We were able to work in a few photos with just regular clothes as well but the best of the session was at the whimsical, magical, amazing nature. We had such a great time with them and really went overboard on this shoot. Sometimes I have a hard time holding back and need to learn to find balance in things since I overwork so much but gosh darnit, I think this one was worth it!

I also did more black and white than usual. I kind of always felt like black and white was just a way to wuss out of doing a beautiful color corrected image. However, since I think I’ve mastered beautiful colors, I guess this is just a new skill done by choice, not necessity. :)

Whoa! Favorite! She has such cool hair and HUGE eyes! I am so jealous. I feel like my eyes are getting smaller as I get older. Is that possible?!Ok so that was all cute and fun but here come the REAL great photos of the session! This just demands to be printed as a gigantic canvas. Seriously. Love. How whimsical is this? Oh my goodness. I want to be her so bad. Twirling in a wedding dress in a whimsical forest. DREAM COME TRUE. 

Time for magic light! (This shoot seriously lasted forever, oh my word, haha) I think I’ve developed an allergy to whatever these are. I was about to itch my face clean off. …and more twirling. I just can’t get enough of it! :)

It was great working with you guys and I really hope you love all the photos!! :) Let me know when you are with child, we need to do something spectacular for maternity photos. :)

We were blessed with one of the last really great nights of the year it seems. The next day it just seemed to get so much colder once it hit 5pm. We got some beautiful shots in the wheat as I like to call it. I guess the variety in my work has gone down in recent posts but thats just because this time is year is SO GREAT for wheat and nature so I wanted to take as much advantage of it as possible because really, lovely light is magical every time. :)

Just in case you don’t remember, Hope and Evan are awesome. See their wedding photos here.

When they booked with us, we included an engagement session but didn’t have time to do it before they got married and they were fine with that since everything was pretty short notice. We had planned to just do it sometime after the wedding. Evan works on movie sets doing video work, I’m not sure of his title exactly but that job takes him all over the place so with all the traveling plus our traveling, scheduling a time to make that session happen just never worked out. We had it planned once then the weather was bad.

So when I emailed hope again this year asking about planning a date she informed me she was pregnant! Thus, we decided to plan WAY ahead and make the session a maternity one. Since they were so patient I went all out on this one.

I’m so incredibly excited for their little boy to get here. I’ll be doing their family newborn session so you all will get to see him soon as well. :)

Just being around them makes me feel good. Being in the presence of people who love each other so much and are just such a perfect fit is just the best. Some people just have contagious personalities and Hope is one of those. I highly doubt there are people out there who don’t like her. Evan is super laid back and just a wonderful compliment to her more loud personality. :)

This is a BIG blog post. I tried for it not to be so much but I couldn’t. I realize I say that every time but it is what it is. I should just learn to accept that it will keep happening.

I hope you all love the photos as much as I do! She has the cutest pregnant belly and I’m sure the rest of us are super jealous, but lets just all try and live through her. I think that sounds like a good idea.

Whoa! FAVORITE!!!!Also another big favorite. You just can’t pose moments like this. They are so wonderfully natural together. I should have made this little series by the crates smaller images put together or something but I loved them all on their own so much. Please don’t get bored with them, embrace them ALL!!! I LOVE sessions that are full of laughing. There were some points where I had a hard time shooting because I was also laughing so hard. Ok seriously? I adore this. Those little baby faux tom’s are just the cutest! Of course I had to do one of these :)
Hope has such an awesome style which is another reason I enjoy shooting her so much. When she showed me this cape thing, I about died. I really love this for belly shots. It’s different…mysterious. Is it weird I’m ending on my favorite image of the shoot? Perhaps. I consider it a treat for those of you who made it to the end. :) I practically want to get this printed huge for my own house.

I just had the most spectacular time with you guys again and I’m feeling so restless for Renn to get here! I’m sure he will be just painfully adorable. I hope to be taking family photos for you guys for many years to come. :)

We finally found a time and decided to include Dave in this first mini session since they just told everyone they were pregnant and it’s exciting and whatnot. :) From here on out, it will just be Lacey until she is about 8 months then we will do a big shoot and I’ll have Ryan shoot that one with me.

I’m working out all the details of my new portrait business so for now I’ll just post these here. I’m far too impatient to wait till my new blog is up. :)

She is 15 weeks now. It’s just unreal to me how much things will change in the next month let alone 6 months from now. Growing babies is just fascinating!

This is my favorite of the evening! We can have lots and lots of smiley photos but if we are just being honest with ourselves, this is who dave really is. haha. Lacey on the other hand, is just really smiley :)…or this might be my favorite too. I just love shooting wide with cool trees. It’s the best!

Hope you guys like the photos! Since I’m just no where near ready for children, I am really enjoying everyone else around me having them. :) Now Nicole, the goddess of motherhood, once Lacey has hers I expect you to be preggo again so we can keep this cycle of fun photos :)

If you won’t be scheduling your session until after the 14th and would like to have something to give feel free to use this pre-made card from us!

If you have kids and would like to include them in your session, it is $25 per child.

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to drop me an email, I’d be happy to help in any way I can!

The scene starts in Denver the day after rigerous scouting as always… We found a sweet Tim Burton wall to start with a great couple we found at the last minute. So things seemed to be going well…see? Pretty awesome.

So where does it go wrong you ask? Well I guess shooting in some of the places we do, we had it coming. That’s just the risk you take when you gotta get that shot you see in your head. Anyway, This lady comes up to me… Friendly at first and I though she was just passing through no biggie so I humored her as always. So then she starts actually talking to me and all the sudden talking about how her husband died and how much she misses him… It put me in an awkward spot because I really felt bad for her (even though she wreaked of booze and her crying was less and less genuine). So after a while I am just like I’m sorry I don’t know what to tell you! Then she started telling me her family was on extreme home makeover and how I should take a picture of her and her family because it would be good for me… Mind you this all happened very fast and I was getting very confused. Where was her family, how was I going to do that I have a workshop to focus on?

So I tell her just go get your family because I can’t leave (as she was tugging on me to come with her) So she said OK after a while and said she would be right back. Then Chris, one of our workshop attendees tells me he saw her and 3 big dudes across the street prior to her coming across the street. He said they were talking and looking over, and only she came up to me… Sounds very sketchy. So I was like “that’s it, lets take off”… forget about breaking down the flash let’s just leave and get the cars later. So we took off down the alley and about half way down we hear yelling and whistling from a block behind us. While I knew better then to look back I just kept speed walking as discretely as i could!!

We ducked into some hotel, and took a breath… It’s so messed up that they would try and play me like that… Play to my kindness, seeing it as a weakness. Makes me pretty upset to be honest. We have always given people the benefit of the doubt, but it gets harder every day unfortunately.

Annnnyway…heart-beating stuff… Once we got our nerves back we could finally get some mojo going! We got some great stuff playing with that Sigma 14mm!!

Andrea was down for it all… And she did goood.

Erika Jessop seemed to have more mojo in this location that I did… I will admit it! Still like it though! :)

Our good friend Vince of McVay Vision Photography was kind enough to trade us this session for a family session (which we still need to do) And though we aren’t the easiest subjects… OK I am not the easiest, Holly is pretty great. I thought we got some reaaaally fun and cool shots. Have a look!

Starting with probably my favorite picture of us that we have!

This is what we call a happy-smirky … Holly pulls it off beautifully as you can see.

How smokin’ hot is Holly in this image?

After many attempts, I think I did ok =)

Vince said he had a sweet idea, and for some reason I doubted his “McVay Vision” p.s. sorry vince ;)

Alas I was wrong… and it was awesome!

Did I mention it was November when we were doing this thus it was feepin’ freezing! So we retreated to a garage that I happened to make a studio. =)

Vince was feeling left out of all the fun we were having so I give you Vince: The man, the legend, the crazy.

It was a ton of fun, and we think you all could have some fun with us doing the same thing! Thanks to Vince for the great shots, can’t wait to do some family time!!

]]> http://www.mudeyes.com/bride-and-groom-re-dos-thegaupers-by-mcvay-vision/feed/ 1 http://www.mudeyes.com/hupfer-dirt-dont-hurt-questionable-video/ http://www.mudeyes.com/hupfer-dirt-dont-hurt-questionable-video/#comments Sat, 01 May 2010 21:08:26 +0000 Holly http://www.mudeyes.com/?p=1617

Remember the hupfers? We shot their wedding last August and it was one of the craziest things I have ever experienced. When we planned out this big 3 month trip we knew we wanted to see san francisco and to visit with the hupfers so we planned to stay a few days there and trash her dress.

The shoot I had in mind did not exactly work out. Since we were in China and Hawaii for so long it was kind of hard to find a hair stylist and makeup artist since there was always so much going on. So when we got back I desperately tried to find one but nobody was available. So, I did it myself and since I know nothing about such things really…I think I did a pretty decent job! It was also helpful that I brought along my wig as well. :)

So, we set out to trash the dress and that didn’t happen. Why… You must be thinking.

At their wedding we had at most 10 minutes to do their bride and groom photos. It was frantic and for what we usually deliver, there just wasn’t as many as we would have liked. This is why we really try and keep on schedule for weddings because its so sad when we can’t do all the cool things we like to do. So I figured since we are trashing the dress, we should do some not-so-trash the dress stuff first to make up for what we didn’t get at the wedding.

The not-so-trash part just kept being awesome and we ran out of time. I wanted to do like a 10 hour shoot to get it all done but we were all exhausted and overslept which pushed us back a bit. At the end of the day I didn’t want to do the ideas we had to trash it and not do them right because lack of light and time. I want to do this dress justice so we decided to call it a day. However, WE WILL trash that dress! It’s just going to be on our next visit. By then, we will be able to plan more ahead of time and really do some awesome things. She is willing to just 100% destroy this thing and to be honest, I feel honored that she is letting us be the ones to do it. :) It’s going to be epic and I can’t wait to get back to San Francisco to make it all happen!

From this, I learned some things. Many brides don’t get a ton of photos on their wedding. We sure try and deliver as many and as much variety as we possibly can, but at the same time, your being so careful with the dress and its such a busy day that it’s just a different kind of day. Then, after the wedding, a lot of brides would freak out at the idea of “trashing” their wedding dress. To be honest, steph’s dress really should have been trashed. We dragged it around all day, sat in things, stepped all over it, ect. and got some awesome pictures…without trashing it and without being nervous about destroying it. This is when we came up with the idea of a “Dirt Dont’ Hurt” shoot. All the things done to steph’s dress can be cleaned, and that includes all the mess that was on it from her reception.

So…all other brides past, present and future… If your terrified of the trash the dress idea but want more awesome photos, perhaps you should consider a dirt don’t hurt shoot with us. :) It’s a fun way to get some more use out of your dress, accessorize crazier than you would at your wedding and get your hair and makeup done.

AND… a big thanks to Nic for helping us out with our lights and helping out all day and Soma Sofa for letting us shoot in their AMAZING furniture store!

I wanted to find a makeup and hair stylist for this but I waited too long and nobody was available so I did it myself and luckily I brought along my wig too!  Anyways…I just edited a few of my (many) favorites as a little preview for everyone. There will be a whole post about it soon with the whole story of the day. We also took some great video too which will be surfacing in the future as well.

Needless to say, we had a lot of fun haha… but now…I must sleep. We start our drive back across the country tomorrow! First stop, Elko Nevada!