Andy + Carolyn 10.24.09

This weekend was amazing. I woke Saturday morning to watch our son kick around inside mom's belly and a front yard full of rain. I was bummed that it was raining and I was to shoot a wedding...not just any wedding but Andy and Carolyn's wedding! Andy and Carolyn are probably one of the sweetest couples to come out of Apex...ever! But when I arrived in Apex the clouds seemed to part and the rain STOPPED and we got some great shots!!! Here's a few to tie everyone over for the week!

Update on the Free Engagement Shoots & Adrian + Lauren Vanderburg

As you can imagine my inbox blew up! After sorting through all of the emails and finalizing plans with couples and then losing those plans and then finalizing new plans I did book 5 great couples. In the weeks to come I'll have a lot of photos to sort through and I'll be sure to post a lot of them online. Thanks again to everyone who got in touch with me and to those I couldn't schedule I wish you all the best in preparing for your wedding day! You'll love being married! On a side note, because of how successful this promotion was, I'm thinking about new promotional ideas that I can offer possibly every quarter. So keep coming back to see new work, catch up on our little Navey Bean and to see what promotional I might be offering next time.

For now here are a few shots from Adrian & Lauren's wedding in Tennessee this past weekend.

Baby Kicking and Where the wild things are!!!

They are officially in my wife's belly! This weekend we flew to Tennessee to shoot a wedding, more on that later this week, and we stayed with my sister-in-law in Nashville. I have always been a HUGE fan of the book, "Where the Wild Things Are." When I was a kid I never had money for the book fair at school because I didn't pay attention to when it would come by and I always wanted WTWTA. So eventually I realized that I could just check it out from the school's library only I never wanted to return it. So I successfully kept it for half of the school year only to have my report card with held until I returned it. So when we found out we were having a little boy, that's right a BOY, Laura and I went out and bought it. While in Nashville we saw the movie for the book WTWTA and Laura felt our son kick for the first time!!! He kicked a lot!!! It was great! While we were waiting for Southwest to fly us home my wife reached for my hand and placed it on her 22 weeks belly and I felt my little ninja kicking!!! It was strange but then that quickly faded into really exciting. I could not have asked for a more perfect 5 minutes this weekend.

Chad Lister-To You Alone

Back in June I did a photoshoot for Chad Lister for his new CD "To You Alone." Today Chad's CD hit iTunes and is already 84 out of the top 200 Christian artists. Chad's first CD, A Declaration, was great but honestly...he's grown so much as an artist since he first put that out. His new CD has some Fray influences but has a more Indy feel to it with a lot great piano rock tracks. Bottom line, it's worth the $10. But if you're one of those people who likes to have the actual CD Chad is scheduled for a CD release party in early November. The digipaks are pretty awesome and I'm not just saying that because I shot and designed the layout...I'm saying that because I like digipaks! I'll be sure to keep everyone up to date on Chad's CD release party.

The Porters

This weekend was busy...actually the last 12 weekends have been a little bit of a blur. Sunday was a lot of fun though. I had the opportunity to spend some time with the Porter family. Several months ago I shot Kaitlyn's Senior Portraits. Needless to say we all hit off right away! They're a great family to work with and they love each other a lot! Here's a few shots from our shoot on Sunday.

Free Engagement Shoot...to the first 5 to sign up!!!

**UPDATE**
Alright so here's the deal...I've had an OVERWHELMING response to the free Engagement shoot offer. Right now I tentatively have all available shoots booked. What that means is that I have three confirmed scheduled shoots and two that are pending until Friday. If I don't hear back from the couples by Friday at 5pm then I'll contact the next two couples on the list. So if you're interested get your emails in to: contact@alwaysautumnstudios.com with "Free E-Shoot" in the subject line. I'll keep the blog up-to-date on the spaces available. I may decide to add one more shoot to this whole deal just because the response has been so crazy. Thank you all for your emails and your interests...KEEP THEM COMING!!!

I'm not the kind of guy who will pull a bait and switch on anyone...ever. So yes this is for real. I'm offering a free Engagement shoot along with a copyright license to all of your High-Res digital negatives for free to the first 5 couples who confirm their shoot. You're probably thinking, what's the catch? Do we have to sign some contract agreeing to purchase prints or will we get an earful about why we should book Always Autumn for our wedding? No and No! No contracts no personal spamming. The shoot and the rights to your images are free as long as I can use your images as a part of my stock photography portfolio.

A lot of photographers have Stock Photography portfolios where they sell the opportunity to use one of their images to a company who needs a great image for an ad design or for new promotional materials or to magazines who need a picture to go with a particular idea or theme. There are a lot of avenues for getting a photographer's stock photography portfolio out there. Almost nine years ago I chose to sell my work through iStockphoto. iStock is one of the most reputable companies out there who allows photographers to sell their royalty free stock photography without agents, publicists or other commission earning variables. Of course iStock makes their fair share through each sale but they cut out a lot of the other factors that can take away from the earnings of a photographer.

I've loved working with iStock and over the years they've afforded me a lot of opportunities for exposure in magazines around the world that I would have never been published in otherwise. Over the weekend I took some time and looked through my portfolio and decided that I needed to make a few updates. So here I am offering my otherwise paid services for free in a slumping economy. Do I want to book weddings from this whole experience?

If that happens, then awesome! If not that's awesome too! I'm just excited about the opportunity to meet new people, learn about their love and make magic happen behind the lens!

So here are the rules:
1. The offer stands for the first 5 engaged couples who confirm their appointment to shoot. Just contacting me doesn't count...you need to confirm your date and time for the shoot.
2. You'll need to sign a model release allowing my to resale your images. Clients who sign my wedding contract automatically agree to this when they book the contract but this is a free shoot with NO CONTRACT OBLIGATION, so you need to sign a release.
3. Your shoot can be scheduled as far as 3 months in advance though I'd prefer to shoot within the next month due to the changing weather and leaves.
4. Contact me at contact@alwaysautumnstudios.com and include "Free E-Shoot" in the subject line.

That's it! It's free, it'll be fun and I'll make sure your photos reflect the trust and love that you both have for each other!

The Amazing Owen

Today I had the opportunity to get together with a few clients of mine...only the last time we saw each other they were ordering their wedding album; today I was photographing their beautiful Owen! It's been a little more than three years since the last time I snapped a shot of this beautiful couple so it was really exciting to add a cute little one year old to the mix. Here's a few shots from our shoot. Have a great week!