Event Photography

If you are new to our blog, welcome! Look around and make yourself at home. One thing you’ll notice fairly quickly if you visit the commercial page of our blog, is that we have been Official Photographers at Merlefest every year since 2015. And we love it. We love ALL OF IT.

We love the dynamism, the energy, the chaos, the crowds and fans, and BOY do we love the music. As photographers, we are all over the place during that weekend of bands, vendors and community celebrations. Our task is to capture all of it – not just the various stages where some of the best performances you’ll ever see are taking place. We roam on a schedule and freely and it’s all amazing.

Pixels on Paper photography Merlefest 2016 Steep Canyon Rangers photo

Event photography in the form of weddings is a completely different animal and when we were grabbed hold of by music event photography, it grabbed us hard!

Pixels On Paper official photographers MerleFest 2015 music festival photo

Not all events we shoot are days long and with multiple performers. Grievous Angels is a North Carolina band that Ryan and I love and we’re pals with the members. When they asked for photos of them playing, it was a no brainer. Like Merlefest, we were able to capture the energy and the musicians while enjoying the music. They play at smaller venues like coffee houses and they play to tried and true fans as well as newcomers who find themselves drawn in.

Pixels on paper photography charlotte band music photo

Pixels also covers non-musical events be they community or family. Last year in June, Ryan and I took Finley to Touch-a-Track, an event and fundraiser where we volunteered and captured photos.

Pixels On Paper North Wilkesboro NC Touch-A-Truck 2019 Event Photo

If you have an event, musical or otherwise of the non-wedding variety, please contact us. We would love to hear more about it and help you capture and promote it with professional images and good vibes.


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.

88x31 lucy & glens valle crucis wedding photography | pixels on paper boone wedding photographers

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License

All photos are ©2019 Pixels On Paper. Do not copy, crop, or remove watermark.

Commercial Photography – We’ve Got Your Back

Boondocks Brewery New Brewing Equipment

We are coming to 2020 feeling hopeful and excited as a family and as a business and in the coming weeks we will share more about our direction and focus. But while we are a family first, we are also a business that is thriving and looking for ways to be strategic.

Pixels On Paper photographers MBI Builders PROCOR Industrial Architectural Commercial Photography Photos Charlotte NC
Procor Industrial

What are our strengths? Where are our talents? Which projects spark joy, a la Marie Kondo? Businesses that success are not cavalier. They plan and they promote based on their goals.

Pixels On Paper Commercial photographers MBI Builders Wilkes Community College Culinary Arts Building Photo
Pixels On Paper Commercial Photographers Craft Bistro West Jefferson NC food and staff photo
Pixels On Paper Commercial Photographers Craft Bistro West Jefferson NC food and staff photo

Entrepreneurs in need of new imagery of themselves, their physical place of business or a digitally native business, we’ve got your back. If you’re an established business in need of updated photography for your collateral, website, upcoming conference, sales event and social media, we’ve got your back. If you are just beginning to start thinking about a tactical promotional strategy for your venture, we’ve got your back. Contact us to discuss what you want to happen in 2020 with your business and where you see commercial photography fitting in. We can help.


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.

Graphic Design with Pixels on Paper

Its’s a new year, and a new decade and businesses, like people, are looking for a refresh, an upgrade and some for a complete re-do to their brand identity.

Logo with pastry bag at top and Indulge name with 3 small cupcakes along bottom

Not all we do at Pixels is photography, as many of you know. Ryan has been a graphic designer and logo developer for coming on 2 decades. He has worked with existing brands to update their look and feel, and helped develop and create brand new custom visual marks for new businesses, important causes, organizations and special events.

Constant Contact email marketing header

At least two things need to happen for successful branding or the execution of a graphic design project:

The first is understanding the business (or event, organization, enterprise). Who are they?
What people do they hope to attract and what do those people care about? You want to pull your target audience in your direction and this means understanding who the targets are.
Ryan does this when he sits down with each and every new or existing client. He not only has the skill, but the intuition. He can help your business uncover goals, targets, obstacles, competitors and trends, and all of these are on the table with branding, rebranding or creating a new graphic design project.

peak performance heat and air logo photo

Secondly, you will also need a graphic designer who understands the principles of color, form, the visual arts, how consumers “see” what is in the marketplace, and how to message about the brand visually.

Pixels On Paper NC Graphic Designers Krusch Divorce Resolution business card design photo
Front and back of Krusch business card graphic design.

If 2020 is the year to rebrand, redo business cards, create campaign materials, we hope you’ll reach out. Even if you’re just starting to think about it, now is the time to begin.

If you’re a new business, a start-up or relatively new entrepreneur just trying to put your identity out there with a visual vocabulary, please reach out. We can walk you through the steps and create something that will serve you and your goals.

If you want to learn more about our graphic design and branding work, please check out these projects. We’d love to work with 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.

88x31 lucy & glens valle crucis wedding photography | pixels on paper boone wedding photographers

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License

All photos are ©2018 Pixels On Paper. Do not copy, crop, or remove watermark.

Welcome 2020, with Gratitude

As we look forward with hope for what 2020 will bring, we absolutely look back with gratitude. It’s like a muscle. You have to exercise gratitude, practice acknowledging what is good in the world and speak it out loud. Ryan and I have so much to be grateful for and I’ll start with our Pixels on Paper clients. They come into our lives and let us into theirs. They invite us into their homes, tell us their stories and share their worlds.

And we have such an appreciation for our clients with kids. Parenthood has changed my perpective as a photographer and a human. I want to thank our clients for their patience with us as we navigate parenting. We’re still new at it, but learning daily and relishing the adventures and ways that it’s changing us.

Finley has become a part of our photoshoots and that was something that I worried about in the beginning. He was carried on my back at times or spent time playing with the other kids who come in for family photos, and everyone was cool with it. Schedules aren’t easy and our time is segmented so differently, but we are so blessed that people understand.

I am beyond grateful for Ryan. I’ve lost count of the ways that he’s jumped in where I would have before motherhood or taken on roles so that I can be a mom. One hundred percent of the architectural, graphic design, headshot and commercial photography has fallen to him and he’s not only amazing at it, but he does it as a husband and a father, not just a pro. If he didn’t understand the season we are in as a family – i.e. the raising a son season – I am certain that Pixels wouldn’t exist. I love you, Sweetheart.

I am grateful for prayers. I say mine for our family, our business, our friends, community and our world and I am grateful for all of the prayers that I know you guys say for us. I am a believer in prayer and have seen both its magic and its power. Thanks to all of you who lift us up in prayer. You’ll remain in ours in this new decade.

I’m grateful for flexible and loving clients who pay us to do what we do. The Christmas portrait sessions exceeded our goals and expectations this year and we’re thrilled.

I’m aware that plenty of people decide to “do photography” as a side hustle and over night become our competition. They aren’t insured, aren’t experienced, have no overhead and are cheaper, and so they fly under the radar trying to take business from those of us who’ve built ours over the last couple of decades.

I am so very grateful that our clients understand who we are, not just what we do and they choose us. Professional images are invaluable, and our clients blessedly say the same thing when they show up with their dollars. I cannot begin to express what that means to our family. We’ve worked hard over the years to excel at what we do and when people recognize that by hiring us, it does not go unnoticed.

We hope that every single one of you celebrated the holidays with love, gave up grievances, shook lose old habits and are ready to embrace new opportunities ahead. I can promise that in our house, you are loved and cherished. Here’s to an amazing, thoughtful, loving, peaceful and prosperous new year.


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, engagements and weddingsbrides, and 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 License

All photos are ©2018 Pixels On Paper. Do not copy, crop, or remove watermark.

York Family In home Christmas Portraits

Pixels On Paper Wilkesboro NC Photographers York In Home Family Christmas 2019 Photo

We love this tribe so much. The York family invited Ryan into their home for a Christmas portrait shoot recently and they were ready to roll. Sweet little newcomer, Tinleigh, is celebrating her first Christmas so photos by the tree were a must.

Parents Mitch and Lindsey have two other children, sons Turner and Tate who were excited to get a little sister this year. My guess is that on this particular night they were even more excited about the promise of Santa and gifts to come and the fire pit where they gathered later.

Pixels On Paper Wilkesboro NC Photographers York In Home Family Christmas 2019 Photo

This is such a sweet and fun way to celebrate the holidays and we aren’t always able to be outside during the winter months. I hope the Yorks will continue to have some element of their Christmas celebration by the fire pit every year.


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, engagements and weddingsbrides, and 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 License
All photos are ©2019 Pixels On Paper. Do not copy, crop, or remove watermark.