Hey everybody! Today is my 790th straight day of blogging!
The title says it all, but let me explain...
If you're one of my 2010 or 2011 couples, I probably asked you to send me iPhone pics of what you wanna wear to your engagement session. Sometimes I feel a little bit like a stylist, which is a super fun (albeit unknown) part of my job. After working with our couples on guiding them to the perfect outfits, my lovely team and I get to work on pairing locations that work perfectly with those outfits.
Cool right??!!
Yeah, I know. :)
Here are some examples of what I'm talking about. Notice how well the background goes with the couple's outfits.
(by the way, don't we have the most GORGEOUS brides?!?!)
The whole FEEL of this works perfectly.
Color perfect!!
If you're one of our upcoming couples, use this post as inspiration in picking your outfits!
Hey everybody! Make it 789 days in a row of blogging!
Our super stylish couple, Marissa and Tyler, recently received their super fab wedding / engagement website, which we LOOOOVE doing for our couples. Look at theirs by clicking the screen grab below. And have a fabulous day!
Hey everybody! Today is my 788th consecutive day of blogging!
What a fun package I got in the mail! Today when I FINALLY got home from Vegas I got to go through this ginormous pile of mail and opened up a package with a bridal tab in it from my home town of Joplin Missouri.
A few weeks ago the paper contacted me about trends in wedding photography, as well as about my photography business in Northwest Arkansas. My favorite part, though, is that they ran LOTS of photos - more than even the staff photographer photos - and they ran them BIG! Woohoo!! I scanned some pages; sorry for the blugh quality. :)
There's something about making it in your hometown paper that is so exciting. I mean, I know I don't have anything to prove to anybody, but it's sure nice to get recognition from the area that raised you. Thanks Joplin Globe!
Hey everybody! Today is my 787th consecutive day of posting a blog!
Today's post is a teaser image from a recent newborn session. Now, before you run over to your telephone to call us up for your own newborn session, WAIT! We actually aren't taking baby shoots right now. We only do them for:
1) our past brides (as is the case here) and
2) our wedding vendor friends (Hi Jenessa!)
We do have some crazy talented friends that we can hook you up with if you don't fall into one of the two above categories. Just let us know!
Today I spoke in front of the biggest group I've ever done! I lost count after a thousand, but it was a ginormous group!
I'll get to post a video of my talk once it is released, but a couple photogs tweeter images of me during the presentation so I'm posting those. They're iPhone pics, so don't judge. ;)
I had SUCH a great time speaking, and it all went pretty well from what I can remember. It was definitely a unique experience... I'll share more about that later.
By the way, the photos below are in b/w, which makes it look like I was wearing the same thing... I assure you it's a red hoodie, and a different shirt+tie. :)
And then today, I started getting tagged on Facebook, so I thought I should share some images from the [b]school party photo booth.
With some of my Canada friends (I met a ton of Canadians!)
And Becker and me with my London friend Sachin. Let's make silly faces... That won't be embarrassing later. ;)
The entire Benfield Photography gang has been in Las Vegas this week for WPPI. I was pumped that Lauren, Ashley, and Jessica could come with us this year! They had so much fun and met some cool people and learned some great info.
My single favorite thing about WPPI is the connections that I get to make with other photographers. We've been fortunate in that we've been given lots of opportunities to share with other photographers from around the globe. We share our success stories of how we ADORE our clients and how we've become for than just a photographer to them, and we love sharing that message to everybody who will listen.
We've still got one more day in Vegas, and my BIG ol' talk to do, so I'm sure there will be more posts on this later (as well as more pictures), but I thought I'd share some fun images from one of the silly Vegas parties we went to the other night.
If you've emailed me... EVER... you know that I always email you right back. As a matter of fact, communicating with people is my number one favorite thing on Earth. Number ONE.
A couple days last month, I noticed something funky... my number of emails went down by about half. "That's okay... maybe everybody is busy" I thought. But then I noticed a couple specific oddities that were too bizarre to be true. Without going through all the details, let me just say that my benfieldphotography.com went all WACKO! What the crap?
In my brain all I could think was...
"Dear God, what is going on????"
"How many people have I not responded to???"
"Who might be trying to contact me RIGHT NOW???"
It was not fun.
Anyway, all is resolved now and has been for awhile. You can contact me all the normal ways.
If I missed a chance to chat with you... Sorry! I've protected against that happening in the future.
That being said, I'm speaking at WPPI in Vegas and the reception here is SUPER spotty. If you've called or texted and haven't heard back from me, email me and I'll return it asap.
Talk to you soon, (that line has a whole new meaning)
Dale
If you regularly follow my blog, you'll notice an absence of NSFW posts, aka Secret Session posts. It's definitely not for a lack of material. It's almost as if Meredith has been stockpiling the images - haha! Seriously, though, most of our brides get secret sessions, and our secret session travel dates have been a huge hit all over the US.
As you know, we recently re-launched Meredith's website. Yay! Well today we're announcing a photo of the day blog that she'll be doing. Every day, Monday through Friday, Meredith will be posting a new image on the blog for you to see.
If you're a fan of Meredith's work (she's SUPER talented, right???!!), add it to your RSS or bookmark it or whatever it is that you do. Here's the link - it's super easy to remember: arkansasboudoir.com/blog
Meredith and Southern Aisle's Lauren have been in cahoots working together on Ashley and Scott's rustic "cowboy" wedding. I love the way the feature turned out. Thanks, Mere for your never-ending hard work! Go to http://www.southernaisle.com to see all the featured images!
Meredith and I have been working hard on revamping her secret session website. She's been a busy little bee photographing about 100 sessions in the past year (her projection was 50). So we have lots of new images to share!
Also, coming tomorrow, another new announcement of hers will be made, so come back!
At our annual awards party that we throw for our clients, the Benny Awards, my friend Nic (yes, the same one from yesterday's post) talked with some of our lovely couples who had some really sweet things to say. To our couples in the video: I really appreciate you and what you said. Meredith and I both cherish our relationships!
Today is my birthday! My buddy Nic did a sweet little blog post about this one time (at band camp) that I stepped up in a crazy situation and helped him out shooting video for a client. He also posted this video of my footage (if you get this in your email, go to the blog right now and check it out)
I thought I'd take a sec to talk about the importance of relationships and backup plans. If you're a photographer, or even if you're not, read this.
In life, we're here to connect with people. We're here to form relationships. I've been lucky in finding one of my very best friends on the planet, Nic, through being a wedding vendor. What's great about our friendship is that we have the same schedule! Anyway, I digress...
One day last March he contacted me on a rare off-Saturday wish some solemn news: Lori had been in a car accident on the way to the wedding ceremony she was supposed to video with him. I immediately asked him what I need to do and he asked if I could fill her shoes.
Without pause, Ellie and I grabbed all the camera gear and hopped in the car. She sat in the back with (another great vendor friend) Amy Hannon, who was also friends with the bride while I helped to video the wedding.
After the ceremony we all had a quick pow-wow and I volunteered to video the reception so Nic could be with his wife. After coaxing from the gang (Nic was dedicated to the bride and the job-at-hand) he decided to go be with his wife at the hospital. I shot the reception and the result, though not as good as Nic could do, was a success.
It got me thinking... do YOU have people in your life that you can count on at the drop of a hat? Do you have someone who can step in for you when life demands it? My hope is that, whatever your job is or whatever your situation is, you do. If not, get your booty in gear and start forming real connections with people.
We've featured Shelby Lynn's Cake Shoppe before. She is one of our very favorite NW Arkansas vendors and friends. Not only is she sugary sweet, she's amazingly talented.
We learned of her latest trick when Meredith and I went in for our wedding cake tasting. She brought out a box for our Benny Awards full of macaroons. Yes! Macaroons!!
If I could have burst into song I would have! They were so pretty and tasted ridiculously good. We decided on the spot that WE NEED THESE FOR OUR WEDDING RECEPTION!
If you're a bride looking for some sweet favors for your wedding guests, you absolutely must taste Shelby Lynn's macaroons!
My crazy friends at dropitMODERN are giving away a couple tickets to the HOTTEST party in Vegas (I'll be there!). Check out the details below and enter!
Next weekend I'm off to Las Vegas for WPPI (Wedding and Portrait Photographers International) convention. I've gone four years in a row now and each year gets a little crazier. This year, I have more speaking gigs, including the biggest talk I've ever given (to the biggest crowd ever!!!)
I also get to give away $2000 in prizes at one of my talks! More on that near the end of this post.
Here's my schedule as it currently stands...
Saturday - get in around 10pm. I'll likely find a small get together, but nothing is official that night.
Sunday:
10:30am - Brunch with Becker and Keats, two of our best friends
3:30 - I'm going to support Becker as he presents his first platform class in years. It's bound to be great. (no pressure, b!)
Lauren (I'm so happy she gets to come this year) is shooting a workshop with Mike Colon, one of the best in the world, most of Sunday. I look forward to seeing her images from this!
10pm - heading to my 3rd straight bschool party. Each year these get more and more fun. I'm happy that all five of us from Benfield Photography are going to Vegas and to the party.
Monday:
8pm - Swanky dinner with my peeps from Miller's. They know how to treat their customers! Oh I love them so!
Noon-2pm - hanging in the MpixPro booth
3:30 - I hope to make it over to see the lovely Elizabeth Messina.
10pm - attending my 2nd straight Airplanes and Blazers party with the gang. This is THE party to be at in Vegas - so much fun!
Tuesday:
8am - If I can get up that early, I'm going to support my fellow Miller's Speaker teamer Lindsay Adler. I got to meet her at the secret retreat a few months back and she's super cool.
6pm - Going to support another one of my best friends, JP Elario (best hair in the biz!) :) as he gives a platform class.
10pm - Secret cocktail party with my gang and some of my friends from Miller's.
Wednesday:
1:30 - Meredith and I are speaking at the Miller's/MpixPro booth. We get to give away two yearly memberships from Animoto! I've used Animoto for years now (4 years, I believe) and they have such energetic and hip slideshows that I hate to even call them slideshows. More like picture presentations. I put one at the end of this post.
Thursday:
9am? - the biggest, craziest talk I've ever done. I was selected to give an Ignite presentation for Photographers Ignite. It's exactly 5 minutes in length with slides advancing every 15 seconds (whether I'm ready or not!). It should be intense. Fun, but intense.
Head back home!
And now, a fun slideshow from the Benny Booth (love the dropitMODERN backdrops!) at the Benny Awards (brides, we're available to bring the Benny Booth to YOUR reception!!)
Here we go... it's time for the final images in Jennifer and Matt's wedding day story. Jennifer is just the loveliest, most tender-hearted person, and deserves a sweet guy like Matt who is going to take care of her. I love love love this couple!
Her ginormous wedding party was SOOOOO fun to photograph! And they were troopers!
Ah, the shot from yesterday. Still my favorite. Jennifer and Matt's first meeting at Cross Church at Pinnacle Hills.
This girl couldn't stop smiling! Don't you just love a happy, almost giddy, bride??!!
The light in the sanctuary is always great at Pinnacle. Look, a perfect first kiss shot. The alter looked really amazing!
Away they go! Love the light here!
They had a really fun first dance.
The girls were so much fun on the dance floor.
And even provided a little entertainment. ;)
As the night went on, it was time to bust out the limbo stick! This was a first for me - and I loved it! Everybody got involved and was such a hoot!
When working through Jennifer and Matt's Pinnacle Hills wedding, I couldn't get this image out of my head.
This shot is from Jennifer and Matt's first meeting. They came together in the perfect spot, with the perfect light, showing the perfect emotion. Meredith got the perfect exposure with the perfect composition.
Sure it was cold. Sure there was snow on the ground. Did that stop our lovely bride Jennifer and her beau Matt from wanting to go outside for some fabulous wedding portraits?
Nope!!
Have I said lately how much I loooooove our couples???
Here are some of my favorite from our quick and cold little portrait session!
