Jamie+Jon // Raleigh Anniversary Session

Happy birthday, Jon! This session was Jon’s birthday present from Jamie, and we hope we delivered. :) Jon is super into photos, and he found us a couple years ago when looking for a wedding photographer, but unfortunately we were already booked for their date. So they hung around and continued to follow us and we were super happy when they returned to us this year for his bday photos! They looove pictures and we love pictures and we also love people who love taking pictures. They also love and are very discerning about ice cream, which is important. We, too, consider ourselves ice cream connoisseurs, so we were thrilled when they introduced us to Treat in downtown Raleigh (in City Market facing S. Blount) and even more thrilled when they had chocolate peanut butter ice cream (because yessss). We had a super seriously fun (and tasty) time photographing these guys and wish them both a wonderful, slightly early happy 2nd wedding anniversary!

Amanda+Derek in Downtown Raleigh

It has been  while since we’ve shot an engagement session in downtown Raleigh, and we were excited to return to our roots this spring with Amanda and Derek! We were lucky enough to meet them last fall and book them for their wedding this upcoming September and are having a blast getting to know them in between. :) They met at UNC several years ago but only started dating as they were both moving out. ;) Then they lived in separate places for a while until they both settled down together in Raleigh (hence the photos downtown) where they watch a lot of Breaking Bad and Mad Men. They’ve considered getting a dog, but have determined that it’s a little much right now, so we’re working on convincing them to get cats.

Derek also works on a fantastic poster print company he’s founded called Blue is the Land. It started out with him making posters for their house of places that they’ve lived (Amanda’s from Winston-Salem and Derek’s from Schenectady, NY, but they lived together in Chapel Hill and Raleigh after that) and also places they’ve traveled (they go to NYC frequently and were engaged there). Since then, it’s grown quite a bit and now features all sorts of cities! You can even request them. :) They’re super well designed and feature a bunch of the neighborhoods in the cities in a nifty way that we hadn’t seen before but are also pretty sleek and modern at the same time (I swear I don’t work for his company, I just like his design work). You should check it out! Maybe after you view these pictures of him and Amanda being very cute.  May I present to you: the face, the image, the spirit of… Derelicte!

Perry + Shawn + Huckleberry + Finnigan + Lexie

Objectives: to photograph the amazingly talented and gorgeous Perry Vaile of Perry Vaile Photography alongside her handsome husband Shawn. Also, to photograph the slightly elusive and slightly adorably-crosseyed cat Lexie. Also, to photograph the previous racing dogs learning how to be precious house dogs Huckleberry and Finnigan. This was the mission I accepted at their house. The second mission was to go to Perry’s neighbor’s farm down the road and photograph them there… where there happened to be the most adorable miniature donkeys ever.  Now, I’m not sure that “ever” really describes it as I’m fairly certain that miniature donkeys ANYWHERE would be the cutest ever, but, you know what I mean. So the house mission combined with the farm mission was total cuteness overload and WAY too much cute to photograph in 2 hours… so just know that I tried, Perry, but your family is way, way too cute… and thus this was only a glimpse into its cuteness.

I was super honored to be chosen by Perry to photograph her family this year as she is a WONDERFUL photographer and I was crazy nervous a bit like this. She and Shawn were so amazingly sweet to me and made me feel perfectly comfortable though… and I’m so happy to have worked on this for them!