Well I have a lot to blog about and I can see I haven’t blogged in a while. After our trip to Phoenix, AZ for the Imaging USA conference, we picked up some new techniques from the TriCoast Photography guys, Mike and Cody. Well we got a great chance to implement these new skills with a fun and willing couple, Yuliya and Rob. This lovely couple was willing to allow us the time to take these great photos. This whole shoot leads me to another blog topic but also an article I’d like to write, on “Allowing the Time for Great Photos”. But before I get into all that, allow me to go share with you what we did.

We invited Cathleen with Weddings by Cathleen out to perform the ceremony; I met Cathy at a recent wedding and had a great time working together so we’ve been chatting ever since. We invited Leo from Bridal Beginnings out to shoot with us, as we like working together; I thought he could pick up a few new tips and have fun. I had our new assistant/photographer Matt with us in a training capacity and a videographer Paul J, which when we get the video edited, you’ll get to see some footage of it. And of course there was the lovely couple, Yuliya and Rob, they were so spirited and fun to work with, Thanks!

I’d also like to give a big thanks and shout out to Julie Norwood, Master Colorist & Stylist, for providing the fabulous updo for Yuliya. She did an awesome job and not once did we have any hair problems. For you brides out there looking for a really good hair stylist check Julie with Spa by the Sea at 302-227-8640 or 302-670-6757.

I’ve wanted to organize a shoot like this for some time now. I’m hoping to get a shoot going like this at least once a month for us, photographers to come together and horn our skills.

I found that I did a lot of directing as opposed to actually shooting, I was pleasantly surprised with how much my wife took over the shooting. Shortly after the ceremony Olya became the main photographer doing most of the shooting as well as getting some fantastic shots in the process. All the images in this post were images that she had captured. I was on babysitting patrol with little Drake and assisting with the equipment, when I got a chance I’d take a snap shot and worked with our lovely couple and put them in the right places.

All in all it was a great time, a fun shoot and we plan on doing it again, so if you are bride who is getting married or already married and would like to wear your beautiful dress again and get your guy out to get some photos, give us a call.

Bride’s Dress provided by Weddings by Cathleen – Check out her wonderful brides at http://www.cathleensweddinggowns.bridalsnet.com/

New name, with a new design, creating a whole new look, while still doing what we love to do… Photography… only now … adding a new “style” to it.

Introducing:
“V Photo Style”

In the past it was mostly me handling the weddings and photography, everything including the post production, customer support, networking, and marketing. And last year, with me, and a team of people including my wife, Olga, we were able to keep up with the demand for our services. And as we grew as Hitched Photography, that was great for weddings, which is what we specialize in, but this year we wanted to do more seniors, more pregnancy portraits, more children’s photos, and more parties and events. With Hitched Photography being a wedding photography name we wanted something that can house all our photography abilities. And this year will be the first year my wife will be with me 100% of the way. In years past, Olga would help me with a wedding here and there, or I’d help her with a portrait session, or she’d work with an event. Now with Olga here full time, we are changing our image and creating our style as husband and wife team. We still specialize in wedding photography and our skills are only increasing with time, we’ve picked up a few new tricks and cool things for 2009 weddings, and it’s going to be a lot of fun. This year we hope to keep our weekdays busy with seniors and portrait work, at our place at the beach, or at the studio out in Georgetown, we’ve even partnered up with a few new contacts to include a horse ranch, and a couple places on the water. (More on that one later).

As we bring V Photo Style online in 2009, we’ll slowly move Hitched Photography towards the back, which will still be around, but our main name will be V Photo Style. The “V” for us is for “Very cool”… nah just kidding… its stands for “Vickers” and with the “photo style” it will be the style of photos we create together. Olga and I actually came up with the name while on our trip to Imaging USA in Phoenix, AZ, there was a speaker there, the owner of 303 Photo Design, he made a very strong point about creating a brand or “Style” and making it your own. There was also another speaker, Julia Woods who photographs with her husband and they too are a husband and wife team and I really liked the idea of having us together on a lot of big weddings as it would allow for a lot of fun photos. After watching another photography company, Photos by Vicki, after 6 years in business, she also grew and finally changed her company name to “V Gallery”. (Got to love that “V”) So after weeks of discussing this with Olga, we decided to make the change, now before it’s 10 years down the road and then changing it.

Well here’s to a great 2009, we hope that you will like the new changes. Change is good, most of the time, and it is time to change for the better.

It’s time for all the holiday parties to happen! We recently had our Squadron Holiday party at Dover Air Force base which was a great time. I was there in a photographer capacity but enjoyed hanging out with friends and sampled some of the food there. Every one there really liked the fact that I could take their photo and print it right on the spot. There was also a second holiday party going on that took advantage of photos I was printing there. It was so much fun that they had a 70s theme going on, which made for some interesting photos.
Because so many folks had a good time with me, I ended up booking up two more parties for December and a portrait shoot in our studio. It’s pleasant to know my Mitsubishi Printers are finally paying off. I’m hoping for next year to not only be booked up for Christmas parties but also for Halloween.

I also got called again to photograph Pets with Santa at the Gold Coast Mall, in Ocean City and once again I was happy to do it. I enlisted the help of my father to play Santa and my good friend Sue LeMar to help set everything up. This year with Pets with Santa, we had LeMar Custom Framing design custom mats for the customers for their 5×7 photos that went over really well. The mats had cute little paw prints and Season’s Greetings stamped on the mats. We also had Cassandra Rox there with us helping with getting the pets into position with Santa. Cassandra who owns “Paws Time” a pet sitting company was without a doubt super supportive with all the wonderful pets. She has had a lot more experience working with animals then I did working with the cute doggies. If you know anyone in the Ocean City area who needs a good pet sitter, Cassandra is your person.

I recently had a wedding on a Friday and Saturday and both utilized bubbles after their ceremony has concluded. And in both cases it was a bit of a hassle to get working right. I’ve been to about 10 other ceremonies where they had bubbles there and they never even used them. I think in a lot of cases couples dreamed of walking through the bubbles but either couldn’t coordinate it right or forgot about them entirely. So I’m hoping to pass along my experience with the hopes it will help. What typically happens after a ceremony, the Bride and Groom kiss, they are now husband and wife and start walking back down the aisle. Well the couple could just walk out the door and get into the car but it doesn’t work out like that. One main factor is you have to get the people outside first and ready for you. And the second problem is because most couples go the traditional route of not wanting to see each other before the ceremony; they usually end up doing the formal photos after the ceremony. So you can’t expect the people to wait outside for 30 minutes while the pictures are being taken.
One idea that would be super helpful is to get your formal photos taken before the ceremony. By doing this, it will help you tremendously because you will get the wonderful shots, without tying up all your time after the ceremony not to mention if the couple is nervous, and we all know they will be, this takes that nervous edge way. It’s like a mini glimpse of the future that can set the bride and groom at ease. You don’t have to rush, and you can definitely get all the shots you want, and more. Another idea is to get your ushers or various family members to help spread the word of what is going to happen. Every wedding is a bit different, and so most guests won’t know what is going to happen. I personally, as the photographer would leave the bride and groom inside the ceremony location, go outside and rally up the guests. Being accustom to working with large number of people, I’d give a shout out letting the family and friends know the couple is about to exit and would like a bubble storm. And to get your bubble blowers ready, set, BLOW!
But if I’m not there as your photographer, I’d suggest appointing someone to orchestra that for you. It can make for some awesome fun photos that you’ll love.

Weddings in Ocean City, gives you a regular buffet of reception locations and among some of my favorite places is Fager’s Island. Some of the highlights are the staff, all very accommodating, nice and easy to work with. With photography it offers a lot of locations for shooting, such as the lighthouse close by, you have 10 or so backdrops and spots that make for a cozy photo. The sunsets at Fagers is something to stop and take notice, every evening around sunset they play classical music as you gaze out on the bay. The gazebo and back deck are other fun places to take some photos. The couple, Terry and Todd, were such a nice couple to photograph and by the end of the evening, it felt like I was part of the family. I had quite a few conversations with a lot of their family and it was so real easy going and real easy to photograph. The couple needed a DJ, so I suggested my close friend Leo who’s been a professional DJ for 29 years and together we made it a fun night for all. You can imagine how fun it was when you had the bride calling me in to the ladie’s bathroom to photograph her and all her bride’s maids relaxing on the couch. That of course was brought on by the grandfather calling me into the men’s bathroom to get a photo of him with all his grandson’s there. nothing bad, but pretty weird. I like weird, it keeps it interesting.

I logged into my facebook the other day and my high school buddy found this photo of me. And its so weird because it was me and our photography class. Back then I never knew that I would be working in photography as my employment and making a living at it, but here I am. If you are curious about my facebook, take a peek at it, here is the link.

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/profile.php?id=1430346594&ref=profile

Since I started using facebook I’ve found old friends, made some new friends, and I’m able to keep in touch with a lot of them easier. It’s pretty cool.

Looking at the photo, I think back to High School and where I am today and its pretty interesting how I ended up here. When I took that photography class I just didn’t think I’d have as much fun with it as I do now. Ms. Fagan my photography teacher was pretty informative teacher and really cool in my opinion. She would send us out on little photo shoots around the school for class projects, little did she know my friend MJ and I would find most of our shooting assignments over in McDonalds across the street from the school. Taking photos in there and bringing them back to class didn’t go over very well if you can imagine. Every since that class I’ve always owned a camera and whether I was in Cambridge, England shooting some of the beautiful buildings or in France photographing the touristy things, her teachings have followed me to this day. It wasn’t till I met my friend and Mentor Dave, a pro photographer in his own right that I feel in love with capturing the beauty of weddings and photographing all those special moments that take place on the special day. Thank you Ms. Fagan and Mr. Dave for all you taught me.

Giving a shout out to Holly and Walter – to you, your family, and your guests, I had a great time and thanks for having me as your photographer. Holly’s dress was very Very Unique and Beautiful.

For those of you thinking about a wedding location in Ocean City, Seacrets is a pretty awesome place to say your “I Dos”. I chatted with the Holly and Walter about it briefly and they said it was a pretty good deal as far as venues go. The food was great, can’t go wrong with Jerk Chicken. There was so many fun spots to shoot there, I could have spent all day photographing there. it was so funny how every time I took the couple and bridal party around they were getting lost. Just like the Seacrets saying “find us and get lost” it was a true factor here. Back in the day when I was in high school I used to work at Seacrets as one of their line cooks, and they have grown so much since then.
The staff there was pretty awesome and accommodating everything that I could have needed. I wanted to take a photo from the high up balcony and they pointed me there and I was able to get the shot. The DJ was a Seacrets DJ, and he was so very helpful in letting the crowd know we were cutting the cake or doing a dance. And when it came time to take that photo of the whole group of people, DJ BK helped get everyone together. Cool Dude!
Anyone looking for a photographer for your up and coming wedding at Seacrets please give me a call, as I not only work as your photographer, but as a tour guide so you don’t get lost up in there. And if you aren’t getting married there, and never been, definitely go there and try the Jerk Chicken, it’s the best in town in my opinion.

My wife, Olga did videography on this wedding and she grab some fun shots of me in action. After some splicing and tweeking, I now have this lovely little 5 minute clip to share with you.