365: 11-20.

Whoa, it's almost the 30th!  Time sure flies.  Guess we should catch up on the 365 posts where we take a photo a day for 365 days (first set here).  Again, if you are here for wedding/portrait work, please navigate using the links to the right.  Esther: left, Jacob: right.

11: Monday night bowling.



12: a) I love free Swiss Miss!  b) Bristow.



13: a) Guess who's picture showed up in Atlanta Weddings?  Mine.  b) Save ussssss!



14: a) Ben's headshots.  b) Maintenance needed.



15: a) Glass of wine a day keeps the doctor away. b) Hotel for the weekend.



16: a) Will you? b) Oh, nuts!



17: a) Carol's new bling.  b) Which of these things is not like the other?



18: a) New studio sample guestbook.  b) Home sweet home.



19: a) Mmm, charcoal.. tasty.  b) Hulk smash!



20: a) Spring Hall. b) Visitor at pre-marital counseling.

Guestbook Ideas.

I love the fact that you can pretty much personalize every aspect of your wedding.  Guestbooks are probably one of the last details people worry about during the wedding planning process, but there are definitely creative ways to personalize it for your wedding.  I've gone ahead and put together some ideas I've collected.

Here was a wedding I did spring 2009.  Jean and Mike brought it when it came to putting personality into their wedding.  You can see their style and personality was reflected in pretty much every aspect of their wedding (slideshow here).  I thought their guestbook idea was toooo cute, where you could put individual messages into these small envelopes and seal them shut.



Another idea instead of having a standard guestbook is a photobooth where guests can use a chalkboard or a dry erase board to write messages for you.  Here's a recent one I did for Tara and Jamie's wedding but sans the message.  The next photo was from a photobooth Jacob did Spring 2009.  I'm not a huge fan of the background, but you get the idea.  These photos would then go into a custom photo book, so your guests can leave you a crazy photo from your wedding along with a message.



Lastly, this is probably what I will be putting together for my own wedding, but a custom photoart guestbook with engagement photos.  These next few photos are from our studio sample.  They come in a variety of covers, and you customize it with your name and date in silver or gold.  The text also comes in cursive.



The hinged gutter allows for all the pages to lay flat so it's easier to sign.



This is one of my favorite spreads from the guestbook.  We custom design all the spreads and have 1-2 design sessions with our clients to make sure it's perfect.



Here's another favorite!



You can definitely get creative with it.  Scrapbooks are nice too (but do take a lot of time).  I've also seen a large gallery print by the entrance that you can sign on, but I find them to be generally messy looking especially if you don't have a lot of blank space in the photo.

Something else I saw on theknot that could be helpful is to have fun pre-printed questions for your guests so that you won't get the congratulatory message over and over again and it will make each message more personal.

• How did you first meet the bride and groom?
  
• When did you know they were in love?
  
• What's the secret to a great marriage?
  
• Can you share a funny memory about the bride and/or the groom?

Also wanted to say a big thank you to those of you who have joined my fanpage on facebook.  I've hit 1000 fans! :)  If you haven't already joined, you can join here for updates on your fb.

Spring Hall - Doraville, GA

Time to hit that reset button on the blog resolution.

Before I move on with the rest of the post, I also wanted to mention that I'm no longer taking any more July weddings this month.  I am taking it easy in July.

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Spring Hall is located off of Buford Hwy and is mainly a wedding venue where you can also host other events such as birthdays...  particularly 100th day and 1st birthdays are huge celebrations in the Korean community.  I had never seen the place in person, but kept hearing of it from different brides, so I decided I wanted to check it out... not knowing that I coincidentally already knew the owner. 

After speaking to Young Mi, she asked me to come in and take some photos of a birthday event for their website.  Let me tell you, it was probably the most elaborate and well designed birthday I have ever seen.  I was thoroughly impressed.  Here are the photos:

Ben's Headshots.

My second post of the day!  After my third day of P90X, I feel unstoppable!!  haha  Good for me on my attempts to catch up on blogging.  As for the P90X, I should really take a video of myself doing it.  It's ridiculously hard, and I've been struggling.  All I can really do is laugh at myself at the moment... but I will bring it!! :)

Here's just a couple headshots of Ben.  Ben's a neighbor who needed some photos for his website.  How convenient that he lives just down the street.

Re-igniting that passion for photography.

If you are on my blog to see wedding and portrait work, please use the links on the right hand side to navigate through the site. :)

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As glamorous as it seems to be a photographer that travels the world and shoots weddings, and as much as I do love and appreciate my job and the people I work with, sometimes work can become just work.  The majority of it really is sitting in front of a computer editing, which can become rather boring.  Running the business, doing all the business related stuff - IMHO since I'm not business savvy is absolutely no fun for me (but thank God I have someone by my side who is!).

Sometimes you just get busy and personal projects get pushed to the back burner, but I find them absolutely vital in keeping the soul of a photographer alive.  The more I am going through the 365 (it's only the end of the second week), the more I realize how important it is to take photos purely for yourself and your love of photography.

Of course it would be easy to take random photos.  There are random objects all around me that are dying to be photographed.  But for me, I wanted this project to have more purpose.  To force me to lug around my heavy camera waiting for a perfect photo opportunity.  To document the important details of my day to day.  To inspire me.  To remind me why I love what I do. :)

Although I would love to post a blog everyday, I realize it would be way too time consuming, and it would most likely interfere with my work-related photos and make the blog harder to navigate through.  This is why I decided I'm just going to combine them into one post weekly or bi-weekly (ten at a time).  If the site becomes too hard to navigate, I may set up a separate site just for these photos.  Tell me what you think.  Feedback would be much appreciated!

Again, mine are on the left.  Jacob's are on the right. :)  First one's a repeat.



E: My favorite two things to eat and sip on at Maum while I chat it up with my brides. :) J: Chloe's two front teeth.



E: Wall-e and our christmas tree that's still up.  J: Juiceboxes at an indonesian restaurant.



E: Taking my shiny, new bowling ball for it's first spin.  J: All the players.



E: My grandma = my favorite model.  So precious. J: New sign? at bwb.  Doesn't this look like an ad together?



We cheated and collaborated on this one.  It was late, but we decided to play around and paint with light.



E: Catching snow in my mittens! J: Nachhhoooooooooooo....



E: Omgoodness, the snow stuck!  J: friendly helper scouting locations for the proposal.



E: This is what the boys called a power hour after a long day of work.  J: What's my future?



E: I'm engaged! J: Hanging out with the girls.



Thank you for your interest in our day-to-day. ^^

XOXO,
Esther & Jacob

My turn - I'm engaged!

Thank you all for all the love on facebook and through calls and tweets.  We just got engaged yesterday afternoon.  I figure I would just blog the entire story with photos to give details of how it happened.  It's been quite a week (long and short all at the same time).

This is Jacob's version, while I may have added a little bit of my own commentary... in pink! ;)

Since Esther and I are doing a photo a day project, I wanted to take her to a park.  She wasn't really up for it since she was not feeling well and the temperature had dropped to freezing lately.  So instead, I told her my brother and his girlfriend wanted photog practice and we would only have to be there for a short while to give some pointers.  When she finally agreed, I picked her up to go to the park to meet with Josh and Vania.  I had to bring Josh a lens he left in my car (A telephoto lens with an adapter that made it 300mm, which I rarely would use unless I was shooting.... i don't know, maybe birds?  I was already getting suspicious at this point). Once we got there, we walked around to find them then walked a bit further.  We got to the spot where it was all supposed to go down and Josh ran out into a field telling me to take a picture of him with the lens.  Okay, so here's where you get the version of what was SUPPOSED to happen, and what ACTUALLY happened.  So give me some credit here.

Scenario 1: What was supposed to happen.

I panned over and said, "Hey, is that Carol & Bonar?" then hand her the camera to see, while I miss call them to cue the first group to hold up their signs.  She sees them, and once she gets the final one, it tells her to look over there --> so she pans over to find Andrew, Michael, and Liz holding more posters that pours out my heart.  The last one tells her to look over there --> again.  This then leads her to both of our parents holding up the final signs that read "Esther (Ju)Lee Will You... (turn around)" where I am then on one knee holding a sign that says "Marry Me? (cue the fireworks)"  This is then followed by an gasp and a YES and everyone is running in circles around us with sparklers. Then we live happily ever after.

Scenario 2: What actually happened.

I said "What is that over there?" and handed her the camera.  She thinks I'm looking at the tree so she tried to focus on the tree saying "I don't have my glasses/contacts.  It's too far away, I can't see!" I then follow with grabbing the camera and taking a picture of the first bunch and then showing her the picture trying to zoom in to see if she can read the sign.  Heavy lens - It's too blurry. 



So we start moving closer and you can see the groups are confused at this point.  Finally she's able to make out some of it and sees the 'look over there'. (The terrible vision worked to his advantage and disadvantage.  I didn't spot people in hiding, but I also couldn't see them when I was supposed to.  haha)



She follows up with a "look over where?"  I point her in the right direction.  Once again, she has a hard time seeing it and moves closer.



She finally gets to the last group of signs and is able to read it and I hear her mumbling "turn around?".



She slowly turns and sees me on my knee and says "are you serious??"



and I say "Yes, I am.  Will you Marry Me?"  She then softly says "Do I have to answer you now?" Everyone is slowly approaching and I get up to say "Yes, you do!" so she says "Uh... yea, sure!"  Whoo!  I got a 'Yea, Sure!' this is then followed by everyone scrambling to try to get their sparklers up.  Josh is the first to get his on and is running around.  You then hear Michael run by yelling "you can heaaaaar them!!!!" since you couldn't really see them in daylight.  THEN Carol drops a handful of lit Sparklers which started catching a patch of grass on fire, and we all had to start stomping on it to put it out.  Once the commotion dies down we all stand around looking at each other saying "Awwwkward.  So what should we do now?"  Yup!  Success! At least I was able to give her a proposal that was easy to capture on camera herself, and we were able to get the photos in the end.  And I know that's what counts the most to her.  :)

Thank you all for helping put it together and waiting with signs even though it was freezing outside!  You guys are amazzzzzzing.


Ring shots coming soon!  I wanted to do something more creative with them.

Jaclyn and Charlie Wedding Teasers - Jakarta, Indonesia

Here are some teasers from Jaclyn and Charlie's wedding.  Jacob booked a wedding in Indonesia, and I had the opportunity to go with him to second shoot.  We flew in and shot the ceremony on a Sunday, flew over to Bali to have some R&R, and then flew back to shoot the reception the following weekend.

What more can I say... it was incredible!  When I do get the opportunity to, I love to second shoot.  The main photographer has to take care of all the main responsibilities, while I roam around and shoot exactly what I want.  Who doesn't love that?  :)

Most of these were his shots, while I did all the post.  I've been including in his work on my posts here and there.  Can you tell the difference between his shots and mine?

Brrrrr!

Brrrrr!  It is cold in here.  Atlanta has below freezing weather and nothing to show for it.  At least if it snows, it'd be winter wonderland.  I cannot wait till the weather warms up, or till I can have a nice weekend getaway somewhere warm.  I'm pretty sure I was meant to live somewhere tropical (and be tanned).

I was looking at some photos I took during winter '08 while I was living in Germany.  Snow does make for some fun photos.  :)  Good times.

But even though I can't get snow pictures, my photos can still be winter-esque.  I failed my autumn foliage photo mission this year.  I went at the tail end of the season when all the leaves were already falling off. :(  Missed it again!  I still managed a few photos, and now that I'm looking at them, they definitely look more appropriate for winter.  I'm really happy with them, I might even do prints!





Didn't miss the fall colors entirely.



I know these are long overdue.  I'm making it priority for this new year to post some more of my personal photo adventures.  And I'm making it a goal to blog post at least twice a week.  So there's two from the list of many, MANY resolutions.  I was looking over my resolutions list, and it's too ridiculously long and detailed to post, so I'll share tidbits of them here and there throughout the year.

Oh!  Also, we're not slacking on the 365.  The photos are still being taken everyday, but just not being blogged.  For the sake of keeping track of photos, making the numbers easy, and not interfering with work-related blogs, I'm planning on doing ten all at once.

Now, off to Maum, to get my favorite bread and sip on my iced coffee while I work behind my computer.  Whoa, Can't believe I have client meetings every day of this week.  Guess I will be living there this week. :)

Cheers to 2010!

First of all, since it is a new year, I wanted to start up another 365 (a photo a day for one year)...  not that any of my previous attempts were successful, but why not start off on a new slate and give it a go.  I've done random photos and portraits, and the furthest I've probably gone was a month or two.

This year, I was thinking about doing something different, perhaps more of a collaboration (maybe that can be 2011?) or a photo pairing where two people take a photo a day not knowing what the other is shooting, and then posting them side by side.

Not only is it good practice, but every photographer needs to have personal projects to spur creativity... and a little teamwork may help motivate me to keep it going longer.  So here's number 1!  Mine will show on the left, while Jacob's will be on the right.  Rest assured, no bunnies were killed to make the soup.  Click the photo to view a larger version.



Looking back at 2009, I can honestly say I feel like I've accomplished more in this one year than my entire life.  I hope I can say the same about 2010.  I revisited my entry on 2009 resolutions, and I'm surprised to see that I've achieved quite a few of them.  I visited two continents I've never been to: Europe and Africa.  Made a new friend from a completely different culture, language, etc.  Read more.  All sorts of books.  Even finished the bible twice.  Pretty good for not being a book person, yeah?  I've slowly learned to cook (easier dishes like green bean casserole, but cooking is still cooking).  And I may have never learned conversational German while I was in Germany, but I guess it's not that useful anymore now that I would have no one to speak German to.

I have grown A LOT...

personally. with photography. with owning a business.
peeled off another layer and gone a little deeper with God.
mended a lot of broken relationships with friends and family.
learned more about grace and forgiveness.
learned more of what/who love is and through that learned to love just a teeny bit more.

but I also know there's so much more growing to do.  (which is why it is taking me forever to put together my resolutions list or rather my S.M.A.R.T. goals which stands for specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-sensitive.)  I'll have to post the resolutions later.

The growing sure is a lifelong journey.... but I'm looking forward to it.  Cheers to 2010! :)