The photography season is winding down and it's time for me to get back in the swing of things. I have 4 weddings waiting to be edited and lots of paperwork to finish up. I will post lots of photos as soon as I have them finished.

We upgraded our cameras this year and are now working on getting some fancy lenses to go with our awesome new cameras. I recently got a 90mm fixed lens that I'm completely in love with. We had several Christmas events to shoot for the Lake Norman Citizen and I decided to shoot Christmas in Huntersville with nothing but the 90mm. Did I mention that I LOVE this lens?!?! I'm so happy with how these photos turned out.

I think my face is gonna explode from all the cuteness!

DCIM\100GOPRO

So he had to go to doggy jail.  :(

A few months ago, I worked with Kathryn to create some product photos of her jewelry. She recently posted her items to Ebay and shared a link with me.

Click on the photo to go to her shop.

All of these photos were taken at Carrigan Farms in Mooresville.

We spent the day with Sarah and Les as they celebrated their vows at the Lake Lure Inn.

Here are a few photos of Sarah's bridal session.

Invitations by Tammy

I did manage to get out of the house for a couple of hours to attend a dinner held by one of our most favoritest clients. But I was a little out of it from all the drugs.

Here’s some photos from the weekend:

Bella Love Art Crawl for the Lake Norman Citizen

1st Annual 5k-9 by Uberdog for the Lake Norman Citizen

Alex and Adrienne’s Wedding Shower

Debra’s St. Paddy’s Day Networking Party

Thank you again to my wonderful husband for picking up the slack.

We attended lectures on photography and lighting by amazing photographers such as:

Zabrina Deng who taught us all about shoot pre-wedding sessions like they do in Asia

The locations we used were The Bog Gardens and the Revolution Cotton Mill. They were both beautiful places to take photos.

They also did a little feature article on the photo shoot and published a photo of us!!!

This is the original image:

This is the image after basic retouching:

And this is what extensive retouching looks like:

If you would like to see more samples, please click HERE.

Here are a couple maternity photos we took of our beautiful cousin Jenni.

My son, Jerrin, and I lived in the midwest until 4 years ago when we moved to North Carolina. There are so many differences between the midwest and the east coast. When I tell people this, they don't understand. I mean, it's the same country, right? It should all be the same thing. So we measured it out on a map. If we lived in London and moved the same distance into Europe, we would now live near Prague in the Czech Republic. When you think about it like that you can understand what I mean.

Even though we speak the same language, there are still regional differences. Here they call a winter hat a toboggan, which to me will always be a sled. They also say "might should" and "might could". While I immediately understood what was meant, I would have never thought to use the language in this way. 

The reason I bring all of this up is, vacation. In the midwest, if you tell your job "I'm taking a week off for family vacation", they will tell you that you can go, but you won't have a job when you come back. It's a completely foreign concept there to take a yearly family vacation. I think part of that is because it's the midwest and it's boring. There's not really anything there that could possibly occupy a whole week of your time. Sure, there's the Arch, but you can see that in one day. There's the Mississippi, but it's gross. Who wants to see that old dirty thing? There's the Ozarks, which I am embarrassed to say, they think are mountains. They're really just some big hills with a lake in the middle of them. But you can't even get in the lake because it's poisoned with toxic chemicals. Besides which, it's not a family place. There's lots of drinking and nudity there.

But here, there are beaches and mountains. Employers here will ask you when your family vacations is, so they can know when you'll be working. What?!?!?! Ok. I might hate some things about Charlotte (the traffic, red dirt, giant bugs), but I love family vacation!

That being said, we will be on vacation from the 13th to the 20th of this month. I would love to be able to take the computer with us, but it won't fit in the car. I will have my phone with me to keep up with things, so feel free to email us, but it is limited and I can't do everything I would like to be able to do.

I'm going to try to do a couple photo shoots while I'm at the beach. I will post photos as soon as we get back!

The house itself was very interesting as well. It was on a quiet street with very old homes. It had wood floors and a lot of personality.

We have two more houses coming up this week. I can't wait to see where we go next.

• Basic Retouching (remove blemishes, adjust color and lighting, apply sepia or black & white)
• Extensive Retouching (digital tummy tuck, reduce unwanted bulges, repair or replace background)
• Selective Color (turn image into black and white or sepia while leaving one thing in color)
• Digital Art (turn an image into a personal work of art)
• Graphic Design (use your image to create business cards, flyers and advertising materials, or invitations)

Here are some examples:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Contact us to discuss your graphic design needs.

To view all of the images from this shoot, please click HERE.

Tomorrow Jacob and I are meeting with a potential bridal client! I'm excited about shooting another wedding!

Tuesday I will be traveling to New Bern, NC to photograph a fitness/weight lifting session. It will be a great shoot! Especially since this is one of the models:

She is adorable and gorgeous and scary strong all at the same time. I'm really looking forward to this shoot!

The stationary shoot with Tammy has been rescheduled twice, but I have a feeling that it's gonna happen this time. We are set to shoot on Wednesday. I will have photos up soon after for everyone to see.

So, I thought I would write a blog post to discuss the basics of posing groups.

First, think of the dots on a die. Then imagine the dots are people. The ones up top are the taller people, and they're in the back of the group. The ones at the bottom are the shorter people in the front. By setting up people like the dots on this die, you make sure that everyone can be seen. No one is hiding behind anyone else.

This is just the first step in visualizing how you're going to set up your group. If you set up all your groups like this, it would turn out a little boring, and sometimes awkward. So let's think about the most visually pleasing way to view a group of people.

According to Darwin's Theory of Beauty, one of the most pleasing shapes to humans is the triangle. And if you double a triangle and set the two end to end, you get a diamond. These are the two basic shapes that we will be using to create our groups. Both of these shapes can be used to set up groups of 2 people all the way up to 20 or more people. Here are some visual examples...

By starting your group with one of these to shapes, you can build out to accommodate as many people as you want. The triangle is good for groups of uneven numbers, while the diamond is best for even numbers. But really either one will work as your base for any number of people. Once you have your base started, just add more people to the group using the staggered die configuration I mentioned above. Another important thing to remember is that no one looks their best from straight on. Have everyone turn at a 45 degree angle. Start with the middle person on your left. Have them turn toward the person on their left. Have the person on their left turn to their right, almost like they're going to face each other, but keep them at 45 degrees. Then when you add people to the group, have them turn and face the back of the person in front of them. Trying to describe it with words is a little confusing, so I'll post a couple of photos to show what I mean.

I hope this can help someone who's struggling with posing groups. If you have any questions, feel free to comment and I will see if I can come up with something useful.

We were allowed to photograph both of his book signing events, as well as all of the panels he participated in. I tried to be very professional, but I was freaking out on the inside! As it turns out, GRRM is just a normal guy. He attended all of the after parties and even hung out in the bar. I feel so honored to have had this experience. 

Here's some silly photos we took. You can see all of the images from the weekend HERE.

Tomorrow, Wednesday the 21st, we will be working with Feelin' Good Magazine. They are a local Lake Norman publication that specializes in fitness and health. Tomorrow we will be photographing a Tai Chi class at Huntersville Aquatic Center. I'll post some photos from that shoot in the next couple of days.

Next week, Wednesday the 28th, I will be working with Tammy, from Invitations by Tammy. We will be shooting her custom stationary and invitations in order to build her website and brand. I can't wait to see what we come up with!

You can see all of the images from the photo shoot HERE.

This is Ellie. She's my baby and my guard kitty. She sleeps with me and won't let any of the other kitties near me. If she catches me petting any of the other cats she gives me the cold shoulder for hours. I got her first, when I was single and planning my life as a crazy old cat lady.

This is Angel. She is a Russian Blue and quite possibly the softest thing on the planet. I got her 6 months after Ellie. One of my friends worked at the Humane Society and asked me to take her because she was scheduled to be euthanized. Of course I had to take her! She's been a challenge. She has some behavioral issues. But we love her anyway.

This is Tiny. Jacob wanted his own cat after we got married, since my cats ignore him, unless they want food. So we went and got Tiny from a shelter that rescues animals from kill shelters. She was rescued twice! When we got her, her name was Serendipity, but she was so little and sickly when we got her home that we started calling her Tiny and it stuck. She's not so tiny anymore, though.

This is Zoe. She's our accidental kitty. Jacob was getting gas in South Carolina, when a cute little kitty walked up and started climbing his leg. He called me all flustered because he didn't know what to do. We decided to check with the gas station attendants first. They said that people just drop animals off there hoping that someone will pick them up. So that's what he did. We were going to feed her and clean her up and take her to a shelter the next day. But as soon as I saw her I knew there was no way we could give her away. She is the cutest, sweetest cat we've ever met. (Shhh... Don't tell the other kitties I said that.)

We have a few very exciting shoots coming up! This week we will be shooting again with the beautiful Cali Young (2010 Miss West Virginia) for an ad campaign for Hendrick Lexus. Later this month we will be working with ConCarolinas, the biggest (and best) Sci-fi Con in the Carolinas. The same weekend, January will be sneaking away from the Con to shoot an amazing beach wedding! (Her first beach wedding! She is very excited!) 

Here are a few of our favorite shots from the races this weekend. And keep an eye out for some photos of Cali later on in the week!

Tomorrow, April 12th, we will be traveling to Chester, South Carolina to take photos of the Zombie Race, sponsored by Rebel Race.

Next weekend we will be headed back to Mooresville Dragway to photograph the Street Outlaws race! We worked this race last year and it was tons of fun! 

NCs Top 10, Oct. 12, 2013

This week, Rebel Youth Photography has been super crazy, and it looks like it might last for awhile. We started the week off with a photo shoot for the Lake Norman Citizen. It was a 5k Color Run. We had never experienced a color run before, so we Googled it beforehand and saw that it was going to be extra messy, and tons of fun! 

Then, we were invited to Ground Zero in Spartanburg, South Carolina to photograph a heavy metal concert, featuring the 80's band Anvil. There were tons of great bands playing. We had a lot of fun! Here is a photo of the singer from Neverfall.

Finally, we shot the first points race of the season at Mooresville Dragway, in Mooresville, North Carolina. This is our favorite photo of the day!

We have been married for nearly 3 years, we have a 17 year old son/step-son and 4 rescue kitties. Jacob went to App State and graduated with a double degree in Computer Information Systems and Accounting. He has a grown-up job, but his passion (and talent) is photography. I went to University for art and have been doing something or other art related for nearly 20 years. Together we started Rebel Youth Photography in order to pursue our shared love of art.

People ask us all the time about our name, so I will tell you the story. We have known since the beginning of our relationship that we wanted to start a photography company together. Before it was a reality, though, we had to come up with a good name. Jacob had his heart set on "Forever Young Photography." (He's the cheesy one.) So I Googled it, and it turns out that tons of people had that idea before he did. We needed a name that was unique and set us apart from all the rest, so I started playing around with different ways to use our last name. We brainstormed about what we wanted to stand for and what our style is. It was decided that we are young (and Young), a little on the rebellious side and willing to take risks to make good art. That's when it hit me, Rebel Youth. We sat on it for awhile, then decided that we liked it. That's the story.

Now, what can you expect from this blog? Well, I'm still sorting that out, but I'm hoping to post interesting things from our photo shoots and our lives, as well as helpful tips and info about choosing the right photographer to use. Also, maybe, what to watch out for. 

Alright. Until next time....