April 8, 2011

Raleigh Portrait Photographer: The Stanford Family

Remember the epicness that was the wedding of Valerie and Kenneth?! Well thankfully I was graced with their amazing presence again last week when I was asked to do their family portraits. :) I love this job the most when I get to see my clients again and follow their families along! And trust me, this family (parents AND kids) is easy to photograph. They were awesome at posing at their wedding, and they’re still awesome at posing now, in their own house. Valerie and Kenneth have a very expressive and funky style and both could easily take first place in America’s Next Top Model. They’ve apparently passed these important skills along to their kids, Xavian and Ariyana, who also had great style and that Blue Steel look.

Val and Kenneth wanted their pictures to be casual and take place in their home. Then they wanted them funky and taking place in near Franklin Street in Chapel Hill… complete with sunglasses and a lot of attitude. Both came out equally awesome! Love love love this family! Cocoa, the dog, somehow knew we were taking family portraits and hopped in almost all of them, haha. And pictured below is Mary, Kenneth’s mother, who had some pictures taken with her grandkids. :)

Love these kids! They are so adorable and get along so well. Xavian is 10 and Ariyana is 7.

Get your modeling on, Cocoa.

The picture below pretty much exemplifies the Stanford family. It also shows off Valerie and Kenneth’s modeling skills.

Standford family, when you put out a CD someday, the picture below and to the right needs to be the cover. Needs to. You’d make millions. All I require is credit on the inside jacket, okay?

LOOK AT THIS KID!!! He is amazing.

Ariyana came up with the peace sign pose and, when she releases a CD (which she surely will), this will be her cover.

Seriously, this is the coolest, most suave and well-dressed family of 4 on the planet. And despite their serious model faces, they are genuinely some of the most hilarious people I’ve ever met. Their sense of humor is great.

So in conclusion, remember these faces… because they’re bound to be on radio, television, or some other form of mass media eventually. It’s only a matter of time.

say nice things

April 6, 2011

Raleigh Engagement Photographer: Shannon+Phil

And here they are, the owners of the very popular Vince+Jackson. :) Shannon and Phil are great and oh so perfect together. We had a blast running around the city and taking shots in strange and unusual places. Their wedding is at Cobblestone Hall in June in Market Square, so they wanted their engagement session to be in Downtown Raleigh, but not near Market Square where their wedding pictures will be, so we found some new awesome places to shoot! I’m always up for investigating and finding new places and so I was excited. :) And we had a genuinely great time hanging out with them and their dogs (Jackson became particularly attached to Geoff) and had an awesome afternoon. Hope you love the pictures, guys! We are sooo excited to see you again in June!! :) :)

This couple has GREAT eyes and are so adorable together. :)

They were up for anything… because they are awesome. :) Shannon got a little dusty during this, but other than that no couples were harmed during filming. ;)

I really have several favorites from this session. This is favorite #1 (in no particular order).

VINCE AND JACKSON ARE BACK!!! This is their encore session because we couldn’t get enough of them the first time. ;)

This is Favorite #2.

This is favorite #3… and I think… my actual favorite. Although I’m not sure because I’m very indecisive.

Favorite #4! I love the orange buildings in the background. Downtown is great.

Favorite #5! This is tied for “Actual Favorite” with favorite #3. Thank you, Raleigh Convention Center, for being awesome and having great diffused lighting.

And thanks to Geoff for being a professional dog walker on this session! We had the dogs downtown and were maneuvering out of traffic and in several kind of dangerous situations for not-securely-tied-up dogs, so he was helping us out. This was Geoff’s first time being a pro dog walker for CSP and I have to say he is a natural. Jackson was terrified and does NOT like being away from Shannon, but Geoff managed to calm him down while they all sat together and by the end of the session Jackson was all about Geoff. And, of course, Vince wanted to pose with him. :)

3 nice things said

April 5, 2011

Raleigh Pet Photographer: Vince+Jackson

Vince and Jackson are city dogs. Kind of. Actually, not really. Jackson’s pretty terrified of traffic and elevators, and Vince is perfectly comfortable chewing on sticks and chasing his bro around the park. However, their parents are city people and scheduled a portrait session for their dogs before their downtown Raleigh engagement session, so we took the pups to a nearby park and let them run free (sort of)!

Vince is the Boston Terrier (a breed I’d been looking forward to photographing for such a long time!) and was everything I thought a Boston Terrier should be… a hilarious diva dog. He was very smart and insisted upon being in front of the camera at all times. I had to delete a ton of pictures of Jackson because they all had a giant Vince blur running in front of the camera like, “HEY GUYS HEY GUYS HEY GUYS!!!!” Vince enjoys pepperoni, chasing Jackson, and chewing on sticks.

Jackson is an adorable mutt who belonged to Shannon before she lived with Phil. He’s very protective of Shannon and doesn’t particularly want to like Phil, but you can tell he does anyway. He goes back and forth between trying to ignore Phil and running up to Phil like, “HI PHIL HI PHIL HI PHIL!!!!” Jackson enjoys swimming, chewing on sticks, and my husband Geoff.