I shot Jennifer’s senior pictures a couple of years ago and was delighted when she contacted me about shooting her wedding pictures.  She and Clinton have been dating for five years now, so their story is a very sweet one.   Here are some of my favorites from their engagement session this weekend, trying out a new lens and some different toning.   I look forward to Jennifer’s bridal session and Jennifer and Clinton’s wedding.

I’m behind on the blog!  Here are a couple from Chloe’s session.   I was struck by Chloe’s modesty and grace and look forward to photographing the outside portion of her session, since it rained on us on her session day.  I enjoyed spending time with Chloe and her grandparents, up for a visit from Alabama.

Lara is the daughter of one of my classmates from North Clay, Bryan Cox, and his wife, Danette, who grew up in Dieterich.   Lara was a total trooper about the ridiculous heatwave we’ve been having.  She somehow managed to stay looking cool and collected while I walked around in the flowers wiping sweat from my eyes complaining about the heat and the bugginess.    Here’s one of my favorites from the flower patch, though it was hard to choose only one.

So what is it like when two great people from the heartland, who have been friends since childhood get married?   (Yes, that is them on the cover of their program.)  It is sweet, and altogether wonderful.  Here are some highlights from Amy and Rylan’s wedding May 30th at Mt. Gilead church north of Olney.

I appreciated Amy and Rylan including Samantha ( of Harnack Photography) and I in their very special day.  It was an honor.   I wish them all the best.

I hesitated to include the kiss on the cheek turned “lick” from the ring bearer, but it makes me laugh, because that is exactly the kind of stunt that my daughter pulls from time to time.

And the following is August, who was rushing the camera during formals.  I know there is some wide angle distortion here, but I just love her smile and her spirit.

It was great to spend some time with Kyle and Christina during their engagement session.  We shot in the natural light studio, out at the park and finished up in the strobe studio for a range of casual to more traditional photos.   Thank you Kyle, for hanging in there!  I look forward to Kyle and Christina’s wedding this November.  It’s going to be fun and the details sound like they’re going to be particularly lovely.

Here are some favorites from the first part of John Logan’s session.  Next session we’ll shoot studio and something cool with his guitar.    I wanted to get these on the blog today to wish the Cardinals baseball team (coached by John Logan’s dad, John Zink) good luck in the Sectionals.  They’re playing at Flora today at 4:00 against SCHS.  This is the first time the NC baseball team has won Regionals and advanced to Sectionals since 1994.  Good luck!

I posted several of these on my Facebook business page a few days after their wedding, but here are a few highlights for the blog from my great couple, Chris and Lyndsey’s wedding in Salem, IL.

Everyone laughed during the vows when Chris said, “For richer or poorer.  Probably poorer.”  Chris and Lyndsey are both teachers.

And the flower girl was determined to get the ring bearer out on the dance floor, even if she had to drag him.

I believe engagement sessions help my bride and groom on their wedding day, which is why I include engagement sessions in all my wedding packages.   I know that especially with couples from further away, an engagement session is not always practical, so I allow couples to trade the engagement session for an extra hour of coverage at their wedding if need be.

I wasn’t always this way.  Three years ago, I pulled engagement sessions from my basic coverage, offering it as an add on only,  namely because I started worrying I was torturing the guys, who oftentimes didn’t consider an engagement session one of their top five ways to spend a Saturday afternoon.   But I got over that, and now see the engagement session as the couple and my first chance to collaborate, to decide where all we’ll go shoot, to interact about photo ideas, what we like, what we don’t like, to get a sense of one another.  It is important to me to be a known person to my clients, so that they trust me and will let me in, so that I know them.

Meanwhile, of course, we get fun pictures at engagement sessions.  I always shoot some traditional ones suitable for the newspaper engagement announcement and digitally submit those for my brides and grooms to papers of their choice, bundled with their engagement announcement.   I also let the bride and groom choose two images for the front and back of double-sided wallet sized cards to put on the tables at the reception.  Some brides and grooms put their mailing address on these, some put their gallery link.   Everyone loves them, and I print 250 of them for free as long as my info on them somewhere.  The images below are a couple of samples.

This blog post is the first of a unified blog project started by my friends on the foundation workshop forum, where each week we plan to blog about the same topic on the same day.

I love it when other people have great ideas.  It makes my job so much easier.  Lol.  Cassandra loves the forties and fifties and wanted to do something vintage.  She suggested the soda fountain at Bailey’s Flower Garden on the square in Louisville.  I thought that was a great idea, especially because Cindy Bailey is in the process of transforming Bailey’s Flower Garden into a neat coffee shop up front where I will soon be displaying many client images.  It’s going to be cool.  I think grand opening is going to be sometime in the first week of June.  I’ll update this with the correct date and add some images of the photo display, shop redo, etc. ANYWAY, here is Cassandra’s retro pic.  Great idea, Cassandra, I love the pics!  And the cherry coke from the soda fountain was excellent!  Thanks, Marcy!

Tiffany Slankard Cowger started discussing a big family picture with me last fall, but fall is crazy and overbooked and the weather fell apart on us before we could schedule something.   We tried again for spring, and thankfully the weather held for us.  Tiffany’s sister Gwen and her family came in from Millstadt and Tiffany’s brother and sister-in-law, Billy and Leslie came over from Olney.  Tiffany’s parents live in Clay City, so they didn’t have far to travel.  All the kids were very fun, and Dallan showed great patience, since they were heading to his birthday party after pictures.

I enjoyed spending time with everyone.  Here are a couple of the big group photos, one serious, one for fun.