NEW ALBUMS!

We are pretty excited about introducing our new line of wedding albums.  Our "old" wedding albums are great but these are even greater.  The lines we are able to offer now range from super elegant and classy to very modern and eccentric.  With 4 different options to choose they can fit just about anybodys style.  We will be getting some of our own samples in shortly but until then here are some product shots from our supplier.  Pretty cool huh.....

2009 Christmas Card Designs Now Available!

The 2009 Christmas Card designs are now available! Each card is 5x7 double sided with text that can be fully customized (envelopes included). Contact us to order your cards or schedule a session. The holdiays are approaching fast so get your orders in soon!

Click link below for card design samples:
http://image6.photobiz.com/2302/20091026190120_49957.pdf

Hire a friend or a Professional???

Hello all. This blog post is a result of an article I recently read regarding people asking friends to take their wedding photos for free or extremely cheap vs. hiring a professional. We see it time and time again where somone will ask their friend and the result is what we call a point and shoot snapshot. Nothing interesting, no emotion, terrible lighting and it's just a picture. As professionals we take great time ,energy, and expense to make you and your photographs look the very best they can and are constantly reading, studying, and experimenting to make sure we always get the best. I have copied the article I read. I hope it will shed some light on what the difference is.



Article from Seatle Bride Magazine:

I consider myself a pretty good amateur photographer. I’ve taken a couple of classes, I have a nice Nikon D60 and, as a professional travel writer, I’ve even had a few of my shots make magazine covers and pages. If you didn’t budget for a professional photographer at your wedding, I’m the friend you might call to take pictures. So when Seattle Bride sent me to the late-winter wedding of Vicky Wu and Chris Nicoll to shoot alongside Joey Hong of John & Joseph Photography, a local award-winning team of two brothers who have been shooting commercial, fashion and wedding photography for more than eight years, I was curious to see how well I could keep up with a seasoned pro. From the moment we started shooting in the bride and groom’s hotel room, I was floored. “Vicky, look down at your shoulders…put a gentle smile on your lips. Chris, look straight at my lens—no, smile. Relax your forehead.” Joey’s attention to such minute detail went way beyond “Say cheese” and brought out the couple’s absolute best. He knew how to manipulate the room’s light and reflective surfaces in ways I never would have dreamed of, transforming what I thought was an unremarkable setting into a photo studio with endless possibilities. Joey commanded family portraits with a gentle control and confidence that only comes from years of experience. He had the right flashes and steadiness of hand for getting great dance photos, while I snapped shot after blurry shot in a mild panic that my precious memory space was quickly dwindling. I was giving it my best, and in a few instances it showed: an inside shot of Vicky simply glowing in the window’s natural light; a close-up kiss in the sunlight where the couple wore the sweetest smiles. But when those spontaneous moments that are here and gone in the blink of an eye happened, Joey caught them with lightning speed, while I lost many of them to improper focus or exposure. I now disagree more than ever with the digital-age adage that “now everyone is a photographer.” Tens of thousands of dollars in education, equipment and experience separate me from the pros. Professional photographers, like any other artists or business owners, need to spend money to make money. When you hire them, you’re helping them pay for their investments. “Photography is a very equipment-intensive business, and the equipment is expensive,” says Scott Squire of NonFiction Weddings, a Seattle-based photography team with 10 years of experience. To each wedding, he and his partner bring six or seven top-drawer lenses, a handful of strobes, three camera bodies, one backup and innumerable accessories. (In contrast, if my equipment had failed, my backup would have been my camera phone.) Staying on top of new technology in the digital age is its own challenge, one that takes a professional commitment and expense. “The rate of change [in digital media] can be stupefying,” laughs longtime Seattle-based wedding photographer Sharlane Chase. She keeps up with the flow of information at annual weeklong workshops and seminars, and it shows in her final product. On a side note, like all of you reading this magazine, I also happen to be planning my own wedding. My fiancé and I are on a tight budget and had planned to take a gamble and hire an amateur photographer friend. Now? We’re determined to find a way to get a pro. Vicky and Chris would have been pretty disappointed if I had been their only photographer. If anyone ever does ask me to take pictures at their wedding, I’ll be happy to show up with my Nikon, and I may even take the best disposable-camera shots of the whole night. I just hope someone like Joey is there, too.

My First Mother's Day

I just had to write a post to tell everyone that I had a wonderful first Mother's day weekend! Todd and I had a bridal shoot at Tryon Palace in New Bern NC. We had so much fun walking around and photographing places for the shoot! Did I mention it was a nice sunny day!! Luckily we were there early and we really captured some great shots. .......(these shots will post after the bride and groom get married) .

Sunday I was given one of the best gifts a mom could get... Todd had designed an album for me with pictures starting with maternity pictures and then pictures of the day Olivia was born, the day we came home up to her 6 month picture and of course it read like a story of our lives together thus far. Of course their were tears!!!!!! This album is something I will be able to cherish for a long time to come and to also pass it down to Olivia when she is older.

So if you are looking for a great way to mark this special gift .... I like to call it "a journey to Motherhood." We can help you create this album. For more information email or call us and we can give you more details.

Here are some of the pictures that were in my album

Heather

YIPEE!!!!

Can you even believe it??? Snow in eastern NC? It certainly has been very beautiful to watch and play in. Our 3 month old daughter Olivia got to enjoy her first snow. She also got to watch her daddy peg her mommy with repeated snowballs or maybe it was me that got hit with so many that I just can't remember? Who knows? What I do know is we certainly had a great time and created some great new memories with our daughter and that is what it really is all about! Enjoy it while it lasts. Off to do some sledding!!!!

Todd, Heather, and Olivia

Happy New Year!!!!

Wow! What a year 2008 was. It had it's moments of shall I say not so greatness. For us it was actually rather great. We welcomed our daughter Olivia into the world in October. She has truly been a blessing and an inspiration for Heather and I. We would like to thank everyone who made 2008 great for Alexander Photography. We really enjoyed meeting some new people and working with each and every one of you. We have lots of things planned this year for our studio that we will be posting and notifying about in the coming weeks. Keep checking back. Blogging is something new for us. We hope to keep things fresh which keeps our creativity and inspiration flowing. We hope everyone can continue to see the beauty in the world as Heather and I do. As I quote the great Jerry Garcia, "You get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right."

Your friends at Alexander Photography,
Todd, Heather, and Olivia