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A few days ago my good friend Ric and his wife Sharon came over for dinner, some good micro-brews, and a quick photo shoot. They are church planters moving to Thailand later this year, and they wanted some nice photos of themselves to leave with family and friends. We just shot for a few minutes near my apartment building, but here are a few I wanted to share.

I got a gallery wrap canvas print for myself last week to try out a different company. I’m sold! The quality is simply superb and I am looking forward to using this company for gallery wrap canvases for my portrait and wedding clients.

This is 16 by 24 inches from a photo I took of the Golden Gate Bridge when my wife and I were in California last fall for my cousin’s wedding.

James approached me a few weeks ago to create some portraits of his three boys for his wife’s birthday. My wife’s birthday is coming up in a week and I wish I had an idea this good! We framed 8×10 prints of each of the boys and James told me of his plans to have a friend hang them on their bedroom wall while they were out for her birthday dinner just a few days ago. Such a great birthday gift idea!

And a bonus shot we took of the whole gang:

I came across an interesting article today called Making Wild Wedding Photos about new trends in wedding photography. It was encouraging to me both because I am already doing most of the things described and because it shows there really are a lot of couples that want these things. Here is a summary of what the article describes:

Capturing the lighter side – I love capturing in a documentary way the fun and goofy things that often happen at a wedding (many call this wedding photojournalism). Sometimes it’s the bride and groom making subtle faces at each other during the ceremony, and sometimes it’s a surprise prank by the groomsmen at the reception. As discussed in the article, this also included non-traditional posing for the formal portraits. Here’s a personal favorite from my most recent wedding:

Boudoir Sessions – These portrait sessions are a great idea, but out of respect for my wife I will not be offering them. You can read the article to learn more about it and if anyone is interested I could likely refer a local photographer to do them.

Proposal Photography – Read my recent post; I would love to see every couple I work with do this!

Photo Booth – I love providing photo booths! Not only do you get a ton of fun photos to remember the big day, but it also provides hours of entertainment for guests. You have got to see this shot, it’s currently my favorite photo booth image ever (rest of that photo booth set here).

Day-after Shoot – This opportunity for another photo shoot after the wedding day is sometimes called “Trash the Dress” because they often involve getting wet or dirty in their tux and gown. Some brides figure they won’t wear the dress again, so they might as well retire it in style! Certainly some brides aren’t willing to trash the dress, and for them a day-after shoot doesn’t need to, but they will typically put the newlyweds in scenery not typical of a wedding day like a field or urban setting. Visit trashthedress.com to see all kinds of day-after shoots.

So apparently getting married in the winter isn’t very popular in Michigan. Hmm, I wonder why? Oh well, I’ve been keeping busy with portrait sessions from kids to businessmen. The gentlemen at Retirement Legacy Planning Group contacted me recently to get some new business headshots for their website and miscellaneous print material. I also decided that while I was there it would be useful to get some shots of them working. (The kids shots are way cuter, but will have to wait for another week since they are a surprise for a mother.)