Turtle Dove Photography

I had an amazing and fun TTD session with Shannon! We headed over to the University to get some amazing shots. If I thought this bride was fun even before her wedding with all the stress and everything, you can only imagine how much fun we had after her wedding when she wasn’t under a ton of stress!!! It was a blast!!

WOw I can’t believe that the holiday season is fast approaching! I am looking forward to this Christmas so much this year! Rory will almost be 3 and this may just be the first christmas she will remember! I can’t wait to see how excited she gets. They are already putting up Christmas stuff at Target and she got super excited over some penguins that light up! SOOOO CUTE!!! Logan doesn’t talk like Rory but his eyes get really HUGE when he sees those lights! I can’t wait to drive down the streets and see all the houses lit up 🙂

Well with the holiday season fast approaching this also means that my available times for weddings and other sessions are filling up fast! If you are getting married this November/December than now is the time to book your wedding! I only have a handful of days available so make sure to get in contact soon to ensure that your wedding date is available 🙂

Also a quick reminder for those who want to get Christmas cards done. It is best to do your holiday session between late September and early November, this is so we can make sure your pictures are edited and your cards are ready to be in the mail by early December. Due to the business of Holiday weddings, I am only accepting a limited number of Holiday Sessions. So if you are interested in having one done, the sooner you book your date the better!

I just signed up for [b] school private school. I am totally excited! I’ve already made contacts with a few photographers and can’t wait to get to know them all! Soo excited! I hope to see some other locals come on board shortly!

This is a question I’ve gotten a lot from people. It is hard for me to explain how much nicer an edited image looks versus a non edited image. I made a post a while back about the importance of editing, but it is so far in the archives I figured I’d just post one again 🙂

Editing consists of many things. Editing is basically the work that happens after taking the picture, you know the behind the scenes stuff. Unedited pictures are fine, but editing just adds to the beauty of an image. Editing consists of cropping and adjusting the contrast, lighting, converting to black and white, doing selective coloring, taking out any blemishes as well as changing the tone of an image, and the occasional fixing of an unsightly bulge (even the skinniest people can turn funny and get something that looks a bit off, well I’ll fix that when I can). While a non edited picture looks perfectly fine, once you see the edited version you can’t believe the difference! (You will never be able to look at the original the same again) :p

When you order a custom album you get all of the images that are placed in the album fully edited. Editing can be very time consuming which is one of the factors as to why the custom albums are more expensive.

Here is just one example of an edited picture versus non edited

I am really excited to announce the arrival of custom albums! These albums come nice and big at 10 inches by 10 inches. Each album will contain FULLY edited images, not only are you getting a beautiful album you are getting the highest quality images possible!

CLICK HERE for sample album

We bought the kids their halloween costumes today. We took them to Ontario Mills today and visited Children’s Place. We showed them the costumes and they both picked out their own. It was really cute. Since Logan is still so young we showed him a penguin or a teddy bear and let him choose between the two. He got all excited and picked the teddy bear. For Rory I showed her a lot of costumes and she wanted to be a flower (remind you of anyone???) HA HA family inside joke sorry. I’m sure I’ll take some in studio pics later but I just wanted to snap a few today 🙂

She looks so sad in this picture 🙁 She was really just watching tv

Don’t Feed the Bears… oops! I guess this one is okay to feed cuz at least he is cute and doesnt have very many teeth 🙂

I ordered Rory a dress from a girl I’ve known for a while now. Her name is Amy and she is awesome at making clothes! Her website is an etsy shop Baby Threads Boutique. Rory loves her little dress she thought it was the prettiest thing ever. I was trying to get a nice full length picture of Rory but she was too busy cuddling with her baby brother on the couch watching tv. Speaking of the baby brother, Logan is such a sweetheart. He has just learned to climb on the couch and when he does he acts like he has just climbed Mount Everest. It is just so dang adorable! He is so cute, he climbs up there and gets this big huge smile like LOOK MOMMY I DID IT!!! Well I was trying to get a picture and how could I pass up this photo opportunity.

I really do mean that! I am sitting her on my computer about ready to go to bed and I realize WOW it seems like I JUST got home. Then before I know it it’s time for bed and time to start another day! I hate going to bed because I know as soon as I wake up its off to my morning job, I hate leaving in the morning because my little girl is almost always awake. Just this morning she was crying for some juice. I went to the kitchen got her a glass of water and gave it to her and laid her back to bed. She said “mommy bed” meaning she wanted me to lay down in the spare bed in her room. I told her no sweetie Mommy has to go to work. She cried a little and said NO MOMMY MOMMY BED! It breaks my heart that I couldn’t just cuddle up with her in bed and go back to sleep. She is growing up so fast and I’m never going to get back these times when she is just so sweet and so innocent. I love her so much and I look forward to the day that I can quit my “day” job and just stay home with her and Logan and concentrate on them and photography. *sigh* ~My husband applied for a new job and interviewed on Thursday, I’m sure we will hear something back anytime. Please keep your fingers crossed and say a little prayer that he gets it!

When I got married on April 2, 2004 my mom said that I HAD to have a professional photographer. Out of everything else that is the ONE thing she wanted me to have. It wasn’t until I really got serious about wedding photography did I understand exactly where she was coming from. Don’t get me wrong I have had a passion for photography my entire life but I just didn’t quite understand what she meant. Now that I photograph weddings I understand 100% what she meant.

Your wedding day is a once in a lifetime experience. Yes some people will get married more than once but each wedding is different, each wedding only happens once. It is something that cannot be recreated or redone, there is no exact replica of a wedding. This one day for which you spend countless hours making sure every detail is perfect: The dress hunt, the flower shopping, the decorations; all of which you spend hours upon hours thinking and dreaming and planning for YOUR wedding day. Not to mention the guests that come to your wedding, your friends and your family. Who knows what will happen tomorrow but for that one day it is all about you and the one you love.

Weddings are something celebrated and cherished. When your wedding is over your guests go home, your flowers die (even preserved flowers never look exactly the same), your decorations get put away, your tux gets returned and your dress usually gets put into a box and over the years your memories fade. Of course there are certain things you will always remember, but will you remember exactly how your bouquet looked? How your hair and make-up made you look like a model? The smile on your grooms face when he first sees you walk down the isle? Will you be able to remember what all of your guests wore and how everything was set up. Chances are you wont.

So much happens on your wedding day I often hear brides tell me they were so busy that all the time they spent into their wedding they hardly got to just sit back and relax and enjoy their day. So when everything fades what is left from your wedding day? Your photographs. Many people decide to cut back on photography thinking that their friend or uncle can just snap some pics and that will be good. They think that they can save a little bit of money by not hiring a professional, maybe they have a friend who does it as a “hobby” and they think that is good enough. Chances are you will always regret this decision. Will your friend know exactly the pictures to take? Will he/she capture all of the little details that you put so much time and effort into making your wedding beautiful? Do they have the equipment and skills to make sure that your wedding is captured beautifully?

I understand that wedding photography can become quite costly but the fact of the matter is that your pictures are the ONLY thing that you will have to look back on and be able to remember every detail. The pictures you have from your wedding really do mean so much. My mom did not have a professional photographer at her wedding, instead she had a friend who had an interest in photography take her pictures. Her friend had professional equipment but he didn’t understand how to use his equipment and my mom has always regretted not hiring a professional. The fact of the matter is anyone can own a professional camera but unless you know how to operate it and unless you understand what goes into making a beautiful photograph then you won’t be able to have consistent results.

I often hear people comment to me “your pictures are so nice what camera do you own?” That’s like me going up to a pianist and saying he plays beautifully what piano does he have. So when it comes to your wedding day you have to ask yourself, do you want just anyone to be responsible for taking those lasting memories for you or do you want someone who has had experience and knows what they are doing? Yes chances are you will be paying for that experience and it may seem like a lot at the time, but the pictures you have from your wedding are the memories that you will have to look back on for the rest of your life, they are what you will pass down to your children and to your children’s children. I encourage everyone to really think about your wedding day and how you want to remember it.

Sincerely,
Jenilee