Happy New Year!

Val and I hung out at Pierre and Anna's house tonight along with some
other friends eating and playing poker ad eating and drinking and
eating ... Well you get the idea.
Happy new year everyone!!

Announcement! Free Wedding Photography!

My buddy Pierre and I will be teaching a workshop on wedding photography together this spring, but we wanted to make it more than just your ordinary workshop. So we thought, what better way to teach wedding photography than to have students actually observe Pierre and I photograph a wedding ... a REAL wedding. So here's the deal:

If your wedding is March 29th or 30th, 2008 we are offering, absolutely free, 9 Hours of multi-photographer coverage valued at more than $3200. Qualifications and restrictions apply. This is not a sales gimmick or marketing ploy.

Pierre and Dave Watkins will be teaching a two day master class on cutting edge wedding photography that weekend, and are looking for the right couple to showcase their wedding. Up to 20 students would attend the wedding and reception as quiet observers and shadow us on location.

If you are interested or know someone who may be, please contact us right away to discuss the details. Don’t wait - this offer is not going to repeat itself and is available for a limited time only.

What a drive!

So Val and I made the drive home from the Quad Cities Sunday morning/afternoon, and man it was a frightful one. I've driven in some bad weather before, but I don't think I've ever made such a long drive in such terrible conditions before. The road was basically ice covered for the most part, and in some parts there were snow drifts covering the roadway that would appear suddenly. The wind was whipping up the snow so much that for most of the drive we could only see about 50 yards ahead, and occasionally we literally couldn't see the front of the car - everything was white! The wind was strong enough that there were a few times when a gust would hit the car and I could feel the everything start to slide, like the road was just slipping out from underneath us. And to top it off there were still drivers who were passing everybody like the road was just fine! Not only were they endangering themselves and their car, but everyone else's on the road.
I'm a pretty confident driver, but my nerves were pretty tattered by the time we got to Madison. Luckily we made it just fine. Have a safe and fun holiday everybody!

Glazed Subaru!

Val and I spent a short weekend in the Quad cities celebrating
Christmas with her family. We're headed back to Madison this morning a
little earlier than we expected because of the weather headed our way.
I went out to clean off the car and found a nice glazing of ice. Man
that stuff stuck hard to the windows!
Safe travels everyone!

First Anniversary Dinner

Today is our 1 year anniversary!
To celebrate we went for a late night snack at Denny's! Granted it's
not the most romantic choice, but it's special for us. Before we got
married we spent many late nights here feeding our cravings. Bring on
the Grand Slam breakfast!!!

Christmas Rush!

Just a note for everyone thinking of ordering prints: There's still
time to get prints in time for gift giving. Ordering this weekend
would be a good idea though! I'll be processing orders as quickly a
possible, but by Tuesday or Wednesday it might be too late to
guarantee Christmas delivery.
Have a great holiday everyone!!

The highest compliment I can receive is your recommendation.

Check out my blog at: http://www.davewatkinsphotography.blogspot.com

http://www.davewatkinsphotography.com

Simple Pleasures

Being self-employed is awesome. You get to decide when to work and
when to play, but having the freedom to set your own hours also means
that sometimes you end up working when other people are playing ... or
sleeping in.
I've grown to love those odd hours though. Like this morning I'm at
Barriques enjoying a great cup of coffee and working on the redesign
of our website. And despite the fact that web designing can be
excruciatingly frustrating, and I've been trying to solve the same
problem for the past two cups of coffee now, for me this is a great
way to spend a morning.
Happy Sunday!

Oh the weather outside is frightful...

The first big winter storm of the season hit thus morning, so of
course I decided that it's the best time to go out and get some of my
Christmas shopping done!
There are some pretty gnarly road conditions out there, so drive safe
everybody!

Fun new toy!

Val and I headed to Milwaukee yesterday afternoon for an engagement shoot with Kristine and Brian. I keep saying that it must be the last nice day before winter sets in, and yesterday was yet another last nice day before winter. Trees in many places have lost most of their color and leaves, but near Lake Michigan things are still in full fall bloom! We shot a little by the lake at a small park where they got engaged. The story goes that Brian and Kristine were skipping rocks and Brian gathered some rocks together and asked Kristine which one she wanted next. Of course one of those rocks was a fabulous engagement ring! Way to go Brian!
The lakefront and the Milwaukee Art Museum were great locations to shoot at, but one of the highlights for me was getting to use a new gadget called a Lensbaby, which is a super cool, "looks more like a toy than a lens" kind of thing. It attaches to the camera like any other lens, but you can bend it around to produce some really cool effects. It takes a little getting used to, but it's SO much fun! I don't actually own one yet, Ward at The Camera Company, where I teach photo classes, let me borrow it to shoot some sample images for them. It's definitely on the top of my Christmas list now!
Here are some samples of what it looks like. Have a great day!

The card shark at work ...

The surest sign of fall

Most people know it's really fall when the leaves start to turn colors, or maybe they start to feel a chill in the air, or maybe they get odd cravings for pumpkin pie. With me though, the surest sign of fall is portraits of my sister and her family. It's become an annual tradition of sorts, and I'm always happy to do it. It's always lots of fun - I love playing around with my neices and nephew. However it can be a challenge too - there's a saying about herding cats that comes to mind! Val and I are always exhuasted after a shoot with them, but we always have a good time too.
The thing I love about photographing them is that its mostly like I'm visitiing them and playing around with them like usual, only I have a big camera in my hand. They make all kinds of goofy faces for the camera, which I think is great but it drives my sister nuts!



Crazy hair Eliza on the swing!





Garrison loves to roll around in the grass.





Clara is just learning to sit up on her own ... and she likes to eat leaves.

Lots of Engagement Shoots Lately

'Tis the season ... for engagment portraits that is. With all the fall colors of the past month, we've been shooting lots of engagment portraits. I'm not finished editing through them all, but here's a few of my favorites from what I've finished so far.
Happy Wednesday!

Chicago engagement portraits

What a great day to spend on the Chicago lakefront! It was great
weather - probably one of the last few nice fall days before winter
sets in.
Val and I headed to Chicago for an engagement shoot with our friends
Paula and Nil, who are getting married in January. We shot some photos
and then had lunch at a little restaurant in Michigan Ave. What a nice
way to spend a Sunday!

Klein Family

Family portraits are not something I do very often compared to weddings, but I enjoy it when I get the chance. Val and I spent a little time with the Klein family at the UW Arboretum a couple weeks ago shooting some family pictures. The clouds made the day seem a little gloomy, but it turned out to be perfect for photos. We had a great time working with little Lauren - she had such a cute smile and was in a great mood for almost the whole shoot! I love just letting kids be themselves and capturing their different moods and their amazing curiosity about the world around them.

The good weather almost running out for this fall, but there's still time if you would like to get an appointment in for your family or kids. Give us a call!

Heather and Jason's Wedding

Heather and Jason have been such a wonderful couple to work with. For their engagement portraits they braved the snowy winter streets of downtown Madison, and on their wedding day we spent some time wandering around the downtown area again. Photos are very important them, so it was a real honor that they chose me to document their day, and they did a great job of providing me with some incredible photo opportunities.
Their wedding ceremony and reception were held at the Madison Concourse Hotel, so we were only a short walk, or carriage ride, from the Capitol and Monona Terrace. It was fun walking with Heather and Jason and the rest of the wedding party through the maze of street vendors on State Street and around the Capitol. Needless to say we were easily the best-dressed group at the farmer’s market that day!
There were so many great photo opportunities that day that I was overwhelmed with awesome photos, but here are a few of my favorites. Enjoy!

Fair Warning - Packages and Prices Changing

I just wanted to let everyone know that packages and pricing for wedding photography will be changing as of November 16, 2007. If you are considering booking for your date in 2008 or beyond, you will need to have a completed and signed contract by that date in order to lock in the current prices and packages. Beginning November 16th things will be changing.
Prices will be going up, but I think the value of the packages will be going up too. We've got some great new goodies that we're including in the new packages, and we're including more of the goodies we have now, like brag books, that everyone has loved so much. Check in with the website on November 16th for the updates. Cheers!

Melissa and Andrew

So I know I’ve been a little behind on my blogging lately, but it’s only because I’ve been working like mad to try and get wedding photos and engagement photos finished up. Melissa and Andrew were married in Milwaukee on September 2nd and I think it was one of my favorite weddings of the year to photograph. The ceremony was in a very large church and the reception was held at the Milwaukee Grain Exchange, which was also a very large room with some spectacular architecture. Andrew and Melissa have a great sense of style that showed through on their wedding day and they did some unique things like cupcakes, a Polaroid guestbook, and they hired one of the best live bands I’ve ever heard at a wedding - The Love Monkeys.

Between the ceremony and the reception Val and I and the wedding party made a stop at the Milwaukee Art Museum for photos. It’s one of the most photographed spots in Milwaukee and it’s VERY popular for wedding photos, but this was my first time there. We had awesome clear blue skies, and luckily my flashes behaved so I could get some good lighting despite the harsh sunlight. My favorite shots of the day though were from later on that evening. Val and I snuck Melissa and Andrew out from the dance and we went around the corner into the alley. I’m sure they thought I was a little nuts going into the grimy alley, but I thought it was a great space with some very cool texture … and maybe a little smell too.

Check back tomorrow for more of what I've been working on lately! Enjoy!

My Magic Music Box

It's been a wild couple of weeks. Tons of weddings and other photography projects to post-produce, traveling all over the country shooting the fall colors (which I'll have a post on soon), lots of engagement portraits and meetings with my awesome clients, and maybe some exciting news from Valerie and I soon! (No, she's not pregnant.) It's back to work now though after traveling all last week, and I've been spending lots of time with the computer working on photos. I love listening to music while I work and my friend Beckman turned me on to this website called Pandora. I thought I'd pass it along to you because I have totally fell in love with it and I think it's a fantastic site for any music lover. Basically you enter in a song title or artist and it programs a music channel filled with similar music - usually from awesome artists you've never heard of. I can't describe how nice it is to hear such a fresh stream of music! Occasionally it will play a song that doesn't quite jive, but they've designed handy guiding tools to customize the stream to what you want to hear. It's FANTASTIC! Check it out: Pandora


Here's some links to what I've been listening to lately. Cheers!

Moby Radio

Portishead Radio

Doesn't get any better

A moonlit night, sky full of stars, crackling fire, the sounds of owls
and wolves in the distance. It really doesn't get much better than
this ... at least for me!

Sharpening the saw

It's been a hectic few weeks with all the weddings Val and I have been
photographing. I love doing it, but it's very nice to have this
weekend off. We cruised up north to camp for the weekend in the
Northern Highland State Forest. The colors up here are AMAZING! I'm
really looking forward to some quiet walks and great photo
opportunities. It's a great chance to refresh, recharge, and, as my
friend Kieth put it, sharpen the saw.

As a side note - I thought I was getting away from it all, but up here
I still have a good cell signal! How crazy is that? It just goes to
show that "getting away from it all" is probably more of a state of
mind than a place on the map.
Cheers!

Monopoly at the bar

To entertain ourselves at the hotel bar tonight, Val and I found a
nearby target and bought Electonic Banking Monopoly. We're sitting in
the bar playing, eating and watching the Emmy's. Well, I'm actually
watching the football game on the other TV.

Another WHCC photo

Road trip!

Today Val and I visited WHCC, White House Costom Colour, the company
that handles all the photo printing for my clients. They have a brand
new facility in Minneapolis, so they held an open house today, which
was a perfect excuse for a road trip!
What an awesome facility WHCC has- totally state of the art! I love
their products ad I'm proud to be able to offer them to my clients.

Rachel & Al

I often say that the highest compliment I can receive is a client’s recommendation to a friend or family member. It’s great for me because so much of my new business comes from word of mouth advertising, but it’s also cool because often times I get to see past clients at weddings. At Rachel and Al’s wedding I not only got to see a past couple but I got to work with the Van Zeeland family again. It made for such a nice day for Val and I because everyone was so easy going and fun to work with.

I was able to do some beautiful photos of Rachel at the church before the ceremony using a hallway that normally probably looked pretty boring and drab. But most of the lights were off except for one and I used that to light her. I just goes to show how great light can turn almost any environment in an interesting photo.

We used the Van Zeeland’s backyard area for some more creative portraits too. They have this fabulous space where a small creek runs through their property, and I managed to get Al and Rachel (in high heels and a wedding dress of course!) out onto some rocks in the middle of the creek. The stream running through the woods created a tunnel that I could frame them in, and the harsh sunlight was softened by the trees and leaves. What an awesome backdrop!

Megan and Kyle's Engagement Portraits

I love doing engagement portraits with my clients. It’s nice to work and spend some time with my clients a little before their stressful wedding day, plus it’s an opportunity to take some creative chances that I might not be able to take during a wedding.
I met Kyle and Megan at Olin Park last week for their engagement portraits. We had plenty of sunshine, a beautiful lake Monona and the Madison skyline to work with. They are seriously the most giggly couple I have worked with in a long time, which was cool because they were all smiles and had no problem just being with one another while I moved around and shot from different angles. Their wedding in June should be great!

Honeymoon Roadtrip

With all the craziness of the past month surrounding my workload and our wedding reception, Val and I decided on the spur of the moment that we needed a little road trip. We love road trips. The day after our reception we threw some things in the car – a few cloths, snacks, drinks, camera gear – and hit the road. Our plan was to head west to the Mississippi River, then north along the scenic highway there. Little did we realize however that we were headed into the heart of flood territory. We had been so wrapped up in our work and reception planning that we hadn’t been paying attention to the news about all the flooding in SW Wisconsin.

When we reached the Richland Center area we just hit one “ROAD CLOSED” sign after another. State Highways, county roads, those little roads that your not sure are an actual road or someone’s driveway – all had spots washed out. We even ran into a roadblock where someone’s horses had gotten out during rains the night before. We saw about a half dozen men scrambling to herd horses back to the barn. Sadly we also heard from folks there that at least one horse may have been washed away.

At first the detours were a quaint bit of adventure, and a good exercise in map reading. However it soon became clear that we should probably change our plans. We headed back to Madison, not knowing whether we would just go home or continue on somewhere else. When we reached Middleton we decided to gas up and head north. We spent Monday night in Wausau, then spent Tuesday tramping around the area between Merrill and Eau Claire and finally headed home from there. It’s such a beautiful area up there, even when it’s grey, cloudy and rainy.

We both agreed that it was a nice mini-honeymoon. We don’t want to call it a full honeymoon though. We’ll probably need to use that as a good excuse to take nice long trip down the road!