression deserves a title, though. Any suggestions? =)

Here's a "before" picture of the image used in the above two images, just so you can tell that he wasn't actually standing in front of a cracked up wall. Todd, AKA "Handsome Devil"


And here's a textured image from my most recent engagement session...


Charles & Nicole, your engagement session should be finished and ready to view tomorrow! First, I need to catch up on my lost hour of sleep from daylight saving time.

Nicole

Just wanted to post my favorite image from today's editing!


This may be a record for me (brevity)! Lots going on and not enough time for it all today. =)

Nicole, you can see the rest of your images here. Was a blast working with and getting to know you and your parents!

FastTrack Photographer

I had the great pleasure of hearing Dane Sanders speak a couple of weeks ago at WPPI. It was a soul-searching presentation and I have thought on it every day since then. I do need to go back over my notes on it, but it impacted my life.


Well, I just bought his audio book, Fast Track Photographer, and he's allowing me to share the e-book version of it with up to three other people. So, I immediately thought of my beloved blog readers. If you're a wedding photographer or an aspiring wedding photographer and you'd be interested in receiving the e-book version of Fast Track Photographer, let me know by leaving a comment below with your email address. The first three to comment that they'd like the e-book will get it for free!

Happily sharing the love,
~c =)


P.S. Wow, only one smiley face today! That's a record, I think.

Starting a Business? (1000 Words)

Recessions are actually great times to start businesses. Recession-time entrepreneurs have to be nimble, decisive, and quick learners; and by the time the recession is over, these entrepreneurs/businesses have a huge head start over everyone else who then realizes they should start a business.

I've just started reading The Entrepreneurial Imperative: How America's Economic Miracle Will Reshape the World. It's a fascinating study on the power of entrepreneurship and how it's our last important competitive advantage here in America. "Entrepreneurship alone -- not anything else -- can give America the necessary leverage to remain an economic superpower," he says.


I'm only only a few chapters into it, but it's really been inspiring so far.

If you're going to start a business, good advice must be a top priority! It's easy to jump in and make mistakes that will take years and lots of money to undo. Like your business name, for instance... Check with the Secretary of State to see if your business name idea has already been used and register the name to protect it from others using it.

Holly got our business name "Prints Charming Photography" registered back in 1999 and I'm really glad she did because they seem to be popping up in every other state now. We only wish we'd have registered it nationally back then. I can imagine how confusing it would be if there were another Prints Charming in the OKC area.

Some time back, I met with a mother/daughter team getting back into photography as a business and their name idea was "1000 Words Photography." Yesterday I heard of another photographer starting up a business with the same name, so I did a search and found no fewer than four other businesses using the same name "1000 Words Photography." It's witty and I like that, but I can't believe there are four! Ouch. Three or four of them are just begging to be sued and nobody wants to be a part of that.

Seriously, here are the four I found in about 30 seconds... And I never did find the new startup, so there's yet another one out there.

http://www.a1000wordsphotography.net/index2.php

[this link was removed at request of the photographer]

http://www.wedj.com/dj-photo-video.nsf/moreinfo!open&mistysmith

http://www.capture1000words.com

They're all completely different companies, owners, photographers and sites within about a 70 mile radius. It must be really confusing for people to find the right one.

Here's a link to a concise list of to do's if you are thinking about starting a business, courtesy of the OK Dept. of Commerce. If you get overwhelmed easily over these kinds of to do's, just have your accountant take care of them for you. Better to pay and have them done right than procrastinate and get yourself in trouble.

The 80's vs. Today :: Economic Indicators

Can you believe it's March already?! I love it! Since January and February are our slowest months (as on-location photographers, we're subject to the weather) we kinda hibernate over winter and emerge in early March to start shooting again. =) Daylight Savings Time begins early this year -- next weekend! -- so don't forget to turn your clocks ahead on Saturday night.

I try not to post too much political and other editorial "news" here since we get enough from just about ever gadget in our lives these days, but when I saw this data I thought it may be interesting and obscure enough that it might be of some interest to at least some of you. =)

To quote the Carpe Diem blog, "It could be a lot worse. It **WAS** a lot worse in the early 1980s."

With all of the incredibly negative news that we hear every day, I thought a little perspective might be just what the doctor ordered. =) I've found the Carpe Diem blog a very insightful and interesting read on Economics and Finance during these crazy times.

Happy Monday, everyone! Make it a great week!!