We are very excited to be going to Vegas this week to attend our first WPPI. WPPI is the annual international convention for wedding and portrait photographers and we’re going to be 2 of over 15,000 that descend upon the MGM Grand Hotel & Casino. During the day we’ll be visiting some of the platform classes, making the rounds on the tradeshow floor to meet the vendors we’ve been using, hopefully finding some awesome new stuff to offer our clients, eating way too much (so Nate has more stuff to review on his up and coming food blog), getting our own engagement photos shot by Jeff, and meeting as many people as we possibly can. And by night, well… let’s just say that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Just kidding, we’ll be good. ;)

Yes I colored and threaded the map myself. And yes I forgot that I had yellow till about halfway through. ;)

Thank you to everyone who left me sweet and encouraging notes here and on Facebook when I opened up a bit to you all. I really didn’t expect the volume of notes you all took the time to write me and it meant more to me than you can know. Thank you.

For all of you who aren’t photographers or who are photographers that aren’t able to go to Vegas this year, we’ve got you covered… We’ve got a bunch of blog posts on deck that are ready to go live throughout the week for your perusing pleasure. And we’ll be keeping up with everyone as best we can via Twitter so if you aren’t already, follow Nate here and follow Becka here.

If you’re a photographer and you want to meet up in person in Vegas, just send us a message on twitter or come up and say HI. I’m kind of an introvert so I’ll probably be attached to Nate’s hip most the time. And Nate is an extrovert so he’ll probably be bouncing all over the place at the speed of light. :) We want to meet as many people as humanly possible!

Our schedule so far for Vegas is tradeshow and platforms during the day and at night…

Sunday: Arrive, Photolovecat Happy Hour, Zumanity, J Sandifer Poker Tournament
Monday: Photoshoot with Jeff,  WPPI Pool Party
Tuesday: Pictage Party at Studio 54 & PIF Party
Wednesday: TBD
Thursday: leaving early in the morning :)

For clients, readers, and everyone else… thank you in advance for your patience as email and voicemail replies will be delayed until next week.

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Nate has taken to collecting old film cameras. For the last few holidays, his family has helped him out by tracking down some really cool old machines as well as various accessories and parts and then gifting them to him. For Christmas, Nate received a Yashica D Twin Lens Reflex camera. They were made from 1957-1973 in the Rolleicord style. Since both Nate and I learned photography on digital cameras, it’s been really fun to learn how to use these film cameras (and keep our fingers crossed that they still work, and that we don’t ruin all the film).

These were taken on two different rolls of film during our recent road trip through the southeast. The images below were taken in Atlanta and on the beach in Charleston. I have been holding out on diving into film because I feel a bit over my head with it and I feel bad ruining film but these images from the Yashica have completely stolen my heart. We did nothing to them except resize them for the blog and add a watermark. No editing was done at all except removing one dirt smudge from the last frame. No color correction, no toning, no cropping. Just look at the gorgeous tones in these frames. The gorgeous square format. I’m a believer. I can’t wait to play more with this and our other antiques…

Our favorite film used so far, Kodak Ektar 100. Such a pretty toning naturally…

This one was our favorite shot of our friend and road-trip buddy, Philipe…

That second shot was a mistake while learning how to advance the film… But it turned out really cool to look at…

These last two were from a separate roll of slide film. These two of Atlanta make me swoon…

All of these images were taken by Nate on our Yashica D Twin Lens Reflex camera.

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Becky and Jeff, who you may remember from their sugary sweet engagement session at the Port Orleans Resort at Disney, had a fun wedding for their closest friends and family at the Disney Boardwalk a few weeks ago. Becky had the most smile-inducing details and I can’t wait to show them off here on the blog but I realized that I had completely forgotten to post a sneak peek for them. (For shame!) We feel especially flattered and loved by our Disney brides. Since we are not contracted Disney photographers, we are not allowed in the parks at all to photograph. So all of our Disney brides make us feel so loved when they bring us in to capture the parts of their wedding day that are outside of the theme parks. Becky and Jeff made our day even more exciting by deciding to do a “first look” before the ceremony so that we could have more than enough time for beautiful portraits of the two of them…

…and one last one to wet your appetite for the rest of the wedding on the Croquet Lawn:

More to come very soon!

If you are a bride planning a Disney wedding and would like us to creatively capture the parts of your day that are outside the parks, contact us with your date and your plans.

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SOMEONE HEAR ME. Please?

Last week I posted an image by Hugh MacLeod on the It’s Better Together Blog that hit close to home for me. He is the author of an inspiring book I recently finished reading called “Ignore Everybody: And 39 Other Keys to Creativity”.  His illustration is of a sandy shore and the caption reads: What a lovely grain of sand you are. Too bad your lying on a beach.

I’ve been in a self-imposed paralysis of fear this week. A fear of failure. A fear of fading away. During this week before our first ever trip to WPPI (An international wedding and portrait photographers convention in Las Vegas) I’m feeling the weight of 15,000 photographers all in one place. Most of which will have absolutely no idea who I am. I’m having freshman year of college flashbacks. I graduated from a class of 19 and started college at a college of 45,000. I spent the first week in a daze as I realized that I could drop off the face of the campus and no one would notice. As I tripped over my feet and fell on my face in front of a bunch of strangers who barely noticed I thought…

CAN ANYONE SEE ME?

We are working on some business-changing things. A desire I’ve had for over a year is being set into motion. And it’s terrifying. Because I might fail. And because I don’t want to lose focus on my dream as the logistics of the real world take over the planning. And yesterday, after reading some of my new favorite design and art blogs I felt inspired to make a few confessions about myself: I am not all the photographers that inspire me. And I cannot ever be them.

SOMEONE HEAR ME.

So this week, as I’ve given in to my hermit-ing tendencies, I’ve become more and more excited to discover who I really am, what my art really is, what it can be, and how it can positively affect the world. So please be patient with me as I peel back the layers and expose new skin. Give me time to get used to this new vulnerability and excuse any dust that I may create. Tomorrow we’ll get back to our regularly scheduled postings. I needed to take a day to not care about our stats, or our analytics, and just post a post for me. Thanks for hearing and seeing me.

For an on-going iphone series of mine on skies

Elsa and Mitch met up with us the other day for their engagement session in Celebration, Florida. If you have never been to Celebration you should really take a trip over there. It’s a bit Stepford Wives-y, a bit old time Americana, a bit Disney. Well, not really Disney exactly… there’s no Disney characters or anything but it caters to a lot of tourists who are visiting Disney so I kind of lump it in there with The Mouse. Elsa and Mitch will be having their wedding at the Celebration Hotel which is one of the most beautiful hotels in Orlando. The Celebration Hotel, as well as all of Celebration, has a charming old Florida meets European town square feel. Right outside of the Celebration Hotel is the town’s “main street” where there are tons of shops, restaurants, a theater, and one of the best ice cream shops in Orlando. Elsa and Mitch came dressed to impress with the kind of effortless affection for each other that we love so much to photograph and we had so much fun getting to know them both better. We can’t wait for their wedding this June. Enjoy these favorite frames from their session…

Doesn’t Elsa look like a Shiri Appleby twin?

Celebration has these beautiful fountains. We were thrilled that Elsa and Mitch were willing to really utilize them. ;)

If you would like to inquire to have us be your wedding photographers, contact us here.

To see sneak peeks, inspiration, and what’s going on in our lives before everyone else, subscribe to the Studio222 Photography Blog here.

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