Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimmed:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st,
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Sonnet 18 from William Shakespeare
Congratulations and Happy Anniversary! We love you all and hope the year ahead till the next anniversary is adorned with the blooms of prosperity, good health, laughter, devotion and LOVE!
Toward the end of March, I struck out on my own and took a leap outside of my comfort zone to attend a photography workshop and retreat. I love perfecting my craft, learning new techniques, comparing notes, etc., and we all need professional renewal, regardless of what we do. The invitation promised a focus on wedding photography, mastering and using lighting and exposure, and connecting with both your clients and your own desires in life. Tricks of the trade meets self-help meets community and introspection. I’d made excuses for not going in the past and this had an extra element of trepidation – spending 4 days in a house with 9 other women, all strangers. But what’s growth without a bit of surrendering to the unknown?This retreat was hosted by Elly’s Photography and I’ve been a fan of her work for years… another incentive: meet a fellow traveler, working photographer, wife, business woman. As it turns out, Elly’s really a life coach in addition to wonderful photographer and I found that my need to stretch was more important than my fears of hanging with strangers – without Ryan – in a house for 4 days. I needed it more than I knew. Both before and during the retreat, Elly and I spoke for hours so that I’d get the most out of my retreat. She asked questions about what I wanted to learn, what I wanted to see change in our business, how I wanted to connect with our clients. But then there were even harder questions. What are you really passionate about, what drives you, where do you see yourself in 5, 10, 15 years, what is your impact? I did work in “Clearing,” “Dream Casting,” and communication exercises. Photography is easy for me, the personal stuff can be really hard and at times very emotional.
I needed someone to ask me the hard questions. I needed my creativity to be reawakened, to have a new perspective. I needed to have more tools in my tool box to offer our clients. I needed to be surrounded by 9 other creative people that felt the same as me. I ended up having a blast and learning a lot about myself.The best part is that, through all of the personal aspects of the retreat, it was mixed with learning new ways of using my camera and seeing both natural and artificial light differently. Over the past 8 years I’ve become very comfortable with using artificial lighting for photography. I can manipulate light to be what I need it to be in almost any situation. This is a good thing. In fact, Ryan often jokes that I always wish I had one more light to add to the scene no matter how many I have. But what I found during the first half of our workshop is that I had stopped looking at natural light the same way. Natural light can be manipulated. It can be found in sources and locations I have ignored. All of the portrait photos in this blog use natural light and it’s not necessarily sunlight. The dark dramatic head shot photos for example were taken in a bathroom stall with a single overhead light on. The photos are not altered or changed in Photoshop at all. They’re straight out of my camera. I am newly empowered and so excited about using what I’ve learned during portrait photography, weddings, events, day in the life shoots and elsewhere. The next blog will be a continuance of this one, so stay tuned!
Happy Anniversary to the couples who choose to get married in months of seasonal transition. We applaud your boldness, your spirit and your adventurous nature. Rain? Maybe …. but really, so what if it rains? You’ve just told the world, “I’m with him for good” or “She’s mine for the rest of my life. What’s a little precipitation or chill in the air when love is afoot?
The couple above? Check out their wedding day. They eventually saw snow in the evening and one of our favorite photos of them is standing underneath umbrellas at night.
Here’s to March and couples who wed this month. Whether you are a lion or a lamb, we salute you.
Pixels is now booking engagement and bridal portraits and weddings for 2017 and 2018 and we would love to work with you if you’re in planning mode. Contact us at mail@pixelsonpaper.biz.
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 weddings, brides, 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.
We’ve met more wonderful clients at bridal shows and expos than we can count. We’ve set up our area and then spent the day chatting with brides-to-be, their moms and friends and future mothers-in-law and booking weddings, bridal portraits and Quinceañeras. But honestly, we’ve booked all sorts of other events and portrait sessions, so if you’re planning an event in 2017, either of these shows would be worth your time as you build on ideas and search for excellent vendors.
Some serious lifelong friendships were born in little wedding expo booths, so we’re proud to announce two that are coming up in a few weeks. The Ashe Bridal and Special Event Fair is Sunday March 5th from 12-4 at Ashe County High School – less than a month away.
The Wilkes Wedding Expo is another special event we’ve loved to participate in and we’ll be there again this year. Join us on March 12 from 1-4 at The John A Walker Center in Wilkesboro. Click here for tickets to the Wilkes Wedding Expo.
Later in April, you can visit us at The High South Wedding Expo held on Sunday April 23rd, 2017 at the Boone Mall in partnership with Savor Blowing Rock from 1:00pm – 4:00pm.
Even if you’re just beginning to plan, it’s never too early to start making connections with all the different types of vendors you’ll need for your wedding day and all of us are eager to hear your story and work with you to make sure that everything happens just the way you want it. We look forward to seeing you at one or both of these expos, but we’d also love to chat with you more personally, so feel free to contact us any time.
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 weddings, brides, 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.