Posts Tagged: nc bridal
Happy Anniversary … to a couple we know
It has been a year. A whole, big, replete, exhausting, fun, “where are my keys”, “doesn’t she look amazing?”, “I can’t believe we survived”, “oh holy moly, that was the best!!” year since our 10th anniversary in business as Pixels on Paper.
The calendar tells us that there is a beginning of every new year and it’s January 1. But the thing is…. your birthday, your anniversary is the beginning of YOUR new year and Pixels On Paper was birthed in June of 2005. It’s our birthday. It’s Pixels On Paper’s 11th anniversary. We did it – AGAIN!
Minick Outdoor Maternity Portrait Photography
During the last 12 months, we’ve photographed siblings holding onto each other. We focused our lenses on businesses we love, vendors we collaborate with and admire, taken post-wedding photos with mountains in the distance….. families gathered and smiling… orchards in bloom, brides lit with joy, new husbands unable to stop grinning, kids racing around and babies, babies, babies. We have loved every single minute.
Prom girl in bloom thanks to Bridal Traditions and beYOUtiful Proms
Boondocks Brewery – the installation of new tanks for yummy brews
Bridal bouquet by Edenhouse Floral
Private home ready for sale (and it sold… quickly)
Hoben family reunion on family property (and that’s just 16 of them)
Quinceanera photos for a gorgeous young woman
a Southern Belle to end all Southern Belles
Charleston SC engagement portraits
We also got to send some love to locations where we shoot weddings and events. The Holiday Inn City Center in Charlotte, Leatherwood Resort and Winding Creek Wedding Barn are merely 3.
the rooftop at the Holiday Inn City Center Charlotte
Leatherwood Mountain Resort is scenic, elegant and rustic
from a photoshoot at Winding Creek Wedding Barn
It was our second year as official photographers for Merlefest. We were completely rested about a month later.
WE LOVE THAT GIG.
And we captured loads of babies…. some were reaching out for “kid-dom” but they’re still babies.
Here’s to the next 12 months, the coming autumn (2 weeks away) and holidays and thanks to you all for an amazing 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 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.
traditional studio bridal portraits ~ a mom’s wish come true
For generations, a formal, in-studio bridal portrait was the only game in town and there is a reason for that: they were classic and beautiful and often placed in gilded frames and given a place of prominence in the formal living rooms of people’s homes. In this post-modern age of outdoor portraits, studio bridals are a dying breed. Couples now have a specific vision that begins with quirky (often funny) and inventive ways to announce their engagement, then create their save the date cards, launch a website and finally produce a narrative that is singular to them. The genie is out of the bottle, folks and at Pixels, we embrace this and love the opportunity to create unique portraits that tell a story in an unexpected backdrop. I have to say though that I still love and appreciate tradition and the experience that it takes to create a formal portrait with studio lighting. We had this opportunity with Elisabeth, the beauty you see below.
Elisabeth is an only child and her Mom always envisioned having a traditional, formal, studio bridal portrait of her daughter to hang in their home. Of course we were eager not only to honor this request, but to exceed expectations. I spoke to her mom and got a sense of what she had in mind. This mother-of-the-bride wanted a hand-painted muslin backdrop for some photos and mentioned that she loved images of brides on staircases. Fortunately our studio has both!
While the studio bridal portraits feel more like they’re from a by-gone era, they are a perfect foil for the outdoor engagement portraits we took of Elisabeth Isaac…
… and their glorious wedding photos. If you haven’t read their story of doing pretty much everything in reverse, launch the links. It’s worth the read. These two are an inspiration.
Pixels on Paper is now booking sessions (both traditional and crazy creative) for proposals, bridal, engagements, and weddings for 2016 and 2017 and we’d love to help create memories and heirlooms of your journey from “yes” to “I do.” Call 336.990.0080 and let’s discuss this adventure you’ve begun.
a bridal portrait session in the greens of mother nature
Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous
to be understood.
How grass can be nourishing in the
mouths of the lambs.
How rivers and stones are forever
in allegiance with gravity
while we ourselves dream of rising.
How two hands touch and the bonds will
never be broken….*
Bride-to-be, Kendall Shephard, reminds of us a swan a little bit. Dressed in white, gorgeous but not overdone, long, lean, elegant. She stands out, but just so, in all that green. Her fiancé, now husband Nathan Williams, works for the North Carolina Wildlife Commission and the couple spend an enviably high percentage of their time outdoors hiking, playing and exploring. We chose the Blue Ridge Parkway near Blowing Rock, NC for her bridal portrait session and it made perfect sense. She was happy and completely in her element, even in a wedding gown.
Kendall shined, surrounded by shades of summer green, rippling water, moss, stone, rocks and branches. She was this perfect column of light. A classic beauty in the middle of natural beauty.
These portraits were taken in June of this year and the couple were married in August. She was just as, if not more, beautiful on that day with Nathan by her side and surrounded by her nearest and dearest, so stay tuned for the blog about the Shepherd-Williams wedding. But this day was Kendall’s and she could not have been more clear and pure and alive wandering in the woods and musing with us about her upcoming wedding.
*Let me keep my distance, always, from those
who think they have the answers.
Let me keep company always with those who say
“Look!” and laugh in astonishment,
and bow their heads.
– Mary Oliver, nature poet
mountaintop bridal portraits ~ family participation, heirlooms and views of the family farm ~ a beautiful day
The photos of Meghann Roberts we took this July weren’t necessarily inspired by Keira Knightley’s famous shot as Elizabeth Bennet from the 2005 movie Pride and Prejudice, but this one in particular pulls it into perspective. When viewed next to each other there is more than just flowing fabric and a gorgeous, panoramic setting. It’s an air of freedom, hope, grace, contemplation and courageousness in both women. 
The character Elizabeth Bennet loved the outdoors. She walked, read, thought, day-dreamed, escaped and generally lived a big part of her life wandering the small working farm owned by her family.
We photographed Meghann Roberts in Warrensville, NC – in, around and above her family farm. Their land is stunning, sprawling and has been owned and worked by her family for 6 generations. It was the perfect setting for her bridal portraits.
When we arrived for the shoot, we were greeted, of course, by ready members of her warm family (mom, grandmother, brother, uncle, cousin and a friend) and we all piled into 2 enormous 4×4 trucks and took off. This turned out to be a blessing, because we had lots of gear, lots of options and lots of terrain to cover.
A beautiful bride-to-be and almost too many places to photograph her, created a perfect day! (dramatic aside: this number of family members made for great chatter, but there was also the practical need to have a couple of people hold up Meghann’s gown so that it didn’t touch cow or goose poop on the land. If you’ve seen Pride and Prejudice, you know that Elizabeth’s boots and hemline were always caked in mud and …… dung!)
A week before our scheduled date, Meghann’s brother cleared a trail for us so that we could get to the most desired spots. One of these was the swimming hole (behind her just above and below) where Meghann spent summers splashing around, fishing, sunning and day-dreaming.
When we met Meghann at a bridal show 2 years ago, we immediately connected with her. Her values are our values and many of her experiences resonated with ours. When she called us to photograph her wedding, we learned that she hadn’t bonded with other photographers she’d spoken with and we certainly understand that. No one is necessarily at fault when this happens, but for us, fit and a strong comfort level and “getting” each other makes an enormous difference; at least that’s our feeling. The whole experience is more fun and the outcome produced tends to exceed client expectations.
A final note: The Roberts family prepared the property for us – not a small task. They fetched us and our equipment in their vehicles and hauled us around to get the best shots of their girl. These are family-oriented, do it right or don’t bother kind of people. So in keeping with that ethic, the bouquet they had for Meghann’s session was not prepared by a florist. It was Meghann’s mom’s preserved bouquet from HER wedding. Nice, huh?
renewal wedding photography ~ it’s about “again” and “more” and “us” ~ photographing the next chapter of a marriage
20 years ago, Kelly and Chris Shumate became a couple. They eventually created a new life as husband and wife: Kelly started a new business – Bridal Traditions – and they lived happily ever after.
And scene.
Actually, there’s more. 20 years more and they did live happily, but as their wedding anniversary approached, Kelly decided that she wanted the photos that they never had when they first tied the knot. She contacted us to take them, since she now wanted the more artistic style that wasn’t an option on their wedding day. We were happy to help them commemorate and really celebrate. And Kelly – who’s in the bridal business – had a very specific vision.
Part of what made this shoot fun for us, other than the fact that they were celebrating a momentous wedding anniversary, was the theme. Kelly loves gothic architecture, the antebellum era (think: Gone With the Wind), bare landscapes and an era gone by. We chose a cemetery near the River Arts District in Asheville, NC, during winter. The results were just what she wanted: sparse, real, gothic and graphic. And we loved the juxtaposition of new and old. A renewal of their marriage and an opportunity to capture them in themed clothes and as a couple who were invested in each other for better, worse and the whole nine yards.
Ok – so some notes. How do you like the dress? This is the gown that Kelly was married in originally. It still fits.
IT. STILL. FITS. In fact it was actually too big and had to be altered smaller. (no jealousy……… well maybe some)
Another fun fact: this gown is the first one she bought for her bridal shop, which is pretty auspicious.
Kelly was also specific about setting, which is why this cemetery worked so well for the shoot. In the bareness of winter in the cemetery, she and Chris stand out like a couple of players from a Civil War play or Ken Burns’ mini series. She – Scarlett O’Hara or Melanie Wilkes – and he Captain Rhett Butler or Ashley Wilkes.
They truly look their parts. He comes home from war (brother against brother, people!!! lest we forget) and there she is, after waiting, praying and keeping the farm afloat despite major setbacks. You can almost see the letters from Corinth, MS:
“My dearest Kelly Emeline,
The war does not go well. I can scarcely remember the curves of your lovely visage….”
Pardon the digression, but seriously – look at them and watch this slideshow of their portraits.
This photo shoot was literally a year in the making. It took a little time to plan, but it mostly took will and faith and perseverance. As all marriages do, the Shumate’s union was ebbing when Kelly contacted us. They were struggling as a couple, wondering about the future, trying to understand what to keep in their relationship and what to jettison and whether or not the “us” in them was still alive. Digging deeply, they moved forward, but 99.9% of the success in their marriage was their faith in God. They knew marriage was hard, but giving up was not something either of them was interested in. So this photo shoot was about WAY more than grabbing pictures of great clothes in a cool setting. It was an actual celebration of making it for 20 years and looking forward, with renewed hearts, to the next 20.
And the 20 after that.
Not only were we thrilled to be a part of capturing this day, Pixels created a wall of photos for Kelly’s shop office. Something she could point to that says, “we did it and we’re still here.”