One of my favorite things about working in the wedding industry has been the friends that i have made through it. I get to meet so many creative and hard working people that I would have probably never have met other wise. Jay Qualls of Maples Wedding Cakes is one of those people, and Peter and have loved getting to know him over the years. He asked me to do a shoot for him to show who he was as a cake designer, and I had so much fun taking part of this project.

This year Jay was on TLC’s Next Great Baker, and did an amazing job! You can see more about his experience here.

As you can see, Jay is so much fun. He is also super creative and driven, and that is what makes him great wedding cake baker. Keep an eye on Jay, there is so much more to come from him!

It always’ amazes me when I see Jay Quall’s new cake designs for the year! I have the opportunity each year to photograph them for Jay, and each year I am amazed at the quality of his work. The detail that he puts into each cake is beautiful, and I can’t imagine having the skill to decorate the way he does! I wanted to share some of my favorites from our session. The cakes above are the most me. The red one would have gone perfectly at mine and Peter’s wedding, and the yellow one is based on one of my Anthropologie shirts.  I feel so special

Be sure to check out Jay’s website http://www.jayquallsinc.com - you will never go wrong with one of his cakes!

It has been a year since Dana & Tad’s amazing wedding out at Cedarwood, and we were so excited to do a shoot for them again! Their pups are so sweet, and we were excited to have them along.

Aren’t the pups hanging out on the bench so adorable!!!

I love this last one- Dana & Tad are so laid back and fun, this shows them so well! Dana & Tad, I hope to see you guys again soon!

Last week I was subject to a little treat.  Being the dubbed “marketing-dude” I’m usually stuck in front of a computer screen or aggravating my carpel-tunnel writing and typing away, but Whitney was kind enough to let me tag along on a photo-shoot and haul some gear around.

We headed down to Music Row for an afternoon at Harlow Salon.  Whitney is doing some press shots for the salon and it gave me a chance to meet and hang out with the wonderful staff. They are a great bunch of people with a cool and professional attitude that is hard to find and comes highly recommended.  If you’re in the area and in need a new do…Harlow Salon is a must!

Whitney is putting the finishing touches on the photos, but in the mean time I figured I would post a few I got from the iPhone when Whitney wasn’t watching.  Be sure to check back soon for the finished product.

CHECK OUT HARLOW SALON AT
http://www.harlowsalon.com/

Every now and then I get the chance to stray away from wedding photography and photograph a high school senior portrait. I love them! They are so much fun! My favorite thing about photographing these sessions is getting to know the student and then photographing images that really represent their personality.

I’ve known Jordan for a few years now and for as long as I have known him, he has been a big fan of the stop-animation film The Nightmare Before Christmas. So, naturally, this was the first thing I had in mind for Jordan’s photo session.

These are two of my favorite photos. The photograph on the right is inspired by one of the promo shots from the actual movie. A battery powered strobe with a beauty dish attached makes a great substitution for the moon!

Jordan’s girl friend Whitlee helped add the Nightmare theme even more. We had a blast at MAC Makeup in the Green Hills Mall. Many women shopping in this up-scale Nashville mall had to stop and see what was going on with our crazy makeup session. Thanks to Bridgette P and the rest of the ladies at MAC for being so creative and doing such a great job!

Jordan is a HUGE fan of Red Bull. When I saw these tables at a restaurant in East Nashville, we had to take advantage of the opportunity. The other great thing about shooting high school senior portraits in East Nashville is the near by park, a great place to photograph some more traditional shots

I’ll admit that these last couple images are not totally Jordan’s style, but sometimes as a photographer we need to capture things for ourselves. I really liked this mural and thought it would make a cool set. Plus, it was just fun!

Thanks Jordan and Whitlee for letting me get creative with you and for sharing in such a fun time with this photo session!

Our blog is back online! After much waiting as the coders worked on fixing some issues I can now deliver to you the next post on “After Sessions” I know you were all just anxiously awaiting it.

So, I promised I would deliver another type of after session. Lauren & Jeff are celebrating their one year anniversary. It has become more common for us to photograph sessions for couples’ one year anniversary. This is for many different reasons. Sometimes a couple doesn’t get an engagement session and later realizes they want professional photographs. Sometimes a couple remembers how much they loved their engagement and wedding photography with us and they want to do another session to celebrate their anniversary and to get new photographs. They may end up making this an annual event. Some couples were unable to use us for their wedding, and want to capture great photographs with us. I’ll give another example of this last reason in my next blog post.

Whatever your reason is, I’m sure we can find a good excuse to capture images of you and your spouse.

Lauren and Jeff went to college in Nashville, but no longer live here. So, they flew in for a weekend anniversary. Of course they had to hit their favorite cup cake shop GiGi’s Cupcakes.

We always love to find out what sort of things couples like to do together and incorporate this into their photographs. Lauren and Jeff love to play cards. I don’t think they have ever played on a parking deck rooftop, but this only heightened the experience.

Happy Anniversary you two! Thanks for letting us be a part of your anniversary weekend. May you have a lifetime of anniversary’s to come. Of course they don’t all have to include us.

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.

Let me introduce you to William, the second of the three seniors from my youth group that I photographed.

I know I didn’t take as many photos of William as I did of Emma. This is not because he is a dude, but because he is a very busy dude. Plus, one of my lenses broke down and I got stung by bees during the shoot. So, it was a rather short session, but I am really happy with what we captured. We were still able to achieve a variety of different settings.

William is a very outdoorsy guy. He loves to rock climb, whitewater raft, and play numerous sports. William is a more serious guy who is very social and loves to play the occasional prank. He is also one of the most competitive people I know. He can take the simplest object lesson and turn it into an Olympic event.

Here is William:

Stay tuned to meet Amy!

Here is where my two jobs intersect. You may not know that I am the youth director at The Village Chapel, here in Nashville. Whitney and I started the youth ministry at our church almost four years ago. At that time, three of the students were freshman. Well, time goes fast and now those three students are planning for college. It’s going to be sad to see them move off as I have become close to each of them. So, to capture a special memory of this last year, I offered to photograph a portrait session for each of them. This was also exciting for me as these were the first sessions I did without Whitney.

The first session I will share with you is Emma’s. Emma is one of the sweetest girls you will ever meet. She laughs a LOT. So much that she even types “ha ha” in most of her emails and Facebook comments. She also loves photography. She has been taking a photography class at her school, but I think she enjoys being on the “model side” of the camera a bit more.

This is my favorite one. It looks like she is day dreaming and actually looking at what she is dreaming about.

I also love the left image a lot. I think Emma’s comment was “That’s SO catalog!” The image to the right is totally the Emma we all know and love.

I knew the boys were going to be commenting on her Facebook photos I posted for her, so I thought this image would be appropriate.

This image is actually an idea Emma had when she saw we had red suitcases.

So, how often does a teen get to scale fences, at night, with her youth director for a photo shoot? That’s what happened when we got to Ensworth High and found everything locked up. Our main plan of the shoot was to photograph Emma on the football field at sunset, but things changed when we had to walk down the long drive with all of our gear and crawl over the fence with it. By the time we were set up the sun was down, but we captured a few cool shots on the field before the security guard found us.

Stay tuned for William’s and Amy’s sessions!