Ireland Day 4: A Breath of Fresh Air in Howth

I'm writing this post almost a week after the day in question, but strangely, I can still see every minute of the day clearly. Perhaps, this is because our excursion to Howth played to each of our senses.

Immediately after disembarking the train, we were hit with a sudden pleasant silence; a melodic hum of waves crashing punctured every-so-often by the oddly harmonic call of seagulls - an auditory break from the constant buzzing of the city.

Ireland Day 3: Color, Culture and Conquering

I slept like a rock the first night here, but ever since it's felt like I'm sleeping ON a rock. It took so long to fall asleep Monday night that I accidentally slept hours later than I meant to Tuesday morning and woke up at 11am. I didn't want to waste any more of the day, so I went straight to breakfast grabbing a sausage roll and coffee from a cafe down the street. I'd initially planned to eat there but on this busy morning there were no tables, so I got food as takeaway and started walking back to the hotel, resigning myself to eat in the lobby. Happenstance intervened, and I walked by a cathedral right as my laden hands were about to drop my phone and food, so I quickly dashed to the steps to readjust before continuing walking. But, then I took a bite of sausage roll. And another. The food was so delicious and the steps and walkway so peaceful that I decided to simply enjoy my breakfast right then and there.

Ireland Day 2: Gold, Black and Ruby Red

Because of its latitude, Ireland sees little daylight during the winter months with the run rising around 8:30am and setting at 4pm. The sun also remains low in the sky, casting a constant golden light throughout the day. As someone who is most certainly not a morning person, golden hour at noon is definitely a concept I can stand behind!

Ireland Day 1: Worth the Wait

Our very first introduction to the country was landing on a runway fenced in to keep out the cows not 20 feet away. That was a new one for me! We made a beeline for the hotel where Dad and Jake stayed (and Jake slept for the next 6 hours until dinner) and I set off in search of transportation to my shoot an hour away. I'd worried most about the flight delay because I'd scheduled a family shoot for Sunday late morning, thinking that would give me plenty of time to adjust and get my bearings, but having to learn on the fly was just as well.

Portland Day 1: All of My Favorite Things

I started off my first full day in Portland bright and early, catching the bus at 7:30 to get over to Cathedral Park for my first session. I was really hoping that since it was actually 10:30am in Asheville I might have an easier time waking up, but no such luck. So with bleary eyes, I transferred to the MAX along with every other person in Beaverton and attempted to not stick out as we bumped and jostled our way along. I certainly can't speak for everyone, but whenever I travel I always feel this need to look as un-touristy as possible (perhaps a reflex from being an American abroad), but trying to look unmoved as I repeatedly jolted from side-to-side, white-knuckling the hand rail, was a bit difficult. It did wake me up though!

Creating Your Photo Album

Next to capturing your big day, creating the photo album to memorialize your special moments is my favorite part of the process. To aid you in our creation process, I've put together some step-by-step directions for choosing the specs of your album.

Iceland & Scotland Day 3: The Old Town

Much to the girls' (and my) satisfaction, we got to ride the double decker buses today! As there were no seats left, I stood at the front, gazing out the window as the city whizzed by. I've always wished the US - but particularly the South - had a better, more widely-used public transit system as my favorite part of traveling in Europe is people-watching on buses or the subway and not having to drive. I'd become so accustomed to standing up on the halting metro that I simply leaned against the wall of the bus without needing to hold on to the hand rail (yeah, I'm totally cool.)

Meadow + Theo's Granite City Engagement Session

It's not every session that I get to rock hop through a cool new location AND capture the love of a couple of free spirits. Not often do I have the opportunity to shoot from exaggerated angles both high and low. And very rarely do I get to shimmy through rock crevices so narrow I have to hold my cameras in one hand and backpack in the other as I slide through sideways. Yet, I got to do all of these things last month for Meadow and Theo's engagement session!

Mudiyanur Family Photo Album

Every album comes with its own set of storytelling challenges and for family albums, that challenge is generally making sure each person has their fair share of page space. For this album, we used a mix of sibling photos, spreads with all three girls (the sisters plus their cousin), and a few individual pages and spreads to give each sister the spotlight.

Bohemian Sunset Styled Shoot at Black Balsam Knob

This was one of those shoots where I saw the location (on a shoot I was modeling for, of all things) and without any plans in place immediately created a scene in my head to shoot that I knew I needed to bring to reality. I knew I wanted Lauren, one of my gorgeous 2017 brides, to model and that if at all possible I wanted to put her in a whimsical gown from one of my favorite Asheville bridal shops (Wildflower Bridal) paired with a bright color palette from Swannanoa Flower shop and Cakes by Gray for a bohemian mountaintop styled elopement. As the shoot would have to be right in the middle of wedding season to make sure it was warm enough, I knew it would be a long shot, so when every one of these selections worked out, I was so excited I was bouncing off the walls! Of course, no shoot is ever that easy and in the end we only had about 25 minutes or so of photography, yet I couldn't be more thrilled with the results.

Washington DC Day 1: A Monumental Adventure

Whereas 2016 was the year of international travel for me, I've spent 2017 exploring cities a little "closer" to home. Initially, I got the idea to spend a weekend in the nation's capital because I wanted to take advantage of Allegiant's new direct flights out of Asheville (the reason for my NYC trip in February) but I also wanted to make it a girls' weekend with my mom. As this [$87 round trip] flight would've landed us at BWI and we'd planned to stay with family in South Riding, VA, we would've had to take a 2.5 hour metro trek from the airport to their home (totally worth it to me!) but in the end we decided to simply fly out of Knoxville and pay more. So, from the outset, the trip was shaping up to be different than I'd originally planned and this was only the first of many surprises!

Jeannie + Anne's Downtown Portland Engagement

I really can't emphasize enough how well everything fell into place for this Portland trip. Only a week or so before my departure, Jen emailed me saying that two of her friends (who were also the witnesses at her elopement) had recently gotten engaged and would be interested in an engagement session. I could not have asked for a more fun and easygoing pair to work with!

Jen and John's Mt. Tabor Elopement in Portland, OR

These two almost-weds had selected the crest of Mt. Tabor Park as the place to make their vows, so we grabbed what we needed for their ceremony and hiked up the numerous steps to the top, coming out into a grove of evergreen trees. Jen and John both practice mindfulness, so they wanted to begin their ceremony with a few minutes of silence as they readied themselves for marriage. Their unique idea was to set up a circle of flowers which they would each step into once they were ready to begin. In a stroke of genius, Jen had the idea to bring a hula hoop in order to create a perfect circle (this hula hoop also served a photographic purpose later in the shoot) so Jen, John and their two friends/witnesses set about selecting greenery and placing flowers from Costco around the hoop.

Jen and John's Portland Coffeeshop Engagement

"Some people follow their dreams. Others hunt them down and beat them mercilessly into submission." This is the quotation that graced the back of our team t-shirts one year in high school and I've found it's applicable to a lot of things, especially business as I believe you really have to go after what you want. When I was planning my trip to Portland, OR last month, I knew I wanted to photograph a couple of engagement shoots and an elopement to use for my destination portfolio, so I sent out email upon email to local professionals hoping to find the right people to work with, and I did! As it happened, although he performs far more full weddings than elopements, Steve of A Beautiful Ceremony was officiating an elopement the very week I'd be there and as it was planned last minute, they did not have a photographer. Long story short because I'll be talking about the elopement later this week, they were delighted with the idea of actually having photos of their special moment and just as excited about the idea of getting some more casual engagement photos.

Portland: The Rest

While I try to stay pretty on top of my blogging and social media, there is certainly something to be said for putting away the technology (except my camera, obviously!) and enjoying the moments, so that's what I did for the rest of my Portland trip. Though I arrive back in Asheville a couple days ago and am now headed to Columbia, SC to shoot the first round of the women's NCAA tournament, I had too much fun in Portland not to share.

Portland Day 4: Sunshine, Blue Skies and Happy Tears

I used to tease people who cried at weddings or movies - here's lookin' at you, Mom - and especially those who cried happy tears at things, but now I've become one of those people myself! Yesterday's forecast was more forgiving than any of the other days this week but still looked bleak, yet by the time Jen and John picked me up from my morning coffee to head over the Mt. Tabor, the sun was shining brilliantly. I've seen this happen many times, pouring rain during wedding day preparations only to miraculously turn into blue skies just in time, but the phenomenon never ceases to amaze me. That was the first ingredient of the recipe to make me cry.

Portland Day 3: Textures and Layers

To me, the best thing about traveling is getting to unravel the many layers of a place; getting to know the people, the culture, the history and ultimately the city's character. As people are very obviously not one-dimensional, so too are cities many-layered and today was one of those days where I got to see Portland from many different perspectives.

I started the day at the not-so-enjoyable hour of 5:30 am (I can feel myself slowly getting used to the time difference which made for a difficult morning) and made my way over the river - using 3 different buses, I might add - to meet Jen and John for their engagement shoot. I was pretty proud of myself for not only making it there, but actually getting there early.

Portland Day 2: Networking and International Women's Day

I had originally planned on writing two separate posts for today: one for my second day in Portland and one for International Women's Day. But because the celebration of feminism is a lifestyle and not an annual festivity for me, I thought it more appropriate to combine them. Now, if you're thinking of closing this post because I just said the word "feminism," perhaps keep an open mind here for a minute and see what I have to say.