February, 2009 | Real Photography

Seven Years

Feb 14, 2009

Nic and I are celebrating seven years today! Seven years ago I was getting prepped by my sorority roommates for our first date. My outfit was pieced together from three different wardrobes, my makeup handled by two people far more skilled than I, and first date instruction that basically culminated with the standard “be yourself, but not so much yourself” line. And then we did some dancing around the room and singing (a la Meredith and Cristina except way before they ever did it on Grey’s Anatomy) to make time pass until we heard over the intercom, “Traci Cooper, you have a visitor in the foyer.”

“Visitor” is code in the greek system for BOY. If it had been a girl, or my dad, it would have been GUEST.

I about had a heart attack. My friend Amanda (the Cupid in this story who spent two months setting us up) practically pushed me down the stairs. I’m still grateful for that push. :)

Here we are then, in one of our 13 wedding pictures, and now with our chubkin. (Check out my rad sunburn in the wedding shot–that’s what you get for getting married on Day 5 of your Carribean elopement!)

7yearsb

(Lesson I learned when putting this storyboard together–we need better pics of us together! This is the only pic with the both of us for the year!)

Anyway, happy anniversary, Nicolas! Here’s to the next seven!

Posted in Personal

the latest news | upcoming seattle openings | (and a little bit of bragging)

Feb 13, 2009

I just got an email today that we have been awarded the 2009 Bride’s Choice Award by Wedding Wire! A big thanks to our brides who made that happen!

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In more bragging news, we were also accepted into the Artistic Guild of the Wedding Photojournalist Association last week. If you’re familiar with WPJA, AGWPJA a subset group of WPJA that allows you more free reign in photoshop (my love of brightly saturated images disqualifies us from being in the original WPJA).

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And to prevent this post from being entirely about tooting my own horn, I am really excited to announce that Willie and I will be in Seattle in April and I would love to shoot a portrait session or two while I’m there!

I have a couple of Seattle area location ideas that I would love to try out, so I am going to have special pricing on weekday Seattle shoots from April 6th-9th. If you let me pick the location, the session fee will be waived! (I have only one weekend opening–the price for that will be $500 and it includes a $375 print credit.)

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Final piece of news: Real Photograph will be closed and email responses slow until Thursday the 19th while I attend the big fun photography convention in Vegas. It’s tough, but someone has to do it. ;) Pray for poor Nic who will be holding down the fort while I’m gone.

Posted in News, Wedding Photographer

Photography Tip Tuesday: The Blind Monkey Factor

Feb 10, 2009

There’s an interesting essay in The Inner Game of Outdoor Photography about how much of photography is a leap of faith. Rowell compares photography to a type of cortical blindness that creates a situation in which your eyes function, but your brain is unable to process the image.

Monkeys with this blindness can be taught that though they don’t actually see consciously, they can fully function just like any other monkey. Running around obstacles, reaching and successfully grabbing objects, etc. But humans are too self-conscious to reach for things that they only *think* might be there and they therefore never regain the same level of functionality that a monkey can be taught.

What does this have to do with photography? A lot.

When we try to capture a scene, many times we are just blind monkeys reaching for something that we sense will show up on our computer screens after the image is captured by the camera sensor and we post-process it. This is especially true with wedding photographers, where you are often reacting to a moment on instinct.

Often times at weddings I won’t know exactly what I was seeing until I start proofing the images. Like this shot that is one of my favorite getting ready photos from the year:

colorado_springs_wedding_photographer

I adore that Belinda is completely surrounded by layers of wedding dress/underskirt. I love the texture and composition, but in the moment that I was taking the image, I didn’t consciously realize that THAT was the image I was taking. And you can tell, because here is the original:

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As you can tell, the original is not so good. There’s a bunch of extra STUFF going on in the background. So we crop it to get to the GREAT shot.

One of the great parts of proofing is discovering images like this. Where you couldn’t tell at the time exactly what the shot was, but when you get working on the image it’s obvious what the photo was supposed to be.

So the tip of the week is to be a blind monkey, not a blind human. Don’t worry if you don’t know exactly the shot you’re taking at the time you take it. Snap that shutter anyway. You might only see what your subconcious saw after you download the image!

Posted in Photographer Tips