What Fuels Us – Part 1
We had a conversation recently about motivations, inspirations, choices we make each day, what makes us happy and other little idiosyncratic things that make us tick as individuals and as a couple of creatives. We could write a book about our adventures and what fuels us, but here is a first pass, from Ryan.
Hi Gang!! I’m jumping in here and hitting the things from my perspective. Hope you enjoy.
Activities that turn us on: Hiking! These do not have to be strenuous by any means, just nice strolls through new places. We are always on the look out for new shoot locations and often find ourselves looking at every aspect of a place. “If we were going to do a shoot here, how /where would we pose people?”
A second thing I love (and this came to mind more than once) is cooking. It’s similar to how we approach photography, taking concepts that we have seen or read about for various recipes and adding a bit of ourselves and our “twist” to make them different is always fun. And we love to go to Boondocks, which is basically our local hangout even if it is 45 minutes away. I love craft beers, so count me in for anything that’s as black as motor oil and aged in bourbon barrels, and typically 10%ABV and up. [In my best Homer Simpson voice: “BEEEEEEEEEEER. Sweet sustainer of life….”]
BOONDOCKS! We love this restaurant and brewery in West Jefferson and the folks who operate it. Family!
What bands/music? Well, you know we cover Merlefest as official photographers, so these answers won’t surprise you…. Avett Brothers, Dave Matthews Band, Pokey Lafarge. But also Dean Martin, Trampled By Turtles, anything solid bluegrass, electronic dance music (EDM), anything with a good bass/drum combo that I can “turn up to 11.”
What faces fuel me? Misty’s for sure. I can tell a lot of what’s going on by reading her expressions. Also the look on a client’s face when we sneak a peek at the back of camera and see the awesomeness we are capturing. That’s the best!
What types of media do you consume out of complete love? Books: Game of Thrones series – before they became a TV show and became even cool-er. I tend to love more of the Lord of the Rings fantasy types of series that require an active imagination with good descriptions so I can “see” the story in my head. Movies: action thrillers like the Bourne series and James Bond, animated Pixar anything. And with TV, I am obsessed with “This Old House,” am a DIY/HGTV junkie as well as stuff on Food Network/Cooking Channel.
What part of a photo session turns you on the most? Trying to get to a location and then figuring out how to shoot it from a perspective that may not be what everyone else would see. Safe shots are still OK to do, but the fun comes in trying something that you think may not work, but if it does, its going to be epic.
Orozco engagement portrait photography by Wilkesboro NC Photographers Pixels On Paper
What’s your favorite time of day? Sunset, it’s a time for magic with lighting, but it goes super fast as the light changes by the second, so knowing how to adapt and adjust quickly is a necessity.
What scriptures do you recite and rely on most? Romans 5:8: “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
What places or aspects of travel provide a personal or creative “reboot?” For the vacation spots, there are different ways of looking at it: All inclusive for the times where you just want to fully relax and not worry about what to do other than figure out what drink to order next or what pool to go to. I love Charleston. It’s always going to be a favorite spot from a food/site-seeing perspective. Even in the mundane travels, I like taking any combination of backroads when going somewhere leads to a fun antique store or mom-and-pop restaurant. I love finding places that we’d miss if we stuck to the main roads all the time.
What’s your favorite room in your house? The kitchen, not only because we built it basically from the studs out when we moved in, but it’s another place for creativity, to try new recipes and have fun enjoying the hard work after.
Well, that seems like enough, so let’s call that a wrap for me. Have a great weekend, everybody.
Misty? You’re up, honey!
Fall Portrait Sessions – Time to Book!
We’re now booking our fall outdoor portrait sessions beginning in late September and running through October. Our clients are brides, engaged couples, couples with their pets, siblings, and families of all sizes. Because of our heavenly locale, clients tend to prefer the Blue Ridge Parkway, Blowing Rock, Boone, and West Jefferson for their photo session, but the Pixels portrait garden in Wilkesboro is also ideal. If you have a special location, please get in touch with us and we’ll work out details and any special requests.
Fall photos are often framed or turned into holiday cards or both. Bring props or we’ll bring them, but let’s create some memories. Contact us today to book your date! We cannot wait to see you.
Some of our favorites!
The Allen Family
The Hatfields
The Picards
The Vanmeters
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.
September Wedding Anniversaries
“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach.” We jokingly use “let me count the ways” all the time and often it’s not about love. I did it the other day, in fact in conversation with a pal. But we rarely think of Robert and Elizabeth Browning (unless you’re an English grad student) and their 19th c. elopement, love affair and poetry.
We’re not counting “the ways” necessarily this month, but we are counting the couples we’ve photographed who are celebrating September anniversaries – and adding some wisdom and observations for others who may or may not know best.
Ruth & John 4 years September 3rd
Let the wife make the husband glad to come home, and let him make her sorry to see him leave. – Martin Luther
Crystal & Adam 7 years September 5th
My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me. – Winston Churchill
Jessica & Chris 5 years September 10th
In a happy marriage it is the wife who provides the climate, the husband the landscape. – Gerald Brenan
Lindsey & Seth 8 years September 13th
To keep your marriage brimming with love, whenever you’re wrong, admit it; whenever you’re right, shut up. – Ogden Nash
Hope & Taylor 3 years September 14th
When you make the sacrifice in marriage, you’re sacrificing not to each other but to unity in a relationship. – Joseph Campbell
Maren & Gordon 4 years September 15th
There is nothing nobler or more admirable than when two people who see eye to eye keep house as man and wife, confounding their enemies and delighting their friends. – Homer
Kristen & Jason 7 years September 19th
A happy marriage is a long conversation which always seems too short. – Andre Maurois
Teresa & Rob 4 years September 22nd
Any marriage, happy or unhappy, is infinitely more interesting than any romance, however passionate. – W.H. Auden
Tameka & Willie 6 years September 25th
I love being married. It’s so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life. – Rita Rudner
Rebekah & Joshua 1 year September 26th
Marriage resembles a pair of shears, so joined that they cannot be separated; often moving in opposite directions, yet always punishing anyone who comes between them. – Sydney Smith
Angela & Andrew 2 years September 27th
Marriage should be a duet – when one sings, the other claps. – Joe Murray
Helen & Woo 7 years September 27th
A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person. – Mignon McLaughlin
Tara & John 10 years September 30th
Marriages, like careers, need constant nurturing… the secret of having it all is loving it all. – Joyce Brothers
Ashley & Kevin 5 years September 30th
The real act of marriage takes place in the heart, not in the ballroom or church or synagogue. It’s a choice you make – not just on your wedding day, but over and over again. – Barbara de Angelis
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.
Happy Anniversary … to a couple we know
It has been a year. A whole, big, replete, exhausting, fun, “where are my keys”, “doesn’t she look amazing?”, “I can’t believe we survived”, “oh holy moly, that was the best!!” year since our 10th anniversary in business as Pixels on Paper.
The calendar tells us that there is a beginning of every new year and it’s January 1. But the thing is…. your birthday, your anniversary is the beginning of YOUR new year and Pixels On Paper was birthed in June of 2005. It’s our birthday. It’s Pixels On Paper’s 11th anniversary. We did it – AGAIN!
Minick Outdoor Maternity Portrait Photography
During the last 12 months, we’ve photographed siblings holding onto each other. We focused our lenses on businesses we love, vendors we collaborate with and admire, taken post-wedding photos with mountains in the distance….. families gathered and smiling… orchards in bloom, brides lit with joy, new husbands unable to stop grinning, kids racing around and babies, babies, babies. We have loved every single minute.
Prom girl in bloom thanks to Bridal Traditions and beYOUtiful Proms
Boondocks Brewery – the installation of new tanks for yummy brews
Bridal bouquet by Edenhouse Floral
Private home ready for sale (and it sold… quickly)
Hoben family reunion on family property (and that’s just 16 of them)
Quinceanera photos for a gorgeous young woman
a Southern Belle to end all Southern Belles
Charleston SC engagement portraits
We also got to send some love to locations where we shoot weddings and events. The Holiday Inn City Center in Charlotte, Leatherwood Resort and Winding Creek Wedding Barn are merely 3.
the rooftop at the Holiday Inn City Center Charlotte
Leatherwood Mountain Resort is scenic, elegant and rustic
from a photoshoot at Winding Creek Wedding Barn
It was our second year as official photographers for Merlefest. We were completely rested about a month later.
WE LOVE THAT GIG.
And we captured loads of babies…. some were reaching out for “kid-dom” but they’re still babies.
Here’s to the next 12 months, the coming autumn (2 weeks away) and holidays and thanks to you all for an amazing year.
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.
The Pirate Party Wedding of Edith and Kirk
If we had a golden doubloon for every time we were asked to attend or photograph a pirate wedding – we’d have a single coin and a million pirate jokes we’d be tempted to make. But this was no joke and the ceremony itself was filled to the brim with pirate references and joy that only the likes of Robert Louis Stevenson and Sir Walter Scott. It started as a party but this year, the host couple added a new element: they got married, …. on their property ……. dressed as pirates and surrounded by their friends, many in costume. It was a blast, down to when the last sword was sheathed and the last lantern was out.
The couple are in beverage distribution, so there was no shortage of beer and ale for the party and their first dance as man and wife was to Chris Stapleton’s Tennessee Whiskey. 
Edith and Kirk have been a couple for 21 years and a dozen of those ago, they started hosting a pirate party on their gorgeous wooded property that boasts a stream that runs through it and a pirate ship. Their place is called: the Piratez Cove. If you find yourself suffering from poverty of imagination for a party or a wedding (or both), take note:
Edith’s processional music was AC/DC’s Highway to Hell. They said their vows on a bridge that Kirk built. No walking the plank. Before the ceremony, they had a parlay party where the bride and groom laid their weapons out on a table. Kirk had a few, but Edith had quite a few more. Peace was established.
The party lasted late in the evening and a chef pal of the couple made Japanese rice hibachi for those staying up and hanging out. We had the best time. These 2 and their friends are a fun bunch of pirates and pirate-loving peeps. Here’s to doing it your way, with your theme!
Whether your wedding is conventional or as non-conventional as Edith & Kirk’s we would love to be part of it as your wedding photographers. Contact Pixels On Paper Photography so we can discuss your celebration and specific needs.