We hope everyone has been having a great Holday season! We celebrated Christmas in Kansas City this year with Peter’s family, and are just about to hop on a plane back home to Nashville. One thing we learned this season is that our pup Calvin, LOVES Christmas! Everything from the tree, to this tasty raw hide candy cane we gave him. He ate half of this huge thing 30 minutes after we gave it to him! We still have a few more days off and will be back soon!

It has been crazy in the Dove offices finishing up our 2009 weddings! And boy do we have some great ones to share. Here is just a tast of what is to come!

As many of you may know, cameras are now being equipped with the capability to shoot video. Although we have used the Canon 5D Mark II at a few weddings this fall, I have not had the time to play around with the video feature. A few weeks ago I finally experimented with it to make a video for our church’s Christmas program. I love the way it turned out! I hope you enjoy it.

By the way, the youth in this video came up with the majority of the content on their own. Amazing!

Have a Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays!

Yesterday was gorgeous for a December day in Tennessee. Whitney and I went out and photographed an engagement session, something that we have not done since the leaves have fallen from the trees. We will share these images with you after the holidays, but it reminded me that we have a few family portrait sessions from this fall that we have not shared with you yet.

I would first like to introduce you to my friends the Sandifers. Tim Sandifer was the first person I met when I arrived on campus at Greenville College in central Illinois. We both loved the same bands, had similar senses of humor, had a passion for Star Wars, and were the only males on campus that weighed under 130lbs. He soon became one of my favorite people.

Tim, Susie, & Addie still live in Central Illinois and Tim’s parents live in South Georgia. Every so often they meet each other in Nashville for a family vacation. This year they decided to have Whitney and I photograph their family. It is always an honor when a friend chooses to work with us, not because we are friends, but because they appreciate our work.

I hope you enjoy this collection of photographs of the Sandifers:

Thanks Sandifers! Hope to see you soon!

Finally, it’s time for the 3rd installment of my first attempt at senior portraits. Meet Amy. Amy has always been an adult at heart. One of my favorite memories with Amy is when we first started the youth group at our church. One night, Amy was the only student to show up for Bible study. Amy sat amongst four adults and we discussed the lesson at a different level than we normally do. Maybe it’s because she loves to read so much. In middle school she was reading adult-level theology books. However, Amy still has a passion for really good fantasy novels. The Lord of the Rings is one of her favorites. She also loves The Chonicles of Narnia and everything else C.S. Lewis has written.

So, what else should we do with Amy, but take her to the library and maybe spend a little time doing some fantasy shots.

Of course we had to get in a few images that make Amy look like an urban professional. I love the composition this wall creates.

Thanks Amy for letting me portray some of your personality in these images!

If you want to see the other two senior portraits I photographed this fall, be sure to check out my post on Emma and William.

Last night Erin and I had a great opportunity to photograph the Cider Carols event benifitting Hope Clinic for Women. They are an amazing organization and just a couple of blocks down the street from our studio! Be sure to check out their website to hear about all the incredible things they do. We will post more images of the event later on, but for now I am just going to share the information for the photo booth.

50% of profits will be donated to Hope Clinic for Women

visit www.pictage.com/768759

Register for the event. An e-mail notice will then be sent to you once all the images are online. This will be in the next couple of days!

Sometimes, all you need for inspiration is a feeling….

One thing I did while we were at Mackinac Island for Elly’s wedding was just took some time to photograph things I saw that I found beautiful. This is something that I have not done in a while, and something that I realized I missed. Once I became a professional photographer, taking photographs started to become just something I did for work. This past year I realized that I was forgetting a lot of the joy I found in just taking photographs for me and not for someone else. So while we were in Michigan, I kept my camera around my neck, with no expectations but to just feel while I looked through my lens. So that is what I did, I felt. And I grabbed a few images along the way. Here are a few of my favorites. Photographers, I encourage you to take your cameras out one day. Don’t have plans, don’t think too much. Just feel. And see what you come up with!

Are you self employed and in a service industry? Amazing speakers, photographers, and people: Justin & Mary Marantz are going on tour with their Spread The Love workshop. Whitney and I will be atteding the January 14 workshop in Nashville. We hope you will too!

Whatever your business field is, come learn how to build a business that works for you so you can have a life again.

The Black Friday sale, today only, is just $50 (normally $150)!

Visit: www.justinmarantz.com to learn more about the workshop and reserve your seat at this great price.

Why are we blooging about this? We just think they are that great!