I have been curating lovely wedding related items for the past week or so, as I cruised around the Etsy world.  So today I present… A White Wedding.

Click HERE to go and view the actual treasury and to click on the wonderful objects.  But it will ONLY be there for today and tomorrow!  So don’t delay, CLICK NOW!  And you can leave a little comment on the bottom too!

Created completely by hand, this delicate flower only looks heavy. It’s actually very lightweight yet very durable. This beauty looks just like a fresh gardenia yet will last long after the wedding is over. I’ll be the first to admit that I am NOT a fan of artificial flowers, but I think this is the perfect flower for ones hair. Handmade with aloha by Makani Creations.

Now about that sparkle and shiny… imagine this amazing one of a kind necklace created from vintage snowflake brooches with your winter wedding gown.

I actually said “WOW!” out loud when I first saw this. Check out this and the other lovely upcycled vintage jewelry in Vintage Bella Bride‘s shop.

If you are more of a demure, string of pearl kinda girl… have no fear! Tissage has a lovely selection of beautiful pearl necklaces.
So elegant and timeless (I’m a pearl girl myself!) Oh and Tissage also has some amazing cloche hats – I WILL own one, one day…

I’ve shown just two of a multitude of options for a beautiful and unique necklace to wear on your wedding day… but if these are not to your taste – I know that someone on Etsy.com will have the perfect jewelry for you!

And I know I promised a ring for the men. When I was getting married, there were about two choices for a men’s wedding band. Gold or gold. So we went with gold. Seven years later I found an amazing titanium ring for him and we replaced my husband’s plain gold band with a two toned titanium one. It’s VERY cool. But if we hadn’t already purchased a ring he loved, you can bet your bottom dollar I would be picking up one of these!
Heck, I might buy one for me to wear on my right hand I love it that much! Check out Minter & Richter Designs for this and other VERY cool, masculine titanium rings. And if when making a purchase, you mention my blog – Minter and Richter have extended a 10% discount to my readers! Many MAHALOS for their generosity!

So this should start you on your jewelry buying safari and the next installment I plan to feature additional hair pieces. Beautiful fascinators, to birdcage veils. Leave comments below with your thoughts on any of the beautiful items I’ve featured. Both their creator and myself would love to hear what you think!

Let’s look at some photos. These are photos I took, of my own daughter. I love all of them because, well, it’s my daughter and she’s beautiful. However, these photos ALL have problems. Some of them have deal breaker issues. Some of the problems are simply par for the course of the working conditions we had. (We were traveling and couldn’t countrol what time we arrived at certain locations to control the intensity or direction of the light… we had to take what we could get and as Tim Gunn says on Project Runway… “make it work.”)

So here is the first one, my beautiful girl in a grove of trees.

A lovely image, edited and shown in black and white. But let’s look at this photo closer. Can you see it’s biggest issue?

It’s out of focus. Not terribly, but the focus has clearly fallen somewhere other than her eyes – which is where the focus should be. Look again, I’ve zoomed in…

Can you see it now? As a mom, I’m willing to look past a few imperfections in a photo, but as a photographer – I have moved on, to an image that is, in fact, in focus. Here’s our second image we’re going to look at… same location, but I’ve walked to the left, and the sun came out from behind the clouds. And here you have proof that the sun does in fact shine occasionally in England!

This image is TACK sharp. So what is it’s major flaw? A flaw that makes it NOT worth showing to a client? Well, the dappled light coming through the trees has created areas of shadow and areas of blow outs. It’s a mottled mess. No matter how beautiful the subject – this is NOT a professional level photo and not worth editing. I did edit it to show that not even photoshop can “save” a photo taken in this kind of light. Now of I were at home I would have brought a diffusion panel with me and we could have happily shot in this location and gotten some amazing images… instead, I had to keep walking so I could get this which I’m showing edited, in black and white and then “grey scale”.

Sure this one has a bit of dappling on her hand, but since her face is NOT dappled, and I couldn’t diffuse and couldn’t go back another time (we flew home the next morning) I am willing to live with it. Her eyes are in SHARP focus.

But this brings us to another issue that is very common. TERRIBLE black and white images. All photo editing software has a “grey scale”, “desaturate” or “black and white” one click option. Yep, even my hugely expensive Photoshop has a couple of ways to turn a photo ugly with only one click! Whooo hooo, what a time saver!!! Except, it looks terrible. Always.

There are as many ways to turn a photo black and white as there are professional photographers. And each photographer has the “recipe” or method that they prefer and which suits their style of photography. But NO ONE should EVER be “desaturating” or turning an image “grey scale”.

Can you see the difference in the photos above? In the middle image, the whites of her eyes are – wait for it – WHITE! A black and white image should have tones of both black and white – and not just some middle shades of grey. Here’s another image with even more dramatic results.

Quite a difference isn’t it? Which black and white image would YOU prefer to purchase?

So we’ve discussed clarity (photos should be IN focus) and touched a bit on exposure (no extreme light or dark areas – blow outs etc)… now let’s talk about colour. This one is sooooo common. I’m not sure who keeps telling photographers to add contrast to their images or that they need a bit more saturation… but here’s what happens when I use my handy dandy Photoshop and just bumped both saturation and contrast, then applied an “unsharp mask” (another new photographer’s favorite tool!). I’ve taken this beautiful image from this:

To this:

But I’ve still not achieved the rich beautiful colour in the wall, as shown in the top image. Photo editing, to bring the best in an image out, is an art. It’s not a simple click of a button, any more than taking a beautiful photo is as simply as clicking the shutter release button. When you are looking at photographers’ websites, ask yourself… “is that child REALLY that red/orange/grey/white in real life? Have I ever seen a REAL person with that colour skin?” Of course each person has their own skin tone, but so often, we are shown photographs which have no basis in reality. And I don’t know about you, but I want photos of my children to LOOK like my children.

Let’s look at the most subjective criteria now… composition. Let me be honest with you… I think a lot of what is called art, is rubbish. And I don’t pretend to be the end all, be all photographer with no room to improve… so I expect a lot of folks will argue that composition isn’t as crucial as the above points, but I personally feel it is just as important as an image being properly exposed, in focus and with life like skin tones (provided it’s a portrait that is supposed to have natural skin tones, but you know what I mean!) In my humble opinion, you can have a properly exposed and focused image and it will be BORING or, just plain awkward – if the composition is off. Let’s look at some examples.

Here’s a boring photo of a bride, walking.

and for comparison – the same bride, shot from a slightly different angle and positioned in the bottom corner of the image. (and for the record, I didn’t shoot the centered bride, centered… I cropped it like that to show my point!)

And here is a sweet little three year old. Centered, and well, boring.

Same image – as I shot it, and not cropped.

Can you see the difference between the centered (booooooring) compositions and those where the subject is off centered? And this is not to say that centered never works, but it needs to be intentional and purposeful – like this image. Having her eyes and the flask centered is design feature and I’ve used symmetry to strengthen the impact of the image.

Pat yourself on the back if you’ve read all of this. I hope that it will help you as you search for the photographer who is right for you. Who will capture and freeze the moments of you and your family’s lives. Rest assured that as a mom I have and love, years worth of photos with all sorts of fatal flaws. And as you are snapping the daily moments of your family, a “flawed” image shouldn’t always be tossed into the rubbish – but neither should it be paid for.

When the photo is of someone we love, our love can cloud our vision – and allow us to make excuses for poor products. So start judging photographers websites with these criteria – looking only at people you don’t know. Judge the photos, and not the subject. If he/she can deliver well executed portraits for a variety of different clients – then and only then – should you trust them to capture your loved ones.

Oh and if you’ve have in fact read this, please leave a comment below – even if only to tell me I’m crazy. I wonder if I’m talking only to myself sometimes and I always value feedback. And I believe this is a great topic for discussion so as long as the discussion stays civil – I’ll leave all comments.

I’m sure by now you’ve realized that I’m what my husband calls “crunchy”. I try to implement “green” policies in all areas of my life, and my business is no different. In fact, it’s even more important considering the amount of cardboard packaging etc the prints/frames/canvases etc require. But rest assured, that all the packaging materials are indeed recycled. But back to holiday wrapping… when I was looking for something attractive, that blended well with the willowdawn photography aesthetic, I started in the “eco friendly” section of my vendors catalog. Bags and boxes where quickly decided upon as soon as I saw them. They were perfect and with boxes containing 100% recycled fiber – on average 80% is post consumer. The paper wrap material is manufactured carbon neutral, FSC certified, green-e certified with wind certificates, process chlorine free (PCF) and are made in the USA with 100% post consumer waste and are green seal certified. It’s hard to get “crunchier that that!

The bags are a little less “green” at only 50% recycled content, but I was sold, not only because of their charming design, but because they are also, made in the USA. As many parts of our country faces tough economic issues – I’ll all for buying American – and keeping our citizens employed. And did I mention they’re CUTE?!?!

And then there is the paper and ribbon… I’m so excited by the paper that I’ll save it for last, but the ribbon is soooo cool too! This awesome ribbon is crafted of polyester and is made in the USA from 100% post consumer recycled plastic bottles. Of course, it’s not as posh as say a beautiful velvet or double faced satin – which I’m not knocking – they’re beautiful. But this is beautiful and guilt free! And the paper… let me tell you about the paper.

I’ve chosen to wrap your gifts in Mulberry Blend Gift Wrap which is made from natural fibers. This paper is made by artisans in remote villages around the world – creating jobs and fair wages for hard working communities. Distant Village packaging is providing more that just great eco-friendly and sustainable products. It is a sustainable model that supports real people in many ways. To learn more, click here. Now this a gift that feels great to give!

ALL gift items AND now, all canvases – will be 20% off on Friday, November 27th – and ONLY on Friday, November 27th. It was going to be only on gift items but I just received word that my canvas vendor is having Thanksgiving sale and I’m passing this savings on to YOU! Gift items include handbags, wallets, key fobs and jewelry! Check the GIFT GUIDE and then head over to my shopping area to start shopping.

Click here to enter shopping cart.

COUPON CODE: black

All items will come beautifully gift wrapped and ready to be put under the tree, shipped or presented to the one you love. Which reminds me… I need to go take a photo of the wrapping paper! It’s soooo cute! And is my way, all of the wrapping materials are made from recycled products! I’ll be back!

Bracelet has two images!

So the photos are ALL the wrong sizes so I’ll have to come back and clean up this mess I’ve just created, but it will have to wait! I’ve a party to go to… and I’m wearing the necklace with Miss C sitting in the chair!

But WAIT – there’s more!!!! For the men in your lives…

Let’s recap… buy a handbag/tote listed – get the French Wallet HALF OFF! Buy a bifold or trifold wallet – get a second wallet (same style) HALF OFF! Each item can have a different image so even if you just want to buy two wallets for yourself and swap them according to which child you love best at the moment!

FREE shipping on all other purses/totes/accessories – but the free shipping cannot be applied to the special offers above.

Any questions? Then get shopping – orders must be received and paid by November 20 for holiday delivery!!! Specials will last through the end of November, but orders received after November 20 will NOT be available for Christmas gift giving.

I just got a spodey-odey new decal for the back of my car and thought it would be fun to play a bit of Where in Virginia is willowdawn photography? Hey, I warned you about the nerd dust! So if you see me around town in my cute little Prius – snap a pic with your phone or any other camera you have handy and email it to me. I’ll send you a coupon for your choice of free item! Oh, and please don’t get all daredevilish and try to do this whilst driving! And a pic of my car in my driveway doesn’t count! I’ll give you a couple of hints as to where you might find me. I don’t shop at the mall – but I seem to live at Costco. I’d keep my eyes open around Wegmans too! Oh and I ALWAYS park near the cart corral. Always. I attend church in the Massaponax area so Sunday’s I’d keep an eye out around there!

Good luck and I can’t wait to see who spots me!

willowdawn photography virginia custom portraiture holiday gifts special offer

Or if these two items don’t float your boat – Free shipping on all other bags/wallets and accessories is available! Sorry, offers cannot be combined.