Small Business Love-Up: Bridal Traditions
We’re celebrating and saluting small businesses during a time when they are suffering and waiting to reopen full force. Today, I want to shine the light on Bridal Traditions. Kelly Shumate, the owner of BT and beYOUtiful Boutique … oh how I love this girl. We have been friends for more than a decade and have memories to back up that time. Pixels even created her logo back in the day.
If you find yourself on a small, blue marble hurling through space, you should have a Kelly in your life. I photographed her bridal anniversary portraits, pictures of her with her sweet husband and pup for the holidays, and the Wilkes Wedding Expo for years.
Kelly is community-focused, a smart business woman, a good time Charlie and one of the hardest working women in the biz.
We’ve photographed the Wedding Expo for years including this previous one in 2020, but I have also had the fun and pleasure of accompanying Kelly and her team to Atlanta for prom and wedding markets and buying efforts over the years for her boutique. Watching her work, choose styles and chat with other vendors is the best.
Bridal Traditions just celebrated its 20th Anniversary. I couldn’t be more excited for her, more proud of her, or more happy to have her as one of my best friends. If you aren’t following her on Facebook or Instagram, I hope you will.
We love graphic design and commercial photography whether logo design, brochure design, head shot photos, architectural photography or product shots. At Pixels On Paper we pride ourselves in listening to a broad range of clients and customizing our photography and graphic design services to meet each individual request. Our skills, styles, and visions come together to be a permanent record that either reflects an identity or delivers a message that speaks to thousands. We would be honored to meet with you, learn about you and your business needs. Email us at mail@pixelsonpaper.net or call 336.990.0080 to learn more, receive a quote or to let us know how we can put our skills to work for you.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License
All photos are ©2020 Pixels On Paper. Do not copy, crop, or remove watermark.
Small business love up: Anchor Coffee
Some day, perhaps, this bundle will pop into Anchor for “a cuppa.” For now, he’s a cute side-car at a place we adore.
As we celebrate small businesses during this government and socially sanctioned downtime, I would be remiss if I didn’t shine a light on Anchor Coffee. It’s a place we love filled with people we love.
Our family goes to church with owner Greg Brady and his family and we photographed them during their child’s dedication. It was a precious moment and we were honored to do it.
Anchor is a shop that we visit often for coffee or a beer and they have live music, too. Boy are we missing them during this quarantine time.
Like all businesses in the community, they’re serving as much as they can to stay in business and continuing to be enormous sources of love and light when we need it most.
Are there businesses that you love and miss? If you can, consider buying a gift certificate, ordering curbside or just calling to tell them “we miss you!!” God Bless Anchor and those we get to worship with, pray for and do life with. I hope you will support and follow Anchor Coffee if you’re a Wilkesboro local.
We love graphic design and commercial photography whether logo design, brochure design, head shot photos, architectural photography or product shots. At Pixels On Paper we pride ourselves in listening to a broad range of clients and customizing our photography and graphic design services to meet each individual request. Our skills, styles, and visions come together to be a permanent record that either reflects an identity or delivers a message that speaks to thousands. We would be honored to meet with you, learn about you and your business needs. Email us at mail@pixelsonpaper.net or call 336.990.0080 to learn more, receive a quote or to let us know how we can put our skills to work for you.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License
All photos are ©2020 Pixels On Paper. Do not copy, crop, or remove watermark.
Small Business Love: Waggles Pet Supply
Pixels, like the rest of you fine folks, is quarantined and trying to remain patient, grateful, humbled and empathetic. We’re taking this thing seriously and that recently has taken the form of redoing one of the bathrooms in our house. More on that later…
We thought it would be appropriate, since we are a small business, to highlight some of the small businesses in our area that we love and support, with the hope that you will too. I’m starting with Waggles Pet Supply! Oh how we love these people.
We partnered with Waggles a few years back, and with the help of generous locals, were able to provide 560 lbs of pet food to the Wilkes Animal Shelter. We offered free pet portrait sessions to clients who donated a minimum 15 pound bag of dry pet food to the shelter, and during the two-day event, locals and clients from as far away as Charlotte, N.C., participated.
Pixels has also photographed owner Kim Hatfield and her family (Terri, Rayne, and Journey) for personal portraits on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Kim is a close friend of ours and we get all of our sweet dog Chelsea’s supplies from her and it’s her where she gets a bath. We were the very first to take advantage of her curb service during quarantine.
We hope you’ll go to their website and follow them on social media and support them with purchases for your fur babies. We have to take care of each other during this time! Wash your hands everyone and stay safe. We love you.
We love graphic design and commercial photography whether logo design, brochure design, head shot photos, architectural photography or product shots. At Pixels On Paper we pride ourselves in listening to a broad range of clients and customizing our photography and graphic design services to meet each individual request. Our skills, styles, and visions come together to be a permanent record that either reflects an identity or delivers a message that speaks to thousands. We would be honored to meet with you, learn about you and your business needs. Email us at mail@pixelsonpaper.net or call 336.990.0080 to learn more, receive a quote or to let us know how we can put our skills to work for you.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License
All photos are ©2020 Pixels On Paper. Do not copy, crop, or remove watermark.
Merlefest Memories Part 2 – the music
Merlefest 2020 would have started tomorrow, April 23rd and Ryan, Finley and I would have joined our official photographer pals and hundreds of others who love music to celebrate. Wilkes County fills up with vendors, fans and of course, some of the best bluegrass, blues, indie, folk and country singers and musicians in the nation.
The line-up of musicians each year is impressive to say the least. For 2020, this was true too. Sadly, on April 7, 2020 one of the most beloved musicians and performers around, John Prine, passed away due to Covid-19 – the very reason there is no Merlefest this year. Prine was on the schedule to perform and we were all looking forward to it. Other famous performers included the Avett Brothers, the Steep Canyon Rangers, Willie Nelson, Alison Krauss, Sam Bush and many more from years past.
What began as traditional Appalachian style music that Doc Watson and son Merle just exploded in both interest and talent. The festival benefits Wilkes Community College. If you want to learn more, I would encourage it.
We also want to encourage everyone to consider a gift this year too, since costs were incurred gearing up for the 2020 lineup, set up and coordination. To donate to Merlefest, visit the site.
We love family portraits whether they are set in the studio, the great outdoors, a specific location like the mountains or high country, or on our property in our outdoor portrait garden. Pixels on Paper photographs newborns and families, special events and portraits of all kinds in our Wilkesboro, NC studio. We would be honored to meet with you, learn about you and your family and be a part of taking special portraits that will become, we hope, family heirlooms.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States LicenseAll photos are ©2020 Pixels On Paper. Do not copy, crop, or remove watermark.
Merlefest Memories, Part I – the people
Back before we knew how bad it was going to get with the Covid-19 pandemic, we did know that rough times were on the horizon. The delay and ultimate cancellation of mass gatherings started in mid-March and we were not surprised that Merlefest 2020 was one of them.
It was the responsible thing for organizers to do, but we are certainly missing the crowds and energy this year. Merlefest would have been this coming weekend (April 23 – 26) and we long to be there.
So many new faces come each year to sit outside and enjoy music, play music, camp, sing-a-long and escape for a weekend. And, even more joy-producing, we see many familiar faces year after year. There are some serious fans, vendors and beloved musicians who just cannot stay away. We are part of that cohort, as official Merlefest photographers since 2015.
I mentioned energy before and it’s such a key to what makes Merlefest so special. Everyone wants to be there. It’s not some business conference; it’s a festival. It is a party. Music lovers swap stories, multiple generations show share the experience together, musicians show off their instruments and songs in progress, laugh, collaborate and “pick” together. There’s nothing quite like it. My heart isn’t broken, because I know cancelling was the absolute right call, but it’s a little bruised not to be there to soak up all that wattage. Still, it’s important that we all do our part.
One way that you can do your part this year is to contribute. MerleFest is asking for donations and ticket contributions to raise funds toward incurred expenses. Nearly 90% or more was already in place when it was clear that the shows would not go on. If you can and would like to make a donation, it would thrill us to no end. Go to the Merlefest site and do what you can with our gratitude.
We love family portraits whether they are set in the studio, the great outdoors, a specific location like the mountains or high country, or on our property in our outdoor portrait garden. Pixels on Paper photographsnewborns and families, special events and portraits of all kinds in our Wilkesboro, NC studio. We would be honored to meet with you, learn about you and your family and be a part of taking special portraits that will become, we hope, family heirlooms.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States LicenseAll photos are ©2020 Pixels On Paper. Do not copy, crop, or remove watermark.