Carrie and Matt - Engagement Session at Asheville's Biltmore Estate

Carrie and Matt had a beautiful fairy-tale wedding (stay tuned for a blog post on that very soon!) at the wonderful Biltmore Estate... prior to that, they chose the Biltmore as the beautiful backdrop for their engagement session.

Carolyn and Todd Engaged!

I spent a relaxing few days getting to know Carolyn, Todd, and their families in their Maryland mountain vacation home. The weekend was packed full of skiing, ice skating, snow-ball fights, quality family time and chillin' by the fire! Stay tuned for pictures of their grand Memphis wedding.

Die hard NC State fans... Go Wolfpack!


Even the ski gear is red and black!

~Corey

Megan and Paul: Engaged!

Hi, Amber here again :)

I love engagement sessions. I love having the opportunity to learn about people. I love listening and watching as they share a bit about who they are... and more importantly, as they show me how they love. I didn't become a photographer because I liked people... I thought I'd be one of those distant, fly on the wall types. But somewhere along the way, I fell in love with people in love. I became addicted to learning relationships. I... started liking people?

...well, at least definitely Megan and Paul. When I climbed out of the car at the Botanical Gardens and started towards Megan and Paul... and they met me halfway with giant smiles... I knew I was in for a treat. And they did not disappoint! This was seriously one of the easiest sessions of my life. They showed me their love in a bigger-than-life kind of way. Anywhere I pointed my camera, I was certain to capture it! Love like theirs makes a job like mine a piece of cake.

Without further sentimentality... a select few images from their session.















(Huge thanks to Ian (again!) for hanging out with us on this shoot!)

Megan and Paul, I'll be in touch soon! I can't wait to hang out at the Biltmore Estate in October!



hugs,

amber

Workshops, Antics, and Shenanigans!

Goodness... I debated pretty hard about posting this video. Certainly there's nothing wrong with it at all, in fact quite the opposite... it's fun, but oh so embarrassing. It's from a 4-Day workshop in Kansas called Keep N it Fresh where I was the featured photographer. We had a great group of photographers and we all learned a ton of information... and had fun doing it. So why the hesitation in the posting? Because never before have my dancing 'skills' been publicly on display... I worry now that I'll be getting too many calls from recruiters wanting me to be a backup dancer for Justin Timberlake. I'm already just slammed as it is.

Here are a few shots from the workshop too...

Chris Smith shooting...

Darrin Hackney and a couple of background chimpers ;)

Nicole Goddard sporting a cool shooting pose..

The talented Brett Schauf, co-host of the workshop, holding my SB-900 for the above photo.

And as I've had so many requests from other photographers to add some technical info as to exactly how I get some shots, I'd thought I'd start here. I've added the exif data to the below image... as you can see it's a bit dull looking as is. I purposely underexposed it on what was otherwise a cloudy, but bright day. That way, when I added a single, gelled, hand-held SB-900 from the side, it provided a nice warm, almost sunsety kinda look. 

Exposure and camera settings didn't change for this photo from the above. I just added the flash. 

The result:

One night we went out to shuffleboard! Super fun!

My skills were nearly unmatched! Although I still lost... to a girl. ;)

A few of the shooters. Thanks everybody, for such a great workshop!

Melissa and Alex

Melissa and Alex were high-school sweethearts! They were married in a gorgeous wedding at the Biltmore Estate's Lioncrest. You could tell that they and their guests all had a grand time! Their reception wasn't their first wedding-related party either... they threw an awesome engagement party on a yacht in Miami last year and I was lucky enough to cover that too. The amazing Tara was their planner and the totally talented Paul and Holley over at Four Seasons Films shot the video. Here are some of my favorite shots (some of which were artfully taken by Jeremy)...

You can check out the trailer for Paul's and Holley's film here: