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!

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!