Greetings from Las Vegas! I headed out earlier this week for the first leg of the Hot Mama Boudoir World Tour and for April & Jason’s wedding here. I normally have a bit of a love-hate relationship with Las Vegas – everything here is so very designed. So big. So over the top. But this trip has been really, really great. I like the Aria and would be happy to stay here again. It is conveniently located in the center of the Strip, so it has been pretty easy to get to everything.
I’ve had my iPhone out and about with me everywhere, so these are a few of my favorite snaps which I’ve shared on Instagram.
How can you beat this mountain view? I love seeing the mountains in Las Vegas!
These sculptures in the Cafe at the Aria fascinate me. I just love the glass, how solid they are yet how fluid they seem. Beautiful!
Wouldn’t it be super cool to use them in a boudoir session for posing with them? Heehee! I doubt the hotel would allow it, but it would make some really gorgeous photos!
I did the first of my boudoir sessions here at the hotel in one of their gorgeous and huge suites! As soon as I have the ok to share some of them, I will!
Later the night of the session, Elaine & I headed over to see Absinthe – a show that is almost impossible to describe without giving away how fabulous it is. Think a mix of an exotic cabaret show with a small circus (minus the animals!) in a small, intimate tent. We were in row H, and yet you can see how close were were to seeing everything. It was so cool! Definitely NOT family-friendly, this isn’t one you should take the kiddos to. We loved it though – it was a lot of fun!
After the show, Elaine & I headed over to the Bellagio for a quick bite, and of course had to take in the gardens. I loved the chrysanthemum bees with the giant daffodils!
April & Jason’s wedding is today and then I have another boudoir session tomorrow. After I leave here, it is back to Houston for a quick round of laundry and repacking my suitcase to leave 14 hours later to leave for the second leg of the Hot Mama Boudoir Tour – PARIS!!! (I keep joking that I’m seeing the “fake” Eiffel Tower here in Las Vegas, and the real one next week!)
I have session times still available for Paris on May 6th & 7th, and for London, England on May 9th & 10th. Let me know if you are interested in setting up a session while I’m there! You can Contact Me here!
I also have sessions available in Boston on May 22nd & 24th, and New York City on May 25th. Tour dates for New Orleans in June and San Francisco in August will be announced soon!
Two years ago I was attending a Houston wedding vendor luncheon where Sasha Souza was speaking. She mentioned a new non-profit that was being formed called Wish Upon a Wedding, with the purpose of granting wedding wishes for couples facing terminal illness or special circumstances. I thought it was such an amazing concept, I signed up to be a Wish Granter then & there, on my phone, during lunch. Houston didn’t even have a chapter yet.
One year ago I was contacted by the Houston Chapter of Wish Upon a Wedding and asked if I would be a Wish Granter for Alexis & Christian’s Wedding. OMG YES!!! I didn’t hesitate for even a second before I responded that I would be honored to be a part of making their wedding come true.
What an amazing day it was — and I am so grateful that Wish Upon a Wedding brought us all together, because they are some of the most wonderful people I’ve ever met. You may have seen them riding around town on their scooters, kissing whenever they come to a stop light. Cutest thing EVER! (You can see more of their engagement session here.)
Shortly after Alexis & Christian’s wedding, I saw that the Houston Chapter was looking for board members, and as I looked through the openings I knew which one was right for me. I signed up to be the Marketing Chair, and after being reviewed by the national and Houston level, I was offered & accepted the position in February of this year. Being on the inside, I’m more committed than ever to see this fabulous group go as far as possible!
If you or someone you know in Houston is facing a terminal illness or has a special circumstance which fits the criteria on the site, please apply for consideration of your wedding wish! There is an application process & it is then considered and reviewed. We need your help getting the word out that this exists for people! Wedding Wishes take all forms and sizes, and all of the details are on the Wish Upon a Wedding site.
If you’re a wedding vendor in the Houston area and would like to volunteer, there are opportunities to help with the various committees and board positions in the chapter and you are also welcome to apply to be a Wish Granter. We need you!
Last but not least, we have several fundraisers throughout the year to help defray costs for granting wishes, and this is where ALL of you come in! I’ll be announcing when all the details for the annual gala are ready, but this week you can join us for the Second Annual Tacky Wedding Pub Crawl – here in the Heights! Thursday, April 12th from 5:30-8:30pm we will be going from pub to pub on White Oak, dressed (or not) in our tacky wedding finest! It is going to be a GREAT time, and all the money goes to this amazing cause! Get your tickets HERE for $10/person if you book by 2pm on Thursday, and $20 at the door. Can’t WAIT to see you there!
I’ve been a huge fan of my Canon for years – starting with the Canon EOS 20D, then the 30D, and then the original 5D. In 2009 the 5D mkII came out, and I bought it shortly afterwards. Like so many others, the 5D mkII and I had a rocky relationship. There were only 9 focus points, and only one that really worked. But like all gear, you learn to use it to the best of your ability. For me, that meant taking a lot of photos to make sure that I had one with that tack-sharp focus that I so love. I worked with it, even when it frustrated me. To be honest, I even threatened to switch to Nikon – jealous of their ability to not have to battle with this focusing issue. The only problem? I have a lot of Canon lenses that I really love!
So like many others, I waited. When the new 5D mkIII was announced, I have to admit to being giddy with anticipation when I saw the specs of the new body! Canon finally heard our pleas for a better focusing system, and they came through with a total winner!
I was going to wait until this summer to get a new camera body, but when a friend of mine posted that he had ordered two and decided he only wanted to keep one of them, I decided to go for it – and I’m so happy I did! I picked it up on Wednesday, but had to wait until yesterday to go outside and play with it thanks to the rain. Fortunately, my cat Graham was willing to model while the rain was still coming down.
Indoors. No flash. Minimal color adjustment in Lightroom before posting it here – that is essentially straight out of the camera. (SOOC) – so amazing! Once the rain let up, I headed outside. The flowers were even more willing to model for me than the cat was!
This photo is zoomed in and cropped at 100% – as close as you can get – of the flower below on the left. *swoon* It makes my geeky gear heart so happy to have this camera!
And another 100% zoomed in view of that exact same photograph as above on the right. This crop is my favorite! Just look at that detail – and this wasn’t taken with my macro lens!
All photographs taken with the Canon 5D mkIII and the Canon 50mm f/1.2L lens.
Oh Canon, once again you make my heart sing. I feel as full of joy about this camera body as I did when I bought my very first Canon 20D years ago. It is finally a camera body worthy of the wonderful L series lenses that you make. Thank you, thank you, thank you! I can’t wait to use it at the wedding I’m photographing tonight at Rice!
While working on this post, it was fun looking back on all the changes that the second quarter of 2011 brought to both my business and my family! While all of 2011 was amazing, this is when it really kicked in to high gear!
April started off with Ashley & Jess’s wedding at Tiny Boxwoods. It was such a perfect venue for this gorgeous day! They chose the location because it was where they first met – Jess works there, and Ashley came in with her mother one day – and the rest is history! I love it when fate brings two wonderful people together like that! Thank you again to Meghan, one of my former clients, for referring Ashley to me – I enjoyed working with them so much!
Kandace & Clayton were married at Kemah Gardens, an absolutely charming Bed & Breakfast in Kemah, Texas – just south of Houston. Kandace is friends with two of my past brides, Kara & Melissa, so when they found out she was looking for a wedding photographer they sent her right to me! I love working with clients who are friends of past clients – it somehow just makes everything so much more fun, especially seeing the couples I’ve worked with over the years there at the wedding.
Kandace & Clayton’s whole day was just so full of love – you could sense how much they mean to their family & friends. Whenever Kandace was near, Clayton would just light up! It was beautiful!
This moment cracked me up – I had gone out of the bridal room to check in on things, and when I came back in I found Kandace and her brother peeking out the window to watch the bridesmaids going down the aisle. It was so cute!
I always love that moment when the groom first sees the bride walking down the aisle!
Nicole & Jack met because of the Heights when their realtor introduced them while Nicole was house hunting in the neighborhood. Meeting in the Heights, they wanted to incorporate our neighborhood in to their wedding as much as possible — we did their engagement session on 19th Street, and their wedding was at All Saints Catholic Church – my church now, only 3 blocks from my house! It is one of my favorite Catholic Churches in Houston, a historic church with the most beautiful interior! Their reception afterwards took place at the Intercontinental Hotel, and they had the coolest antique car ever take them from one venue to the other!
I wasn’t the only one taking a lot of photographs of Nicole & Jack with that amazing antique car!
The Intercontinental Hotel is so stunning, day or night! The grounds were so lovely, and the ballroom was beautiful!
The party was a good one, and the band, BackBeat had everyone dancing all night and eventually up on the stage with them! I love live music at a wedding.
A few weeks after Nicole & Jack’s wedding Mike & I closed on our 1920 Bungalow in the Heights, and we also moved my studio in to the new space on Heights Boulevard. 8 blocks from the house. I love working in the gorgeous old Victorian! Not only for meeting with my wedding clients, but for boudoir sessions as well. It is fabulous!
This was the quarter that everything changed. My dream of over 20 years of moving to the Heights in addition to having my studio here is a reality now. I’m so grateful to be living in the Heights now, and I love Houston more than ever now!
 I’m SO excited to share the launch of my brand new logo with you! Designed for me by my friend Aimee Giese of Giese Media, it was exactly what I was looking for!
As a photographer, I’ve always been a graphic designer wannabe at heart. When I have my mind set on what I want something to look like, it is pretty hard to sway it. Knowing that, I tried really, really hard to stay open to Aimee’s creative brilliance while she worked on my logo for me. We thought we had a pretty good idea of what it was going to look like (including my signature in the new look), but Aimee asked if she could try out one more idea. She had seen the many logos I had pinned on my Logo Love board on Pinterest and knowing what the trend of my favorites were, she created something perfectly unique and EXACTLY what I wanted!
After almost 5 years, it was time for a change. The new logo just feels like it just fits and it makes me smile every time I look at it!
I’ll share more details in a few weeks of the rest of my marketing materials as they arrive! My business cards are already in for WPPI, the new client DVD labels will be ready soon, and … well, the rest is all going to be a surprise!
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