arizona wedding photography ~ brenda eden photography

{teeny-tiny backyard portraits}

 

After the November rain, this little toadstool popped up in my backyard.  The doll belonged to my grandmother (she's the lady in the lavendar dress in the picture below this), which would make this doll around a hundred years old (or more). 

{happy thanksgiving}

 

I love this family photo. That's my grandmother in the lavendar dress. That's my dad in blue shirt and pants. The other folks are my aunts, uncle and cousins. I always thought this was a Thanksgiving photo, because 1) it looks like Granny is slicing turkey and 2) we always got together for Thanksgiving every year and ate outside, but I know all the people here are dressed like it's pretty warm out. Which it could be right? It can be warm on Thanksgiving in the valley in Arizona....just because it rained this Thanksgiving doesn't mean it's usually like that! In fact, I saw on the news that the last time it rained on Thanksgiving was 1988, twenty years ago!

Happy Thanksgiving! :)

. J & N's Christmas baby .

One for now, more before long.

. totally rad 80's party .

Back in October we went to a totally rad 80's party hosted by photographers Rachael Earl, the Sloans, and Gretchen Knoblock. I had Wham! and Madonna stuck in my head for days afterwards. Here's a pic they took at their crazy bash. Thanks Rachael for telling me about the photo!

 

8} sipping tea with milk and honey and....

....and jumping from blog to blog. I came across event planner/wedding coordinator Angel Swanson's blog and saw pictures from this site twigs and honey, so I went to look at it. Oh! I! want! these!

Myra Kim Callan, this girl from Oregon, makes these gorgeous hair decorations. (She's pictured modeling in photos 2 and 3---I think.) I would love to buy one someday. Looking at them really makes me want to go to the craft store and get stuff to make something! I've really been wanting to make Christmas wreaths...

                                       

     

7} platinum palladium & gum bichromate prints of Lan

I have this crazy idea that I somehow want to catch up with my nablopomo posts! I really did think I was going to post something everyday! What was I thinking.....no but seriously I kinda do want to. I can think of plenty of stuff to post about and I have been shooting too. I photographed a quinceneara and a family in the last couple weeks and I have two different families coming up this weekend. I'll be posting one of the families soon. And more pictures soon of Amber & Isaac and their wedding!

For now, here are some pictures of my beautiful friend Lan. These were taken a long time ago; she is about 16 years old in these. She had stopped by my community college photo class and I had been taking photos in the studio, so I got her to come in to take a few. I had her wrap my jacket around her face cuz I thought it might look cool---it was this shimmery embroidered vintage coat that I had bought at Buffalo Exchange.

I saved the negative and a few years later when I was taking non-silver processing classes at ASU, I printed these up. The first one was printed with platinum palladium and the second with gum bicromate. They were pretty long printing processes to work through and for the gum bichromate print, I remember staying in the North Light studio by myself all night long to print it. It was March, and still cold outside, but the orange trees were starting to blossom, so I could totally smell the flowers thru the open window.

North Light has (had?) old pipes and in the middle of the night the pipes start to knock, letting off steam or something perfectly logical + scientific like that, but it would scare me silly even though I knew what it was, but truly it sounded like someone had gotten into the big empty building and was banging chains around....and while I could lock the door to my lab from the inside, I couldn't stop my heart from nearly jumping out of my throat.

But anything for art!!! (hehe) ;-)

 

 

It seems pretty easy to figure out online how to do these processes. I would love to try it again sometime.

Here are some sources that look pretty good for gum bichromate: 1 , 2 ,  3

And for platinum palladium printing: 1

. test your color IQ .

This is fun. It's this litle test that scores your ability to perceive subtle shifts in color. You move these boxes with slight changes in hue around and then submit the test to see how well you did.

6} my super quick review of that tasty lens pictured below

This posting every day for Nablopomo is really not easy! I lost 5 days already, so to make up for it, a bunch of different posts.....(maybe;-))

Okay, so that lens that I rented? The EF 135mm f/2L USM from Tempe Camera, well yeah now I really, really want one of my own. Of course, I knew I would. Hmmm, I think I want a tilt-shift of my own a little more, but I would really love to have this, a Canon L lens with a nice wide aperture for less than a thousand dollars, at least I think I read on Amazon that it is around $900. (Not that I can afford that any year soon, it's just a nice to have this dreamy wish list in my head.)

All the reviews on Amazon were all 5 stars and glowing, people couldn't say enough gushy, gooey things about this lens. So many reviews said the lens was SO sharp and SO fast. What I noticed is that the auto focus was like magic, I wanted it to focus where I wanted it to focus and it was like it read my mind and was like Oh you want to focus here, okay cool SNAP, next! This lens really got down to business, unlike my beyond-beloved 50mm 1.2 which is like You want to focus here? Are you sure? Do you really think that's a good idea (whining) I don't know about this....

Okay so that's my review. That's pretty much all I got. I used the lens at a quinceneara mass inside a church on Saturday and a little bit around dusk at the party afterwards. I wish I had used it more outside and I wish I had played with it on Sunday, but I was a little zonked out (exhausted) so I never even bothered to get it out. I wasn't used to the 135mm distance, I'm pretty much just used to 50mm and when I want a closer up or further out view I'm always just telling myself, You're the zoom, don't forget to be the zoom! I had to keep backing up further than I thought I would to deal with the 135 mm and that slowed me down in getting pictures, but I am sure you get used to the distance when you use it frequently enough.

I would definitely rent this lens again, oh yes.

05} . the Monroe School .

On Saturday night I was helping take photos of a quincenaera party at  Heritage Square in Phoenix. I left the party around midnight and as I was leaving I looked across 7th St at the Monroe School, which was built in 1913. It's still a place for kids, it's now the Children's Museum of Phoenix. I've never been there, but it looks like fun, except at night it looks a little haunted, with lights in different colors turning on and off.

04} my shiny new lens for the weekend [nablopomo day 4]

This weekend I am renting this EF 135mm f/2L USM  lens from Tempe Camera. I was looking for some sort of zoom lens to rent, but saw this listed and thought it sounded interesting. Then I went and read a bunch of reviews of this lens and wow, people really seem to dig this lens.

   

3} {Liberty Market is open}

Liberty Market  opened a few weeks ago in Gilbert, Az. I had really been looking forward to it opening and have already been there a few times. I totally recommend the Ca Fe (or something like that it's called) from the coffee bar. I used to go to Liberty Market when it really was a little grocery store. I'd get ingredients to make Mexican food. Mostly they seemed to sell alcohol but there were always some produce and real food ingredients for sale too. I never went there often but I have a definite memory of going there one super-humid-hot early July afternoon when the Monsoon clouds were starting to roll in around the Superstitions to the east of the valley.

Liberty Market has this awesome pink and green neon sign out front that looks like it has to have been around since at least the 1950's. If you are driving south on Gilbert Road you can't miss it.

{The Monroe Hotel in downtown Phoenix}

Walking around in downtown Phoenix the other day using the tilt shift lens that I rented, I came across this old building that is being turned into a boutique hotel. From reading about it online, I found out that it was a bank building constructed in 1931. I wish so much that there was a way to sneak in and explore. While I would love to spend the night there when the beds are covered with sumptuous comforters and the walls have been plastered with the swankiest wallpaper and there's mints on the pillows, I would just as much like to climb up to the top floors where the pigeons roost and explore room to room. Across the street from this old building is the glass and steel Chase Bank building. The sun hits the Chase Bank building and reflects it back on the Monroe Hotel in the most beautiful way. I would love to photograph people in front of the Monroe Hotel when the light is shining off the bank. It could be super-glamourous and lovely looking! :) 

2} . nablopomo day two . [ and three pictures]

I just joined nablopomo, which stands for National Blog Posting Month. I've joined it before in years past and definitely couldn't keep up with the idea of the group that you post something every day in November. I'm a little more motivated this time, so I think I might be able to post a lot more frequently. That is my plan anyways. The girl who created the group and I have something in common---we both have the name Eden. For her, it's her first name and for me it's my last name. 

So, I plan to take a LOT of pictures this month. A quincenara this weekend (hopefully) and my friend's brother and sister-in-law's holiday family pictures later this month...and in between lots of stuff too.

I have to return this tilt-shift lens that I rented back to Tempe Camera and oh I wish I could keep it forever! It's 45mm, next I want to rent the 24mm and see what I think of that. One thing I learned with the lens is that if you want that tilt-shift effect....well some things work better than others--big buildings and groups of two or more people are good. These three photos below were taken with the lens and I don't think anyone would really even know they weren't taken with just a regular lens. Eh, maybe you could with the cat picture.

 

  

1.] Becky outside Joe's Coffee Shop. 2.] Shamui the office cat gets some afternoon sunshine. 3.] Sunset on November 2 

. halloween . {we are off to see the wizard}

 

This is the east side of the Orpheum Theatre. The building I work in and the theatre share a wall. I'd never been in the theatre until last November. It's amazing on the inside; it absolutely took my breath away. Ever since I got to see the inside of the theatre, I have this idea in my head that this absolutely magical place is on the other side of this wall. Here we have work, with people in suits and ties and trying to get things done and going to meetings and taking care of business, but if you could just somehow get on the other side of that wall? Well, all sorts of over-the-rainbow fantastical and magical things could happen!

Some of my co-workers dressed up yesterday for Halloween as characters from the Wizard of Oz. We went downstairs and I took pictures of them with a tilt-shift lens. Here they are standing on the work side of the wall.

  

Do you see that door behind Andrew? That door leads to the magical side of the wall, I would think.