Christmas Card

I just remembered that I hadn't posted our Christmas card, so here it is!




It was so much fun this year getting Christmas cards from customers for whom we had done the photography and cards. We have three on the fridge right now.

Well, it's Sunday night, so we're going to try to relax and not do too much work. =) Got the fire going and I think we'll have some friends over to watch a movie.

Time to make plans for New Year's eve... =)

Happy Christmas!

Hey, everyone! Hope you're having a really great Christmas! We're enjoying the day with Holly's family.

Even more so than at Thanksgiving, for some reason this time of year I find myself very grateful for family, friends and great customers who made another successful year possible! It's been our busiest year ever and it's a really great feeling to be able to take a few days off to hang out with the family and just relax.

We printed some super-cool Christmas cards this year and I really wanted to post them with my Christmas greeting, but it's on my other computer and I can't get to it right now so this scan is going to have to do! (We just scanned the one we sent to Holly's parents since it was on hand. Please forgive the poor quality scan! We'll try to update it as soon as we have the original files on hand.)


Hope you all have a wonder-filled, happy Christmas! (A lot of my family says "Happy Christmas" instead of "merry" so I thought I'd try it out. I guess it's a British thing since you really never hear it over here in the US. =)

I'm looking forward to 2008 and all God has in store for us in the New Year!

Favorite Christmas Carol This Year

Okay, I know that some of you are already tired of Christmas carols for the year, but we're the kind of people who can listen to them for the entire month of December and not get tired of them.

My fave this year is one I remember hearing as a child a long time ago. Mom, you have to check out this song - I'm sure you'll love it. (It's right up your forté! ha ha! We'll never let that one rest. =) Here's a link to their super groovy music video on YouTube.

Man, music videos have come a long ways! =) I thought it was funny to see the big hair and all.

Website Hosting with Westhost

If you've sent us an email in the last 2 days and haven't heard back from us, please resend it or give us a call!

I noticed that we had another issue this morning with our web hosting company, Westhost. It was the 2nd day in a row that when I got up, our site wasn't online. Strange! Not good for business, either, I might add. =) I contacted them about it and they apparently have someone trying to use too much RAM on the same server we're on and it's causing it to crash.

Our stats have bottomed out for the past 2 days and I haven't had as much email as normal, either, so I'm thinking we've had a lot of customers unable to reach us online and by email. Please give it another shot if you haven't heard back from us. We'd love the opportunity to help.

Hopefully I'll hear back soon from Westhost. I requested they move me to a different, more stable server until they figure out the problem. I've heard a lot of great things about them, but haven't had a stellar experience so far.

The Perfect Ring-Tone?

Okay, a totally random blog subject, I know, but it's really late and I was lying in bed thinking about it, so here's my random blog post for the week! Not photography-related at all, but cell phones are a huge part of just about everyone's lives these days.

I thought I'd found the perfect ring-tone for my cell phone a few months ago. I recorded my own voice starting out in just a whisper and working my way up to an irritating "HEY, MAN, YOUR PHONE'S RINGING!!" Well, besides irritating Holly to no end, I was totally embarrassed when it went off in my bag one day and I couldn't find it quickly enough to silence it.

So, I've changed it.

My ring now starts off with a quiet clearing of the throat and works it's way up to a pretty loud cough. The cool thing about this ring is that I can tell it's my cough immediately but nobody else even seems to bat an eye or take any notice. I've even had it go off in the middle of the night and it doesn't wake up Holly, but it wakes me up!

Anyhow... I thought that was pretty clever and that you might enjoy it or be able to use the idea in some way.

Do you have some kinda intuitive and creative like that to share? I'd love to hear it... leave a comment with the details!

Website Back Online

I guess sometime last night our hosting company's server crashed and our site was down until this morning when I emailed them about it. My apologies to anyone who tried visiting and got a strange error page!

We're back up and running just fine, but it's scary to think that it was down without my knowledge. Hey, if you ever notice something not working right on our site or blog, don't hesitate to drop us an email or call us to let us know! We'd be most grateful!

Have a great week!!

It's my Birthday!

Yep, today is my birthday! I got to sleep in and Holly and the girls are out at church for their kids program leadership/planning meeting, so I'm trying to decide what to do with myself until they get back early afternoon. Any suggestions or ideas?

It's funny, a lot of years I forget it's my birthday in between calls from friends and family, but for some reason I've been looking forward to this one. I feel like celebrating, but am just plum out of ideas. =)

Holly suggested getting a massage, but you have to plan ahead and have an appointment, so that won't work for today.

We're hoping to be able to get out and eat at Cascata this evening if we can find a babysitter. I did some work for them a while back and they generously gave us gift certificates that we still haven't used, so that's the plan.



LATER...

Okay, we're back from a great night out at Cascata. I forgot to finish my blog before I left so now you get to read about how good it was! =) The food was outstanding. A bit pricier than we would normally do, but very tasty. It's really a top-notch restaurant. We were the youngest and most casually patrons, which always makes us a little nervous, but the staff were all friendly and the manager (Brian Cure) even remembered me from months ago when I photographed one of their unique cakes decorated very realistically like a champagne bottle.

I hope the weather holds out for the wedding we're doing today! The weatherman is saying possibly up to 8 inches of snow overnight! Woo hoo!! We just got the fireplace lit and are going to enjoy a very cozy fire while we get ready and pack up all of our equipment.

Hope everyone stays safe and cozy for this next bout of wintry weather!

Proposal / Hidden Camera Session: Anthony & Rachel

Last night, despite the lack of electricity and the felled tree limbs everywhere, I was downtown for a very fun photo session!

Anthony called me a couple of weeks ago to set up the perfect proposal and have it captured in photos. Talk about a class act! Anthony had thought through everything including the perfect date (12/11) to propose since 12 and 11 are very meaningful numbers to the couple. So, besides a beautiful engagement ring, he had a Bible personalized with yesterday's date and with what will be Rachel's married name. How unique and thoughtful is that?

I can hear it now, men across the state are groaning at the new standard being set here in OKC by Anthony. =)

Anyway, the place we'd scouted out to do the proposal was rained (iced) out, so we made plans to photograph the proposal in the Myriad Gardens' Crystal Bridge instead. I met Anthony earlier in the day to pick up his wrapped gift for Rachel (the Bible) and placed it strategically where I could capture the whole thing on camera without being noticed by Rachel.

The botanical gardens turned out to be perfect for it and I was loving the new "silent" mode on the 1D MarkIII (works well during wedding ceremonies, too) which allowed me to take about 100 pictures completely unnoticed by Rachel until Anthony pointed me out.

I thought I'd post just a few initial proofs in B&W for you guys since I'm sure you're SO excited to spread the news (and photos). You should see the colors! And you will just as soon as we finish retouching them. Our B&W proofing is much quicker to get online and I figured would be appreciated.








It was a real pleasure meeting you both and an honor to be there to photograph one of those moments you'll remember for the rest of your lives. Thanks for having me!

Hooray for OG&E! Square Dance Celebrating!

You never really know how much you appreciate something until it's gone. Last night the electricity came back on and I have a much greater appreciation for all of the amenities we take for granted every day.

I had stocked the fireplace and was cozying into my sleeping bag on the couch when everything flickered back to life after 2 days of being in the dark, so to speak. So, what did I do? Of course, I got up and promptly got busy until about 1AM. =) This power outage was a good reminder of how far off of a normal schedule we are, and we're really inspired to try to bring ourselves back to a more reasonable schedule. The hours after the kids go to bed are always the most valuable to us, but we've probably let it get a little out of hand. =)

Anyway, we're back to work and catching up on sessions and Christmas parties (they're coming shortly, Bronco Drilling!).

I was forwarded a very funny e-card by Holly's brother, featuring Holly and I and Holly's parents. This may be your only chance ever to see us square dancing. And yes, that's really us. No stunt doubles or body doubles. =)


Click on the picture to see the short animated card and create your own! Titus used faces from our last family picture. Titus, the copyright office said they will be contacting you later this morning. ;-)

Oh, and a reminder to all my fellow eggnog drinkers out there... It's time to buy eggnog! Buy a big jug of it today and it won't go bad until after the New Year. I'm the only one in the Sangree house who likes it, so half a gallon should last me a while. I love it in coffee instead of milk/cream. I'm getting more into the Christmas spirit with every cuppa!

We're Powerless and Iced In!

Well, folks, we've been iced in without power since yesterday! I just heard on the radio that 1/3rd of the entire state is without electricity -- more than half a million people!

Thankfully, when we built our house, we put in gas hot water a gas stove-top and a gas log-lighter fireplace or we'd be in real trouble! =) We knew Oklahoma's ice storms regularly interrupt electric services, so we thought it would be a worthwhile investment.

It was kinda fun last night camping around the fireplace and going to bed early. By the wee hours of the morning, though, it was getting tiresome that Storie kept waking up and crying every time I had to get up to put restock the fireplace. Just having to get up every two hours to restock the fireplace kinda gets in the way of a good night's sleep, but it did feel like an adventure... Like living out on the frontier or something. =)

So, after a hot shower in the dark this morning, I headed over to my local coffee shop to update you on our situation and to let everyone know that we're going to be a day or two delayed on any projects we had in the pipeline for you.

I do have seven proof booklets that arrived in the mail last night, so I'll be mailing those out today, along with some wallets for Emily (in case you're reading this, Emily! =).

Now it's time to make calls and return emails since they've been piling up for a day. Be safe!

The Wedge on Western

So today I got a call from Holly's brother who wanted to do lunch. He'd heard about a new pizza place on N. Western and wanted to check it out since he's somewhat of a pizza officianado himself. It was so good, that I couldn't wait to get back and tell you guys about it.

It's called "The Wedge" and it's run by the same management as Deep Fork and some others. Top quality, fresh ingredients and everything's made just perfectly with a beautiful presentation.

We sat at the bar so we could watch everything being made. They have an open brick oven for all of their cooking and baking (no stove-tops at all). The staff were all very friendly and helpful and the chef was really cool and friendly and must have talked with us for about 10 minutes because we kept asking him questions.

After lunch, our waitress said that if you sit at the bar, you practically get food thrown at you by the Chef because he's just a fun and friendly guy who likes to really make people's days. He did that for us, giving us each his new potato soup with asiago cheese, garlic, etc. It was deee-lish!

Anyway, just wanted to pass along my discovery of another favorite restaurant with a great casual and comfortable ambiance. Check it out! While looking for their website (it's apparently not up yet), I stumbled across this good article on The Wedge.

On a completely different thought... have you seen the video of how hotels clean drinking glasses in the rooms? I've had it sent to me a few times in the last week, so I finally took a look. Pretty outrageous. Just last weekend we stayed at a hotel in Ft. Worth. I'm glad I didn't use the glasses! If you haven't seen the special news report/documentary, you can check it out here.

Filming with the Legendary Titus Heard

The cold weather is starting to slow our photo sessions down, so we're making headway on all of our retouching. I'm sorry I haven't been able to blog more over the last couple of months! But when we get that busy, I figure that our customers would rather have their own pictures sooner than have to wait longer and see samples of everyone else's in the mean time. =)

Yesterday I had the opportunity to watch Titus Heard in action filming a commercial about Oklahoma's roads and bridges. I was actually an extra (part of the crowd) but I brought along my camera just in case I could catch a few moments for Titus that he might be able to use in his portfolio.

It was a beautiful day, though very cold. Here are a few that I quickly pulled together from it...

The man... the legend himself... Titus - directing. Pretty sweet camera crane, too.

Setting up angles for the next shot

"Alright... let's have everyone in position!"

Thinking through the next shot

"Great job, folks! That's a wrap!" This is where we all dash for our cars to warm up for a few minutes. You can see the size of the camera crane better in this shot, too. Must have been about 40 feet long, maybe more.

Thanks for sticking with us even though we haven't been posting lots of interesting pictures in the last couple of months. I promise we have a TON to show you and now that we're catching up we'll have more time to go back through and post them (and update all of the pictures on our website, too!).