Deja Vu! Join us for another Dillard's Bridal Show!

So what do you get when you put a group the valley's best wedding vendors together along with a world class wedding registry from one of the top department stores in the country?

You get an intimate, fun, vibrant bridal show where you can get ideas, information and maybe even get all of your planning done in one day! We participated in this event at Dillard's Chandler and had such a great time, we decided to do it again!

Smaller bridal shows are a great chance to really talk to vendors and ask questions and get information (unlike the larger shows where its nearly impossible to absorb all of the things going on around you, let alone get any one on one time with potential service providers).

We are so very excited to be participating in another Dillard's bridal event tomorrow! With beautiful new metallic and luster prints to share, a new line of affordable albums and our ever changing and growing slide show- we should have a beautiful display to share.

Stop by and get a card for a free 11x14 from your wedding or session when booking with RedFeather Photography (while supplies last- these are a hot item!).

We are also very pleased to be sharing a bit of space with the sweet and wonderful Mindy Raisor of Raisor Papercrafts! We usually have her info with us (she offers gorgeous custom made products at insanely affordable rates) at events because we recommend her so much, but this time she will be able to join us with a book of some of her favorite hand made designs!

You are cordially invited to

A Bridal Show
Hosted By Dillard's Superstition Springs
Saturday, May 31st 2008
12-3PM
Dillard's Superstition Springs Mall (Mesa AZ)

The event takes place in the home department on the upper level. Come by and say hello tomorrow! We will have some great giveaways in a drawing for some freebies from both RedFeather Photography and Raisor Papercrafts, and Dillards and some of the other vendors have some goodies to sample/send home too! It should be a really fun afternoon!

We look forward to visiting with you and some of our favorite fellow wedding vendors!

Love is Beautiful!

Brittany and Dan had one of those sessions, where there is no possible way to select a cross section of favorites. Instead, we rolled a bunch of images into a slide show for them and decided to share it. You can view the slide show here!

(it might take a second to load on a slow connection- its a big one! Its worth it though- totally totally worth it!!!!)





Now, its probably worth a mention that I absolutely adore kissy, smiley, bubbly, lovey dovey couples. Theres nothing more uplifting in this entire world than being in the presence of two people who are completely, utterly, madly in love with one another. Couples who fit into that description are beautiful in their every glance at one another....almost so much so that it makes your heart want to leap from your chest.









Brittany and Daniel have that kind of love. Its powerful and awe inspiring...and just perfect. If they screw it up I will personally hunt them down and smack them both for the travesty against humanity and all things pure and beautiful.



I get the idea Brittany just knew she would spend the rest of her life with Daniel from day one. I mean, she remembers the shoes he wore the day they met, and her thoughts at the time. That's true love people...I don't even remember when I first met Kirk, let alone what shoes he was wearing.





They came all the way from Utah to do their photos. We had such a good time hanging out with Brittany and Dan, that we spread their session over two days and four awesome locations (including the wedding site!). Could they be any cuter?





Brittany's diamond is almost big enough to ice skate on. Shes quite thrilled with it and there are several images of it to prove it. This one is my favorite. Shes quite into polka dots.












You may have noticed these mini album pages is a previous post about a new goody we have. I had to share again, because I love them!






I am sure I am not alone in saying I can't wait for the wedding. Its being held at the end of next month at the super snazzy Secret Garden in Phoenix. Keep an eye out for some gorgeous photos from that- I saw the dress today in photos Brittany sent from Utah- shes GORGEOUS!!!

So True.

Seeing as two wonderful years ago, I married one of the biggest, most wonderful, sweet nerds on the planet- our daily routine is that he sends me every single geeky comic known to man (whether I have time to/care to read them or not).

Among this fine sampling of nerdy giggles, is the notoriously true-to-life-with-a-game-nerd CTRL+ALT+DEL.

For a while now, two of the main characters have been planning their wedding. Ever-so-true hilarity ensues (often might I add), but in this case it rang so true I had to share for all of my brides who are currently having the same frustrations.

(click for bigger)




See? Doesn't that feel better? And to those of you lucky enough to have men that have a clue- congrats!

Ninja edit: Kirk just scolded me for forgetting a family favorite, where life imitates art. Poor Phillipe. I make him sad.

A Whirlwind Weekend and A Cool New Product!

This weekend was CRAZY. Crazy. Crazy.

Did I mention crazy?

Its Wednesday and I am only now just starting to recover. We had a HUGE marathon weekend long engagement shoot for Brittany and Daniel (four locations and 200 finished images!) and an amazing wedding with Tasanee and Cory (oh the vintage goodness!). Pictures from all of those will be posted up on the blog very soon!

Frankly, I am still recovering.

While I sit in my pj's and have some well earned tea and cookies, let me tell you about a new little goodie available for you!

Introducing our new premium disc album! Isn't it pretty? Take some time to get to know her why don't you.

This baby comes in black or saddle colored italian leather...and can be embossed with script or block text in silver, gold, pearl or even black. See? Pretty huh?




It comes with four beautiful hand created mini album pages! You can have either a fun funky modern style (which I absolutely LOOOOVE) or you can go with a more simple elegant style for your pages. Nifty, ain't it?



Brittany and Daniel are my example. Are they not adorable together? Their wedding is at the end of June and we are so excited for them! Their photos needed to be done over the weekend and ready by Tuesday so they could get back to Utah and get those invitations mailed!



The super neato part? This puppy holds two, count em, TWO fabulous discs. The first one contains your lovingly hand edited digital negatives, to have and to hold forever and ever.


The other? Well the other contains an awesome slideshow of your best shots, set to your favorite music of course- hand created so no two are alike!



So lets recap. Real Italian Leather. Fancy pants embossing. Mini album pages so you can enjoy the beauty even without your handy techy gadgets. Your super digital negatives and a gorgeous, funtabulous slideshow. Don't ya just love it? Thought you might. And despite being high heirloom end awesome, its affordable too!

We just love these for engagements, weddings (Makes a killer keepsake for the mom and dad who just helped pay for a wedding or even as your first family heirloom!) and seniors (these are soo cool)!



Shoot me a note or give me a call for more info. I promise you won't be disappointed.

I am off to watch a movie and recharge the batteries for a bit before I get back to the grind. Let me know how your weekend was too!

What did I tell you about the preserves?

I am sitting here in my office finishing prepping for a wedding tomorrow and finishing files from last weeks shoots before running off to crash for the night, when I hear my garage door open. Strange...Kirk is playing GTA in the living room. That's odd.

Being a big scaredy cat, I insist Kirk put on pants and go do the manly investigate and protect the homestead thing. He goes grudgingly enough and checks the garage.

He makes it out to the garage just in time for the neighbor to tell us the guy went that-a-way on a bike.

Crap.

They knifed my top, smoke something disgusting in my car and opened my garage. On further examination, my garage door opener is gone, along with Kirk's jacket, and my tripod (doubt the guy even knows what it was..it was in a black canvas bag.) and whatever else I have not taken a mental inventory of yet...there was not much in there. Luckily he was kind enough to leave my reflector for my shoot tomorrow and my gate opener. Thanks guy.

Visibly shaken, I call the police while Kirk is sure to touch everything so prints are fucking useless. I know he was just trying to access the damage...but wow. My CD book (haha all lame mix tapes...except the awesome one Kirk made me and played while we took a drive the night he proposed. I would have cried if the mean guy had taken it.) was kindly left strewn at the foot of the driveway when the dude discovered there was nothing awesome in it.

I am starting to be glad that I brought all the mothers day stuff in with me after finishing shopping today.

So...now there are at least three mesa pd cars canvassing the area, several officers on foot too. They must be bored tonight.

This is incredibly upsetting. We chose this neighborhood for a reason. Granted, east Mesa isn't all rainbows and sunshine, but the area near us is new and shiny. We chose a gated community.

In the last 10 months we have lived in this home, we have had one of our neighbors have a catburgular (the helecopter search and thirty three cars were awesome at 1am...they searched our yard too), two incidences where the gates were intentionally rammed and damaged and the now two times my car has been vandalized/burglarized. I firmly plant blame with the HOA, who can not seem to keep the gates in working order for more than a couple of days, leaving the neighborhood exposed. As we are one of the first homes in the neighborhood, well...it sucks worst for us.

Just for fun, while we wait for the officers to do whatever it is they do, lets talk about Lane family car incidents past:

There was the infamous Corsica Bandit, who upon breaking into the piece of crap through a back window, discovered there was not so much as a stray penny in sight, and then in his disappointment in his failure, left us a lovely flashlight, which we still use.

There was the sexual harassment coward, who after filing a complaint because he would walk by and grab my tush at work was subsequently fired, and subsequently covered my toyota in brown paint while I was out of town. Way to go dude. He also shot out my windows. Classy.

There was the preserves incident.

There was the time Scott left the car running while getting something from a lady friend, only to discover it was taken for joyriding. It was later found. His fault, but still.

The moron who attempted to get into Kirks truck for the stereo but instead ended up just bending the mirror and scoring a little bit of glass near the lock. Had he managed to cut the glass, it would have done no good...the rectangle he scored out was too small to stick fingers through without leaving a bloody mess in his wake.

Update: Officers think they got the guy. Go Mesa PD! They have been awesome everytime we have needed them...from simple reports, to figuring out what was up with the helicopter searching our yard at 1am an identity theft issue and this, they have been nothing but kind, caring, curteous and awesome. Checking his stuff right now to see if he has anything of mine. If so, I am soooo pressing charges. I wonder if I can press charges for him ruining my bed time too...

The exciting conclusion....

They found a guy with all our stuff, except my tripod's bag which he likely dumped somewhere. Got my stuff back, officers can't be sure the guy is the one who broke in (um, guys, hes shady and has my stuff like 20 min later...what do you think, he was just out for a stroll at 1am?). They were here until the early hours of the morning dusting for prints and processing my driveway...er the crime scene.

At least I got my stuff back. Case is still open and I got a healthy two hours of sleep!

"You know, basketball is kinda like interperative dance, if you take away the ball..."

Only someone truly cool could say something like that...

A couple of weeks ago, Kirk and I took his youngest brother, "The Amazing Brett Lane" out to do some quick senior snaps at one of my favorite parks. While I had originally understood I had a bit of time to process them and get them back I was informed of a change of plans and processed a few right away (finishing the rest today) so that he could get them earlier.

Brett has spent his high school career (as far as I can tell) entertaining people. From spring week band performances in goofy outfits, to starring in the production of "High School Musical" (Caliente!) and emceeing and dancing in the recent spring dance show (thats where the title of this post came from) I am pretty sure the kid may have been born on stage.

Brett will be attending ASU next year...doing..something (broadcast maybe? I don't know if plans changed or not).

It occurred to me that with all the sweet senior gals we have had on here lately, the dashing Brett may feel a little left out. Maybe it was because his mom got a sneak peek one day when she dropped in? Hmmm.

So, without further ado:



When processed with rusty overtones, this one looks straight out of the 70's. Heck, he might be his Dad (with longer hair) in that version of the photo.


Note the Corona del Sol Aztec socks. Nice touch.



















He looks a bit "Ron Burgundyish" in this one. You stay classy San Diego!




I will add a few more later. The out takes from this session were hilarious! I just don't want to explain them to his mother.

Naturally Sweet!

Its been a busy week. We have already done a few sets of portraits and a very awesome bridal session (the images from which are top secret until June- so Chris, if you are looking, you are gonna have to wait buddy. It will be worth it. Promise!) and its only Tuesday.

Today I got to hang out with the sweet Miss Hannah to do some quick senior portraits. Shes just under the wire here with only a couple weeks of her high school career left to go- then its off to NAU!




She picked a cute striped top, and an ADORABLE black and white dress, that looked incredible on her! She even MADE the cute little bolero!

See?


Its adorable!

We took a lovely stroll around the Desert Botanical Garden and then went off to the Tempe Center For the Arts to rattle off just a couple more shots in front of the water just in time to watch the sun vanish behind the mountains for the day.



The gardens were gorgeous today- despite some landscaping renovations being done. It seemed to stir up the wildlife, and we even saw feral lovebirds snacking on sunflowers. We caught a shot of a pretty nifty snake while we were there too.

They just finished their new cactus house recently- its incredible!






The snake climbing out of a cactus...




Due to the immense current workload I am experiencing, there are just a few to take a look at for now. More coming up in the preview galleries soon!

It was really fun working with Hannah and I think after a few minutes warming up to the camera, she had fun too! This girl is naturally sweet and incredibly genuine...(not unlike others in her family) and it shows in her images!

I need to go to bed now. If I don't Kirk just might make me. I admit to lacking sleep lately- but its only because I am enjoying life so much that I don't want to waste my time sleeping! Haha.

Photographers- When Was The Last Time You Got A Little Action?

Or a lot.

I am not talking about that kind of action (get your head out of the gutter man!)! I am talking about your tool arsenal for processing images...your photoshop actions!

While we don't use actions for everything, or even most things, they are a nice tool to have when you want to do a little something special with an image.

After what felt like forever and a half riding the fence over Boutwell's Totally Rad! Actions I took their launch of their new and improved site today as a sign that it was good and time to add a cool new tool or two (er...46) to my work flow!

While I have not had more than a half an hour to play with the rocking 46 (count em, fourty-six!!!) cool new tools since the whole family went to watch my husbands little brother Brett do an AWESOME job emceeing for his high school's Spring Dance Show...but I can tell you this already...these rock!

Heres a before shot of Mirabella on my Mom's sofa, SOOC:


And here is the after image- I quickly added a little drama and fun by using Prettyizer and Derelict *yes, most of the actions have fabulous names to go with their fabulous functions!*:


And thats just a quick pass leaving out the staples like "Magic glasses" and "Yin Yang" or the really funky "Rusty Cage" or any of the other fun goodies.

Heres a quick panel of a few of the cool b&w actions offered too! These are called "Magical" "Awesome" and "B*tchin". See? What did I say about the names?
Pretty slick huh?

Now, if you have google, or clicked the link above- you probably figured that part out on your own. Theres a ton of examples of what these actions do just waiting for you to play with them. What may boggle your mind though is that they are easier to use than you think! Doug Boutwell's actions provide an amazing amount of control (at least as far as I have messed with so far) and they are so incredibly easy to use! If you can use basic layers and have a general understanding of the tools available to you in photoshop- you are good to go! And if you don't....well watch the amusing tutorial and solve the problem.

At about $150, its just a smidge more than a very affordable $3 an action. The support is awesome- with entertaining tutorial videos, a forum and well documented manuals available, its pretty hard to go wrong.

More awesome still, these actions all play nice together for the most part, and with the amount of control you are given no two photographers will use them exactly the same way. By changing the order, opacities and layer masks, these flexible tools have unlimited possibilities, and really could fit into just about any photographers look (including ours).

Look for us using some of these handy new actions in a few of our images on upcoming sessions. Our bright, fun, look is not going away by any means (again we don't use actions for a lot of it and we love our look- thats why we do it!), but look forward to seeing a whole new side to some of our images too!