Posts Tagged: creative outdoor photography nc
The Importance of Place : Locations for Portraits
Ryan and I love to travel and we have so many memories that are grounded (pardon the pun) in specific places. In fact, there are several spots that – the minute we drive up – we’re flooded with that sense of place, special moments that we remember, and those we hope to make in the years to come. From your grandmother’s backyard to certain mountain trails, family summer spots or just favorite views – places matter to all of us maybe more than we realize until we’re there. Capturing clients in those locations for photo shoots is important and we love how those places are a character in your personal stories.
All of these engagement portraits were taken at specifically chosen spots…. places not chosen by us, but by the couples – and for a reason. We always ask our brides and grooms a series of questions about themselves and several of them relate to how and where they met, where they like to spend time together, and which places in their lives communicate who they are. It not only serves the practical purpose of planning, but tells us so much about our subjects.
Maddie & Preston both grew up and went to school in Jefferson NC, and this barn is a testament to their love of home.
Above: Generations of the Kessel family worked in and are credited with the restoration of Loray Mill in Gastonia. Christine and Adam wanted their portraits taken at the Mill.
Michelle and Randy grew up beside each other – seriously. Their family farms were separated by fields and this fence line.
Kendra and Nathan love visiting NC wineries in their spare time. The Piccione Vineyards were a perfect spot for their engagement portraits. A picnic? YESSSS!!!
Katie & Tim both met and worked together at The Biltmore Estate in Asheville and wandering around with them and their sweet pup for this portrait session was a blast!
Kathren loves these old trees on the property of her Grandmother’s home where both she and Nathan live. The sense of place and memory in trees like this one make portraits into heirlooms.
Finally – this. My heart could explode when I look at this place. Our home. The home I share with my partner in business, my partner in life and the sweet child we are raising together. Our clients, friends and family have graced that porch, those rooms and the surrounding yards and garden. Talk about grounding. This does it for me. Hence the reason for having our family photographed on the front porch.
Photo by: Suzie Guerrant Photography
When you’re considering a photo shoot – whether it’s for an engagement portrait session, a family reunion, a special milestone – do NOT be afraid to consider the places that matter to you the most. They may not feel or seem glamorous or sophisticated or even perfectly manicured, but the results will make you sooooooooooooo happy in both the short and long run.
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.
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.
8 Photographer Tips: What to Wear for Portraits
More from our mini-series of expert advice, and by the way, for those of you with score cards at home,… we don’t run around referring to ourselves as experts. We try to live humble lives where we work hard to be good at what we do. We just happen to have done this for so long, we know “some stuff.”
So today, I’m giving the 8 key pieces of info about what to wear to a professional portrait session. When it comes to what to wear for portraits, pretty much anything goes. But we know lots of Moms and teenagers stress when it comes to planning what to wear when in front of the camera.
1. Don’t be afraid to wear color. Colors in outdoor portraits that coordinate with the season look better than a wardrobe of black and white.
The Arnold family dressed perfectly during their spring, orchard portrait session. And the Church family’s autumn session is coordinated perfectly too.
Complimentary colors and shades work great especially for large families.
4. Wearing black or white along with khaki or denim are best in studio portraits or outdoors if you want a classic, traditional and timeless look.
Keeping it neutral allows personalities to shine through.
Sticking with the white, here is sweet Sawyer in his 6 month portrait session.
5. Shoes can most often date a photo more than any other piece of wardrobe. If the weather and surroundings lend itself, considering going with bare feet or stick with classic solid leather styles for adults and children. Children’s tootsies are so delicious (Ryan and I routinely munch on Finley’s….. his are just right for snackin’), if they can be outdoors and shoe-free, do it!
8. We also have a helpful “What to wear” Pinterest board for inspiration. Bear these in mind and you’ll look brilliant!
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.
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.
Lighting, Weddings and Musts to Know
We thought – with so many in the depths of planning weddings – that we would share some of our expert advice about timing. This is not timing as in “did he propose in the middle of your grandfather’s funeral?” (Guys: don’t do that, mkay?)
We’re talking about timing so that your photographer can get the shots you really want on the day of your wedding. Brides and grooms have gone to the trouble of thinking through what moments and people they would like captured, where they are having their weddings and choosing the season. But one of the things that needs to be considered most during planning is timing. It’s important in comedy and it’s important on your wedding day.
- What time does sunset occur?
- What time should your ceremony start and how long will the ceremony portion last?
- Do you want lots of shots taken outdoors?
- Where will your reception be and do we need to allow for drive time while the sun shines?
Much of our pricing depends on the amount of photo coverage hours needed, so planning ahead is key.
Ryan and I begin photographing approximately two hours before the ceremony for those couples who do not plan to see each other beforehand, which is customary. I work with the bride, bridesmaids and the bride’s family for an hour and can capture shots of her getting ready and transforming herself and spending quality time with specific people. This allows us to get all the fun of the preparation while still giving the bride time to freshen her make-up and ready herself for walking down the aisle. If a bride wants photos of her hair and makeup being done, we’ll need even more time, but we can help you get that sorted out when we speak.
Ryan photographs the groom, groomsmen and groom’s family during the second hour. This allows us to complete all photos that do not include the bride and groom together before the ceremony gets underway. You’re up, you’re fresh and ready and excited and it just makes sense. It makes the process more efficient following the ceremony and allows the couple to get to their reception sooner.
Following the ceremony we need 30-45 minutes (depending on wedding party and family size) to photograph the bride and groom together with their families and wedding party. We prefer to begin with family first, then the wedding party, and then with just the bride and groom for the most amount of time. We know that you want to join the party that is YOUR celebration, so having a plan and knowing where the sun will be if you want outdoor photos is something we can anticipate and create for you.
If you’re interested in seeing more of our weddings, visit that page of our blog where you can see the anticipatory beginnings, tender middles and lovely ends to ceremonies across seasons. Here is also a blog of ours for those interested in seeing how lighting can affect the details of a wedding and make them truly shine.
During the reception, we photograph candid moments of all kinds and do not interrupt the bride and groom for posed photos. We want you to mingle and celebrate, dance, eat and enjoy your day. Those moments make amazing photos anyway. The only exception we make is if the couple requests sunset photos at which point we will watch for the perfect moment before stealing the couple away from the reception for a minimal amount of time.
Most receptions last 3-4 hours, so if a couple plans a formal exit complete with sparklers, bubbles, and a getaway car, they will likely want us to photograph that exit and stay until the end. However, if a couple does not plan a formal exit and anticipates staying until the last guest leaves, then they can plan on less photography coverage hours and we will slip out (after hugs, a last check-in and goodbyes) and let you keep partying.
For us, lighting your day is important and we know how to handle it. You have other things to think about, so once you’ve chosen place, season, type of wedding and time of day, we’ll know how to counsel you and make things work.
While your wedding is photographed to memorialize it and is a big production, it is also one of the biggest milestones in a person’s life. We want you to feel the joy of the day and not just like you’re modeling or being posed. So consider the season, the time of day, time changes for daylight savings if those apply, how much of the behind the scenes you want captured, as well as the outdoor and natural light and we’ll do our best. To help, here is a favorite website we use to determine sunset time.
After all the planning, it’s an adventure! Let the magic happen!
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.
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.
The Pinterest Factor – reality vs. pinned photos
A common challenge we wedding photographers have these days involves brides sending us a Pinterest board full of photos they want us to recreate on their wedding day. And believe me, we get it. Inspiration comes from so many different places and directions, people, memories……….. the origins of our muses can be anywhere these days and Pinterest boards are proof of that. They are a 21st century social media phenomenon, born of the old bulletin boards, college wall boards of your favorite actors or bands, and more recently the vision boards people made for aspirational purposes. They have enormous value for those who craft, knit, travel, have a yen for a certain type of fiction, color palette, movie genre, you name it.
from a board about movie stars of the 1940s
But Pinterest boards are just that: they are inspiration boards. And brides love them because they create a central and shareable place to collect ideas. It’s perfect for pulling together your ideas and favorite thoughts as you plan. With photography on your wedding day, it’s a moveable feast. It’s live and it’s subject to dozens of variables.
from a board about weddings
all images from Pinterest boards about weddings
When it comes to brides, we love seeing photos from Pinterest boards for this reason and pretty much this reason only: we get to know YOUR sense of your style, where YOUR inspirations are coming from and some of the types of imagery you want us to capture. You’re giving us a sense of who you are, but from someone else’s photos. These are someone else’s moments and that’s the distinction.
Why do you want someone else’s moment? Why not allow us to capture or create photos that are uniquely yours? We don’t mind looking at a pinterest board to get an idea of what you like at all, because we can then use it for inspiration. We want to capture what you want and we are seasoned wedding photographers and great listeners. But to wholesale recreate someone else’s moment is not only difficult and time consuming, that moment may be from a photographer with a different style from ours.
If you’ve fallen in love with a particular style of photography, you’ll need to find that photographer or a photographer who can mimic that style. Ryan and I feel strongly about copying other professional photographers images.
Thinking we can create images from Pinterest that only happen naturally where brides and photographers can find themselves in the weeds. Setting up an image based on a photo takes much longer due to set-up and lighting, posing people, etc. than those glorious shots that simply happen naturally.
A wedding is a moveable feast, as it were.
It’s live. It’s a living, breathing bit of joy, community, fun, calamity at its best and history in the making. Every moment cannot be a photo shoot and why would you want it to be? There are rain delays, wardrobe changes or makeup refreshes, lingering conversations, your cast of characters who may go missing, speeches that are lovely to hear but don’t convey on film. To capture every type of image based on other weddings on other days, in other locations and shot by other photographers is to set yourself up for disappointment. Have faith!
YOU need your own images that happen naturally for YOU on YOUR day. Remember that, as you sort through what you’d like to see on your day and trust that there will be magic moments we’ll capture that no one else on any Pinterest board will have.
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.
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.
arnold family maternity portraits ~ a surprise gift
The Arnold family is special and so is the impulse behind this photo session. We had the pleasure of photographing Meghan and Jeremy’s wedding and capturing the first photos of their daughter Berklee as a newborn and 6 month old. Our newest session with this family was in February of this year and was engineered on the down low by husband Jeremy. Wife and mom, Meghan is due with their second child, a little boy they plan to name Wyatt and Jeremy decided that he wanted to surprise Meghan with the maternity photo session as a Christmas gift.
Note to wives: I know you know how to drop a hint. Enough said.]
I’ve gotta insert a flashback here. We sort of recreated a moment we captured in an orchard photo session from a couple of years ago. I love seeing Berklee’s little hands touching Meghan’s belly in between her parents. It’s perfectly reminiscent of her seated between them when she was just about a year old.
As they prepare for the newest Arnold to show up, he was included in the shoot – beyond Meghan’s belly. The baseball with Wyatt’s name was one of Jeremy’s while he played baseball for UNC Chapel Hill. We look forward to meeting this little man and seeing his resemblance to his sister and parents and what parts of his personality shine.
It’s hard not to include another photo from the orchard where we tied the two sessions together. Although Berklee is bigger, she can still be tossed in the air and loves it! I saw the same sweet smiles and same crazy joy on their faces.
We just LOVE having them as clients and cannot wait to meet new addition Wyatt. We feel confident that Berklee is going to be a wonderful big sister. Thanks, Arnold family! See you soon, we hope, with member number four.
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.
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.