Andrew has been hard at work lately making our business as professional and amazing as possible. I gotta admit, he seriously does a fantastic job. I wanted to make a post about what you will receive when you purchase your DVD of digital files. This is pretty cool right? YES!
If you are looking for sweet personalized Christmas cards to send out and make your relatives jealous, we’ve got em! You’re running out of time though, so book a session with us today so we can start the process of creating your one of a kind Christmas cards!
So for the majority of my photography career I have been fighting against actions. Actions are basically a type of editing on photoshop. I wish I could explain it better, but that’s what it is. You can download actions from other photographers, buy actions or make your own actions. It usually contains 5-20 billion different editing steps, like using “glow” or “adjustment layer”, or “fade” or “curves” or “desaturate” and on and on and on.
Andy and I have had many discussions about actions; whether they should be used, the importance of them, etc. Andy is an actions type of editor, whereas I’m more of a simplicity type of editor. He loves over the top, dramatic editing and I’m simple – yes, this is the truth.
So anyways, lately Andy gave me some actions to play around with and I must say I’ve been enjoying it and having some fun. He would be proud of me for branching out of my comfort zone and getting a little more creative. I wanted to use this time to have some fun and show you different actions using the same photo and how it can create different moods. It’s fun:)
here’s just the normal average color correction editing.
action 1
action 2
action 3
This last Saturday we had a chance to work with Sheila from Habitat for Humanity in Virginia Beach! Erica and I decided that we would really like to give to some organization or charity, but not just with money. We wanted to be able to use our photography to help somebody out. Literally the first place i could think of was Habitat, so i contacted them on their website and they said they’d LOVE free photography! Here are just a couple shots of their booth and what they were doing.
copyright Blue Shutter Studios 2009
copyright Blue Shutter Studios 2009
copyright Blue Shutter Studios 2009
copyright Blue Shutter Studios 2009
copyright Blue Shutter Studios 2009
copyright Blue Shutter Studios 2009
They were building the house on the trailer as the float went down the street!
It’s been really exciting to brand the business lately and we’ve made some cool changes (in my humble opinion). One of them being an updated and more stylized blog.
We now have much larger photos as you can see here.
Look at the difference in detail (!):
Before:
After:
Yes, I stole that line from Sufjan, but thought it appropriate because lately I’ve been loving Michigan from afar. Moving away has made me appreciate the small things about it that you can’t find here in Virginia:
Awful roads, Cider Mills, beautiful fall colors in early September (we don’t get ours til November), amazingly beautiful moving clouds (they are here, but few and far in between)…those are a few to name off the top of my head.
With that said, Andy and I are coming to Detroit to visit family and friends October 2-11. So all you Blue Shutter long time fans who support us and love on us can have the chance to get some photos done by none other than the Blue Shutter Team! If you want to book a session I would contact us ASAP because we will most likely only allow ourselves a number of gigs since the purpose isn’t solely to work, but to spend time with those we love and miss.
Here’s a little Michigan photo I took a couple years back, see you soon!
This last weekend Erica and I went on a getaway to D.C. and stayed at Swann House Bed and Breakfast. Erica and I have this thing about bed and breakfasts (we like them), but at the same time we despise how grandma-ish they usually are. The last time we stayed in DC, we stayed at Artists Inn Residence and was litterally confounded by the awesomeness of it. I could make ten posts just about this place, but i’ll just leave you with the link to check it out yourself and s couple pictures of the room we stayed in, the Salvidore Dali room.
Salivdore Dali room, www.artistsinnresidence.com
Salvidore Dali room, www.artistsinnresidence.com
We wanted to stay there again this time, but they were booked so we checked out Swann House (which is just down the street). We stayed in the Il Duomo room, and it was so sweet! Here is a picture of the room and a picture of the bathroom which was frickin sweet!
Il Duomo room, www.swannhouse.com
Il Duomo room, www.swannhouse.com
Not only did it look sweet, but the staff was super friendly and the breakfasts were pretty much the best food i’ve ever had in a bed and breakfast! The next time you are in the DC area and are looking for a super cool place to stay, contact Ashlie at Swann House.
Labor Day weekend was fabulous. We kicked back (well, not really-we walked around the cities of DC and Baltimore like you wouldn’t believe), and enjoyed life together. We are back ready for some new gigs for the Autumn season.
Here’s a lovely photo of Baltimore at night from our nifty point and shoot canon. Can you believe it?!
Come visit Blue Shutter this weekend and you might win a free mini session!
We are going to be selling our fine art prints at the Swag Swap – something that is so hard to put into words i am just going to let the flier below explain it.
Not only is there a raffle at the Swag swap to win various goods donated by each vendor, but if you purchase an 8×10 art print from us you will find your name in another raffle to win a mini session with us! This saturday, 10am-4pm. 1229 W Olney Road Norfolk VA
Here are the details for the mini session up for grab (normally going for $95):
45 minutes of photography
complete photo editing of images selected for prints
high resolution digital proof files
online proofing and ordering of your images, hosted for 30 days
We hope to see you there!