Posts Tagged: charlotte nc wedding photographer
The Pinterest Factor – reality vs. pinned photos
A common challenge we wedding photographers have these days involves brides sending us a Pinterest board full of photos they want us to recreate on their wedding day. And believe me, we get it. Inspiration comes from so many different places and directions, people, memories……….. the origins of our muses can be anywhere these days and Pinterest boards are proof of that. They are a 21st century social media phenomenon, born of the old bulletin boards, college wall boards of your favorite actors or bands, and more recently the vision boards people made for aspirational purposes. They have enormous value for those who craft, knit, travel, have a yen for a certain type of fiction, color palette, movie genre, you name it.
from a board about movie stars of the 1940s
But Pinterest boards are just that: they are inspiration boards. And brides love them because they create a central and shareable place to collect ideas. It’s perfect for pulling together your ideas and favorite thoughts as you plan. With photography on your wedding day, it’s a moveable feast. It’s live and it’s subject to dozens of variables.
from a board about weddings
all images from Pinterest boards about weddings
When it comes to brides, we love seeing photos from Pinterest boards for this reason and pretty much this reason only: we get to know YOUR sense of your style, where YOUR inspirations are coming from and some of the types of imagery you want us to capture. You’re giving us a sense of who you are, but from someone else’s photos. These are someone else’s moments and that’s the distinction.
Why do you want someone else’s moment? Why not allow us to capture or create photos that are uniquely yours? We don’t mind looking at a pinterest board to get an idea of what you like at all, because we can then use it for inspiration. We want to capture what you want and we are seasoned wedding photographers and great listeners. But to wholesale recreate someone else’s moment is not only difficult and time consuming, that moment may be from a photographer with a different style from ours.
If you’ve fallen in love with a particular style of photography, you’ll need to find that photographer or a photographer who can mimic that style. Ryan and I feel strongly about copying other professional photographers images.
Thinking we can create images from Pinterest that only happen naturally where brides and photographers can find themselves in the weeds. Setting up an image based on a photo takes much longer due to set-up and lighting, posing people, etc. than those glorious shots that simply happen naturally.
A wedding is a moveable feast, as it were.
It’s live. It’s a living, breathing bit of joy, community, fun, calamity at its best and history in the making. Every moment cannot be a photo shoot and why would you want it to be? There are rain delays, wardrobe changes or makeup refreshes, lingering conversations, your cast of characters who may go missing, speeches that are lovely to hear but don’t convey on film. To capture every type of image based on other weddings on other days, in other locations and shot by other photographers is to set yourself up for disappointment. Have faith!
YOU need your own images that happen naturally for YOU on YOUR day. Remember that, as you sort through what you’d like to see on your day and trust that there will be magic moments we’ll capture that no one else on any Pinterest board will have.
We love family portraits whether they are set in the studio, the great outdoors, a specific location like the mountains or high country, or on our property in our outdoor portrait garden. Pixels on Paper photographs, engagements and weddings, brides, and special events and portraits of all kinds in our Wilkesboro, NC studio. We would be honored to meet with you, learn about you and your family and be a part of taking special portraits that will become, we hope, family heirlooms.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License
All photos are ©2018 Pixels On Paper. Do not copy, crop, or remove watermark.
Sharing is Caring – The win-win of client referrals & community
Ever heard that phrase? Well sharing really is caring when it comes to our clients and the reciprocal love fest that happens when they tell others about us. Lately, we’ve been musing about how much our clients stick with us over the years. In fact – true, loyal friendships have developed and we consider more than two handfuls of our clients to be family now. It’s a real perk of this gig: doing life with you guys.
Celebrating Pixels’ 10th Anniversary with clients (ie our friends and family)
photo by Michael A. Anderson Photography
In an effort to spread some of that love around, we’re introducing a referral program to reward those who share our name with others, allowing us to continue growing our business and our community of family.
So, if you are an existing client, listen up – (please and thank you):
- Any existing client of Pixels (you’ve hired us for a wedding or portrait session of one type or another) who refers us to someone who then books us for a wedding, will receive their own FREE portrait session PLUS $250 in print credits from us.
AND, ALSO:
- Any existing client of Pixels who refers us to someone who then books us for a portrait session, will receive their own FREE portrait session that year PLUS $50 in print credits from us. For every additional referral they send us, they will receive yet another $50 print credit. The more you send others who book with us, the more rewards we’re happy to lavish on you.
Portraits, for us, come in all types, just like our subjects come in all shapes and sizes. Newborns, first birthdays, families and family reunions, milestones, graduations, and of course bridals and engagements.
- KEY NOTES: We want our existing clients to make sure to tell the folks they are referring to us to MENTION THE REFERRING CLIENT’S NAME, so that they get the rewards they deserve. If someone books a wedding or portrait and doesn’t mention that they heard about us from you, how will we be able to shower you with some love?
- This program offer EXCLUDES limited edition and promo session referrals. Contact us if you have questions!
If you have friends, family, coworkers or neighbors who are about to embark on a milestone or celebration, we hope you’ll tell them about us. And when you do!!!!!!….. you will be rewarded. Thanks all!!
We love family portraits whether they are set in the studio, the great outdoors, a specific location like the mountains or high country, or on our property in our outdoor portrait garden. Pixels on Paper photographs, engagements and weddings, brides, and special events and portraits of all kinds in our Wilkesboro, NC studio. We would be honored to meet with you, learn about you and your family and be a part of taking special portraits that will become, we hope, family heirlooms.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License
All photos are ©2018 Pixels On Paper. Do not copy, crop, or remove watermark.
Wilkes Wedding Expo ~ March 11, 2018
ATTENTION BRIDES-TO-BE:
Save the Date!!
March 11th from 1 – 4 pm
at the John A. Walker Center on the campus of Wilkes Community College
Pixels on Paper, along with other professionals from the wedding industry, will be in attendance to chat with you about your dreams for your big day. Pixels has been a vendor at this annual event for years, and we’ve discovered that it’s not just a great way for us to showcase what we do best, but we’ve met some of the best people and couples whose engagement, bridal and weddings we’ve photographed over the years. Many have become lifelong family friends.
If you haven’t made plans to attend, you can find the information HERE and we encourage you to come and get details you never expected to find and ideas you’ve never heard or thought of.
Tickets online for brides-to-be are $5 and for brides and friends of the bride at the door, they are $8. You can expect to find caterers, furniture rentals, djs, reps for various wedding venues, invitation and stationary options, crafts, décor ideas, dresses, gifts and more. Kelly Shumate, the host of this event and owner of Bridal Traditions is one of my great friends and we never miss an opportunity to collaborate and support each other. Get your tickets and we look forward to seeing you there!
We love family portraits whether they are set in the studio, the great outdoors, a specific location like the mountains or high country, or on our property in our outdoor portrait garden. Pixels on Paper photographs, engagements and weddings, brides, and special events and portraits of all kinds in our Wilkesboro, NC studio. We would be honored to meet with you, learn about you and your family and be a part of taking special portraits that will become, we hope, family heirlooms.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License
All photos are ©2018 Pixels On Paper. Do not copy, crop, or remove watermark.
Brides, brides, brides …… photos of beauty
There’s a saying that all babies are beautiful. I agree. I also think the same is true – for the most part…….. I’ve seen some messes – but never through my lens. A bride is lovely because she is not only wearing the dress of her dreams and marrying the partner of her dreams (WE HOPE), but she’s often times fulfilling a childhood dream to be the center of attention, surrounded by family, friends and lots of love. Brides glow. They represent the future and traditions, new and old, and they always represent hope. I’ve never photographed a bride who wasn’t shining with an inner light – even when mixed with nerves.
Cowboy boots, girlie girls, princesses, tomboys, women shielded by veils, mountains in the background, surrounded by lush botanical gardens, brides – sheathed in gowns – are absolutely gorgeous.
We love family portraits whether they are set in the studio, the great outdoors, a specific location like the mountains or high country, or on our property in our outdoor portrait garden. Pixels on Paper photographs, engagements and weddings, brides, and special events and portraits of all kinds in our Wilkesboro, NC studio. We would be honored to meet with you, learn about you and your family and be a part of taking special portraits that will become, we hope, family heirlooms.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License
All photos are ©2017 Pixels On Paper. Do not copy, crop, or remove watermark.
An Outdoor Wedding ~ in a casual way
Is there a penalty for saying this one was special, if it’s true more than once? We feel this way about more than a few of the couples we photograph on their big day, and this one goes in that category. While we don’t know Dylan and Elizabeth intimately, Dylan’s dad, Richard, has been a friend of ours for over a decade. Plus, who can feel cynical about the world when there is a bagpiper – IN A KILT – playing during the ceremony? Dylan’s uncle not only played the bagpipes at Dylan’s wedding, he played them at Richard’s, so this was a tradition worth keeping. Elizabeth and Dylan are a low key couple, extremely cool and fun, and so was their wonderful outdoor wedding.
You want to know how to mix the casual with the tender? Take cues from these two. Part of the laid back atmosphere they wanted to create for their wedding and reception was to have it at their new home in New London, NC surrounded by their families and friends and their beloved dogs. Elizabeth and Dylan had only been in their new digs for a few short months and worked hard to get the place ready. While the dogs made cameos, any dog owner will tell you that getting them to pose takes more than a nod and a wink but they made it.
On the traditional and tender side: Dylan was given a pair of cuff links just before the ceremony that were his grandfathers as a special touch from Richard. Additionally, someone shared the old Southern tradition of burying the bourbon at the ceremony site to ensure good weather the day of the ceremony. It worked!! As the tradition mandates, the bourbon is dug up and there was a toast of bourbon with the guests after the ceremony. The groom’s sweet Grandmother made the desserts and the catering was provided by Lexington Barbecue as in THE best barbecue. Richard commented, “who knew my son was a barbecue snob?!”
We stole the couple from the ceremony late in the reception because the sunset was just too gorgeous not to get photos with. These two are so relaxed with each other, so happy and in love and their future just appears to be only filled with light and joy and silliness AND DOGS.
We look forward to watching these two grow their family and their lives together over the coming years and loved being a part of their big day. Our thanks to Richard and their whole tribe for letting us in! We love you guys!
We love family portraits whether they are set in the studio, the great outdoors, a specific location like the mountains or high country, or on our property in our outdoor portrait garden. Pixels on Paper photographs, engagements and weddings, brides, and special events and portraits of all kinds in our Wilkesboro, NC studio. We would be honored to meet with you, learn about you and your family and be a part of taking special portraits that will become, we hope, family heirlooms.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License
All photos are ©2017 Pixels On Paper. Do not copy, crop, or remove watermark.