Friday, June 27, 2008

Kicking Off the Summer Wedding Season: Jane & Ben 6.21.2008

What better way to celebrate the first day of summer than shooting my first wedding of the 2008 season? Last Saturday I had the pleasure of documenting the festivities at the wedding of Jane and Ben at the Majestic Inn in downtown Anacortes. The high overcast clouds and beautiful location made for a perfect day of shooting! Here are some highlights from Jane & Ben's celebration...
I absolutely love this picture of Jane seeing her bridal bouquet for the very first time!Jane had been teasing her dad for months about the two of them stopping by the bar to take a shot of her favorite Southern Comfort just before he escorted her down the aisle. She wasn't sure Dad would go for the idea but once the big day arrived, Jane soon realized that the bride's wishes reign supreme on her wedding day : )I always try to get a shot of the groom's reaction when he sees his bride in her dress for the very first time. I love the sweet look of satisfaction on Ben's face in this shot.You know it's a good ceremony when the whole wedding party, all the guests, the officiant AND the photographer are laughing!
Are they in love or what?Sealed with a kiss... indeed!After the ceremony and the signing of the marriage certificate, I try to work quickly through photos of the bride & groom and the wedding party & families so the bride and groom can get on with enjoying their day.
I can always count on the younger guests to provide me with great photo ops! I must have taken fifteen shots of this scene to get this one picture of everyone in motion.After awhile of taking pictures of the kids, I realized Jane & Ben were nowhere to be seen. I found them and a group of guests out back sharing celebratory cigars! Fun!
After dinner it was time for toasts and the cutting of the cake... and what an adorable cake it was!Congratulations, you two, and thank you so much for allowing me to be part of your big day. I wish you a lifetime of happiness and good health : )

More photos from Jane & Ben's celebration can be seen here!

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Gardenview Family Photo Day!

As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm always thinking of ways to keep my photography services affordable for young families. More specifically, I've been wanting to figure out a way for clients to get family photos to share during the holiday season when they are already spending a lot of money on gifts and travel. One of the ideas I've had rolling around in my head for awhile now is the "quick shoot"... where I schedule several families for back-to-back 20 minute appointments at a reduced rate.

I decided to experiment with this idea by offering Family Photo Day to the families at Gardenview Montessori. My goal was to create group, individual and different combo shots of all family members and provide an average of 20-25 images to each family. Six families signed up to be my guinea pigs and I'm happy to report the experiment was successful! I learned a few things I needed to learn and I am pretty sure I will be planning at least one quick shoot day in November. Thanks so much to all of the families who participated... it was fun seeing the Gardenview kids with their families and I hope you all will enjoy your photos : )

Thanks again to everyone who participated... I really appreciate your patience and flexibility while I worked out the "bugs" in my idea : )

Monday, June 23, 2008

The Coining of a Phrase

I confess... sometimes I mess up and make a wrong decision. The good part about messing up is that I usually learn a valuable lesson in the process, which is exactly what happened a couple months ago when I first met Shelley & Ken and their daughters Keely & Aislin. Shelley and her neighbor had arranged shoots in Seattle on the same date, with several hours between appointments. I got the first shoot complete in the morning, but of course it was raining steadily by the time I was to meet Shelley & her family at Carkeek Park. I'd never had this happen before so I was perplexed about the best way to proceed with our plan. Since I was already in Seattle, I wanted to make the shoot happen no matter what, so I suggested we do their shoot inside using the backdrop I usually reserve for work with babies and indoor maternity work. Despite the setting being different than my typical work with families with older kids, the five of us had a fun time together and I thought I had created some fun pictures of the girls.

Shortly after mailing the image disc, I got a message from Shelley explaining she was disappointed in the photos I had created for her... she felt Keely wasn't comfortable with the camera being so close and explained that she was really hoping for "those signature Sandi Heinrich photos." It's always hard for me to know someone is disappointed in my work so I was a bit crestfallen for a few days, until I mentioned the situation to a friend who pointed out that it was pretty cool that someone felt there was such a thing as "signature Sandi Heinrich" photos. He was right, that is pretty cool : ) It's amazing how much better you can feel when you choose to look at a situation from a different perspective!

I had guaranteed Shelley she would love her photos and she didn't. I simply can't let that be the case, so we arranged to meet on my next travel date to Seattle and I can't tell you how happy I am that we did this shoot again at our originally planned location, Carkeek Park. I had so much fun racing around the trails with Keeley & Aislin and really enjoyed enlisting the two of them in the decision making process for ideal locations for shooting. After looking at their pictures for the first time, I totally understood what Shelley meant and felt really good about the lesson I'd learned. The silly part is that this is something I already knew and it is the very reason I don't do studio work with kids- it's not nearly as fun for any of us and the pictures reflect it. Apparently Mother Nature thought I needed a solid reminder!

Here are some of my favorite photos from our shoot at Carkeek Park. I really, really love the photos we created together, and so does Shelley. Mission accomplished : )
After the sun dropped low enough in the sky, the girls changed into their spring dresses and we headed down to the beach for some shots of a different nature. I don't usually get to do sunny day beach shots with families because the light doesn't get good until after younger kids' bedtime, so I was thrilled to have the opportunity to capture Keely & Aislin in the beautiful light offered up by the setting sun...
These last two shots were Shelley's idea, she wanted something with a gritty texture to contrast the girls' pretty dresses. The walking bridge over the railroad tracks presented the perfect backdrop.
Shelley, Ken, Keely & Aislin... thank you so much for working with me while I learned an unforgettable lesson. I hope you will treasure these photos we created together for the rest of your lives, I know I will : )