Summer is here!

Summer is always the busiest season for me. Between the warm and long days of wanting to go swim, and capturing lots of love at summer weddings, the calendar always fills up quickly. 

Thankfully my wife is on summer break from teaching, and the contrast of our schedules works really well. She’s home, so despite all the photos I need to edit, we still get to spend time with each other and I am spoiled from all of her cooking. For example, yesterday she made a cherry pie and vegetable curry. I am still full, and extra thankful she doesn’t have to go to work so I get a break from doing the dishes. That’s love! Plus, I got to bring Anna to my shoot yesterday where she modeled! 

While trying to maintain my weekly blog quota, I thought I’d share with you my crazy shoot agenda from the weekend!

1. Maddie and Andre’s Wedding at Empire Mine on Friday

2. 2nd photographer for Wes Davis Photography at Aurora and John’s wedding in Fair Oaks on Saturday

3. Family shoot with Reese, Caroline, and their newborn baby Olympia on Sunday

4. Shoot at Wild Heart Beauty of Misty’s new brow makeup line on Monday

I started feeling a bit overwhelmed yesterday at the reality of how much work there still is to do and rest I need to catch up on, but Anna reminded me to compartmentalize and that I don’t have to do everything at once! Last night we enjoyed our curry to old episodes of Game of Thrones and I drifted off to sleep easily around 9pm.

After a solid night’s sleep, it was no trouble to wake up at 5 to start laundry and start editing.  I woke up refreshed and ready to work, and came up with a strategy to get stuff done!  Something about checking boxes off a list is so motivating, so I’ve already culled, edited, and delivered shoots #3 and #4.  I’ll drop off the photos I shot for Wes later today, so #2 is basically checked off.  That leaves my focus on shoot #1! The beautiful wedding of Andre and Maddie.

I cull the photos first, which is selecting the best of the best. From there, I upload those images into Lightroom to start the editing process. I use presets (similar to filters if you don’t know that lingo) I’ve made that are applied upon importing, then I go through each image and make tweaks and adjustments as necessary. I also arrange the photos in an order that flows and tells the best story of the love and their day. 

Anna and I are finally going on our honeymoon in just about two weeks, so my goal is to finish the wedding by then, if not sooner. Typically once I get on a roll I can’t stop. I like to edit when it’s dark so I’ll usually take a night or two and stay up later than my typical early bed time and edit away.

I’d better get back to work, but thanks for reading.

While each of these shoots deserve their own blog post (coming soon), I thought I’d share a few previews that I’ve edited so far from shoots 1, 3, and 4. 

See you next week!

Christina