Wedding season goes by in a blur so the winter is a time to deeply recharge my photography batteries not only in sleep but also in skills and creativity.  Part of this is being spent on my personal project with kids and their toys,  part of it is an upcoming series on handmade weddings and a big part was last weeks trip to WPPI! I headed out with my friends at emilie inc to Las Vegas for a 48 hour marathon of learning, socializing and inspiration.   I attended a session on refining your engagement images that I can’t  wait to share with my 2012 couples and a session on the ever important balance between small business owner and having a personal life – it was all fabulous!

Once the learning was over it was time to head to the trade show floor and see what new and what would be a perfect fit for my couples.  There were two products that stood out to me as I strolled the tradeshow floor.
WoodSnap – I walked by this booth and thought “How perfectly Maine!”  Think photo canvas printed on a beautiful piece of maple, delivered ready to hang in your home.  You may not know this but Maine is the most heavily forested state in the United States – how perfectly perfect to display your wedding images on a maple canvas.  I am anxiously waiting my first delivery from them, I can’t wait to share some images when it arrives!

Pinhole Press – As my previous clients can attest I like to make sure you have not only a disc of digital negatives but also prints of those images.   We spend time chatting post-wedding about how you will use your images and what ways you can get that done.    Lots of my couples are of the handmade variety – they do lots of the wedding design and creation with their own two hands and I like to make sure I help them do that after the wedding as well.

Enter Pinhole Press! An online boutique created for hands-on, DIY couples who want to create beautiful prints and gifts from their wedding images on their own!  Pinhole Press offers everything from albums to thank you cards to create gifts like day planners and wine labels.  A perfect fit for my couples and anyone who wants to share their images in print.

It was a great inspirational 48 hours  and I can’t wait for the 2012 wedding season in Maine!

xo,

audra

My love of L.L.Bean is well documented.  If you have met with me you likely know about my giant L.L.Bean tote collection or how I like to visit the L.L.Bean flagship store just to walk around!  So when the book Guaranteed to Last arrived at my house I was giddy:)  I have been flipping through this book for the past few days and digging in deeper on certain parts.  While reading it became clear to me how my love of L.L.Bean fits in perfectly with my photography business – we are both trying to create the same thing – a product that stands the test of time.

When I photograph a wedding I know that I am not only with this family for the day but a little part of me is going to be with them for much longer.  Years later they will show their kids and grandkids the images I made on that day.  What I want out of my images is for them to stand the test of time.   Timeless but not stodgy, beautifully composed but not staged, true photojournalistic images of your wedding day that is my goal.  Images that are guaranteed to last.  Thank you L.L.Bean for the reminder:)

xo,

audra

I also think its important to take care of your back:)  My camera, fully loaded with my favorite lens weighs in around 4lbs, not exactly the lightest thing to carry in your bag.  It’s similar to carrying a 1/2 gallon of milk all the time:)

Despite its heft I have tried to have it with me all the time.  How can I document my life without my camera!   What I found was I would have my camera with me but I wouldn’t use it.  It was too big to use in stealth mode or while I was also trying to participate in the life I was documenting.    Taking the time to get out the “big” camera interrupted the flow of conversation or action and I didn’t want to do that.

So in the mid-point of last year I abandoned the idea of having my camera with me all the time and committed to documenting the day to day on my iPhone.  It helped that at this same time the new iPhone came out and the in-phone camera is super great for this type of thing.

Do you know what I found?  I actually started taking more pictures of my own life!  It was easier to make an image of my nieces playing Rummikub with me if I could do it between turns!

At the end of the year I had a great collection of images of my day to day.  Then it was time to figure out what to do with them.  Given some of the news I am reading in the film industry lately about digital files having some long-term storage issues (see article here: http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118048861)  I do what I did in the days of film – I printed them:)

Blurb has a great partnership with Instagram that allows you to create a photobook from your Instagram images.  I made my first one with my images from 2011.  It now sits on my coffee table and I can share the images with friends and family who come to visit – which is exactly what you should do with your images – share them!

xo,

audra

Five images of the scene in NYC.

xo,

audra

It wasn’t that long ago that after a birthday party or a week at the beach you would have a stack of photographs that you would share with family and friends.  Photographs would be passed around during get-togethers and you would, smile, laugh and share memories of that day, that party, that dress!  The sharing was a physical act, you had to be near people to do it.  At the same time you might have had a few digital scans of those images for a personal blog or to email to your Great Aunt Doris.

It seems almost in the blink of an eye it’s the opposite.

Today your photographs are digital images and they are on your computer or in your phone and you have just one or two prints hanging in your house.  Sharing images is handled by Facebook and Shutterfly and you almost never have those moments where are you physically handing prints around to everyone in the room, giggling over Halloween costumes and cooing over baby pictures.

I love my technology as much as the next girl but a part of me longs for when times were a bit simpler, when sharing images was something you did in the presence of each other creating brand new memories in the sharing.  I have tried to find a balance in my life between technology and nostalgia.

I was married last year and my photographer shoots digitally so I have all of my images as digital files but I also have stacks of photographs.  I went through the images and selected a healthy handful of favorites and had them professionally printed out so my images looked as great as they did on the shiny screen of my computer.  For a while I kept them with me so when I was with family and friends I could share them, letting people take home the prints they loved the most.  That way not only I had prints in my house but our friends had really great images from our wedding day to remind them of the fun! Those prints are also all around my house – in albums, on photo stands, hanging as a mobile in my bedroom.

My personally philosophy is your photographs are precious, they are the physical representations of your memories and they shouldn’t live just on a hard drive, they should be shared and re-shared:)

Do you have stacks of photographs:)

xo,
audra

The five images thing had me thinking all day.  FIVE IMAGES!!  Wow, how would I decided.  I remembered the things Jen had taught me at Roots and selected the images that really showed the viewer what a day for me is like when I have to travel to Boston.

Everyone who participated did a great job!  Voting is going on now so head over here and vote!

Here are the five images I submitted:

Speeding train to Boston

I catch up on my reading and social media while I am traveling to Boston.

I wish the office looked more like the Mad Men set.

After a long day we get pizza for dinner.

I can safely say this is how we end most days.  Snuggled up in bed watching something on Hulu with Minion:)  Check the time on the clock!  Matt and I are ready to be geriatrics:)

To check out the amazing work that Jen and her studio did go here: http://blog.lovelifeimages.com/day-in-the-life-2011/

xo,

audra

For one week in July this was my office building….

and this was my office….

and these were my clients:)

You see I attended Roots 2011 not as a student but as the chef/cook!   After having attended for two years as a student I thought I should put down the camera for one year and find another way to contribute to the workshop I love so much!  I was super happy when Emilie took me up on my offer to attend as cook.  I whipped up some of my favorite recipes for the hungry roots crew was able to soak in all that is Roots Workshop while doing something else I love – cooking:)
One of my favorite memories of the week was the last night when we lit off mini-hot air balloons out over the water.  My mentor from my first year, Tyler, was there as well and we grabbed our cameras and fell right back into step – him telling me to step up my photography game as I worked to make pictures in pitch dark.  I had the ISO on my camera as far as it would take me.  The graininess in these images reminds me just how dark it was but the expressions on everyone’s face tell the real story.

Being out on the dock with Tyler and the Roots family I felt just like I did in my first year  - totally in love with photojournalism:)

xo,
audra