Summer is almost here (at least in Arizona, where it's already 95 degrees)! That means it's time to head back to the beach and cool down a little.
I will be in Manhattan/Hermosa Beach, California August 10-17 and am now scheduling a few beach (or off-the-beach) portrait sessions for that week. If you are interested, please send me an email and we'll get a session scheduled. Click here if you would like to view a slideshow from a family session last summer.
I will also be in San Diego the weekend of August 22-24 for a wedding and possibly available for a session or two down there on Aug. 25 or 26. If interested in a slot for those dates, just let me know and we can schedule! Here is another slideshow in case you like beach photos :)
On a related note, I will also be in beautiful Santa Barbara the week of August 18th for a super exciting retreat with my sister... more details coming very soon! We have something pretty unique planned for people seeking balance (literally and figuratively), creative expression, and goal realization. I won't be doing any family sessions there, but I will share a good deal more about this in the weeks to come...
I was excited to see that Michelle and Craig's wedding from last summer was featured in the March-April volume of The Wedding Chronicle. Their wedding was absolutely gorgeous and so, so much fun. Unfortunately, Michelle's last name (Lombardi) was spelled incorrectly in the issue, but it was wonderful to see their images in there. The Wedding Chronicle is a great resource for couples getting married and can be picked up for free at any AJ's Fine Grocery Store or other local wedding-related boutiques.
Rumor has it that Michelle and Craig's wedding might be published somewhere else soon... :-)
Another very cool couple and fun wedding! Julie and Dan were married earlier this month at The Pointe Hilton at Tapitio Cliffs in north Phoenix. These two are both so kind and just easy to get along with, and have many, many close friendships and family members who celebrated along with them. I really enjoyed sharing their wedding day with them by photographing all the joy, and fun, and love.
Dan, romantic that he is, surprised Julie with roses while she was getting ready I love this shot of Julie with one of her best friends
Julie is a jewelry designer here in Phoenix and custom designed their gorgeous wedding rings:
She also designed these unique buttons in Dan's shirt... Julie and Dan integrated and celebrated their two faiths beautifully during the ceremony The hora is always so fun to watch and photograph
This shot cracks me up: I liked this shot of Julie's mom (left) Dancing up on the stage with the always fun band Azz Izz... I don't normally ever post group candid shots like this one below, but I am in this case because these are Julie's girlfriends with whom she is very close! Most of us are lucky to count a small handful of close friends among our circle, and this just goes to show what a good person Julie is that she has this many girlfriends. After spending some time with her and Dan at their engagement session, sharing a glass of wine afterwards, and then shooting their wedding day, this does not surprise me in the least -- she is just easy to like. (They both are!)
I know it's almost trendy to talk about "green" things these days, but I believe there has been a true paradigm shift for so many people in paying more attention to this planet we inhabit. Just like we only get one body in our lifetime, we also only get one earth.
Here is what I am currently doing, and have been doing (some of it for as long as I can remember), and will be doing moving forward:
1. Recycle. This one we have been doing for years and years. We recycle all cans, plastics, bottles and paper.
2. Use less plastic. As in plastic bags. I have been buying those reusable canvas grocery shoppers and keep them in my car for trips to store. They actually hold a lot more than plastic bags anyway and are more sturdy. I can carry like 3 bottles of wine in one bag with a bunch of food on top. I like them much better! Target sells these great ones that zipper up into the size of a wallet, so I keep that one tucked in my purse.
3. Last year I traded in my big huge SUV for a mid-sized crossover with better gas mileage. I admit, it was in part to save on gas money, but alas, at least I'm using less gas ;)
4. We use energy efficient appliances and light bulbs.
5. Eat as healthy and organic as possible. I have been doing this for a long time, but I believe the less we buy with pesticides and crap in it (as in overly processed foods), the less chemicals to pollute our soil, food and bodies.
6. I'm going to start using less plastic water bottles. I can do better on this by using my Nalgene bottle when I go to the gym (when I go!)
What kind of things are you guys doing out there? Any other ideas?
I really loved Sheryl and Dane's wedding -- the super cool couple, the colors, the venue (Hotel Valley Ho in Scottsdale), the great light, and their essence focused on friends, family and fun. Ashley Stone with Something Blue Events coordinated this beautiful event. Sheryl and Dane share a true love of life and I believe will love a long and happy life together, filled with A LOT of laughter. I have lots of favorites... The wedding slideshow is here.
The gorgeous bride
One of my favorite colors of green for the bridesmaid gowns
Lots of bright, bold details...beautiful! (Sorry for the pixelation - these compilations are harder to keep the files large and still upload)
Sheryl and her Dad, dressed in his full Army blues... Sheryl, adding her personal touch
The beautiful roof top reception overlooking Old Town Scottsdale The boys...it was hard to keep them standing still :-) The girls The boys, being boys
One of Sheryl's "flower-babies" -- her friend & bridesmaid's 2-year-old
Our "cruise ship" sunset picture :-) The first dance Sheryl loves silhouette pictures, so this is for her! Thank you Sheryl and Dane for sharing your amazing and fun wedding day with me! You two are an absolute joy to be around.
We are hard at work getting all the weddings and portrait sessions processed and up. It's been an incredibly busy 8 weeks with 6 more busy weeks ahead (and then I'm off to Hawaii!). Thank you for your patience clients as we work to get your images released! Here is what is on deck if you are checking in...
Not a hard core, I-really-cared-either-way type of girl, but PC was just easy because I'd always had one since college -- and well, our house was wired and networked for them. Plus my husband has always been a big PC geek (I'm using that term metaphorically - you are not an actual geek honey), so I just never saw the need to make the switch, despite the fact that something like 90%+ of photographers were on Mac and made fun of us PC people.
Then last year Microsoft went and released Vista. I wasn't going to make the switch to their new operating system, but by the time October rolled around, I needed a new computer, so Vista is what I got. I pretty much hated it from the get-go. Ironically, my PC-loving-husband also hated it. Bugs galore. Programs would stop working and responding frequently. My Epson printer didn't work with Vista, only Windows XP on my older Dell. I could no longer find simple tasks and shortcuts because MS felt the need to move stuff to ubiquitous places that no longer made any sense. By the time I was two months in, I was doing hard shutdown/restarts daily and was cursing my computer hourly. I kept mumbling "I'm moving to Mac. This thing SUCKS!" My husband, who had always knocked Mac's for years, finally said, "Well move the Mac then! Just stop complaining!"
"But it's going to be expensive and painful to make the switch. I'm so embedded," I continued to complain. Ugghhh! I felt like I was stuck, but knew I needed a way out of Vista Hell. So I found myself driving to the Apple Store just to play and see if Mac was really that much different. I got an iPhone and fell in love. I would hover in the Apple section of Best Buy when I went in for other items, exploring the machines further. They sure looked purty! But definitely more costly than PC. I mean, I knew full well that Mac lovers LOVED their Macs, so would it really be that expensive to make the switch? What could make this computer so great? (I should note that during this time, my husband went and specially ordered a Dell laptop that still had Windows XP because Vista was hampering his ability to get work done as well. Go Microsoft!)
So in late December, I took JT to lunch to pick his brain since he has always struck me as this Mac computer guru who basically started iPod slideshow proofing and just knew about this stuff. I asked him a bunch of questions, assessing if this would be a worthwhile investment for me... how long would I be down? Would Mac read my PC files? Vice versa? What software would I need to replace? What would be my real costs of switching? He was very helpful and allowed me to think through this big (to me) business move. But the one thing he said that was the clincher for me was this: "Everyone I know who has made the switch said they would never go back."
Two days later, I walked out of the Apple Store with a brand new iMac. I loved the pretty box and slim design. Wow, a whole computer inside this slim monitor! Cool. My husband even commented how easy it was to set up and how nice it looked. I broke it in slowly, getting my feet wet for a few weeks. My business production stayed on the PC for awhile since I knew I'd have to take both machines into the Apple store eventually to have my files converted. I picked up a book (Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual) and read it before bed for a few nights. That turned out to be a lifesaver since there are differences between how the two machines operate, but all in all, less complicated than I feared. I was really digging my new Mac. Finally I moved it over to my desk next to my PC, and low and behold, I could actually SEE my PC from my Mac. All my files were accessible virtually through my Mac, but still sitting on all my hard drives on the PC. Very cool. Maybe I wouldn't need to move my files over after all. I even moved my Outlook Mail files over by myself through this easy $10 converter program, and then I really didn't need to take both machines into the Apple Genius Bar for them to do that for me. I plugged in my printer and it just worked. Just like that. Novel! This switch wasn't nearly as painful as I thought.
Four months later, I love my Mac. I have sold the Vista based PC desktop and laptop (sorry, suckas!) and have since also invested in the MacBook Pro. I still use my Windows XP PC for various programs (Quickbooks, Epson Print CDs, Cute FTP and more) and am using both machines pretty cohesively side by side. I can open any document on my Mac, but not the other way around. But that isn't too big of deal. They really work well together. So now I am Mac girl. And proud of it.
So now the second part of this blog post, hence the title. To date, my biggest issue is using two separate monitors and seeing how they render color differently. (And how all monitors render color for that matter.) For photographers, I think it's important to stress that your color correction is only as strong as your monitor calibration. A properly calibrated monitor is the foundation for getting natural skin tones and overall pleasing color. For example, this process today of fixing my blog posts (because the X's are showing up on PC and not Mac) has shown me how DIFFERENT my two monitors are rendering color. (They are not hooked into one another, each monitor sits with its respective machine, therefore I don't color correct on my PC quite as much, even though I calibrated it several months ago). My colors look great on my Mac - beautiful skin tones, pleasing shadow and light balance. But the images are showing much different on my PC - darker, more muted, more warm or orange-y. So I guess it's time to re-calibrate both monitors again to get them as close as possible. Does anyone know how I can get them to match perfectly? Is that even possible?
This experience has shown me that even if you have a perfectly calibrated monitor and good color correction, it's extremely likely that your clients and others out there viewing your work do not, so they are seeing different colors than you are. This is one of the downsides to this digital world we live in - getting color consistent across all areas. This year at WPPI, I heard many photographers stress in-studio proofing only (they do not post online at all) for this very reason. If they bring the clients into their studio, they can control the colors that the clients are seeing. How many clients have old CRT screens or poor color in their monitors? How are they really seeing your color correction? Do they care? I may start doing this in the future; we'll see. For now, my busy clients like seeing their images online, but I want to ensure they are seeing the most accurate color as possible.
Which brings me back to the iMac (in a roundabout way) as I'm now about to calibrate it again...minus this one issue of matching calibration exactly JT was right, now that I have made the switch, I wouldn't ever go back.
If you are seeing red "x" marks as place holders for images, I apologize. Someone just made me aware of that issue. I have been making all my posts from my Mac in recent months and have not noticed any issues when viewing in Safari or Firefox, however when I pull my blog up in Internet Explorer (which 75-80% of web visitors still use according to my website stats), I'm seeing the x's. I'm working to resolve this as soon as possible.
Let me know if you are seeing these x's and what browser you use?
Debbie and David were married at Royal Palms Resort and Spa two weeks ago (ironically, my last couple to have their wedding at Royal Palms were also named Debbie and David) on a very beautiful and moving day. They were both so excited to marry one another and I could really feel how much they love each other. I think you can actual see it in several of these images below. A few of my personal favorites from the day...
The dress and shoes of course to start:
It doesn't get any more intimate or romantic than The Royal Palms
I loved the looks on their faces when they first saw each other And then we walked around for some bride & groom portrait time
David's beautiful daughters:
And Debbie's adorable nieces and nephew
Debbie is from England, so many of the women, keeping with tradition, wore these great hats:
Husband and Wife!
And they couldn't resist another kiss after walking out of the Allegria Garden!
A little al fresco dining during the warm spring Arizona evening
As a surprise wedding gift to David, Debbie did a fireworks display after dinner
And last but not least my very favorite from the day
Congratulations Debbie and David! It was an absolute joy spending the day with you all.
I have been receiving a lot of emails from aspiring photographers in the recent months and have decided to start offering one-on-one training and/or small, group workshops depending on the number of people interested.
Aspiring Wedding or Portrait Photographers: One on one training will include hands on experience with your camera, detailed Q&A sessions, the fundamentals of f-stop, composition, lighting and posing techniques. One on one training will also provide the opportunity to attend a portrait session or wedding with me, as well as tailored discussions on your branding, marketing and pricing strategies. It is highly recommended you have a digital SLR for this training.
Parents Looking to Take Better Pictures of Their Kids: I also receive a lot of questions from Moms & Dads who are looking to take better pictures of their children. Many have already purchased a digital SLR camera and want to learn how to use it more effectively and get those great shots where you turn off the flash, get more of the background blur, and how to use light effectively. These workshops are open to parents or hobbyists looking to take their photography to the next level. Digital SLR cameras recommended, but point and shoots okay as well.
If you are interested in either one-on-one training or a group workshop, please contact me for more info.
You have blessed my life, and the life of your father, in ways we could have never imagined before you. You are a remarkably good person, a nice and thoughtful human being, with a strong sense of self, a killer sense of humor, and a level of intelligence that makes me proud every single day. There is not a day that goes by that I do not thank God for you and not a morning that arrives where I have not been excited to see your face. You have given us the ability to love on a level I didn't know existed, and you have made me a better person. The last three years have been challenging, amazing, rewarding, tiring, and filled with a sense of joy that words cannot ever fully express. Thank you for that. Thank you for being you.
My girlfriend Marie just sent me this link of amazing animal pictures. There are a handful of really beautiful images, but aside from some extraordinary moments captured and some truly great images, I found it disturbing that hardly any of these images has the photographer info copyrighted into it. I'm not sure how many of these were taken by professional photographers, but it's timely to note that with the Orphan Works Proposal, many of these photographers could lose their protected copyrights if they cannot be located.
What is the Orphan Works proposal and what is the potential impact? In a nutshell, "the Copyright Office has suggested legislation that, in its current form, could have a devastating impact on the professional photographers. Copyright Office proposal goes too far by making it impossible for a copyright owner who later discovers the use of an orphan work to recover even a reasonable royalty...and would strip thousands of photographers and other visual artists of their rights." (Source: PPA Media Release and PPA CEO David Trust -- link below)
So my friend Ryan Brannen just told me about this new website/blogging tool/chat site called Twitter. Are you familiar with it? I've only signed on a few hours ago and its kind of addictive! Check it out.
I got to meet up with the Sehnal family again recently to photograph Tyler as he turns 1. He was walking all about and exploring and is as just as cute (or cuter) than the last time I saw him!
The images on this blog are the property of Jennifer Bowen Photography and protected by Federal Copyright Law. It is illegal to reproduce images by any means, including right clicking and printing these for home use without the permission of the photographer, and especially for others to use these images as their own work.
The images are saved at a low resolution suitable for web viewing only. Printing these images by right clicking will not result in high quality prints. Images on this blog are proofs only. Please contact the photographer if you would like to order prints, or visit your personal web gallery to order enlargements.
