I really love couples who are able to laugh together. I feel like laughter is such an important part of life and people who don’t laugh very much, well gosh, I don’t know how you continue to exist. It’s proven that the physical act of smiling will in fact make you slightly happier so I can only assume that laughing is way more effective. When I go a whole day without laughing, I just feel very bleh, like the life has been drained from me. I think if you can find someone to laugh with for the rest of your life, well, you’ve got it pretty good.

Being able to laugh off awkwardness of having your photo taken is great for me. Being able to laugh through big struggles and disappointments in your marriage and life is simply priceless and I’m so excited to be able to shoot their wedding this spring. It’s great to be part of an event that is for such nice people who are just simple, laid back, happy folks.

So about getting robbed. Well, first, a good idea is to not rob these people because Emily will take off after you and Matt will beat down bathroom doors. We were shooting in an alley in downtown Kalamazoo and had taken the coats off for some photos. I saw the row of yellow trees at the end of the alley and wanted to shoot by them since the rest of the fall colors had fallen off ALL the trees in town it seemed. We walk to the end of the alley and are taking photos for a few minutes, we were just around the corner so we couldn’t see down the alley anymore.

As we are walking back, a homeless man is walking out of the alley. By the time we  got to the coats, Emily quickly realized her phone and wallet were gone so she takes off running down the alley after this guy. You know, I don’t know that I would have done that because I’m a big wuss. So I was like…note to self, don’t steal from her. :)

I stayed close to Matt because he is a big guy and I don’t think anyone would mess with him. Since I was carrying a ton of gear on me, I certainly didn’t want to get mugged. We ended up in the library and as Emily was looking around the computers Matt decided to check the bathroom. He said he looked through the crack of the door, saw the guy counting out a bunch of cash so he kicked in the door and grabbed all the stuff from him. Then, the guy comes out and starts saying yadda yaddaing. Then the library security gets wind of it, then the cops get called. In the end, I believe she got everything back from him, he took off before the cops got there and we all went on our way.

Getting robbed is just the worst feeling. I’m so happy he got the stuff back for her as I think that would have really put a sour mood on photos. At this point, we were done with that location and had a nice drive to the second place to regroup. :) It was so cold out that day, they were both such troopers since I wouldn’t let them wear coats. :)

Half of these photos are post robbery so I think that says something about who they are. Some people would let something like that just ruin their whole day.

Matt turned around super fast and scared the daylights out of me! hahaSo we had hats, sunglasses, coats and I just to happen to always carry stick in my trunk now. As a result of all these great items, this is what happened. :) I’m not sure why, but I just really like these a lot, hahaa.

Can’t wait to see you two all dressed up fancy for your wedding! :)

Jamie and Matt are excellent. I met them for the first time at their engagement session and knew right away this was a good fit. Jamie is super tiny and short and Matt is super duper tall. It’s hard to shoot tall people when your short so I kept hassling him about it the whole session, haha. I hope people understand my sense of humor. If not, I might not seem nice…but most people do so I think I’m in the clear. :)

Their wedding is next fall and I’m really excited about it. I can’t wait to see what kind of a dress she has. My wedding season just ended and I’m already craving wedding dresses. I’m a hopeless wedding addict.

We were able to do their engagement session in one of the last great weeks of fall. The weather felt amazing, the light was MAGICAL and it was an all over super fun time. Enjoy the images! :)

They like to wear big fancy tree hats. Don’t judge.

I just adore tiny girls and tall guys. There is something so cute about it…
Seriously, jamie is just about perfect. I almost felt lazy when editing because she just doesn’t need much of anything. Her hair was perfectly simple as well. She got it done by one of my past brides, Kelli Fuller, one of the owners of Ellwells Salon in Battle Creek. This is how he proposed. He stained this awesome heart shaped piece of wood and carved the proposal into it. I was pretty impressed that he was willing to do such a cheesy photo, but he did it so well so it’s more funny than “we are trying to be serious” because then it’s just sad…sad for everyone. haha. She was barely tall enough to see over, but it was so worth it!

Gabbi is one of my favorites. She is bubbly and simply infectious. It’s interesting to me how words can be used so many different ways. For example, what might she be infectious with? There are lots of horrible things and that’s typically what your mind goes to. However, in this situation she is just infectious with happiness. She is super smiley and laughs a lot and just a joy to be around. I am so super excited to shoot their wedding this fall not only to give them great images but for selfish reasons as well. I know I’m going to have a ton of fun so i’m just anxiously awaiting september 24th for all the goodness to begin.

Oh, and there’s Tom. I don’t know much about Tom but what is there to know. It’s pretty darn obvious he is crazy about Gabbi and thats all I need to know for now. :)

I have spent soo long emailing back and forth with her about this engagement shoot it’s ridiculous. We just had this moment where pinterest and all the goodness it gives to the world was the only important thing in life. We pinned so many great dresses for her to wear for the shoot. Most of which were fancy designers and way expensive, but a girl can dream. It was a lot of fun. She ended up with this super cute white on white polka dot dress. I keep a bag of extra jewelry in my trunk for shoots just in case something is missing and I’m glad I did. I think the necklace pulls that outfit together so well. I just adore it.

They also purchased a wedding logo from me as well. You can see it here: http://www.theGAUPERSblog.com/wedding-logo-gabrielle-and-tom/ I just got her wedding invitation recently and it’s so adorable. I’m so proud of how she put it all together and how she used the logo! I’ll be posting about that soon.

Thank goodness they have good laughing faces. I think thats going to happen a lot on the wedding day too :)

Oh and this dress is just crazy adorable. I want one REAL BAD. One on my favorites. :)Oh hey! Another one of my favorites. It’s hard to get them both doing a more calm look at the same time and this one just happened perfectly. We randomly found all these orange flowers a couple days before their engagement shoot and they didn’t last long so it was absolutely perfect timing to get them. I love it! Oh boyyyy look at this! One of my favorite rings. I love the double band, the square setting but with a round diamond. It’s perfect. My simple words do no accurately describe how excited I am to spend some quality time with this ring on their wedding day. I am going to make this sucker SPARKLE until it blinds someone. Temporarily. I don’t want to ruin lives over sparkle. :)haha oh how I adore clients with personalities. :)

This is only the beginning of twirling. I have visions of her twirling on the wedding day. I want everyone to twirl. ALWAYS. My twirling photo is my favorite wedding photo by far. I had visions of getting them all the way up this broken tree but it wasn’t stable enough. We like to go all out for great photos but the goal is not to kill anyone, so we went with plan B which turned out great too.

I’ve also turned sam into an Etsy addict! :) She bought some amazingly cute headbands for the shoot and I think is planning a sort of peacock themed wedding. I literally squealed hearing her ideas and seeing a picture of her dress. I think it will rival hopes dress even!

They bought an engagement book and guest book to go along with their photos so I thought this would be the best way to show off all their best pictures. :) I haven’t designed the guest book yet, but that will come soon.

We also tried our hand at video. We have not had time to put it together yet since we are still crazy busy but I’m really excited for it. It seriously makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside watching them talk about each other. It’s great to shoot couples who really have the love and they are just super cute together. I’m basically extremely excited to trek to Iowa for their wedding day. :) Seriously people….the LOVE!!! look at it! :)

Bottom left photo is one of the etsy headbands! The fabric roses were so amazing. I learned how to make them a few months back but mine are not as awesome as these at all, haha

Thanks for sticking it through the day with us guys, it was a long shoot but I think very worth it! Soooo Soo Excited for your wedding!!

NOTE: These are the images for the album design, so the middle is the cut of the spread which is why some of the white lines don’t match up. I’m not lazy or overlooking it, it’s just because the cut. Don’t judge. :)

]]> http://www.mudeyes.com/derek-sam-peacock-themed-colors-and-fall-goodness-kalamazoo-engagement-photographer/feed/ 6 http://www.mudeyes.com/denver-attempted-muggings-and-a-workshop-2/ http://www.mudeyes.com/denver-attempted-muggings-and-a-workshop-2/#comments Tue, 17 Aug 2010 16:39:05 +0000 Ryan http://www.mudeyes.com/?p=2133 Not a huge post but I figured these images are worth seeing and the story of how we got them is worth telling!

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! :)

Angela is teeny tiny. I think of myself as pretty short but I believe she is 5’2. Something that is not teeny tiny? Her awesome engagement ring. Also something that is not tiny, this huge tree growing out of this body of water. This is how the gaupers do nature!

There were spiders in those bricks. What a trooper! I like to act strong and “oh its not a big deal” to get people to do things for cool photos. However, I’ll be honest, I can’t say I would do most of the things I get other people to do. haha I do not like spiders…especially sneaky ones hiding in bricks.
The fluffiest grass ever. We were all covered. When I edited everything, I found an unreasonable amount on brandon’s face. Yep, that was awesome to edit out of them all. :) hhaha oh fluffies….your lucky your worth it!
Ok Angela. Stop being so flipping adorable in the following two photos. Those shoes, that headband, agh! So great.
Do you like how this post is all out of order? I didn’t want everyone to get overwhelmed by too many nature photos next to each other…. :)

shiny things : his and hers.

This was actually one of the first shots of the day but I’ll end with it just because. We had planned to shoot in a different spot but this CRAZY storm rolled in right when they showed up. So, we went across the river and it wasn’t as bad there and had this sweet sky. So, we threw them up on this ledge and hoped they didn’t fall over in the the river. :)

Also, a big thanks to James Fry for coming out and helping us out with our lighting gear!

I was so overwhelmed last year with editing and weddings every weekend so I never had a chance to post their engagement photos. I figured now would be a good time to get excited for their wedding. Soooo here is justin and beth pre-wedding. :)

Oh… and all the photos with the yellow in them…we were at some empty fish market or something. It smelled soooo bad…but was sooo cool. :)

We were lucky enough to find Kristina and Kevin through Jessica and Melanie since we didn’t have anyone to shoot for our LA workshop yet. We were staying in a rediculous town with nowhere to shoot so we drove up to venice and found some pretty cool things. There are some interesting people there… hahah

It was supposed to rain A LOT right during the time we had planned to shoot so we were really bummed. However, miracles happen to us a lot with the weather and the rain pushed back and started POURING right after we finished. We were prepared with cute umbrellas and hello kitty rain boots if we needed  them. We could have done some fun things in the rain, but I am happy it was nice out just because it makes things so much easier.

There are two images in this post that are “beach” photos. They are probably the only beach photos you’ll ever see posted from us. Beach photos just always tend to look a bit cliche but I am really happy with how these couple turned out. This first one I actually love a ton, who would have thought?
Kristina is 5 feet tall and completely adorable!
Some of our workshop attendees being awesome! hahah

I still have a couple more posts to go before leaving for china so keep checking back!

I wanted to blog every day of this trip but my goodness that just has not worked out for me. So I am gonna go back a few days.

After we left Austin we went up to dallas for 6 days and stayed with our friends Don and Karen Hunt. They didn’t have internet at their house so we had to go other places to find some which just made keeping up with the blog really hard. They live out in Cleburne which is just a small town but it is full of such awesome people. I have been there twice now and every time I just enjoy the people there so much. Texas is just the best. We did a short family session for them to thank them for letting us stay there and I’ll be posting about that next but here is a little preview. :)

Friday Morning: 9am – 11am was a couple of the best hours of my life. It is awesome to know people who are connected to such awesome people as Shannon. She is the queen of the theatre in Cleburne. She let us look through this big warehouse of all their clothes for the theater. We got to pick out the most awesome vintage dresses and accessories. My heart just nearly exploded with joy looking at all the amazing stuff. I didn’t think it would be as awesome as it was so I didn’t take my camera but luckily while I was nearly fainting from all the options Ryan got a picture of just a small part of one of the sections with his iphone. We spent two hours going through stuff and walked away with some great dresses.

SAD side note: We didn’t have enough time shooting in the workshop to use a few of the outfits we had with us… boo. Hopefully the next time we are in Cleburne we can do another shoot with Kamille (our model) and use up some of the other glorious things in there.

As we were getting ready to leave Shannon found a box someone had just donated of vintage glasses and it was amazing. There were so many cool frames in there that were in nearly perfect condition! We found these coke bottle glasses and I think they look great on us. Thank goodness we always have our phones on us when we forget our regular cameras!

So, thank you so much to Shannon for letting us use the awesome awesome clothes! They made the shoot so much fun!

Saturday:
The workshop. Whew! It was a long day! We started at 10am and went until about 9pm. To start the day off right, let me tell you about our friend Cheryl. She is one of my most favorite people…ever. I swear, I just met her the last time we were in Cleburne last year and I just instantly wished I lived closer just to hear some of her stories on a regular basis. The craziest things happen to her. She is hilarious and just an overall awesome woman. I knew having her in the workshop would prove to be funny at some point in the day.

Well, that point in the day was the very beginning. She walks quietly into the room and sits down on the edge of a chair and starts to introduce herself only to have that chair slip out from beneath her, flip over her head, knock the end table next to it and toss the lamp in the air breaking it. All this came crashing down in a matter of seconds. We all just stared in silence and then busted out laughing at the same time. Cheryl just sat there on the floor, confused. It was such a great moment and a very funny start to the day. These are the moments I so wish I had my camera ready. I will regret not getting a photo of that for sure. Just sitting here thinking about this story still makes me laugh.

After a bunch of jibber jabbering from me and ryan and some lunch it was time for shooting!

Our first model we had lined up fell through at the last minute so we were kind of scrambling to fix this problem and I am actually really happy that it happened because Kamille and Bradley just got engaged and were great models. Not to mention…she (and Cheryl) connected us to Shannon and her amazing vintage heaven!

The shoot wasn’t really a normal engagement session because we only had so much time and explaining things and giving everyone a chance to shoot takes 10 times longer than things usually do so there isn’t our usual variety in this shoot. The best stuff was in the middle of it with the Red jacket, black and white striped shirt and that awesome coral dress we had her in. It just seems very Alice in Wonderland to me which got me all excited. Even though it isn’t our usually variety, I still am really happy with the shots that we got. It was so much fun!

Kamille is a dancer so it was only appropriate to do a little spinning in such a spectacular dress….with red tulle underneath!!

Is the 14mm growing on me? Why yes it is. I love this shot!
I just am madly in love with these yellow gloves. If anyone knows where I could buy some like this..please email me, I just must have some!
This was the first dress. I kinda wish it was a brighter color, but at the same time love how it kinda blends in with her skin tone. The front and back were made of different types of fabric which was just fabulous. I wish I had a better photo of it.
He was pretty quiet most of the time. Kamille is certainly the loud one of the two. It kind of reminds me of me and Ryan, haha. When I took this I was a bit freaked out because of its creepy vibe but then I looked at it on my computer and I was like whoa! This is creepyily awesome. :)
This last dress was made for her. I was so disappointed we ran out of time and had to quit shooting before we could do some really great stuff with it.

We had a great time at the workshop and are really happy how everything worked out. Big thanks to Kamille and Bradley for being so great in front of 8 people.

The next few blogs will be about…
The Hunt Family
Oklahoma Workshop!
First day on Route 66
….so keep checking back!

First off, we think claire looks like Pam from the office!  Perhaps more when she is at certain angles but man, she looks enough like her to say something…hahah

Annnnyyywwayyss…..

The beginning of the day was pretty great. We took this awesome picture in this little icy land.

The ice looked cool but Ryan neglected to tell me that there was a sheet of plastic right under the snow that he noticed a few moments before. I stepped on it and went flying. Yet another glamorous shot of me.

We found this really awesome glass wall at the endo of the night. Since it was really dark outside by then we decided we would try out some cool things with flash.

We had some great outtakes along the way since I would say a good 70% of the night was spent laughing.

We found this AWESOME wall of road signs by one of the buildings downtown. They cut up all these road signs and screwed them into these walls in cool patterns…such a cool idea.

More experimenting with light with a bare flash, set at 105mm since we didn’t have an actual snoot but we could still get a similar effect.

I found this stairway while we were walking around. Everyone else walked right past it! Thus, I am the coolest. :)

The 14mm is sometimes very cool and sometimes weird. This time it was very cool.

At the end of the night, we went to the peabody hotel and at the top floor of the hotel was this completely awesome ballroom with these sweet sweet curtains.

That night we met up with our friend Nick at carrabbas and ate some fantastic food!

This ends our time in memphis! We had a great time and now have an 11 hour drive to austin ahead of us.

(I’m already behind in my blog posts because of a lack of internet so we actually just left austin yesterday. I’ve been working on the photos for the austin blog so make sure to check back. Austin was amazing and we have some crazy awesome pictures to prove it!)