Boutique Grand Opening!!! {Utah Fine Art Photography}

It's finally here, I am SO excited!!

I'll get to the point first and then do backstory later. :)

Today my online Fine Art Boutique officially goes live. I will be placing all of my fine art images online as well as client images (in password protected galleries for clients) so that people can order them at their leisure. I've had so many people ask me about selling prints and I thought that this would be a wonderful solution for those, like me, who love to shop online. Of course for those who would like more personal attention and help in designing wall displays PLEASE feel free to call/email/facebook/smoke-signal me anytime. I love to help people find art for their homes because I know how much joy I get out of mine.

There are several ways to reach my boutique. One is to go straight to it.

http://fineart.illuminephotography.com

Or you can also reach it through my regular website.

http://www.illuminephotography.com

When you reach my website you will see an intro page where you can go to my boutique, blog, enter the website, or my business facebook page.

Also if you enter the code FineArt on checkout you will get 15% off of your entire purchase (yay). This code is good for two weeks (Sept. 8). As I update/add galleries I will be doing more discounts so be sure to check my facebook page often for the codes.

I have been actively working on this for an entire month and intellectually working on it for far longer so this is a thrilling day for me. Please share the link if you would to those whom you think may be interested. Also, I'm sure there will be bugs and fine-tuning to work out. I love comments, tips, and advice, so please let me know about anything that could be improved. I will be constantly updating the site with more pictures so check back often. :)

Now for the backstory.
I don't know how many of you have read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho but if you haven't I can't recommend it highly enough.

It tells the story of a young Andalusian shepherd boy named Santiago who travels from his homeland in Spain to the Egyptian desert in search of a treasure buried in the Pyramids. By following his story we learn about the importance of our dreams and listening to our hearts. In the end it is the journey and struggle to reach our treasure that defines who we are as individuals even more than actually reaching our treasure.

After reading this book I sat down and took a hard look at my life. What was my treasure? I wrote everything down and through doing this realized that one aspect of my "treasure" was that I passionately want to travel. I want to see everything and photograph all I see. I want to experience everything, every culture, and meet every one. I want to always be having new adventures. When I travel my camera is never far. Through it's lens I am able to record the world as I see it. But then what? I have lots of shiny discs and facebook images... I wanted to do so much more and be able to better share my unique view of the world. So many people have asked me about prints but I really didn't have a system in place to deliver them so that always got lost in the shuffle of life. After ages and ages of trying to figure out how, this is what I came up with. If all works out the way I am hoping it will, it will be like rubbing the genie bottle and getting my wishes. So here goes...yay for new adventures!

A lovely friend. {Utah Family Photography}

One of the benefits of being a photographer is the opportunity to see friends that one hasn't seen for years. Everyone needs their family photos updated and even if one lives out of state there is time during trips home to visit. Plus I love to travel (hint,hint). This is my friend Sarah and her beautiful family. Sarah was one of the wonderful people who took advantage of the special that I ran to help my sister and her family who lost pretty much everything in the flooding in Australia last January. It was a win for everyone. Sarah got a great deal, I got to see my friend and not have to charge full price (which I hate), and my sister was able to purchase a fridge which we will all agree is rather crucial to family survival. Sidenote: My sister and her family are finally back in their home along with an addition. Leah had a beautiful baby boy who sadly I haven't seen yet but hopefully will in the next year.

Sarah wanted an urban look and also to not travel too far as they were all so tired from all the visiting and travel and reunions so we chose this location in Ogden.

I loved meeting her children, they were absolutely delightful!

When I photograph families I like to take both headshots for the Moms and also let each child pick their own place to take full-length and three-quarter shots. I like to get the kids involved in the shoot so that they feel that they have some say and are a part of the process. They always seem to like picking their spot and it makes them excited for their turn. I always get more cooperation when it's "their" idea. Every once in awhile I get a challenge location chosen so if it's too nutty I still shoot in the place that they have chosen and then I say "Hey, let's just do a couple more over here." Always works!

We chose this location partly so that they could have the two different looks of the urban buildings and the green of the foliage behind the bridge. I also love the beautiful rim-lighting that I get here as the sun is going down,

I love two-year-olds, they are so much fun! It's a little challenging to get them to sit still and smile at you so I just shoot and shoot and shoot like a madwoman. Of course, when I'm editing I see all these fantastic expressions that I just love and can't possibly choose between so I love to make composites. This is a 20X20 nine image composite and it's meant to be printed as a gallery wrap. As a parent we love all the different expressions that our children have and here they are, all together. I'm working on making these up for each of my children, I just think they are so much fun!

Thank you Heiner family for the opportunity of photographing you. It was so great to see you all and I hope it won't be long until we can play together again. Loves!!

Forced to be on top of things. {Utah Fine Art Photography}

I barely scraped my Temple photo project in last month so this month I repented and got it done in the first few days. I happened to be in Midvale (which is a bit of a drive for me) so I had to photograph the Oquirrh Mountain Temple while I was there. Ironically they were closed for cleaning for a few more days but I'm still happy with what I got...would have liked some clouds though.


Of course if they had been open I probably wouldn't have been able to get this shot as I am standing, with tripod, smack dab in the middle of the road. Good times!

Sidenote: I've had people ask me about ordering prints and I am happy to announce that my online boutique will be up shortly. Right now I am customizing the site and adding pictures. The learning curve to working the site has been a little steeper than I anticipated but it shouldn't be too much longer now. I'm really, really, really excited about it!

Photo Groupings {Utah Family Photography}

I recently had the opportunity to photograph the family of a good friend of mine from high school who now lives out of state. I was telling her about ideas for photo groupings for her family pictures and as she had to go back home and was unable to come to my house to see some of mine I told her I would send her some pictures...I figured a blog post would be even better so that more people could see what I was talking about.

See how lonely and sad this family picture looks, all by itself, above my couch? Now, this isn't a small print. It's a 20X30 inch Gallery wrap and I absolutely adore it. But even though it is a large print it just doesn't look right all by itself. There is way too much empty space!


Doesn't this grouping of pictures look a lot better? The space above the couch is nicely filled with plenty of room on the sides for reading tables and lamps or whatever you would choose to put there. FYI the smaller prints are 8X10 inch gallery wraps, but of course framed prints will work equally well.

My secret for hanging prints is to cut paper into the sizes that I think I might want and then carefully tape the paper on the wall, moving the "pictures" around until I get the arrangement that I am looking for. In the grouping above I didn't have any idea of the sizes I would need until I saw how the papers looked on the wall. Another added benefit to this method is that once you have everything exactly where you want you can hammer the nails into the wall through the paper and then just pull the paper away. It works a lot better than trying to hang by eye and you have a lot less nail holes in your wall. I do this EVERY time I am working on a new wall in my home.

Another tip for hanging pictures is that they should be hung so that the middle of the picture is at the eye level of an average sized women. In the case of a grouping I would place the main center picture at eye level or in the case where you have rows put the middle row at eye level or the middle of the entire formation at eye level. It is very common for people to hang artwork too high, especially in homes with tall ceilings. Hopefully these tips can help.

I love to have art on my walls and I consider portraits of my family to be the best kind of art. I stare at them every single day and they bring me great joy. With just a little time and planning you can have beautiful groupings of family art on your walls. Much better than a few pretty 4X6's shoved in a shoebox somewhere! Good luck and don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.

Two months in one. {Utah Photography}

I am behind in posting my monthly temple photos. These two are from June and are of the Jordan River Temple. The night's hazard? Rabid swarms of bloodthirsty mosquitos the size of station wagons. Of course my DH stood calmly by completely un-bothered as I tried to take pictures while being the evenings main dish. Humph!

I think I need to take pictures of each temple both during the day and at night. The looks are completely different...maybe that's what I'll do next year.

I barely squeaked this temple in before the end of the month hit. This was literally the last day I could manage and after driving almost two hours I arrived mid-thunderstorm. Normally I wouldn't shoot in those conditions but I had driven forever {felt like} and was out of time, so I draped a chamois cloth around my camera and headed out. The rained slacked up a bit so I wasn't completely soaked and I tried to pretend that even though I could hear thunder there wasn't actually any lightning. It all ended well.


p.s. This is the Mount Timpanogos Temple and it is lovely!