That’s my E-mail inbox.  17 inquiries in the past week or so.  What happened?
I guess everyone had the talk about the birds and bees over Christmas break.  Anyway, keep em coming!

Tune in tomorrow for when I’ll be announcing the winner to my wedding photography giveaway contest!

Quick.  What do all of my 2009 brides have in common with Barack Obama?

Give up?

Well as it turns out, last week he had his first official portrait taken and I have two cool facts to let you in on.

1.  This is the first time that an official presidential portrait was taken with a digital camera.

2.  The camera that was used is the same one I shoot with. (Canon 5D Mark II)

So whether you voted for him or not, agree with him or not, or look like him or not,
you can tell all your friends your photographer is just as fancy as his. :)

So I typically don’t work or post on Monday’s but one of my Facebook peeps (friend me up) just wrote that today was Dolly Parton’s birthday.  The opportunity was too good to pass up.  I hunted around my hard drive and dug this up.  A friend of mine took of it in an LA airport back around 1999 or so.

As I finished my backups of my images from 2008 I thought I’d go back and count em all up.  I would have posted this sooner, but it took me longer than I had planned. As it turns out I took quite a few pictures last year, 119,084 to be exact.
I think I may have missed one or two but I was already in the 70,000s and didn’t feel like starting over.

Seriously though.  That’s a lot of shots.  That’s about 350 pictures a day. Basically every 5 minutes I take a picture.
That’s enough pictures to where I could take one photo of every person in Palestine AND Tyler and and maybe Elkhart. ;)

Anyway all that to say I’m glad I like my job.  Thanks everyone for paying me to take pictures.

(By the way, there are only about 650 images below.  You would need another 175 blocks like that to show all the images.)

One new thing I plan on doing is posting regular tips and little ideas for your upcoming wedding. Some of these will be ideas from weddings I’ve attended and other may just be random things I have found or come across. Either way it will be a great little place to just toss ideas around.  I thought I would kick it off with a topic I know a little bit about: Video. Since I’m officially out of the video business I thought I would share a quick thought on having your wedding filmed.

YOU HAVE TO GET THIS DONE! NO QUESTIONS ASKED! DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT NOT DOING THIS!

Seriously, this is a no brainer. I get so sad when I work a wedding and see “Uncle Bob” over in the corner as the designated videographer. If this is one of the most important days of your life, don’t you think getting someone who knows what they are doing with a camera might be a good idea? I can’t tell you how many times I would have a bride come back to me after the wedding and tell me how much they loved their pictures but they wished that they had also set aside some budget for video as well.

One thing I want to be super clear on is that I totally “get” wedding budgets.  There is only so much money to go around, but this really is one area where you don’t want to short change yourself.  I LOVE making albums for couples, they are a great way of showing off just a few of the hunders of photos you get from your day, but if you have to decide between spending money on a fancy album that may end up collecting dust or getting a talented person to film your wedding, then I would encourage you to forget the album and hire a videographer.  You will never regret it.

I was talking to Vanessa and Brent McKellar about this a few weeks back and they also wished that more people could get the value of this service. This is not a “home movie” with a camera on a tripod at the back of the church. The stuff they put together is like something you want to see in a theater. Wonderful editing, a great musical score. It’s something you and your kids will want to watch more than once. You also get something that even the best photographer can’t give you. SOUND. As amazing, incredible, and awe-inspiring as my photos are, getting to actually hear what you each were feeling on that day just adds a whole new level of emotion.

They recently got some fancy shiny new HD cameras as well so your video will look extra pretty. In fact, I got together with them a few days ago and took some shots of them with their new “baby”. :)

Such a proud father.

Anyway, I’ve rambled enough. Here are two pictures of a bride and groom who most of you probably don’t know.

Now that you have started at it and thought “so what”, take a look at this quick video The McKellars posted and see if all of the sudden you feel their joy, emotion, and a bit more of a connection with the couple.

Laura and Greg’s Pre-Wedding Thoughts from Vanessa McKellar Productions.com on Vimeo.

After you do that call Vanessa ASAP (903.596.7977) and see if you can still get her for your wedding date.

UPDATE: I can’t believe I forgot to mention that if your guy is not the super sweet say something meaningful type guy that it’s ok.  It’s still a good idea to have a videographer.  You never know when a music video might break out.