Alexas Photography Blog

Today is a beautiful day in North Carolina… It snowed here last night leaving a beautiful three inches of white covering allowing my hubby to stay and work from home today! Now we’re back to almost fifty degrees and the snow is slowly melting off. I figured it is a great day to make a blog post of an adorable couple! I photographed Jess and Alex’s “Day After” session in downtown Raleigh on a beautiful winter day in December! I’ve only known Jess and Alex for a little while but they’ve quickly become good friends of ours. They’re so much fun to be around and were so easy to photograph. . .

Cute, right?

I love shooting in downtown Raleigh… there were so many different colors and backdrops!

I love Jess & Alex’s outfits. . . pea coats are my favorite!

Alex is always making Jess laugh. . . it’s so cute!

This is one of my favorites from the session. It’s so candid and full of love!

I love playing with lines in photos (as you can probably see a lot in this session!). I definitely couldn’t resist this amazing staircase and brick wall. . .

I always ask my couples if they can do anything cool that we could photograph during the session. Little did I know that Alex and Jess can both juggle! We found some acorns on the ground (which is cute because Raleigh is the “city of Oaks”) and had them show off their skills…

Seriously, you guys are adorable.

See… now you all are noticing my lines, right? ;)

We moved down a couple of blocks to a park for the last of the session . . . Jess and Alex love to play frisbee and brought along a prop to this part of the session!

We’ll end with another of my favorites from this session. . . Jess and Alex even make dead leaves look good!

A few weeks ago I had the honor of photographing my Pastor’s wife and kids! Jonathan and I love our church dearly and it was so much fun to hang out with Tina and the kids, even though Pastor Allen couldn’t make it for the shoot. We had a beautiful sunny afternoon to work with and the kids were amazing!

I love this one…

Luke is the oldest. . .

. . . followed by Abby and Izzy. . .

Don’t they have the cutest smiles?

The kids were so excited about doing this series of photos. . .

Izzy is so precious :)

I love this photo of Izzy in the grass. . .

I’m pretty sure Izzy is a mama’s girl :)

I can’t wait to photograph you guys again! Hopefully next time, we’ll have the whole family around :)

You know how your life kind of happens in stages with your friends? There’s the kid stage, the high school stage, the college stage, the stage where you and all your friends are all dating somebody, the stage where everyone gets married, and the stage where they all start having babies. . . we’re in the baby stage now. The majority of our married friends are all mid-pregnancy or just announced the happy news. Though Jonathan and I aren’t quite there yet, we’re so excited for all of these new additions! It’s so fun to watch our friends move into the parenting stage, one by one (or two by two, I guess? haha). Amanda + Eric are some of our closest friends and are expecting baby Amelia to arrive sometime around Easter this year! I can’t wait to meet her :)

It was not a very nice day outside when we shot this session. . . thankfully Eric + Amanda weren’t bothered by the rain!

I love this beautiful smile! I hope Amelia gets that from you, Amanda ;)

These two couldn’t be more excited about their baby girl. . .

I’m pretty sure Amanda may not be able to see her feet anymore. . .

This is one of my favorites. . .

I love this profile of Amanda. . .  look at that belly sticking out!

I think this one is gorgeous. . .

Like I said, it wasn’t a very nice day but Amanda made the best of it and brought a cute umbrella along. . .

This is the verse that Eric + Amanda picked out for Amelia. . .

Amanda + Eric, we are so happy for you guys! Can’t wait to photograph you with your daughter in a few months!

Nicole and Stephen were married this past summer and I was so sad that Jonathan and I couldn’t attend! Over the months we all became close friends and I was dying to photograph these two cuties together! So we finally set up a Day After session in December :) I love Day After sessions… it’s a chance to get dressed up in all your wedding glory again and shoot some portraits without the stress of the wedding day and time constraints! We had such a great time, even though it was super overcast and rained for a good part of the session… I think we made it work ;)

{Fellow photographers: Based on your feedback, I’m going to start posting some tips on settings, composition, posing and the like! Starting with this post… check below the images for camera settings! This session was shot with the Canon 5D MKII. Feel free to leave questions in the comments section!}

We started the session in front of this amazing pink wall. I love this photo so much!

{50mm, 1.6, 1/250, iso 100}

We walked around Winston Salem for a couple of hours, just stopping wherever caught our attention. Winston Salem is full of great backdrops! And Nicole and Stephen are super fun . . .

{50mm, 2.5, 1/125, iso 200}

{50mm, 1.6, 1/200, iso 100}

I love that they brought some props to work with!

{24-70mm, 2.8, 1/100, iso 200}

{50mm, 1.6, 1/250, iso 125}

Is Nicole gorgeous, or what? I love her smile!

{70-200mm, 2.8, 1/125, iso 250}

{50mm, 1.8, 1/320, iso 125}

Stephen is a yard sale fanatic. No joke. He’s pretty good at it, though, and these vintage suitcases were one of his finds. I love these two photos together.  . .

{50mm, 2.0, 1/320, iso 125}

{50mm, 1.6, 1/250, iso 125}

{50mm, 1.8, 1/250, iso 125}

{50mm, 1.8, 1/250, iso 125}

I love this photo… so romantic!

{70-200mm, 2.8, 1/160, iso 250}

{50mm, 1.6, 1/250, iso 125}

{50mm, 1.8, 1/200, iso 125}

Yeah, I obviously couldn’t get enough of this wall. The texture and colors are amazing!

{50mm, 1.8, 1/250, iso 125}

{50mm, 1.8, 1/250, iso 125}

{25-70, 2.8, 1/100, iso 160}

I love this photo of Nicole alone. Such a beautiful bride!

{50mm, 2.2, 1/100, iso 125}

I love how silly Nicole and Stephen are together. We were all laughing about this idea, it was hard for them to keep a straight face!

{25-70mm, 2.8, 1/100, iso 200}

{50mm, 1.6, 1/250, iso 100}

{50mm, 2.5, 1/125, iso 200}

Nicole’s fun spirit is infectious. . . she was seriously having such a blast twirling around, I didn’t want to make her stop!

{50mm, 2.2, 1/125, iso 200}

{50mm, 1.6, 1/200, iso 125}

After a quick outfit change (and a chai latte), we shot for just a few more minutes at dusk . . .

{50mm, 1.6, 1/100, iso 320 – at this point it was pretty dark outside so I had to bump up the iso a little bit!}

These two are definitely in love . . .

{50mm, 1.6, 1/100, iso 320}

I love the colors in this photo… Nicole and Stephen look like they could just blend into the mural!

{50mm, 1.4, 1/200, iso 320}

{50mm, 1.2, 1/100, iso 800}

Stephen and Nicole, I had such a great time photographing you both. And Jonathan and I are going to take you up on that dinner date sometime!

I’m back from a crazy busy weekend at the Weddings Show in Raleigh! I am so happy with how my booth turned out and met tons of great people! See those gorgeous cakes on the left? Yeah, how awesome is it that I was next to such talented bakers? (It was super awesome… I got to sample cake all weekend!). So, what do you think of the layout? The color? I love it. I kind of want to paint my office like this now. . .

Both of the desks/tables in my booth were purchased at Goodwill for a total of $45. I painted them white because they were kind of ugly when I bought them. These will also go in our house (when we buy one).

So what do you think? Did you stop by my booth at the Weddings Show? I would love to hear from you in the comments below! We’ll be back to normal posts soon… starting with Nicole + Stephen’s day after session in downtown Winston Salem, Eric + Amanda’s maternity session at an abandoned farm, and Jess + Alex’s session in downtown Raleigh!

 

I’m on a roll! Part two of my 2011 weddings review. Don’t forget to leave a comment and let me know what you think! I’m back to working on my booth for the Weddings Show in Raleigh next weekend! P.S. If you’re in the area Friday or Saturday, you should come by!

This may be my favorite post yet! A mixture of bridal sessions, weddings, and day after sessions featuring some of the cutest, most genuine, gorgeous, and fun people I’ve had the chance to work with. You allowed me to photograph your relationships, your families, your smiles, tears, and some of the best times of your lives. I am so grateful for all of you! This is definitely a two-part post… I didn’t want to overwhelm you all! The next post will be up tomorrow afternoon.. get excited!

If you’re not featured on this post and just stopping by, make sure to leave a comment and let me know what your favorite photos are!

Last year I had the chance to work with tons of amazing high school seniors. The talent, ambition, beauty, and personalities that are represented in these photos blew me away! I love getting to know each senior that I photograph and this batch was no exception. I hope that we continue to stay in touch … I can’t wait to hear reports of the things they’ve accomplished, and the places they go! Ok, I’m getting all sappy now… on to the photos!

Can you believe we’re already halfway through January 2012? Last year was such a great year for me personally and for my business. It’s always a process, you know? I can look back now and see so many places where I learned, and grew, and changed… It’s exciting to see that I’ve actually learned from my mistakes! One of the benefits of continuing to “grow up”, right? I got to work with so many great people this year… I met new vendors, new families, new couples, and new babies! I’m so grateful and excited about what 2012 has in store!

I debated doing a review of all the weddings, engagements, family, senior, and portrait sessions that I shot in 2011 but I decided that I like the idea. The hard thing is narrowing down all of the photos! So I’ll be doing a post on each group, starting with engagements and day after sessions! This is a collective of images… not necessarily a “best of 2011″ but a chance to look back at everything and see some never-before-posted photos! Make sure to leave a comment when you’re done looking and keep an eye out for the remaining posts (hopefully within the next couple of weeks!).

This family session is pretty near and dear to my heart :) Aunt Kendra is my dad’s sister and we lived next door to their family for years and years. Now that all of the “kids” are older, moved away, starting families, and finishing (or starting!) college, it is rare that they can all get together at the same time. We decided to take advantage of the week of Christmas to get some family portraits of everyone together! From left to right : Uncle Phil, Aunt Kendra, Konni, Kelly, Katie, Kyle, Chrissie & Kirk and their kids, Elijah and Leah. Good looking group, right?

I’m pretty sure the babies of the family are everyone’s favorites. . .

We asked Elijah to give Leah a kiss… it was pretty close but not quite there!

Leah has beautiful blue eyes. . .

We made sure to get lots of good photos of the kids . . .

Little boys are the best!

My aunt and uncle are known as “Grandpa” and “Grandma” to these two cuties. . .

The sisters . . .

. . . and the brothers.

Kirk and Chrissie are expecting their third baby in just a few months!

Just had to get a portrait of the two that started it all ;)

This is a fun group of people… I’m so glad we got to spend some time together this Christmas!