Northeast Academy Graduation

Graduation ceremonies have come and gone now for the kindergarten and senior classes at Northeast Academy. Hard to believe another year has gone by! Thought you'd enjoy the photos of the classes and the graduates. I've already delivered the picture packages of the kindergarten students to their teacher and the seniors' photos should be ready in about a week. We'll deliver them out to school for you to pick up but it will be a good idea for you to call the school first to be sure the photos are there and that someone is at school to give them to you. In the meantime, you can view the photos at http://conwayphotoshop.com/northeast/.

Congratulations grads and good luck in the future!!

Too Cute!!

I had to run out to Northeast Academy (more on the reason why in a later blog) and happened to be there for the pre-school graduation ceremony. I joined in with all the parents and grandparents brandishing cameras and snapped a quick shot of the little ones on stage. They couldn't have been any cuter! Congratulations and good luck next year in kindergarten!

Is there a new TOP MODEL in town?!?

If you've been in the studio or on my website, you know that Rebecca Bryant has done some modeling for me. When I've needed to test some new lights or a new style of work, I've called on Rebecca and she's come over to the studio and let me experiment with what I wanted to work on. Well, Rebecca came this week but she wasn't the TOP MODEL anymore. Her niece, Mackenzie, was the star of the shoot! She's absolutely adorable and she did allow her Mommy and Rebecca to be in a couple of the photos. By the way, these photos were supposed to be a Father's Day surprise and I was told I couldn't blog about them but somebody (I suspect Mackenzie) couldn't keep them a secret so everyone has seen them now.

RCCC Nurses

Congratulations to the nursing class from Roanoke Chowan Community College!! I photographed their pinning ceremony last week and it's always such an exciting event. This was the largest class that had ever graduated from the nursing program and it is nice to celebrate with the students and have an evening that honors their hard work. You can view all the photos from the pinning ceremony at http://conwayphotoshop.com/nurse/.

Peace College Bride

I photographed Sara Boseman and David Roberts' wedding on Saturday and it was a GREAT wedding!! I'll be sharing some photos of the wedding in a few days after I get working on them because they had a special guest that I want to talk about. But, in the meantime, I've been dying to share some of the photos I did for Sara's bridal portrait. She wanted her portrait taken at her alma mater, Peace College in Raleigh. As many of you know, I'm a Meredith girl so I tried not to hold it against her that I ventured over into rival territory. We met there on a quiet afternoon during Peace's spring break and had a wonderful couple of hours using that beautiful campus as a background for her photos. Hope you enjoy seeing them.

Jewelry Girl

I took some photos yesterday that I just HAD to share -- little Miss Madison Joyner from over near Ahoskie. Madison is not quite a month old but she's already a jewelry girl. She and her mommy had matching bracelets and we even took her daddy's wedding band and put in on her fingers and toes to show how perfectly tiny she is right now. The last photo of the day that I took was a sweet little sequence of Mommy and Daddy both supporting her in their hands -- the safest place for a little girl to be. They have to grow up but wouldn't it be wonderful to keep them this tiny and safe a lot longer!

Stonewall Manor

I'm a little behind in sharing some beautiful spots I've worked lately. I photographed a wedding a couple of weeks ago in Rocky Mount at Stonewall Manor. It was my first time working there and it was certainly a beautiful location. The flowers, food, music and guests were in perfect sync and I think John and Rees had a wonderful wedding. Thought I'd share a few scenes from the reception.

Ars gratia artis

My former high school Latin teacher, the famous Mrs. Doza Litchfield, would be so proud that Latin popped into my mind this morning as I sat down to write. "Ars gratia artis" or "art for art's sake" has been roaming around in my head since I returned on Thursday from my four-day, INTENSE workshop on Corel Painter. Though the workshop was sponsored through the Carolina Arts and Photographic School (an offshoot of my professional association, PPNC), my classmates included wonderful artists as well as photographers. In fact, I was totally intimidated the first day to realize that I was in a class with Linda Weaver, a renowned portrait artist from Winston-Salem who is commissioned to paint free-hand oils and pastels of people around the world. Anyway . . . the class was great, our instructor was an exceptional artists and I'm hoping to put some of my new found skills to use soon. It was pretty inspiring to sit back and look at photographs and work with them as pieces of art with paint and brushes and textures. I'll put some samples up as soon as I've finished some pieces.

In the meantime, it was just coincidence that an oil portrait came back to us from the artist in Florida who paints our oils. The photos above are of the light oil that Cathy McDonald from Roanoke Rapids had us do of her daughter Rachel. Cathy has had oils done of all three of her children now and I'm sure they look wonderful in her home. For those of you not familiar with light oils, this portrait of Rachel McDonald started as a photograph that I took of her in the studio. After the pose was selected, we send it to the artist who has it printed in black and white and it is then hand colored with oils. It is a technique that was done for years and many of you probably have photos of your parents or grandparents that are hand-colored oils. It can be a bit more expensive that photographs or even canvas-mounted photos but it produces such a beautiful end product that it's worth the price. Many people have oils portraits made these days for special occasions. For those of us here in the studio, I have my father and brother's portraits as well as my bridal portrait in an oil, Peggy has her daughters and daughter-in-law's portraits in oils, and Lynn has her daughter, Kelly's, portrait in oil. I thought you would enjoy seeing what an oil looks like though, of course, the actual portrait is much more beautiful in person than this photograph show.

Northeast Academy Prom

Prom Night

It's been an intense Saturday morning but I think I've got all the prom photos from last night sorted and ordered. (Remember I'll be away at school until Thursday and I really wanted to get this done before I left). So I'm off to get ready for tonight's wedding and hopefully the photos will get printed at the lab and returned to me by the time I get home. I didn't have time to get a website up on the photos of the evening but I'll work on that as soon as I get home. In the meantime, there is a little video preview above. As always, prom night was special for me. I really enjoy seeing all the young ladies and gentleman dressed up and enjoying the evening. Hope they all had a great time, too!!