Featured today on Captiol Romance!

Last week it was Bayside Bride and this week it's Capitol Romance!

Just received word that Jamie and Colin's Union Station engagement session from early November is being featured on Capitol Romance wedding blog today. I submitted their images and Jamie and Colin's engagement story and wedding planning details a couple of weeks back and have been waiting to hear confirmation of its publication. The wonderful Bree (editor of Capitol Romance) sent me an email with a heads-up that it went live this afternoon.

Hope on over to Capitol Romance and check it out!!!

Featured today on Bayside Bride!

I'm delighted to share a wonderful collective of unique engagement and wedding ring designs presented by Bayside Bride...

The ring shot I contributed is toward the end of the feature and showcases a ring shot I did of my own engagement and wedding ring set. Here is the picture featured on the page:

I'm actually not a huge fan of jewelry (plus for my husband!) and I'm much more a lover of a beautiful piece of artwork (not good for husband since these are typically more expensive than lots of pieces of jewelry). I love my ring set because it's something that takes the symbolism that is a beautiful piece of jewelry and infuses it with the integrity of an amazing piece of sculptural artwork. If you can believe it, this is actually an "upgrade" from my original engagement and wedding set that I got last year around the time of my third wedding anniversary. Why the upgrade so soon? Well, my original ring set was vintage in style and had a tremendous amount of filigree and engraving within the design that I had pretty much destroyed because I am so hard on my jewelry. My regular dayjob is working in high school art education classroom and all of the different types of art media I might have deal with just plain whittled the designs down to almost nothing. Not good. Not good at all. The solution to this? Well, my husband indulged me with picking something new to replace it!

I searched probably almost six months until I finally found the perfect ring and wedding set for me on Etsy via an incredible artisan jeweler named Elizabeth Scott. Her inspirations are of the botanical sort and the specific inspiration for my ring came from a sapling branch that she found when she was hiking around the area where she lives and works in her home studio. One of the best things about my set is that Elizabeth really helped me to take her design and customize it to very precise specifications (like down to measurements in the millimeters!) so that it could be as structurally sound as a piece of jewelry that would take the beating it would end up taking like my old set. Elizabeth also allowed me to use a stone called a moissanite in lieu of a diamond because I am not keen on diamonds anyway though I like the look of them . Moissanite was a stone that was a great alternative because of it's hardness and look - most people seem my ring and think it's a diamond!

So that's it. That's the story of my ring and just wanted to share a little background about it because Bayside Bride was so kind of include it in the collective that they shared today.

Hot off the presses!

When I'm not posting things here, it's sometimes because I'm posting things elsewhere. I write for the Fuel Brand network's photography division. My aim with my articles has been to instruct photographers how to use elements of art and design within the photographic medium. So many photographers out there (nowadays) are self-taught (and I don't begrudge a nontraditional start of a career in the least) but could have much stronger bodies of work if they considered how essential classic art teachings are for visual art itself.

I've already published articles addressing using visual texture to make photographs feel more dimensional and also touched on color theory and some of the ways that it can visually balance an image.  This month's article highlights the importance of visual branding and how it can be done effectively with typography.

No rest for the weary when it comes to full circle

Good morning to you!  Well... at least it's a good morning to ME since the current time is almost 2AM where I am!

Way back when I started my photography business (about a full decade now - woo!) websites were a far cry from what they are now.  To put it mildly back then people/businesses didn't really have them unless they were 1) very important, 2) very well established, and/or 3) so tech savvy and code literate (read: geeky) that they coded websites just for fine. Nowadays?  Having a virtual a virtual place to call home is just about as important as having a literal one.  If someone starts talking up their business, it's standard that they provide you with some kind of contact information that you can access electronically.  And because of this, it's very important to have a website that doesn't just work well but it also has to look good!

I have a distinct advantage over most photographers because experience in the visual arts isn't just of the photographic medium.  I am well-versed in classic and contemporary studio art, graphic design, AND web based visual design!  Since the beginning, way back when every one else was clamoring to design official websites for their business, I was visually designing, coding, and publishing things all by myself!  And though my website has gone through about three major overhauls since websites become such a "thing" to have, I have to say that my latest has to be the snazziest I've ever done.  You can find a link for it over on the left sidebar via hyperlink but here's a clickable screenshot for convenience...

My new website has been completely redesigned to feature something I've never used before and actually always railed against - flash animation!  (I'm a bit of a geeky fan of things of the analog times. What can I say?)  And though I've tried to stick with good ol' fashioned html for the most part (that's the stuff without all of the animation or blinking this or that), I started designing this flash renovation months ago and I'm happy to say that I'm not only done with it but I'm also very pleased with the results.  

So, pop on over to my official website to check out my new digs and even say hello via the new contact section.  I love when people say hello so please don't be shy!!!