Jerry & Kristal Wilson

This weekend I had the distinct pleasure of shooting with Jerry and Kristal. About a year and a half ago Kristal helped us get into our new home. We did use an AMAZING Realtor but because we bought a new home from Centex Kristal was the agent on their side of the fence. She was great to work with and made life so easy for us! About six months after we had first met Kristal, Jerry popped the question and of course she said YES!!! Their wedding was beautiful! As with every big "production" there are always a lot of hard working people involved. Shawn Redding, coordinator at their venue The Virginia Beach Convention Center, was great to work with. I never saw a single person who Shawn wasn't able to help. Todd from Black Iris Floral Events did an AMAZING job transforming a very modern space into a very colorful and warm room with unbelievable arrangements. But enough talk, here are a few shots from their day.

Even Apple had to start somewhere

From time to time I get emails or calls from photographers who are just starting out and want to know if I have the time to help them jump over a few hurdles. I do offer one-on-ones that are completely customized to your needs but it always reminds me that I too had a starting point. For me it was an old Canon AE-1 Program that my grandfather gave me in high school. It was hours in the dark room developing black and white film and learning that dodging light really means doing more than clicking a mouse. This may sound strange but there actually came a time that I missed the smell of developer and stop bath. I know it's gross but I fell in love with the darkroom!

Engadget is one of my favorite blogs to keep up with. The guys at Engadget update their blog almost every hour so there's always something new showing up. This morning I was reading and came across Apple's starting point for a "mobile" computer.



It's hard to believe that they went from a 16 pound brick at a 640x400 resolution to a 2 pound 1920x1080 laptop that makes life a million times easier. For more on Apple's 20 year anniversary of their mobile technology check out Engadget's blurb.

100th Post, New Brand and New Feel for the Site!

It's hard to believe that two years ago next month I reluctantly joined thousands of other photographers, who were already moving forward, and started my blog. To be honest I didn't think much of it at first. I sort of equated it with Twitter, just aimless typing of my random thoughts into nothingness for all of the people who I wanted to believe actually cared whether they existed or not. But after two years, 7,817 referring hits to my website and 9,042 hits to the blog I have realized that people actually care about what I post. Well, either that or my mom visits my site from ten different computers everyday just to make me feel good! I prefer to think that people actually like coming here.

Two years ago I would have never thought that I would actually keep up with the blog well enough to have 100 posts. I know that may seem like peanuts compared to most bloggers but for a guy who shoots almost every weekend, is preparing for a new little baby and likes getting 6 hours of sleep, blogging once a week is a pretty good pace for me.

I'm also really excited to unveil my new branding. It's nothing fancy; just simple, clean and creative. I've reworked my website to include all of my new branding and I've made the site a little more impressionable. So what's changed?

For starters, the Intro page:



Instead of my witty description of what I do you'll now be greeted with an excited paparazzi of my new logo, don't worry they don't bite.

The Portfolio section also received a face lift:



I've been really busy the last six months shooting more than I've ever shot thanks to all of your great referrals. Although I've got a great deal of commercial work that I've also shot in the last few months I'm still trying to decide how I want to go about displaying those images. More to come.

Although the navigation of the site and the Portfolio section haven't changed the way the images are previewed has. Now every sample image gets its own page regardless of what tax bracket it falls into ;) Okay so a bad joke but I'm excited to give more real estate to the people who make my business look so good!

The last change that I made was to update my site with one of my favorite pictures of my wife and I.



I'm excited about the future: being a dad, a better photographer and meeting new friends. So thank you for all of your support and encouragement it makes the hard days that much easier! Here's to a another 100 great posts!

Carolyn & Andy

Last week I had a great opportunity to shoot with Carolyn & Andy. I could not have asked for better light or better weather. It was nice to take some time out from how busy our summer was and to shoot downtown with no pressure or stress about having to go anywhere. I am really excited about shooting Carolyn & Andy's wedding next month; Fall weddings are among my favorite to shoot. But until then here's a sample of our shoot from last week.

First Friday in Raleigh: Friends, Food and ART!!!

Ok, so I know I'm a photographer but before I became a photographer I was in LOVE with creating art using almost any medium. Unfortunately, artist don't really do so well in the real world so translating my creativity through my photography really opened up a lot of big doors for me.

I'm happy to announce that this Friday at 6pm, at City Gate-404 Glenwood Avenue-Raleigh NC, I'm sharing the "artistic floor" with a few of my really good friends (Left to Right): Matt Yow, Trent Anthony, myself and Jamie Clement.



I was a little torn on what I would show but decided on a simple wedding display and a less simple display of our trip to Thailand. The Thailand display wasn't so simple because I sort of changed my mind at the last second about how I would display the prints.

I ordered all of my Thailand prints on Metallic paper and designed the layout with four 9x12s, six 8x8s and three 5x30s. In deciding how to hang all of this I ended up building open ended boxes to display the prints.



I painted the boxes black and nailed the prints to the boxes. But if you want to see the display you'll have to stop by City Gate this Friday and support Downtown Raleigh and the other artists. If you can't make it out this Friday all of our work will be on display through the entire month of September.

On a side note my wife and I are having a baby, although we have no idea what we're having yet, and Jamie Clement, carpenter extraordinaire, has built our baby's crib, changing table and dresser. I can't tell you excited we were to see the pieces last night! He's displaying the pieces at the show and then at the end of the month we're taking it all home to starting making a room for our little baby!



Unfortunately, I won't be able to attend the show this Friday because I have a wedding out of town but Trent, Matt and Jamie will all be there and they'll have plenty of free food and drinks! Hopefully everyone will get a chance to stop by the party starts at 6pm!