Sneak Peek: Malerie & Chris

28.03.11 the latest & greatest

Happy Monday, ya’ll!

Boy oh boy, I gotta admit… I was a bit nervous to get back on the saddle.  Ya know, first wedding of 2011.  Four months off.  But after some reflection, I think we were back stronger and better than ever.  It was so great to watch Jesie and Michael implement all that we’ve been learning the last several months.  And what a fantastic wedding… geez a loo, was it good.  Malerie and Chris were our Free Wedding Giveaway winners.  Remember that? :-)

I cannot wait to tell you more about this amazing, amazing couple who reminded me why I do what I do.

Until then, here’s a preview from this weekend:

“What should we wear?”

19.03.11 our two cents

One of the most common questions we get asked is, “What should we wear?”

You know how to coordinate yourself, but it’s not everyday that you have to coordinate with your fiancé.  Unless you’re like me and my boyfriend… we’ve started asking the short question the day before church, “Black or brown?”  Because it’s a fashion faux pa to mix black and brown and I don’t want the two of us to look like a giant faux pa.  It’s the color-conscious photographer in me.  Ah, but I digress…

Needless to say, I’ve developed a few tips to help make planning for your engagement session a little easier.  But please, take these with GRAIN OF SALT, because I sort of consider myself to be the least fashion conscious person I know.  But, I have picked up a thing or two over the years of photographing people.

Now, there are a few areas that need to be accounted for, not just your wardrobe:

1. Hair and Makeup
2. Jewelry/Accessories
3. Clothes

1. Let’s start with the easy part: hair and makeup.

— I think hair can be as styled or as loose as you want it.  I’m not terribly particular on this.  I do recommend at least giving it a little bit of body, for you straight-haired girls, with some blow drying and maybe just curl the ends.  I love natural, hair in the face kind of shots.

— Makeup… I’m a stickler on makeup.  Even if you don’t wear it, I highly recommend getting your makeup professionally done if you can.  Otherwise, it’s really important to wear some foundation.  This makes it so much easier to touch-up any kind of acne/blemishes/lines that you may have and also gives you a nice even tone.  Don’t skimp on the eyes – at a minimum mascara is great, coupled with eyeliner is even better – even if you don’t wear it.  This really makes your eyes pop in the photos… and after all, it’s all about the eyes.  Lip gloss at a minimum is a must – it at least defines your lips and sometimes gives a bit of color.

2. Jewelry/Accessories

— I love some good jewelry.  Mainly earrings.  They frame your face and add a little extra somethin’-somethin’ to your images.  A good necklace never hurts too.  You want to coordinate a different set of jewelry with each outfit.

— Accessories such as scarfs, headbands, suspenders (if that’s what your man’s into) can go along way.  I’m all about layering and textures.

3. Wardrobe

— This is what I’m really passionate about.  Your clothes can make or break your shoot!  At least when you work with us… we really use what you’re wearing to guide our session.  We value colors and tones.  We love to put you in front of backdrops that’s either the same color palette as your clothes or a complementary color to your clothes.

— To start, narrow down 2 to 3 favorite, coordinated outfits for you and your fiancé.

— Secondly, if  we’re shooting in a location(s) with a variety of different backdrops: the more the merrier.  I’m such a fan of bringing several different tops just so we can have some options because you never know where we’ll end up.

— Third, bring some neutrals to fall back on.  You can do an awesome, awesome session in just a couple of solid white or black tops.

— Fourth, if you really want to get into coordination, and not just wear a sold white t-shirt, here are a few areas that we often talk about: the same color, copmlementary colors, shades of a color, same value of colors, and also accenting colors.  Let’s break it down…

First, you can never go wrong if you wear the same colors:

Below, these guys are wearing simple black and white.  Pick a color that looks great on both of you and wear the exact same shade of it.

Or if you want to get a little fancier, you can wear the same color(s) in different patterns.

Second, complementary colors always work well together.  Red complements green.  Blue complements orange.  And purple complements yellow.  Think Denver Broncos VS Minnesota Vikings.

Now these guys are wearing blue and yellow, but that yellow is close enough to orange that it totally works.

Third, another piece of advice is to wear various shades of a color.  Just make sure the jump in values (more on values below) aren’t too extreme.

Fourth, and perhaps the most advance piece of advice, is to coordinate not just shades of one color, but values of different colors.  It’s important to understand value here.  I like to think of value as the strength of the color… how light or dark it is.  You can have Bronco blue and baby blue… which is a lighter value of blue?  Baby blue.  Let’s look at Easter colors: blue, pink, yellow, and green.  Not necessarily complementary colors, but they are all light, baby colors.  Same value, you see?

Another way to think of value: if you were to convert the image to black and white, would the “colors” be the same shade of grey?  Check these out:

These guys are in grey and tan.  But light grey and light tan.

Lastly, accenting colors can be real nice.  This is where one person wears a pattern/combination of colors and the other person just pulls one single color from that pattern.

Honestly, I could probably write multiple blog posts about what to wear for your engagement shoot.  We hardly touched on texturing.  But I think this is a good start for now.  And please, take all this with a grain of salt.  As it’s pretty much all subjective aaaand you’re getting this advice from someone who really prefers to wear a t-shirt and jeans.

Good luck and happy shopping! :-)
R

Be Still

18.03.11 personal

It was 365 days ago.  One year ago, almost to the hour.  I was alone, yet Accompanied.  It was the best of my life.

Yes, the best day of my life.

I stood in the middle of expansive green valley with the cold wind blowing so hard at my back I had to lean into it to keep from falling forward.  The sky was dark and the clouds looked like cotton balls that had just removed grey nail polish.  Rain drops, carried with the wind, soaked my backside.  The deep, teal-colored ocean as far as my eye could see.

It was the most gorgeous scene I had ever laid eyes on.

It was one year ago that I had the most life-changing moment with the Lord on a tiny little isle off the west coast of Scotland.

The Isle of Iona.

I set out on a two-week journey to Sweden and Scotland, my camera as my only companion, to simply “be still and know.”  I wasn’t sure what I meant when I left, nor was I sure where I’d end up to be quite honest.  All I knew was that my desire to just BE was insatiable.  I could hear Him telling me just to BE STILL.  To stop.  To quit moving through life so quickly.

I remember my first site of Iona as I arrived early in the morning on what we know as St. Patrick’s day.  The chilly wind blew directly in my face as I held onto the white, paint-chipped rails of the ferry boat.  I could never image what this little island and remote abby would hold for me.

After getting settled in my B&B, I set out exploring the isle of 150 people, its vast farmland and sheep, and its pride and joy: the Iona Abby.  I’ll never forget walking into the empty, stone sanctuary of the 1200AD abby.   Feeling frustrated with my journey to “be still” I knelt in prayer and asked for forgiveness.  Nearly a week had gone by and the only being still and reflection I had done was, well, was none.  I was too distracted with all that is solo-travel and driving on the other side of the road.  I set out on this journey to reflect and hear what the Lord had to say to me.  I felt like an imposter.  And so I knelt and asked the Lord for forgiveness and some focus to really open my ears and heart during the following two days in Iona.

Whispering a tearful “amen,” I got up and exited through a different door.  What I saw next nearly swept me off my feet.  I’m not sure I would’ve believed myself a year later if I hadn’t had my camera with me.

Awestruck and totally flabbergasted, I just stood there and stared at the bench in the distance.  A minute or two passed by and I approached the bench a little closer, sitting down on it.  Feeling the wood with my hands, I smiled a big smile and lifed my face to the heavens, “You are so good, God.”

Affirmation.  That’s what He’s in the business of.  I knew when I saw that bench, I was exactly where I needed to be.

The next day, I spent my time cooped up in my bed and breakfast.  The weather was too rainy and cold to do much.

The whole day my body begged me to get out and use it.  Eventually, my body won the battle against my mind and I set out on a jog in the rain and wind.  I ran to the north shore of Iona where I came across the most gorgeous scene I have ever seen.  I didn’t have my camera on me, but it was something that looked a little like this, minus the tables and land in the distance:

365 days ago, almost to the hour.  It was there on that teeny, tiny little spot on the map that I heard God speak to me louder than He ever had before.  Ever.  It was absolutely undeniable.

With the rain and wind pounding me, my heart racing and eyes drooling at the scene in front of me, I instinctively extended my arms to the heavens and worshipped, How Great is Our God.  Just the day before I felt like such an imposter.  Setting out to seek God, to be still and know that he is God?  What does that even mean?  But in that moment, it was easy to be still.  There He met me.  I couldn’t help but stand in awe.  In awe of God.  In awe of His beauty.  His earth.  His love for me that is as deep and as wide as that ocean that stood before me.  My spirit, something with which I had never truly engaged or acknowledged, was alive and taking over.  I could hear Him and I was soaring in a way I have never felt before.  It was my spirit, not my flesh.  In the midst of the storm around me, it was so easy to feel calm and to rest in his joy, peace, and love.  I finally understood it.

So here we are a year later… and I challenge you: Be Still.  Go find your core… your center… your cushion of calm.  I’m confident you will be reenergized.  And I know you’ll find joy, peace, and love.

Because the remedy to exhaustion is not rest, but wholeheartedness that only comes by being still.

With joy, peace, and love,
René

A Note to Photographers

16.03.11 our two cents

A couple weeks ago I was listening to a live interview with Seth Godin, author of Purple Cow and Tribes, and photographer Dane Sanders, and was challenged, yet affirmed in my own thinking by Seth.  This is something that’s been on my heart for the last several months, so I gotta share his advice.

What I love about Seth is his honesty.  He was quick to point out that anyone who has $200 bucks and access to the internet can pick up a camera, download some free software, and plastering the web with their images and announce to the world that he or she is a photographer.  That’s not how it should work.   The tools are not scare anymore, they’re easy to access.  With that said, Seth continued to challenge the status quo: why should you get paid to shoot?  And by the way, he said, you’re not entitled to receive pay for your work.  You have to EARN IT.  What makes you different?

You have to get out of this place of FITTING in and into a place of STANDING OUT.

What really stuck with me was this line from Seth:  You need to be honest with yourself; if you’re taking average pictures, for average clients, you need to STOP.  That industry is dead.

Differentiate yourself.

The last several months have been filled with reflection for myself and for those within my business.  Look, I’m not perfect, I don’t have it all figured out, and once I, myself, was doing photography for the wrong reasons.

But praise the Lord, I’m starting to find my place in life, and I’m learning that the camera is just a tool.

I’m hungry to learn more about what it means to be a photographer, the history of photography, and why the heck I do what I do in every aspect of this business.

My hope and prayer for photographers out there, myself included, is to be intentional:

Start at the beginning.  Examine why you truly want to be in this business, what makes your work unique, learn what the heck all those buttons and menus and joysticks do on your camera (I’m shocked at the number of photographers who don’t know the difference between P and M).  Define what you hope to accomplish with your craft.  And I would challenge you to think through each and every release of the shutter before you take it, asking yourself, “WHY am I taking this picture?”

I close with two thoughts — one of my own and one of a legendary photographer before my time:

If digital cameras didn’t exist, if the internet hadn’t been invented, if creating an image required stationary subjects and long exposures, WOULD YOU STILL BE A PHOTOGRAPHER?

“The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.” — Dorothea Lange