December, 2008 | Real Photography

New York City | Photos from my Free Day

Dec 31, 2008

When I travelled to New York to photograph Shelli and Chris, I flew out Monday evening so that I could enjoy wandering the city during the day. I had a bunch of places that I wanted to see, and very little time to do it, so I prioritized and ended up with cupcakes, rice pudding, and shopping. :)

Here are some of my personal pictures from the trip.

From our time in Central Park:

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I had read about the Marie Antoinette wedding theme trend, but hadn’t seen if for myself until I saw this shop window…

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Cupcakes and the window display at Magnolia Bakery:

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I completely fell in love with the West Village and would give my right arm to do an engagement shoot there. When I got there Monday morning I spent a fair amount of time punching myself for not taking Shelli and Chris there the day before.

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It was all decked out for Christmas:

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A stop at Pearl River Mart in Soho was a must. I brought one of these happy cups home for Willie:

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I love boxes and neutrals:

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Because I came with only my camera bag and an exceptionally small carry on, I knew I was going to have a souvenirs problem. My best idea of the whole year was planning a trip to the Post Office at the end of the day to stuff a priority mail flat rate box full of goodies. Priority mail flat rate box? $10. Checking luggage? $30 each way.

My box was stuffed with some goodies from Anthropologie. (In college I lived within walking distance of an Anthropologie, but it had been years since I’d gotten to go inside one!) So here’s a happy Traci in the Anthropologie dressing room (after I got back from the trip I learned there is one in Denver, which sorta killed the awesomeness of the experience for me):

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One of the things I was most looking forward to was a trip to Purl Soho and their sister fabric store. I’ve shopped there online for years and was looking forward to seeing it in real life. Nothing could have prepared me for how TINY it was. I got some yarn for new gloves and fabric for newborn shoots.

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I thought this was a brilliant idea. I have a terrible fabric stash addiction slight but totally normal love of fabric, and think this would be a fun way to display some of my favorite fabrics.

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My last stop (besides the post office where I made a fool of myself because I’ve never before experienced interacting with postal employees that were behind bullet-proof glass and refuse to just take a box from me like a normal human being giving a box to another normal human being) was Rice to Riches, a rice pudding lover’s heaven. It’s like Cold Stone Creamery but with rice pudding. I had gone with Shelli and Chris the night I arrived, and knew I needed another stop before I left. Total yumminess.

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Right before I jumped in the cab I snapped this shot. I loved all the sidewalk Christmas tree vendors. The big trees seemed sort of ridiculous, but these little ones seem just right for an apartment!

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Posted in Personal

baby albums | colorado springs wedding photographer

Dec 29, 2008

This fall two new adorably little sample albums came in. I’ve been meaning to share them here, but I actually have a backlog of album pictures to share! Hopefully I’ll get all caught up in the next couple of weeks.

The first is our new engagement photo album meant as a guest sign-in book. It took me a long time to come up with something that met my standards but is still affordable enough to be a guest sign-in book! A custom designed 10 spread 5×5 album is $350. We need about 2 months notice to have these in time for the wedding.

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A sample spread:

The second is my new favorite product–the mini flushmount. We’re been offering them all year, but I finally got our sample this fall and it is just so cute and little! It’s barely bigger than an ornament!

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I am really happy with the detail retained in even the smallest photos.

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A sample spread:

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Posted in Products, Wedding Photographer

Christmas at the Turchin House

Dec 27, 2008

Even though I’m technically still on Christmas Vacation (we implemented a “no business from the 24th-28th rule” so that we could get into the holiday spirit–all calls and emails will be returned promptly Monday morning), I thought I’d share a few family shots from the last few days.

Like most women in America, come December I get the irresistible urge to bake. I’m pretty sure it comes from the same place in our brains as baby fever. It cannot be resisted. I managed to fight it off until December 23rd, when that last photo had finally been proofed.

And then, having fought off the urge to make a simple batch of cookies for three weeks, the Baking Fever was so strong that I decided I simply must learn how to make bread.

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It was a crazy whopping success. Delicious bread, perfect texture, minimal mess. I am hooked. And Willie is too. That kid LOVES a good slice of bread.

We gave ourselves an early Christmas present this year: Rock Band 2 for the Wii. Will has been loving the Rock Band and Guitar Hero displays at Best Buy for months, and I couldn’t wait to bring him home his very own fake drum set. Little did I know how much fun the game was going to be for me, too! Here’s my little drummer boy:

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Last weekend we made our annual trek up to Denver for a Santa picture. Santa pictures are a major tradition in my family, and when we moved to Colorado Springs I was horrified to discover that when Santa visits any of the Colorado Springs malls, he never wears his traditional Santa suit–he wears a hideously tacky green turtleneck and can often be seen sporting CROCS. Ummm…this is not acceptable where I come from. These pictures will hang on a red velvet ribbon on my Nana’s wall next to the childhood Santa pictures of me, my sister, my cousin, my mom, my aunt, and even my dad. These are heirloom pictures. Red velvet jacket is a MUST.

Side note: In previous years we’ve gone to the Aurora Mall and I’ve been really happy with the pictures. This year we went to the Park Meadows Mall and even though it’s a nicer mall, I prefer the Aurora pictures. Both malls let you take pictures of your own as long as you’re purchasing pictures, and both malls sell the digi files, and at both malls Santa wears a traditional red suit. But Will’s picture at Park Meadows is a little out of focus, they add a hideous border to the digi files that swirls onto the photo itself [so in cropping it out you have to crop out a lot of the picture], and the Santa hut is really dark, which means you either need to use a flash for your pictures [I hadn’t brought mine] or crank the ISO way up and have a fast prime [I only had the 24-70 f/2.8 on me].

This year was the all important Third Christmas year. On every red velvet ribbon strand at my Nana’s house, one picture always stands out. And it is always from the Third Christmas. The child is usually full on screaming, or, in my case, beaming a Satanic grin while being flanked on either side by my cousin and a random friend of hers that I insisted was necessary for my safety.

Will didn’t let me down. That kid is so brave. He was very excited to see Santa, but as we got closer to The Big Guy Himself, Willie’s nerves kicked in.

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We took our family pic with Santa first, and then left Will with Santa for his solo shot. And that was when things got adorable. He was trying SO HARD not to cry. His eyes got really big, his face really long, and he wanted so badly to hold it together.

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Here’s a little storyboard of his attempts to hold back the panic…(another “x” on Park Meadow’s list: Santa’s straight-jacket-hold on the kids!)

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I tried to spend some time doing product shots to share our latest mini albums, but, as you can see, it’s a job best left for the mornings when Will is at preschool…

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Christmas was a whopping success. It included not one, but TWO fresh loaves of bread. The first, a sweet bread for breakfast (recipe stolen from my brother-in-law):

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And a ridiculous number of presents for Will. You know it’s going to be a good morning when the entire cast of the Backyardigans greets you from the sofa…

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An easel for our artist…

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And a camera so he can start his training. ;) (And yes, Nic humors me and wears Hanna Andersson Christmas pajamas every year so the whole family can coordinate.)

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I was worried about getting our annual “family in Christmas pajamas” picture, because getting a 2 year old to look at an unmanned camera while there are a zillion new toys that are way more interesting is not the easiest thing in the world! Add the self-timer aspect onto that and you’re definitely rolling the dice on a potential family meltdown situation. This was the best of six tries. I call it good enough! :)

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We hope everyone had an equally wonderful Christmas! We will be easing back into business-as-usual starting next week and will start 2009 off with a bang on Saturday with Lauren and Andy’s wedding!

Posted in Personal