I did my first bridal show Sunday in preparaton for the 2011 bridal season.  A few years ago, a professional photographer friend asked me to assist them at a wedding they were going to photograph.  I hadn’t done weddings for a lot of reasons; I had only recently gotten into portraiture, after being involved in commercial and fine art photography for a long time.  I knew that weddings required stamina and skill and tied up weekends.  It takes a great deal of moxie and preparedness to take on the responsibility of photographing a bride and groom’s very important day!  It also takes a unique set of camera equipment that is expensive and requires skill to use properly. The most important quality of a great wedding photographer is passion. Nothing can replace it.  I knew by my second wedding I was hooked.  It was a natural progression… I’ve cried at every wedding I’ve ever been to and I was born with the last name Love and I’m known for the passion I put into anything I do. Need I say more?  Why it took me so long to come to this is beyond me.  But I’m here now! 

There is nothing I can do to change the current trend of paying more for chair covers than a photographer but continue to do what I do best; creative, artistic storytelling through images.  Nothing that is quality craftsmanship is inexpensive… NOTHING.  I attended a seminar yesterday taught by a great wedding photographer out of the Detroit area.  There are still many of us who believe that making the investment in wedding portraiture is something that will pay for itself over and over again so we continue to share ideas and learn new techniques to guarantee our brides amazing images. 

This image is a prime example of the difference a qualified professional can make in your wedding portraits.  It was 6:00 a.m. the morning after her wedding.  She wasn’t happy about being up that early.  We didn’t need her hair done or makeup on.  We knew before we event got on the plane we wanted this image and dragged this fabric all the way there because the bride wasn’t wearing a veil.  In the end, this image from a destination wedding was worth everything it took to create it. Don’t you think?

As an artist, there are always a few pieces you create that never leave you. After giving a talk this winter to a group of photographers, and showing them my ‘mistakes’ and what I learned from them, I decided to go back and find one of the original images. If I had to pick just one of my thousands and thousands of images I’ve photographed, it would be the one I would choose. I wished I had done a better job of capturing it, so I really wanted to study it again in its original form. 

I couldn’t find it. I forgot about it for a little while knowing it was somewhere. Recently, it came to my mind again and I went looking. Again I couldn’t find it and became frantic. After HOURS of  searching high and low, I found it. I learned a lot during the past several hours now that I’m calm again (LOL):

a) Catalog your work PROPERLY.

b) Identify work that deeply speaks to you and back up the ORIGINAL over, and over, and over.

c) Serendipity! I didn’t capture it wrong!!! Yea. Oh big YEA! I had cropped it wrong and had been using that cropped image all this time (the original was taken in 2006).

d) Study work you’ve created that touches your heart. Identify the ‘why’.  Seek to create this type of work more often!

e) PRINT it. Negatives, CDs, and DVDs will never replace the printed image because they are not capable of creating an instant emotional response like a print can.

Ultimately it was a project in proper storage and backup. It has a happy ending. I found my beloved image that would be impossible to recreate because the subject is long gone. I’ve had an idea in my head for a few years on what I wanted to do with this image and I needed the original to do it.  

I do a much better job of cataloging and backing up J. Love Photography work than I do my own personal images, that’s for sure. I need to work on that!

Now, when I finish it, I’ll post it! In the meantime, what photographs have you created that you can instantly remember as favorites? Seek them out. Back them up. Print them again. Put them away for safekeeping so that even if your house burns down, your image is safe. You won’t regret it.

This adorable 8-year-old and her siblings came to J. Love Photography to be professionally photographed a  few weeks back.  Her mom and I wanted something different in the way of portraits for their home.  I had been wanting to purchase a zebra chair for the studio for quite some time so this was the excuse I needed.  We thought it might be interesting to put it outside in front of some tall grasses and see what we came up with.

We ended up deciding that the green grass was too overpowering so we made it black and white… except Dylan herself.  Her twin siblings were also part of the session.  We had a crazy good time on a beautiful summer evening.  We managed to capture the three of the siblings in a lovely pose for a wall portrait and we also created a little keepsake album of all of their favorites.

If you haven’t considered having your children professionally photographed together in quite some time, act now while the weather is still beautiful! I’ll post more images taken in this beautiful autumn weather soon.

According to the American Cancer Society, breast cancer strikes 1 in 8 women during their lifetime. My mother is a survivor. So is my friend, Teri. So was my mother-in-law, Pat and Joanne and so many, many women I’ve loved or are loved by someone close to me. And then there are those wonderful women like my childhood friends, Jill and Sherry who did not survive. I saw Sherry’s daughter’s wedding portrait in the paper the other day and she looks so much like her mom. The statistics are staggering.

This month, J. Love Photography will donate  a portion of its proceeds to breast cancer research in honor and celebration of these women! Be sure to attend J. Love Photography’s “Girls Night Out” Shopping Event to help the cause and start your holiday shopping early. Anyone having portraits made as well as holiday cards, etc., during October will also be helping the cause!

I recently created this Vintage Tapestry montage of  snapshots and professional portraits of the colorful, wonderful, amazing women from whom I came; my mother, my grandmothers, my great-grandmothers, my aunts, my great-aunts. I am so proud to be born of these women. As some of you know, when my father graduated from medical school, my mother, my grandmothers, and my great-grandmothers had their photograph taken by my father. This portrait is one of my most valued possessions. I wear it in a Jewel Kade photo charm. I keep it framed on my desk.

So today, “Give thanks for the women who came before you and show you the way.”

For the last few years, I’ve been photographing children in the No Cavity Club at Dr. Brent Kolb’s office at Dexter Family Dentistry in Dexter, Michigan. Dr. Kolb and his staff; Sandy, Marian, Ashley and the gang are all so friendly and fun.  I’ve recommended countless people to their offices because Brent proves that dentistry does not have to be a painful, dreadful experience! I remember telling a friend that this dentist office is painless and fun and she thought I was nuts. But she’s now a devoted DFD patient too.

Several kids are rewarded yearly with their portrait on the wall all year when they have no cavities! We spend part of a day together with lots of kids having a good time as they entertain me with their spirited little selves. Sometimes I even talk the moms and dads into joining in.

Although I love them all, I posted two of my favorite No Cavity Club kid portrait that make me smile every time I see them! Kids are so funny aren’t they?