We found friendlier folks on the river yesterday (see “propositioned on the river’). They were a robust group of individuals, wide awake and ready to row. But as we started out from the launching site at PNC Park, it soon became clear to Steve and me that they were a little hardier than we are at that hour of the day. We met some interesting people and chatted with them as they passed us by. Great photo I took – of everyone’s backs!

Today, we are off to West Virginia for an engagement session at one of our favorite places, Oglebay, with a member of one of our favorite families. Emily & Jack will be married this fall – we have already photographed her sister, brother and her sister-in-law’s sister at Oglebay. So, we are challenged to find new locations so that Emily & Jack’s photos will be unique.

Tomorrow we will start the day with a bike ride to the South Side and if the weather cooperates, we’ll work from our laptop at the pool and see fireworks in the evening.

Saturday we join Kelly & Will as they celebrate their marriage – they are deserving of a full page story on this blog because they are so funny! The story of how they met is hilarious – more on that later.

We wish you all a safe and happy 4th of July!

It’s a little mantra that I go through, starting the day before – preparing all of our equipment – charging batteries, cleaning lenses, checking cards, listing some notes about all the important people, getting directions and loading the GPS – it’s a several hour process.

On wedding day, I really try clear my mind – hit the jacuzzi tub, do a little meditation (OK, a nap) – all preparation for “being in the moment” for 10 to 12 hours.

Before heading out, I thought I would do a quick photo tip for the week – many of you will take your cameras out this weekend, photograph the kids or maybe some of the beautiful spring colors.

So, my photo tip of the week is to get your images out of the camera or phone and into print. In the days of digital photography, so many priceless photographs are being lost.

There was something magical about getting a roll of film back from the lab. While you have the immediacy from digital images, some of the magic is gone and there’s a tendency to forget how treasured these images might be, years down the road.

We had to laugh;  just after our trip and blog post about our trip to Fallingwater, we came across this photograph of our trip 8 years ago with the kids to Fallingwater, a quick snap with an inexpensive point and shoot  – in retrospect, maybe not such a good place to take the kids and I think those expressions tell the story, which might have colored my impression of the house.

Here’s a photo of yours truly from, well, a few decades ago.

So the photo assignment for the weekend is to take your camera or media card to your local Ritz Camera or better yet, upload them to the consumer division of our professional lab – Mpix and make some prints of your photographs. I’ve found Mpix to be the highest quality online lab – they use professional papers and print to high standards.

With today’s papers and technologies, prints will last a generation or two before showing signs of fading, longer if you place them in an archival photo album. Unless you have a state of the art professional printer using pigment based, archival inks, I don’t suggest making prints on your home printer, unless just for fun – it’s much more expensive and consumer printed papers and inks will show signs of fading in less than a year.

Have fun!

I was planning on posting a retrospective slideshow of 2007′s wedding season before the beginning of the new season, but I realized that it got so busy here that I missed posting a few weddings from last year.

So, as our albums arrive, I’ll add some some of our new designs and add some weddings which were missed last year.

We’re going to increase the frequency of our blog activity and try to post, if not every day, at least several times a week. If you’re thinking “boring boring” please let me know – my feeling won’t be hurt…much ;}

Barb and I have been brainstorming some ideas which I hope you’ll find interesting.

If you have any suggestions, please drop me a note to stephen at in-visionstudio dot com.

Some of our planned topics include:

• Weddings
• Client Corner
• Upcoming Events
• Wedding Trends
• Photo tip of the Week
• Weekly Special
• Vendor/Venue of the Week
• Product Reviews
• Bride-to-be Interviews
• Favorite Image of the Week
• Seniors
• Where you are Now

This month’s issue features one of our bridal couples – Elissa and Gusty “A Dazzling Duo”.

I was really excited to hear that Elissa and Gusty are expecting. Congratulations! That’s so exciting!

Steve

It’s easy to comment – click the comment number – like “”5 comments”. It should pop up a window with a couple of options. You can comment anonymously without leaving a name, or click other to leave your name or if you wish.

Barb and I had in mind to take Sunday and Monday off after Aimee and Tom’s awesome wedding, but well, we can’t seem to stay away.

I’ve wanted to make our blog more interactive by including comments, but haven’t been able to massage the html coding on our custom blog to show comments. We finally got the comment feature to work properly.

Thanks so much for taking the time to include your thoughts. Your comments will be posted within 24 hours and much sooner during normal business hours.

Please keep an eye out for Kim and Neil’s wedding, which I’ll have posted shortly.

Steve

We thought we would start our first post with a new addition – Joseph Samuel. Congratulations to Kim and Jean-Pierre, married November 29, 2003.

We’d also like to congratulate our recent wedding couples with their new additions.

Kimberly and Matt – Aidan
Kathleen and Josh – Shannon
Patricia and Dan – Ruthie

And, we have several couples who are expecting. How exciting! It is so amazing and hard to describe. But, they grow up so quickly. It seems that one day you are holding them under your arm and the next day, they drive by you in the car – that’s a shock!

If you live out of town, please send us your baby pictures. If you live in the Pittsburgh area, stop by for a complimentary baby portrait session.