Art, décor, family and photography- it's all part of me!
I have been loving the beautiful spring weather lately, and this week I've been so excited to take advantage of it with photoshoots. We had the perfect day to shoot Morgan's senior pictures. She is graduating early from Plainview Christian Academy, and then heading to Dallas Baptist University. I loved shooting with her- here are some of my faves:
I think she looks waaaaaaay older than 17 here! Haha!
I've had SEVERAL requests for new pictures of the puppies- so here they are! They are now 3 weeks old, have their eyes open, are beginning to walk, and have little nubs for teeth. These guys are such a sweet bunch. They really love to be cuddled together- more than our last litter.
Incredibly, we've already sold 3 of them! It's been such a blessing- I'm sad that this will be our last litter- but it sure is a good one!
Puppy #1 (silver ribbon) Black, Male
Don't worry- I had parental supervision. :)
Puppy #2- Male, Red Wheaten (He will be a strawberry blonde color)
Puppy #3- Male, Wheaten (this guy is tentatively sold)
Puppy #4- Black, Female (She is sold, and already has a name- Posh! How cute!)
Puppy #5- Black, Female (She is sold as well)
Puppy #6- Black, Male
The whole bunch!
This little guy was so sleepy!
All of the black dogs have little white goatees (some more than others). Here you can see Posh's!
Today they got their first taste of real food. It went very well!
No, this is not a reference to my terrible dancing skills, typically seen at a wedding reception. This is a serious post. I mean business! (This was the first image that came up when I Googled "business".)
About 2:00 am a few Saturdays ago, the idea for this post came to me- BACKUP! (As in file backup- the way your wedding images are stored and archived.) How many brides really consider backup when selecting a wedding photographer? It's something that is crucial to the existence of your wedding images, and to this date I have never had a bride ask me how I archive their images. So, I'm going to walk you step-by-step as to how I do it. Here we go!
First, I shoot the wedding. (Duh.) This may seem like an obvious step, but there is a lot going on during a wedding day- several memory cards (what your images are stored on- I am a fully digital shooter) being passed around from myself to my second shooter and back into our "safe place" (otherwise known as an overly-labeled "DO NOT USE" card holder.) This card holder is never left alone in a camera bag- it is always on my person or my second shooter's. Reason? If my camera bag is stolen while I am off shooting, I have insurance to replace my equipment, but no way to get the images on those cards back. Keeping it on my person takes away that (major) risk.
Second, the initial backup. If your wedding reception is over at midnight, I am still working for the next couple hours! Once I return back to my home office, I will upload the thousands of images to two different hard drives. One copy goes on my main computer's hard drive, and another copy is automatically copied to an external "backup-only" hard drive. This step gives me a lot of peace, because now the images are in at least three places- on the original memory card, my working hard drive, and my backup external hard drive. (I have a large collection of external hard drives- and just in case you are wondering, I never delete your wedding images from them. Once I fill up a hard drive, I do put it into archival storage, but the images will remain there forever!)
(These are the two types I use- Maxtor - now Seagate- and Western Digital)
Third, I make an archival DVD of the images. This process usually takes quite a while as each wedding can be up to 10 GB in size (that equates to about 3 DVDs). This DVD is placed within a client file, never to be touched- and only pulled in an extreme situation.
Fourth, I head to the bank. Why? To pick up my "Last Resort" Backup hard drive. That's literally what I named it. This hard drive sits quietly and undisrupted in a security deposit box at my bank. It contains every image I've ever shot on it, and I bring it to my office to update it about once a month (more frequently during wedding season). Why is it important that I have this crucial piece of backup? If my house burns down. Yep. I worry about things like that.
Lastly, I breathe. The images are now backed up to four different sources (2 types of media, 1 off-site). I will reformat the memory cards so they can be used again.
What if your wedding is not in Lubbock?
I will be shooting more weddings NOT in Lubbock than I will be actually in Lubbock this year. Here's what I do in that case:
Since travel creates an extra, unavoidable risk, I go by the same rules as I do while shooting a wedding- keeping the images on my person at all times. After the wedding, the images are backed up onto my laptop and a "travel" external hard drive. I then make 2 copies of the archival DVDs. One copy is kept with me, and the other is mailed out the next day back to my home office. I am sure to keep the original memory cards, external hard drive, archival DVD, and my laptop on my person till I get home. It may sound morbid, but there is still some risk (like a plane crash), and so the mailed DVDs guarantee that at least one of us will make it back! I also have the same philosophy while traveling with my camera equipment- I keep it with me. If my clothing bag doesn't make it, I just have a good excuse to go shopping- but I will always have my camera equipment.
Most of my wedding couples are provided with the Digital Negatives from their wedding day. Here are a couple of things I would recommend doing with yours:
1. Copy the images to your computer's main hard drive, even temporarily so that you might make yourself copies of the disc. Make at least one copy for yourself, to be stored away with the rest of your wedding memorabilia.
2. Make a copy for your Mom. Trust me on this one. :)
3. Don't leave your Digital Negatives in extreme weather situations (a.k.a. your car). I will replace one copy for you, but depending on whether or not your images have been put in storage there may be a fee.
4. Keep your Copyright Release (the piece of paper with my permission for you to use the images) with your disc at all times. Tape it to the back of the envelope if you have to. I have received several phone calls from photo printers wanting to know if I really wanted to allow the printing of the images.
Hope that was informative! Brides, PLEASE be sure your photographer has taken the time to think this through. A real professional will have a time-tested method that includes several different places of backup on more than one type of media. It's so important!
Abby was the winner of my Free Senior Photoshoot giveaway in February, and I am so glad she was chosen! I appreciated her fun sense of style, genuine smile and carefree attitude. We had quite a windy and cloudy day, but it really seemed to give the images a lot of movement which I loved. Thanks for entering, Abigail!
David and Taylor were married last weekend at First Baptist Church here in Lubbock. It was a beautiful spring day- the perfect day to get married. Everything seemed to go so smoothly- due in part to the awesome friends and family they had around. I have so enjoyed getting to work with these two- they are truly genuine people and a lot of fun, too. I'm blessed to have had the opportunity to capture their big day.
Ceremony: First Baptist Church Lubbock
Reception: Frazier Alumni Pavilion
Hair: Tandy at Davidson-Taylor
Makeup: The Radiant Lily
Flowers + Decor: College Flowers
Reception Band: Wes Nixon Band
I love in-between moments like this.
Quite possibly my favorite wedding party pic of all time. They totally worked it for me!
College Flowers did an outstanding job at the Frazier Alumni Pavilion. I loved the saturated pinks and oranges, the decorative lighting, and the red chandeliers.
David is the drummer for the Hogg Maulies, who made a cameo appearance at the reception. A friend (and chocolatier) of the family made this custom chocolate sculpture for them.
Hee hee!
Congratulations you two! Hope your honeymoon was wonderful!
It seems I have several thoughts flying around my head right now...so I'm going to place them here.
Puppies. They are all so cute. But they are getting smellier! The bigger they get, the bigger you-know-what gets. Actually, Lola has been a fantastic mommy so far. I feel like most of the day she bosses me around and lets me know what she needs to do and when. We already have deposits down for both girls, so all that's left are boys! I am a little nervous- most people seem to want girls first- although we got our boy first. Hopefully I will hear from some people who don't have a strong attachment to one gender. I would dare to say our male is more sensitive than our female. They are starting to open their eyes, which means more pictures soon!
Impulse shopping. Shawn is typically the impulse buyer in our house, but I bought these the second I saw them. (Mine are actually a plum color.) My sister Layne thinks they look like a foot bandage, haha! I love them, even though I didn't get them at a discount. Which leads me to...
Financial Peace. We've been pretty fortunate to get to this point in our lives without a lot of debt. But that doesn't mean it isn't there. We've been doing Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover for about 6 months and have paid off a little over 9,000.00 so far. I've learned to love coupons and stick to a budget like my life depends on it. (It does, actually- we have GOALS!) It's also been a lot of fun to dream together. We can't decide if we want to do Hawaii or The Bahamas once we get out of debt! More than anything, I've learned to live within our means- not just because we don't want to have debt- but because we don't want to be slave to anyone. Being self-employed, healthcare is NOT inexpensive, and with the changes in the healthcare system, I'm not sure how that will all pan out. What I DO know is that we'll be able to pay for medical emergencies ourselves, rather than depend on the government for it. Plus, Dave's podcasts get me through many hours editing on my computer. :) Speaking of what I've been listening to.
This and this would top the charts. We pre-ordered The Classic Crime's new album "Vagabonds" when we saw that they were donating all profit to Haiti, knowing we would have purchased it anyway. It's one of those albums (like all the rest of their albums) that gets better with each listen. MY favorites now are #3 Solar Powered Life and #4 Four Chords. These guys are definitely some of my all-time favorites. The Alice in Wonderland Soundtrack, "Almost Alice" has some of my favorite artists there too- Owl City, All-American Rejects, Avril, Plain White T's...and the music all has a bit of creepiness to it. Good creepiness. Favorite tracks are #2 Poison and #12 Tea Party. Tea Party definitely caught me by surprise, but it's kind of one of those hilarious fun songs to dance around to. That's right- I like to dance around in my office.
An organized life. My friend Hannah had told me about some incredible podcasts by Mike Bickle at IHOP in Kansas City. The series is called "The Power of a Focused Life". I love planning and making goals, and so I hesitated to listen to the podcasts, mostly because I didn't want to get myself on a new schedule and then let myself down. So I finally had a listen and I am more excited about my day-to-day life than I've been in a long while. I've given myself a new schedule (that I don't always have to keep) which gives me ample time for the things I really want to be doing. Here's what I decided I want to focus on right now: 1) I want to be a student of the Bible. I want to know it well, and be able to use it as a foundation for every decision I make. This will require serious study and effort, not just picking up a new Christian book every once in a while. 2) I want to be there for my family and friends. Too many times I have allowed myself to be distracted with my own wants, only to have an opportunity to serve my family/friends slip by. I need to be available and paying attention. This will require me to have set business hours and and be more aware of my schedule. 3) I want to be a creator, like my Heavenly Father. One of my purposes here on Earth is for me to show others the beauty that God has created in all of us. I love to facilitate a comfortable place, whether that be during a photoshoot or a cookout. Being able to see the beauty in all things will require me to have a keen eye and hands that are ready to work! I know that God will continue to teach me how to love and live, and I'm excited! One more thing I'm excited about...
Escalate Live! I just bought tickets for Shanna and I yesterday. Got a great deal from Hotwire on hotel and rental car. I've been dying to get back to California after I came back last year, so I was totally pumped when I saw this conference fit perfectly in with a wedding we are shooting in Kansas City a few days before. I'm sure it will be a LOT of people, and a LOT of information, but it's going to be a great trip. Some of the most outspoken photographers in the industry right now.
Ok, if you've actually read to here you are officially my friend. I better get back to work!
If you follow my Twitter, you would have seen my tweet a few weeks ago that said, "Working on a bridal-Taylor's one of those girls who can make a dump look good. So excited for the wedding."
This is Taylor, one of the cool, gorgeous brides I have had the pleasure of working with. She got married last weekend and the wedding was FABULOUS. Here are a few of her Bridals.
Who doesn't get excited about great shoes?
Her bouquet was done by College Flowers. If you think this is beautiful, just wait till you see the actual wedding.
Oh yeah, ANOTHER reason I love Taylor is because she brought a RED chandelier. I LOVE it!
Possibly my fave.
Chase and Lauren were so relaxed and fun to be with. We had a beautiful day for our photoshoot, and lots of fun things to talk about. Chase is a vet tech and so he understood my "there-are-dogs-EVERYWHERE!" feeling, since we are currently taking care of eight! The adventure of a photoshoot never ends- we ran into an old man who informed us he'd shot (like with a GUN...shot) some homeless guys recently. It was a short visit, to say the least. :)
I loved the clothing Lauren brought to wear- from Belly Couture, here in Lubbock. Thanks so much for a great shoot, guys!
Back in Septmeber I did an event with the girls at Kadiza Hair Studio, and I gave away a photoshoot- the Ziegners were the winners! I was told they would be so much fun, and they really were!
These two kids were some of the most well-behaved, playful, loving children I've photographed yet. It was a gorgeous spring morning, and we soaked up all the sunlight we could.
Mitzi (Mom) wrote me the sweetest message on Facebook the day after our shoot- I just had to share it here:
Hi Lissa~
I hope you and your family had a happy and blessed Easter...what a
beautiful day God gave us to celebrate the resurrection of His precious son!
I just wanted to let you know how much we enjoyed our time with you on
Saturday. The kids are still talking about it, and I truly think they
just saw it as a fun day to play together and meet a new friend! We can't
wait to see your beautiful work, and we are so grateful to know about you
now!:o)
Thank you, Mitzi! I had a wonderful time, too!
Here are some of my favorite images- there are so many more I wish I could show you, but it would require several more posts, haha!
Once she saw her brother Nathan jumping, Viviana had to get in there too! It was so cute!
I had plenty of Nathan smiling, but I thought this captured his mischeviousness best.
I think I was excited the entire week before Taylor's session. We had talked about TOMS, vintage cameras, and an old, broken-down building. Plus, I knew Taylor was going to be a great subject!
It was incredibly windy the day of her session (suprise!), but we rolled with it. It actually made for some seriously good supermodel hair.
Taylor took me out to this crazy old apartment building where they must have been challenged to use as many paint colors as possible. Tons of texture, light, and color- I was in Heaven!
I'm sure there is some photographer-induced camera tilt to the image on the right, but don't be fooled- the building was actually leaning!
One of her many talents is photography. You have got to check out her Flickr photostream. Super creative- I love it!
Many thanks to Shanna for making my lighting 2x better, and playing stylist at the same time!
How does everyone like my new *BIG* pictures? I feel like I can breathe easier now.