arizona wedding photography ~ brenda eden photography

Shade your pretty face from the sun with a parasol! Trash the dress! And then take lots and lots of pictures!

Last week, Becky and I went to a pictage users group meeting. Pictage is this company that helps photographers with marketing, selling and printing their photography and each month, they have meet-ups and photographers from all over the valley get together.

One of the people making announcements at the meeting mentioned that a photographer in Tucson is getting a group together to take Trash the Dress* pictures in Bisbee, Arizona (Bisbee happens to be one of the coolest looking places in Arizona, it used to be a copper mining town, now it looks kinda like a ghost town with old Victorian houses---it's a great place to be a tourist and where one of my friends started off her honeymoon.) Bisbee is a 3 hour drive from Phoenix, plus I will actually be in Flagstaff on the day of the shoot, so I won't be able to go but I would really like to. I think doing Trash the Dress photos would be so much fun.

The next day after the meeting I started thinking it would be so much fun to get together my own group of photographers and people willing to model for a pretend Trash the Dress shoot. I started looking online at craigslist to see if it is possible to get used wedding dresses for not too much money. I think I could get some of my cute, sweet and beautiful friends to be the models and then whoever wanted to photograph would be welcome to do so. I would send out invites to people from my photography classes and people who I have met as I have been getting more and more interested in photography.

There is this place I drive by all the time, Mother Nature's Tree Farm. I wonder if they would be willing to let photographers take pictures there. I guess it couldn't hurt to ask. It doesn't have that industrial look that I associate with Trash the Dress pictures but it is gorgeous and lush and green, not something you can always find in a desert city.

So I am slowly putting this idea together in my head: Figure out how to get inexpensive wedding dresses. Ask every last girl I know if she would want to model. Contact photographers. Figure out a place. Set a date. Early morning? (Oooh I love nice morning light) Later afternoon? Maybe more practical. What day of the week? Figure out some sort of plan about how my models will get some pictures on cd from the photographers as trade for their time. Maybe get a hair/make up stylist? Guy models too? (Okay, let's not make this too complicated!)

Well, a lot to think about, but one thing I know I will do? Have some parasols there! I have been wanting an excuse to get some parasols. They are so pretty and dreamy. This site, Lunabazaar.com has so many different kinds too. 

              

Parasols available from lunabazaar .

* Wikipedia describes Trash the Dress like this:

Trash the dress refers to photographs that contrasts elegant clothing with an environment in which it is completely out of place. It is generally shot in the style of glossy beauty and glamour photography. The term is alleged to have been coined and the idea started in America, by photographer Mark Eric, after he shot his first Trash The Dress session in New York. Some sources claim that it started in 2001 when Las Vegas wedding photographer John Michael Cooper. However, the idea of destroying a wedding dress has been used in Hollywood symbolically since at least October 1998 when Meg Cummings of the show Sunset Beach ran into the ocean in her wedding dress after her wedding was badly interrupted.A model often wears a ball gown, prom dress or wedding dress, and may effectively ruin the dress in the process by getting it wet, dirty or in extreme circumstances tearing or destroying the garment. It may also be done as an additional shoot after the wedding, almost as a declaration that the wedding is done and the dress will not be used again. It is seen as an alternative to storing the dress away, never to be seen again.

Becky and I went over to the S. family house and took pictures of all eleven of the family members (plus two on the way). Annie wanted some pictures to give her parents and siblings before her little family moves to China.

Here's Auntie Helen getting the kids ready for their pictures.

Ali with her grandma and grandpa. (Except she doesn't call them that, but I don't know the name for grandma and grandpa in Chinese!)

 

Okay is everybody looking at the camera? Oh wait! Drewby is looking off to the side. No matter! He's still so cute!

Okay, whew, everyone is looking at the camera!

Okay, everyone, show us silly!

  

Here we have David and his lovely dog Zelda.

 We took a bunch of pictures with each sibling with their spouse and parents. Here's Neil, his beautiful wife Janet and the parents.

   

Then we got a bunch in the backyard. To get the kids' attention Becky stood right behind me and started talking about the fairies and gnomes and magical ladybugs the kids had "seen" when we took their pictures last week. The funny thing is, I think all the crazy talk got the attention of the adults too!

Okay the kids can only take so much! They are ready to jump down and play now....

For fun we had all of them link arms & walk across the yard. Zelda thought this was a simply spectacular idea and wondered why everyone doesn't do this more often! :-)

I'm so excited about the new babies that will be arriving soon for this family.

I love this picture Beck got of me photographing David and Zelda.

Zelda, could you be any more stunning, girl?!! David, you're looking good too! ;-)

We had so much fun taking their pictures. I love this family so much---this whole family has been through so much.. It was so cool to get to see them all in one place at the same time. After taking pictures, Becky and I stayed over for dinner, for the best Chinese food ever! :-)

(I notice that when I put these pictures on the website, they are kinda fragmented. I think that might have to do with the way I am saving them. Luckily my camera raw and photoshop book came in the mail today, so I am really looking forward to reading it. Maybe the book will give me an idea how to save pictures for websites, otherwise I will read around elsewhere and try new stuff to see what I can figure out. Also, I am using typepad's new beta site and they have recently made it easier to show bigger images, so maybe I need to read more about that too.) 

~photography class with jennifer and kim~

A couple weeks ago I went to a photography class taught by Jennifer Bowen and Kimberly Jarman. Go check out their blogs, there are pictures of the class on there and I'm in some of them! The class was held in Kimberly's studio in downtown Mesa---her studio is upstairs in this old brick building--really gorgeous---with high ceilings and with her beautiful photographs on the wall---it was such an inviting space to spend an afternoon in.

    A couple pictures from the class---click to enlarge.  

I came across their blogs in the last couple months or so and I was just so amazed (and thrilled) at how much information they share on their blogs about photography and their business. When I read they were offering a class, I really wanted to go to it. And I am so glad I got to. They were so helpful and so kind to share what they know and so open to answering questions. I definitely came away with more confidence about what I already know, answers to questions I had been aching to find out the answer to and something super-magical happened that weekend that I attribute to 1) their class and 2) taking pictures of Andrew and Alison and this is it: I got unafraid of my camera.

I truly have been afraid of my camera.

Not afraid of the settings, but afraid of dropping it. And absolutely destroying it. It would cost way too much to replace it anytime soon. I have insurance on it, so I would hope that would work, but still.......

When my dad passed away last year, my mom said that my dad had arranged for us to get money---from a life insurance policy or something---honestly I am fuzzy about the details because I really didn't care about money, I just wanted my dad back. My mom took some and dealt with some debts and then gave equal parts to me and my sister. And for the longest time I didn't even transfer the money into my account. I figured I should invest it, but I didn't do anything. Then I had this idea that I got from Becky that I would save some of it and use it to buy a wedding dress someday if I get married. That way, Daddy buys my dress.

I always figured that I would have the most economical wedding but I wouldn't skimp on the dress. I could make the cake. It would be a potluck! In the woods! I'd buy the flowers from the garden center at Home Depot. No wait! They would be flowers from my own garden from seeds from Home Depot! I'd email the invitations! But the dress would be fairytale-magnificent-amazing.

Now that I have been coming across so many gorgeous wedding photographer blogs, I am not sure I could stand to not splurge on the details. I mean I really like fancy cupcakes. And customized invitations. In brown and pink. And shoes that don't really go with the dress but match the bride's colors, like something in bright yellow or hot pink. And parasols. I heart parasols. I want parasols!

But anyways, I did spend the money. On a camera, two lenses and a flash. And I am seriously so glad I did. And somehow two weeks going on three weeks ago, my camera became my dear, dear camera and while I will be absolutely beyond careful with it, I am actually finally excited and so happy about the idea of taking it out and having fun with it. That super-excited feeling that I used to have after developing a roll of black and white film and taking it into the dark room that smelled of dektol is coming back and I can't believe I had so completely forgotten how that feels.

(One other thing to tell you: that night after I went to Kim and Jennifer's class, Becky and I went shopping and she bought a camera too. She had been editing and making illustrations for a book, sometimes while sitting next to our dad in the hospital, and finally she got paid for the job, yay! and now she has a camera too.)

Becky showing Ali and Drew their pictures.