Rene and I have been shooting together now for 8 years. We started our humble beginnings learning the ropes from a great local photographer who was gracious enough to teach us and inspire us. If you are reading this, thanks so much!

2008 marks our first year in business for ourselves. While we were totally gung ho and eager to jump in, some people questioned our decision to start a business during these ‘recession’ months. But for us, it was the next logical step in our journey.

So we did a lot of research and found out several large successful corporations had started during recessions. And we also found out that owning your own business was a lot of hard work, and harder work and even more work! But it feels great to be charge of your destiny. And for me personally, it felt wonderful to be able to make my own creative decisions about the art I wanted to create for my brides and grooms and clients.

So, with a lot of hard work, great things come! We’ve only yet started on our first year and already we have met some incredible people. This industry can bring the best and worst out in people. But for us, we’ve only seen the very best from the wonderful people who have shared their passion, their knowledge and their pearls of wisdom with us! To all of you who have helped us out this year, thank you from both of us! Your generosity and kindness has not gone unappreciated.

We went to a Mike Colon seminar a while back ago. And something he said has really gotten me through times when I wonder if I am doing the right thing! Mike compared the growth and success of his business to pushing a boulder up a hill. He said that after 10 years, his business was at a point where he didn’t have to push so hard. Our first year was very tough and I imagine it’s going to get tougher. But his words echo in my mind and keep me going!

Two key moments stood out for us this year: we were honored to shoot with Huy from f8studio.com at the Naples Ritz Carlton and we were accepted into Modern Photographers!

Coming from a photojournalist background, I was immediately drawn to Huy’s exceptional ability to reduce his subject down to his or her most natural essence. This isn’t always so easy when you are dealing with high-stress moments that happen during weddings. But from studying Huy’s imagery and methodology, I have been continued to be inspired to keep searching for my voice and my style and keep becoming better and better at what I love: photography. Thanks Huy for giving us your time and showing us a bit of your magic (look for our mug shot with Huy in our special end-of-the-year slide show). You are an awesome source of inspiration and shooting with you was priceless! Thank you again…

A few weeks ago we applied to Modern Photographers. Modern Photographers is a community of photographers that adhere to professional standards and commitment to excellence in the field of wedding and portrait photography. The members of this community are voted in by professionals in the industry. For us, it is an honor that we are a part of this organization. Thank you for choosing us!

Thanks again to everyone who has contributed their knowledge, time and passion! We have a long road to travel but we feel we are in the best of company to do so! What a great first year!

Astrid and Rene

Tags: accolades, ramblings... by Astrid
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We had a wonderful holiday week, finally slowing down after a long and intense season! Even though we aren’t done yet with albums and portraits and family pictures, we’ve tried to slow down this week to catch our breaths and enjoy our family!

Before our festivities began, Ali, Eli, my mom and Rene stopped by the local homeless shelter, St. Matthews House, to drop off a turkey, Christmas cookies and presents. It’s important for us to teach the girls to share and give during the holidays and any other time throughout the year. There are so many more people less fortunate than us and sharing makes the holidays so much better! If you haven’t given this holiday season, it’s not to late! Go to your local shelter and donate a few gifts or a few dollars. It doesn’t have to be much….any little bit helps.

After they dropped off goodies, it was time to sit down to our Christmas dinner. This year we didn’t do such a traditional dinner because Rene and I hosted. We wanted to do something totally different! So the menu included Spanakopita (which came out great if I do say so myself), roast beef, spiral ham, potatoes au gratin and Chicken Vol au Vents (courtesy of my mom), homemade cheese spread (courtesy of my mom-in-law), and lots of yummy desserts! Christmas cookies, a chocolate rasberry log, a guava log and of course, M&M’s completed the meal!

After dinner and on Christmas Eve, the girls and their cousin Chris, happily opened presents! We don’t open presents Christmas morning, we get to open them at midnight, Christmas Eve, which technically IS Christmas morning, right?? So we just do it much earlier than usual!

The big hits this year were the Ugobe’s Pleo, which Ali happily named Molly and then changed to Chloe. And the community barn chock full of horses, farm animals and hay! Christopher got a new bike, complete with Spider man helmet and protective gear! The kids LOVED it and it was great to see them with such big smiles on their faces.

On Christmas Day, we went to the pier to take a walk around and soak up some of the locals. The pier has always been a favorite place of ours to walk and just enjoy the Gulf. On Christmas day, there was plenty of people fishing, swimming, looking for shells and just enjoying this paradise we call home!

Feeling thirsty and looking for something to munch, we (unhappily for Ali) headed over to the Dockside Boardwalk, which is just south of Tin City. Of course, not much was open but we did find a little gem open on Christmas day! The Pickled Parrot was serving drinks and chips. That was all that was on the menu and we happily had a few baskets of potato chips while the girls had lemonade and we enjoyed one of our favorite German beers on tap, Warsteiner! I love this area….if you come down to Naples, make sure to visit the Dockside and Tin City!

What a perfect week! From our family to yours, we hope that you had a beautiful holiday season, too!
Astrid and Rene

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Tags: ramblings... by Astrid
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I’m still working on a lot of weddings that have been shot in the last three months but are still receiving our magic touch (yes, we do take that long to deliver, and if you wonder why, read this great post by Anne Ruthman. Anne explains it much more eloquently than I can!

One of those weddings that I am still working on is Jon and Abigail’s wedding, held at the beautiful Grandezza club. We were doing some beautiful portraits outside when I came upon this magnificent palm tree, adorned in holiday lights.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I absolutely love the light shows that go on all over Naples during the holidays. Some of the country clubs and homes here have some amazing lighting (and I’ve been told that they clubs hire professional companies that decorate and light for the holidays)! One of my other photographic projects that I have yet to start but is always in the back of my mind is a project on photographing holiday lighting at night. That’s on my to-do list!

But for now, I am settling on working my palm tree gallery. And for this particular image in the series, I chose this magnificent palm, decorated with beautiful holiday lights.

It was already very dark when I shot this image but there was still a bit of light in the sky, which I wanted to use as much as possible. Taking advantage of the D700’s great noise-handling capabilities, I shot this image at ISO2000, 1/60th, f/2.8, all in available light.

I think it’s one of my favorites so far in the palm tree gallery! It would definitely make a great Florida Holiday card!

Enjoy and Happy Holidays to everyone from Astrid and Rene Photography!

Holiday Palm Tree at Grandezza, Naples, Florida

Tags: ramblings... by Astrid
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We love what we do! I mean how could we not? We are invited to the most important day of two people’s lives. We are at their side all day and it’s our responsibility to capture those moments that go by in a blur.

After all is said and done, after the flowers are gone, after the dress is cleaned and packed (or trashed) and after you come back from the honeymoon, what other way is there relive your wedding day than through photographs? And not just any photographs, but photographs that tell your complete story, beginning to end in a professional and poignant manner?

For us, it’s a vitally important job that we happily and passionately do for our clients. I think that often times some wedding and portrait photographers forget just how important what we do really is! Both Rene and I still have our cherished grandparent’s and parent’s wedding portraits. We have portraits of family members who have passed on and special family reunions that will never happen again. If it weren’t for those beautiful images, it would be harder for us to keep those memories alive in our hearts and in our minds.

I often think about the photographer that took the image of my grandmother’s wedding portrait and my mother-in-law’s wedding portrait. Who were these men or women? Did they realize just how important their actions would be? Did they realize that the one moment they captured on film would be appreciated by so many generations?

So, after having these thoughts about our own personal images for the longest time, Rene and I take our job very seriously. And we wanted to present this bit of prose as we update our blog with a sampling of Tara and Mark’s collection. How wonderful it was for us to be part of this amazing family’s very perfect day! There was so much laughter, love and pride that day that capturing cherished family memories was super-easy for us!

Take a look at their gallery and you will see picture after picture of smiling and happy family members and the bride and groom. This is as real and as good as it gets! It’s solid gold for us photographers and I really don’t need to say much else!

Oh, and check out the mega-talent that is Tara’s mom and sister! They did absolutely all the decorations from the palm tree name cards to the totally cool flip flops for guests to the cupcakes to the smart and quirky quotes on the walls! Ladies, you need to start a new business!

~Astrid~

Tags: Florida Weddings, Naples Florida weddings by Astrid
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This Monday wasn’t a bad Monday in Naples, Florida. Ali stayed home sick and I stayed home with her. She’s on a nebulizer for a cough from Bronchitis. Sounds pretty bad but she’s feeling great and doing well.

We went on a walk this morning. The day was absolutely perfect. Jewel-blue skies, big white fluffy cotton ball clouds, just enough of a breeze, a bright sun and a cool morning temperature. Well, cool for Florida! It was about 65 degrees and absolutely a perfect day.

I took my camera and stumbled on a palm tree that had beautiful Bougainvillea growing in front of it. Add a little flare/sun starburst and look at the beautiful image right in my neighborhood. Yeah, Naples is definitely gorgeous!

~Astrid~

Tags: flares by Astrid
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~blog edit~
I have worked really hard on the design of this blog, and personally, I love it! I’ve also had great feedback on the design. But there was always this little nagging voice in the back of my mind. It didn’t really say anything clear to me…but I know there was something there and I didn’t like it.

After a lot of thought, I figured it out! I was sick of seeing so many totally AWESOME blogs featuring huge, delicious, bodacious, yummy, fantabulous pictures! So I’ve made a few changes for now…which has let me expand the size of the images I feature here. Granted, it’s not right where I want it to be, but it’s getting there!

~palm trees.6~
It’s been so long since I’ve posted a palm tree image! I miss doing these and I hope that once I clear my schedule (yah! like that’s really going to happen), I can post more of these images.

The palm trees below were shot at the Koreshan State Historic Park. If you have read some of my previous entries, you will recognize the name of this historic park here in Southwest Florida. It’s an absolutely fantastic park, rich with history and even richer with beautiful sights and sounds!

If you visit, make sure to take the hike and go through the Bamboo forest, it’s fantastic! Stop right in the middle of the forest, stand perfectly still, close your eyes, and listen to the way the bamboo squeaks when they rub against each other in the wind. It’s so ethereal…I wish I could set up a chair there and just sit and meditate!

This image was shot in color, but I fiddled around with some actions to turn it into a high contrast black and white infrared shot. I did a lot of black and white infrared film in college and I have to say that I haven’t found an action that really does film infrared justice. But I ‘m always on the look out for a good action! If you know of a good action or formula for black and white infrared, let me know!

Ideally, I will eventually mod out my Nikon D70s and turn it into an infrared camera. Anyone have any recommendations? I want to make sure the camera doesn’t suffer any ill-will when it goes under the knife!

Enjoy….this was a perfect day for us!

~Astrid~

Tags: ramblings... by Astrid
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So we’ve been totally swamped with work (which is always a good thing, right)!

And even though we don’t shoot a wedding every single weekend, we have been busy with family portraits, holiday card sessions, charity work and children’s portraits! Add to that the fact that our weddings don’t take a couple of days to edit. We take our time and we create unique works of art for our brides and grooms. And all that takes time, of which we seem to run out of more and more lately. However, our steadfast rule of no work at all on Sundays (which is exclusively family day) is still holding out very strong….

Last Sunday we took advantage of the awesome weather and headed over to the Koreshan State Historic Park. The weather down here has been absolutely fantastic! I LOVE the cold fronts that keep coming through. I am totally NOT a hot/heat/sweat/flip flop/shorts kind of gal, but have to be here in this heat hole! So whenever the temperature dips below 70, watch out! That means cold front to us Floridians!

The weather was perfect for a hike at one of our favorite parks and of course, I took my camera as always. But instead of focusing on palm trees (yes, I have been neglectful of the palm tree gallery) I decided to have fun with flares!

Flares, you ask? Well, camera lens flare happens when light enters the camera and hits the sensor or film directly. The flare will then appear in the form of a polygonal shape that is the same as the shape of the diaphragm of the lens. If I proceeded to confuse you more and you are interested in the topic, check out this link!

A few weeks ago we photographed a wedding (which will be up on the blog soon) and I caught a great shot of the bride and groom from behind with this amazingly golden, bright, buttery starry-night flare shining down on them. I LOVE this shot and you can see it in the gallery below. So while at the park, and while searching for something new to photograph and hyper-focus on, I decided to practice my flare. Now I don’t just let the sun shine right into my lens to create the flare…I also stop down considerably to get the sun looking like a star….

I’ve used Photoshop flare a few times…but I love getting it right in the camera from the get go. Not to diss Pshop, but filter flare just doesn’t have the awesome personality of natural flare!

All the flare below is natural in-camera flare…with color and contrast enhancements made in Photoshop. Ah flare! You have indeed become my new photographic interest for now and I just may have to devote a few more posts to you!

Enjoy the flare!
~Astrid~

Tags: flares, ramblings... by Astrid
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