The Celebrated Chris Wray

Last night we had the privilege of hanging with good friend and talented musician Chris Wray to get some updated photos for his portfolio, website, CDs, etc. before he moves out to the big leagues in LA.

We had a great time cruising downtown OKC for cool places to photograph and before we knew it we'd burned a couple of hours and forgotten at least 2 pairs of sunglasses in random places. =)

Here's one of my initial favorites that I quickly retouched for the blog.


It's always fun to photograph musicians and bands because there's no end to the creativity involved.

C-Wray, thanks for asking us to help with your photos! We'll be in touch soon to have you look them all over.

In the news...

Okay, a completely non-photography blog.

On the personal side of things, I bit my lip so hard over the weekend that I think I managed to do some nerve damage to it! Crazy stuff... It now tingles in remove places when I touch it where I bit it. Does that sound like nerve damange? Funny thing is, I didn't even break the skin.

In other news... I read this article on office fitness and thought it was totally awesome. If I had to work in an office again, this would be the office I'd want to have! Check it out here. They walk around a small track for meetings and they have treadmills at their standing desks!

I'm off to the gym. Seriously!

Photographik

We're excited about a recent affirmation we received by way of acceptance into an elite group of photographers. Well, that's their wording, not ours, but we're really honored nonetheless and grateful to have been invited to join them! The group is Photographik.org and they're committed to listing and accepting only photographers who meet a certain standard of quality in their work. Seems kinda basic, but it's actually a pretty unique service.


We've never really spent money on advertising since our customers have done such a really great job spreading the word for us. Online directories and listings of photographers a lot of time just list people who are willing to pay for a top spot, so you're not really seeing a list of great photographers. Basically, if they have the advertising budget, they can get a great listing on "The Knot" or any of those sites regardless of their work.

So, check out Photographik.org and if you want, you can find our listing here. Yeah, it's pretty basic so far, just a link to our website, but we hope to get some of our images on there soon to pretty up the page a bit for them. =)

For you brides out there (or if you know a bride-to-be), spread the word about Photographik and check out all the great photographers on there! A lot of the photographers whose work inspires us on a regular basis are featured on the site and I think you'll really enjoy seeing their work.

And for you photographers out there who are interested, it's just $20 to apply, so you're not out of pocket a great deal to find out if you make the cut for membership. Check it out!

Allasyn's First Portraits

It's always such a pleasure to hear from repeat customers. Allasyn was born recently to some really great customers of ours who have become good friends over the years as we've got to know each other. In fact, they brought over a meal for us when both of our kids were born so we were honored to be able to return the favor and get some great pictures at the same time.

It was precious seeing the two older children being so gentle and caring with little Allasyn. We got some great shots of the three kids, too, but I just pulled out five of my favorites for the blog today. These first two are my personal favorites from the session:






Wow, two posts in one day! (Don't forget to read on down for our other post from today.) Oh, and it's nice to see that we have some subscribers to the blog, taking advantage of that option. If you have any trouble with it or it doesn't work properly, please do let us know so we can work out any issues for you. So far it's been smooth sailing, so that's always nice. =) Still haven't heard from anyone if/how you like the new subscription option, so feel free to leave us a comment! We really do love to hear from you all.

Lots more to come, so stay tuned!

Upgrading to the new 1D Mark III

With all the weddings we're booking, we decided it was time to add a 1 series Canon to our arsenal. We're pretty stoked about our most recent addition... the hard-to-find new 1D Mark III camera.


There are just SO many cool things about it that I won't go into them all, but I will give you the listening pleasure of hearing it in action. =) Sounds like a machine gun at 10 frames per second. Many other features will certainly assist us in capturing and documenting those special moments throughout our customers lives.

One of the things I'm most excited about, is having Holly join me in wedding photography. We're still working out the details, but the current plan is to offer 2 photographers (Holly and I) for weddings in the near future.

You can read more about it the new camera here if you're interested. That link will take you to what I consider probably the most interesting and comprehensive review I've seen yet for the camera. I'm sure I won't be able to help but post about the new camera again soon...

Thanks for stopping by!

EDITED 8/26/07:

I just saw this quote on a photography forum talking about the MarkIII and I couldn't resist posting it here...

"I know what you're thinking. "Did he fire six shots or only five?" Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is a 1D Mark III, the fastest digital SLR in the world, you've got to ask yourself a question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?"

Haley's Senior Portraits

Time to post highlights from a few of our recent sessions! Once again it's late-o'clock, I'm tired and ready for bed, so I'll keep it short and sweet.

The Ten Habits of Highly Effective Brains

I just read a very interesting article about the human brain here and was really quite struck by two of the points they made:

#2 Take care of your nutrition. Did you know that the brain only weights 2% of body mass but consumes over 20% of the oxygen and nutrients we intake? As a general rule, you don't need expensive ultra-sophisticated nutritional supplements, just make sure you don't stuff yourself with the "bad stuff."

I really had no idea that our brains consume so much more than their fair share of oxygen and nutrients! Pretty amazing... Much like the processors on computers and how they consume the majority of the power as well.

#4 Practice positive, future-oriented thoughts until they become your default mindset and you look forward to every new day in a constructive way. Stress and anxiety, no matter whether induced by external events or by your own thoughts, actually kills neurons and prevent the creation of new ones. You can think of chronic stress as the opposite of exercise: it prevents the creation of new neurons.

The other points were good, too, but this point on stress really struck a chord with me. In the last few years before moving to photography full time, I was in a really stressful medical management position and I remember feeling on many occasions that the stress was affecting my brain's abilities negatively. Pretty scary!

That's just one more great reason to love our profession of photography. Unless you photograph school kids for yearbooks day in and day out, there's really a lot of variety in what we do. Every session, every season, every day really, is different so there's not a lot of "mindlessness" to it and I really love that.

The Schultz Family

It's always a delight to hear from a past customer that their family has grown and it's time to do portraits once again!

It's really late, so I'd better not ramble or slaughter too much spelling. I know it's the pictures you're here to see, so I won't keep you. =)













Lots more to come as soon as I get a few quiet moments to blog them!

Email Subscriptions now Available!

We have an exciting new announcement to make: you may not subscribe to our blog by email, so you'll receive updates in your email inbox whenever we post something new on our blog! No more unnecessary checking several times a day to see what's new. Okay, that was a joke, I know none of you check our blog that often.

There's a simple form/box now at the bottom of the right-hand column of our blog, or you can use this link to subscribe to email updates of Prints Charming Photography's Blog.

Hope it's helpful! At the same time, today, we decided to update the colors a little bit. Not sure how we had the colors we had before and I we never noticed how blah they were, but we've spiced them up a little bit and it seems to tie in well with our logo, too.

As always, we'd love to hear how you like these changes and whether it's useful to you. And don't let this convenient tool keep you from leaving comments, please! We love to hear you all and we're always so excited when we see that someone left a comment.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope you have a great weekend! I'm off to a photograph another wedding with my friend Rodrick at Happily Everlasting.

Proposal Pictures from Deep Cover

Okay, by now hopefully you know how much fun we have doing what we call "incognito engagement sessions" where typically the guy hires me to photograph his proposal. It's a lot of fun and I've had the opportunity to do a few already this season. A funny thing happened to us last week, though, when I ran across a couple who were about to propose/be proposed to and neither one of them knew I was there taking pictures of the event!

Turns out, the young man's father designed the gardens at Myriad Gardens and they were over-the-top excited that I managed to grab a few pictures of the event as it happened. I didn't have a great vantage at first since I wasn't expecting it right away, but I still think the pictures will be great memories for them. Here are some of my favorites.

Hands clapped over face in shock!

The ring comes out.

Not much else compares to this kind of sweet joy.

Checking out the ring together

If I could do it over again, I would definitely have a pro at my proposal to capture that special moment. I have friends and customers who did and they all have been SO happy that they had the foresight to think of it. Honestly, so much else is going on, that most people won't think of it on their own. So, if you know someone who may be getting engaged soon, we'd be really grateful if you'd tell them about our proposal photography and point them to our website and blog!

Thanks for stopping by!

101 Little Known Photoshop Tips

I feel pretty proficient in Photoshop, though there are a lot of features in Photoshop that I rarely have occasion to use. When our friend (and fellow photographer from Tulsa) Trinnica, forwarded this link to us, I was surprised at how many useful tips I learned! (Thanks, Trin!)

So, I thought I'd post it here for any of you Photoshop users who want to get more efficient with the program. Check out the page here.

Mika's Senior Pictures

How exciting... our first real post since upsizing our blog images! Thanks, Mom, for telling us you like the new layout. I know we have two or three more readers out there. =) Don't be shy... leave us a comment letting us know what you think!

Here are a few favorites from recent senior session we did. We're always big fans of pillars...






She brought her boyfriend along. Actually, we did back-to-back sessions for her and her boyfriend. I love the grasses in the background of this shot.


Well, we're off to another shoot in the 100+ degree weather, believe it or not. In the last two days, we've done a bridal session, an engagement session and three sessions of extended families. Lots more pictures to come, so stop by again soon! Thanks for visiting!

Blogging Troubles

Well, after a rough 18 hours of blogging trouble, we're back online with at least some of our blogs sporting the new larger pictures. =) I'd love to know how you like it, how it looks on other people's computers. Looks good on mine, but without feedback, I'll never know!

I'm such a goober, deciding late last night to try to change my blog to allow for larger pictures. I've seen a few like Becker's blog that have huge pictures and it makes a big difference especially in this industry to have a good way to show your work. So I went to work on it last night after the kids and Holly went to bed and finally gave up about 5:45 this morning after just making a mess of it all.

A few hours in Starbucks today, however, and we're back on track! That venti Verona must have done the trick. Either that, or it was the positive energy of this independent rep for the next big thing, Zija juice, who just gave me his 15 minute spiel. I've had too many friends (or former friends) get into things like this that it's easy for me to stay away from these kinds of pyramid marketing deals, no matter how good they sound. It's not worth losing friends over. =)

Anyway, hope you have a great day! Time to head downtown for a senior session.

Testing New Sized Blog

This is a test to see if I've fixed the blog to post larger pictures. =)


Hey, it looks like it worked! Leave a comment and let me know what you think about the larger pictures... I'm pretty excited about them. =)

Michelle's Senior Portraits

Yes, summer is here with it's heat and some humidity too! A common concern of our customers is that it's just too hot for pictures. Well, that is certainly a possibility at 100+ degrees, especially if the humidity is high, but since we shoot at the end of the day and in shaded spots it's actually not too bad.

Here are several examples from a shoot that we did last week in the nearly-100 degree weather. They still turn out just great!







It's been a great year so far, with a lot of seniors already booking their sessions before school starts and the rush of the Fall season hits. They say "you can't rush art" and I admit that I do have more time to enjoy retouching these sessions scheduled early in the season. The busiest seasons for us are going to be probably October/November and then March through May. Be sure to plan ahead so we'll have pictures ready for you when you need them!

And for all of you seniors this year with hopes to join a sorority or fraternity, keep in mind that you may need to order about 20-30 more wallets just for applications.

Time to turn off the sprinkler and call back some brides about wedding photography. Hope you have a great day!

Jon & Christina

Here are some favorites from a recent session we did for Jon & Christina. Some of these shots are new favorites of ours!



Not much commentary on this post, I know, but you probably come here for the pictures mostly, don't you? =) Lots of retouching to do today, so I have to run. Take care and have a great day! Thanks for stopping by.

100+

It's been a strange, cool summer so far, and it's just now starting to warm up. When I saw today's hourly weather (weather.com) I was excited to see that we're expected to hit 106 degrees today in the "Feels Like" column.


And I get to cut the grass today, so it will be like working out in a sauna -- killing two birds with one stone. Glad I don't have a session this afternoon! We worked on Saturday, so I'm taking off... well, sort of. There's always a lot to retouch, so I'm just working in our home office today.

Hope everyone gets a great start to their week!

Mexican Dr. Pepper

It's common knowledge that Dr. Pepper is the very best "coke" around and that it's generously consumed in the Sangree household. =) In fact, when we lived in Australia, we actually got the local grocery store to import a pallet of it for us (and our friends).

Anyway, I couldn't resist snapping this shot (with my cell phone) of a super-sized can of Dr. Pepper that Holly's brother Levi picked up in Puerto Vallarta recently. I think it was a 20 oz. can with the old "10, 2 & 4" slogan on it and it was sweetened with pure cane sugar. It didn't taste any different than regular US Dr. Pepper, in my opinion.


So, next time you're down in Cozumel, Cabo or Cancun, feel free to pick up a few of these beauties for me! I'll even pay you back in pesos. =)

While I'm completely off of the subject of photography, I thought I'd post an amazing video I saw recently of an elephant-back tiger-spotting safari. You've got to check this out. I wish it continued to show what happens at the end, but all you see are the elephants running away. Pretty amazing!



Hope you're enjoying your weekend! If anyone buys any wedding apparel tax-free this weekend I'd love to hear about it!

Tax-Free Weekend

Today marks the beginning of the "back-to-school" tax-free weekend, Oklahoma's first. Until now, people drove 100 miles down to Dallas to save a few dollars in tax. =) But that's beside the point...

I just noticed in the paper that included in the short list of tax-free items is wedding apparel! That's right. Not sure why it's lumped into "back-to-school" when stationery, paper, writing instruments and office supplies are not included (that's not a joke, I'm serious!), but if it can save brides a few hundred dollars in sales tax on their dream wedding dress, then that's great!

Just wanted to make sure everyone knew about it! For more information, you can see the NewsOK article on it here.

Some other funny things that are on the list: steel-toe boots, diapers and baby blankets. Three things every student should stock up on before heading back to the classrooms. =)

Also in the news, Prints Charming Photography has changed their site's music selection just a little bit. Would love to hear what our viewers think about it! Starts out with an old Al Green song "Let's Stay Together" that Holly and I really like.

Have a great weekend!

The Holroyd Family

How did I forget to blog about the Holroyd's until now?! Their pictures were so beautiful, I guess I forgot because we were making preparations to head out of State for a visit to Pennsylvania. Well, better late than never! Enjoy!

Chasing a bunny!

I'm adding photos from several sessions to our website and galleries now, too, so have a look if you like!

Before & After

Something that always fascinates me is comparing before and after shots of other photographers. In some ways, seeing their before shots is quite encouraging, because even the world's best photographers "before" shots look quite similar to ours. =)

Seeing what can be done with a pretty normal-looking photo is really inspiring to me and I thought it might be at least interesting to you, so here goes!

Here's a before shot of my brother from last week when we got together with the rest of the family up in Pennsylvania. He's the kind of guy who would rather not be in front of a camera, but he decided to let me take a few pictures after I twisted his arm and offered to give him some cool new profile pictures for Facebook.

Before Picture:

After Picture:

You can click on the pictures above to see a bit larger versions for comparison.

Besides just the normal corrections, one of the things we like to really focus on is our customer's eyes. It's what we feel should be the focus of most pictures, at least for the close-ups.

Now, you might be asking yourself, "How do I do that?!" Get to a photoshop training seminar or contact me about some private lessons!

Thanks for stopping by! Hope you enjoyed the before and after comparison.