Uh oh!  I’m a liar.  I said when I posted our previous engagement session that it would be the last one for awhile, but I completely overlooked Andrea & Patrick. In my defense, this was one of the rare times Andy was shooting solo.  He met up with this charming couple on a brisk fall morning in Birmingham, where they explored downtown together.  Andrea and Patrick had a beautiful fall wedding and they were so sweet on their wedding day.   (They got married at Weller’s in Saline – their wedding and this e-session were just a few days apart.)  Here are some of our favorites!

I am really excited to share these images and also a bit wistful, because this was our last engagement session for 2011 – unless someone calls with a super last minute booking in the next week or so.  What am I going to fill the rest of the winter and spring up with on the blog? I tend to hoard our autumn e-sessions, because when it’s bleak and freezing and we are marching into what feels like the seventh month of winter, I know I can post something colorful and beautiful.  But those are my own selfish reasons, and I know Jackie is waiting. And these images are some of our favorites of the year, so let’s get on with it!

Jackie and Chris were an unexpected booking for us.  They are originally from Oklahoma and have settled in Grosse Pointe while Chris completes his residency.  Jackie is an SEO guru and works part-time as Zooey Deschanel’s stand-in on the hit sitcom New Girl.  Okay, perhaps I made the last point up. OR DID I?!?!  I think the resemblance is quite strong. (Are you guys watching that show?  Andy and I really like it.)

Jackie is pretty awesome.  She’s geeky and she’s a book lover, and she also does something else that’s incredible.  She has a “Pin-did” board on Pinterest.  Meaning, rather than the rest of us, who just use Pinterest to keep track of really cool ideas we never actually get around to doing, Jackie does them, and then reports about how it went.  A Zooey Deschanel look-alike who actually makes the stuff you see on Pinterest.  I know she sounds like a mythical creature, but she’s real.  I have the photos to prove it.  And Chris, well, while he doesn’t craft quite as awesomely*, he is a doctor.  So not a total underachiever either.  :)

*Andy says this is not a fair statement, Chris may craft just as well, but perhaps does not do so publicly.  Perhaps he is a virtuoso at crafting snowflakes out of gauze.  I do not know.

We shot this session over a period of two days – due to everyone’s schedules we were only able to carve out a time to meet when the sun was about to set .  Chris and Jackie elected to do an enhanced e-session with an album, and we ended up with a ton of images.  It was really hard to decide what to blog because these two were just naturals.  I really want to photograph their wedding.  Whoever they hire in Oklahoma for their wedding will find they have a very effortless job.  These two are delightful.

Jackie and Chris – thanks for working with us, we had a wonderful time!  We hope you guys will be sticking around here for awhile.  :)

To get photo-nerdy for a second, I wanted to mention to our photographer friends that we got the new Canon 100mm L Macro lens right around when this session was shot.  (I think Lauren & Corey’s session, blogged previously was the first time we used it.)  We are in love with this lens.  We had the old 100mm and I was kind of ambivalent about getting the new version.  The old 100 is pretty finicky and can be slow to focus, but it is a tack sharp, beautiful lens.  But the focus is so aggravating that we rarely bring it out for portraits and instead use the 135L.  But the new 100 is a glorious portrait lens.  It it noticeably faster at focusing and ridiculously sharp.  And it has I.S.  My poor 135L is now feeling a bit neglected. So if you are wondering if you should upgrade, the answer is YES.

CUTE.  I know that is an overused word, but when I was selecting images to use for Lauren & Corey’s blog post, I kept saying it over and over.  Along with “awww”, “adorable”, and, well “cute” again. (I never said I had a big vocabulary.)  Because they are just so freaking cute.  I look at these images and I am taken by how infectious their happiness is.  It is always a delight for us when our clients feel comfortable enough in front of the camera to just be themselves, and they allow themselves to forget we are there.  It’s not an easy thing to do.  I know, because I am terrible at it.  So I can appreciate it all the more when I see it.  These two were just wonderful to work with.  We spent a long afternoon at Greenfield Village, and I don’t know about them, but the time flew by for us, because we had such a good time.

Lauren is the Assistant Editor at a local magazine, and a big time reader – we bonded over our shared love of Harry Potter and the Stratford Festival. Corey is in school studying electrical engineering.  They met in high school and were together for four years before Corey proposed.  Greenfield Village is one of their favorite places to visit – so it made sense to do their engagement session there.  We lucked out with a beautiful day and glorious fall colors.

Lauren & Corey – thanks for spending the day with us, we had so much fun working with you.  I know your wedding is going to be wonderful.  :)

It’s been a quiet couple of weeks on the blog – the busier it is behind the scenes, the less often we post, I’m afraid. I have three engagement sessions to finish off the year with, and these sessions were truly so enjoyable – adventurous, FUN couples, great locations, and a lot of variety.  I’ll start off with Krysta and Vlad.  Their wedding isn’t until next year, and originally I was going to wait a bit to post their images, but I just can’t wait any longer.

When we have a few spare hours – which isn’t often – Andy and I like to hunt around and find new locations to shoot in.  Our favorite places almost inevitably end up sounding horrible on paper.  Well, it’s a neighborhood of old abandoned buildings, and everything is really run down, and you should probably wear sensible shoes and clothes that can get dirty.  Oh, and watch out for the broken glass.  Doesn’t it sound like everyone’s dream location?  Yeah I know.  But there’s really cool texture and color and – what’s that in the middle of the street?  Is that a homeless person sleeping?  WAIT, look at that ivy/decaying brick wall/bridge about to collapse! Let’s shoot there! Just step over him!

Let’s just keep it real here.  We live in the Midwest.  We don’t have beautiful ocean front vistas sprinkled palm trees.  Or sun-drenched wineries, or picturesque stone buildings from centuries ago.  But we do have a city spectacularly decaying and being re-built simultaneously and that can be interesting too.

It occurred to me one day a few months ago, while I was persistently photographing a bride & groom on a downtown street corner despite the presence of an equally persistent bum eager to derail the whole operation, that my threshold for locations other people may find horrible has apparently gotten too high.  Andy was elbowing me and urging me to finish and stop making everyone uncomfortable, but I needed that shot.  And it was worth it.  (And you know it too, Stephanie, even though I am sure at that moment you were hating me just a little bit!)

So this is all to say, that I REALLY appreciate it when we describe these less than perfect locations and our clients shrug and say “Why not?” instead of doing the appropriate thing, which is to shake their heads and quickly walk away.

Seriously.  Thank you.

Krysta not only was up for whatever crazy, tetanus-shot requiring place we chose, but she demanded grunge.  She and Vlad flew in from DC for their e-session and we set off exploring.  Here are some of our favorites.

Krysta and Vlad were so funny and talkative during their session that it wasn’t until half-way through  that I realized Vlad must secretly be a male model.  We decided to pull them apart for a minute to do individual portraits and once alone, he can basically bore a hole into the camera with his gaze.  See Exhibit A below.

This session was so fun, and we are looking forward to Krysta & Vlad’s wedding next year at the Inn at St. Johns. 

I would also like to say thanks to the people that stop by to read our blog.  In the past month, I’ve had several random run-ins with people who mention off-hand that they read the blog, and it’s always a bit of a pleasant shock.  And then it makes me feel about fifty times more guilty for how infrequently I post.  Andy and I both really appreciate everyone that keeps up with us.

These images are making me wistful for summer.  The thing about being a wedding photographer is that summers feel so fleeting as most of our weekends are spent working.  I’m really glad we had a chance to go out to the west side of the state with Keri & Sam for this session.  I feel like even the quality of the light is different out there…I keep looking at these images and I feel like we took them 2,000 miles away rather than 200 miles.  Here are some of our favorites.

Love this one below….just feels really iconic to me.  And I would never guess it was taken in Michigan if I didn’t know. 

I also think any trip to the beach where you don’t plop your feet into the water & sand is a trip wasted. 

When we photographed Sam & Keri’s wedding, Sam mentioned this shot and how it was all about Keri and he was basically the background…..but look at her eyes, can you blame me?  Sorry Sam, I totally did it again at the wedding too! 

Thank you sky for cooperating so nicely on this one, I couldn’t have ordered it up any better. 

Keri & Sam were married on the shore of Lake St. Clair and had their reception on The Ovation Yacht.  Stay tuned for more! 

Julie and Mike were referred to us by one of our favorite couples, Elizabeth & Sam, who are some of the nicest people we know. So it’s no surprise that we found Julie & Mike to be just as friendly and easy to work with.  Julie & Mike chose to do their e-session at Meadowbrook Hall. This 88,000 square foot estate was the home of Matilda Dodge Wilson, the widow of an auto baron.  In addition to the enormous Tudor-revival home, there’s also acres of beautiful grounds that make this a great location for photography.   Julie & Mike upgraded their wedding package to include a longer e-session and guestbook, so I’m blogging a few more photos than normal because we took a LOT and therefore have a lot of favorites!

Love their expressions here!

We had a great time exploring a new place for this session, and we didn’t have any trouble while we were on the grounds.  However, I have recently learned that in the weeks since we photographed Julie & Mike, Meadowbrook has instituted a strict new policy regarding photographers.  Unless you are a bride actually having your wedding at Meadowbrook Hall, you are not allowed to bring a professional photographer on the grounds with you for wedding or e-session photos.  Meadowbrook is just the latest in a series of venues that are really cracking down on photography.  The venues do have some good reasons for the new restrictions.  In fact, I will be dedicating a blog post about this in a few days, because we get a lot of questions from our clients about where to have their engagement session.

But back to Julie & Mike!  They were so fun to work with and we are looking forward to their wedding this Saturday.  See you both soon!

Awhile back, I sorted through several of our recent engagement sessions and got images processed for the blog.  I was about to start on Lyndsi and Trevor’s and thought, “Well their wedding is still far away…I better hold off”.  And so as a result, I’m now posting their e-session images AFTER their wedding.  Oooops.  It felt like we had so much time between their engagement session and wedding day, but it went by in an instant.  Which always seems to be the case.

We really enjoyed this e-session.  Lyndsi + Trevor chose downtown Birmingham as their location.  We met up at a local cafe and then hit the streets with no particular destination in mind.  Sometimes that can be a little awkward, especially when you get excited about the light in an dirty old alley and lead your clients away from a “pretty” (but populated) park.  But these guys were really easygoing and up for anything, so we were able to get a nice variety of locations and looks. Here are some of our favorites:

This bench sits in front of The Townsend Hotel where they got engaged.  So naturally we had to get a few photos at this historic location. 

Lyndsi, you are gorgeous…..but I’m sure you know that already!

Thanks Lyndsi & Trevor – we had fun, and we hope you did too!  Stay tuned for images from their beautiful Colony Club wedding.

I think I set a bad precedent in my last post, putting up preview images from sessions we haven’t completely finished editing yet.  Because now I can’t resist sharing a sneak peek from a recent session we did at the Holland State Park on the shores of Lake Michigan. 

Keri & Sam wanted a different feel for their engagement session, so we headed to the west coast of Michigan which is home to some of the prettiest beaches in the state.  It was a long drive for everyone, and a pretty muggy day (the humidity in Michigan seems especially relentless this year).   We had to spent some time scouting since none of us were all that familiar with that part of the state.  But I think we ended up at a fantastic location and were able to get a look that’s hard to find on the east coast waterfront closer to home.  The image above is one of my favorites so far.  I am kinda jealous of the Grand Rapids photographers who get to do these kinds of sessions all the time!

On a more personal note, the drive home was a major achievement for me.  Since Andy entered my life, he’s become sort of my personal chauffeur.  The result is that I no longer have any endurance when it comes to long drives.  Being in a car for more than 40 minutes puts me to sleep.  Sam & Keri graciously offered to take us out to dinner after our session, so we didn’t hit the road until around 11pm.  Andy got behind the wheel but almost immediately was dangerously sleepy and I was nodding off myself.  We resigned ourselves to having to take a quick nap at a rest stop, but after stretching my legs, I decided to try to drive.  I really wanted to sleep in my own bed and get home to the dog since we had been gone all day.  I had to resort to some strange devices to stay awake (asking Andy to pull on my hair, pinching myself really hard) but I fought off sleep long enough to get us home.  I watched the minutes click away on the GPS until I finally rolled into the driveway at 2:30am, delirious, but pleased with myself .

I know that’s a really lame thing to brag about, but what can I say?  Andy has made me a really lazy driver!

Keri & Sam were fun to work with and we are really looking forward to their wedding on the Ovation next month.  Stay tuned for more photos from this session! 

Summer is just going by like a blur for us.  I can’t believe it’s already August!  Kelly & Donald’s wedding is this Saturday and I cannot wait to see Kelly in her dress – she is going to be so stunning!  We photographed her and Don a few weeks ago in and around the Wayne State University campus.  A mere million years ago I was a student there studying biology, chemistry, computer science, French, English, graphic design, more biology, photography, and math.  Lots of math.  If you would like a detailed description on how to attend college for 5+ years and end up a credit shy of several minors and no degree, well, shoot me an email because I am expert!  Regardless, it was fun to re-discover the campus and see what’s changed and what has stayed the same.

We also spent some time around the DIA, which is always a source of inspiration for us, both inside and out.  Kelly & Don were total naturals, and made our job very easy.

We are really happy they chose the location they chose.  Midtown is full of possibilities and I think we got a nice amount of variety at this session.  Sometimes when our clients aren’t sure where to have their engagement session, the default choice becomes a park. But it’s worth noting that we can make anything look “park like” if we have a bit of trees or foliage to work with, like below….you’d never know this was taken just feet from Woodward – the main artery running through Detroit.  If you are trying to decide between choosing a park and something different, I encourage you to pick the location that’s going to give you the most variety.  You never know what images you’ll end up liking the best, and we can do “park” anywhere.  Trust me on this – give us a tiny patch of lawn, or some trees in the distance and we can achieve a park look even in the most unlikely of places.  Also, sometimes newer parks don’t have the mature growth to really give you the look you are going for, or we have to worry about working around visitors.

Okay, Kelly, seriously.  You are adorable!  Off the charts cuteness!

I know they are mere specks in the photo below, but this looks pretty awesome at full resolution. 

This was such a fun session!  We met up with Hayley & Joel in downtown Berkley to kick things off.  My parents used to own a business in Berkley so I spent a lot of time there when I was in my teens.  It was nice to walk around again and see what has changed.  I’ve always really liked the cute little downtown area there.  There are some nice storefronts with really great colors and textures (the things you notice as a photographer). 

This old theatre in Berkley shut down many years ago, but the city was wise enough to preserve the sign and use it as a community message board.  (It’s now a drugstore, of all things!)

Our second location was the U of M Dearborn Ice Arena.  Joel is a hockey player, and he’s spent hours playing on this ice, and Hayley has spent hours cuddled up in the bleachers watching him.  We have to give props to Hayley for having such a great idea!  We love when our clients choose a location that means something to them – even if it’s not the first place you’d think of for an engagement session!

It took us a few minutes to set up lighting for the two shots on the ice, but I love how dramatic they turned out.

Hayley & Joel – thanks for being such great subjects!  We are looking forward to your wedding!