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Real Photography closed in December 2014 and is no longer accepting clients.

Thank you for your support over the years! Please follow me at my new personal blog: www.needlesandapen.com to keep up with my latest photography, craft, and nursing school adventures.

“Trash the dress,” “day after,” or “second chance” shoots are a great way to get a totally different look for your wedding portraits.  Bernadette and Haydn have been on the books for a trash the dress shoot since their wedding last September.  We kept trying to arrange it for snow.  But last winter was NOT the winter to be counting on snow, and winter turned to spring, spring turned to summer, summer turned to fall…and we decided to just schedule the shoot before things got super cold again.

So of course we woke up that second weekend of October to see that snow had fallen during the night.  And had frozen to every individual blade of grass, every individual pine needle in one of those spectacular ice displays we get every so often.  (If anyone knows what weather conditions cause that ice effect, please tell me!  I studied it all last year trying to figure out the common denominator for what conditions have to be in place for that gorgeous icey look and I never could figure it out well enough to predict when it might happen!)  We crossed our fingers that the sun wouldn’t come out and melt it all away, they braved the icey roads, and we got our snow shoot after all!

These were all taken outside our new house/studio here in Black Forest.  The flowers were provided by the incredibly talented Dawn of Hillside Consultants.  She even crafted the super cool orchid garlands that we used in this first shot!

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Here comes my favorite shot of the day… (PS–how rad is our new backyard?!)

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One of Miss B’s requests.  They get extra credit for laying down on FREEZING COLD GROUND and still making it look warm and cozy and comfy!

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There are two great things about photographing clients who have turned into friends.  (1) They do goofy stuff like this right in front of you:

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And (2) it’s okay if your kiddo tags along for a bit.  When Will saw his favorite Miss B in all her wedding dress splendor he said “You’re a princess!” and then ran off.  We went outside and a few minutes later he came charging out of the house shouting “WAIT!”  He had grabbed the button bouquet I’d just ordered from etsy for the new studio.  He saw a bride and knew just what she needed–a bouquet.  It was so precious it still breaks my heart a little!  (so we let him pose in a picture with them before sending him back inside with Nic to make hot chocolate for our return!)

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Posted in Second Chance Shoots

Iliana and Freddy are celebrating their one month anniversary today!

They go down in Real Photography history for having the most delicious cake EVER.  And we eat a lot of wedding cake–we know good cake.  It was so good that I unashamedly went back for seconds.   The Market gets our vote this year as the bakery I’m desperate to invent reasons to visit!  BEST CAKE EVER!

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Happy one month anniversary, Iliana and Freddy!  Thanks for having us capture your beautiful day!  (And for having such awesome taste in cake!!)

Posted in Wedding Photographer

family photos

Dec 05, 2009

I should probably be shot for sharing these before the stacks of other “legitimate” photos I should be blogging, but I LOVE the holidays (I’m a little bit crazy about them) and I love my boys (same thing), so I feel compelled to share pictures from our wonderful Thanksgiving weekend.

Nic’s mom, sister, and brother-in-law were in town and my sister-in-law and I took Thanksgiving to new heights.  (As we pretty much always do.)  In fact, we were so awesome that we IMPROVED ON MARTHA.  Thanks to some inadequate recipe reading, we did some improvising on the green bean dish and ended up with something so yummy that I know it’s a new Turchin family tradition!

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Recipe for “Martha’s Got Nothin’ on Traci and Heather” Green Beans

Boil green beans and strips of fennel until lightly cooked (the fun part of that will be figuring out what fennel looks like so you can buy it at the grocery store).  Put them in a casserole dish along with half of a pomegranate.  Top with crumbled goats cheese and my beloved traditional onion strings.

Willie enjoyed his sparkling apple cider.  He drank approximately half a bottle.  We spent most of the meal pouring more doses into the tiny celebratory glass I brought out for him. Next year I’m just going to stick a straw in the bottle.  :P

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The day after Thanksgiving we made the annual visit to see Santa!  (A huge thanks to my brother-in-law Erik for snapping the shot on the right!!  And the shot on the left is his official Santa shot [shared with release from the mall Santa photo people of course]!)

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The first Saturday after Thanksgiving we save for getting our tree at the Colorado Tree Farm (we love them and our trees are always fantastic).  We got the best tree ever and Will and I fought over MY new sock monkey hat!  (I went home and ordered him one of his own.)  :P

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And then we headed home to decorate the tree and set up Nic’s old Lionel train set around the base!

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Posted in Personal