We had a nice couple of months off to rest, recharge and get re-inspired.

Now its time to take that inspiration and put it in action – as we look though all these images we can see all the inspiration we soaked up this winter!

In Maine, you know we have had a pretty strange winter – a winter with no snow.  On Thursday, or maybe it was Wednesday – the days all blur together sometimes – we got a wonderful March snowstorm – which left us with 6-8 inches of the really pretty snow – super white and fluffy.  Well since we have been having a very strange winter – the following Saturday it rained – so most of our beautiful snow was gone!

Thankfully some snow stuck around because we got to photograph all this wonderful SNOW!

Nick & Courtney were looking for rustic backgrounds – so we went up to the most rustic place we knew – the place where Brandi grew up: Knox, Thorndike, Unity, Maine!  The goal was to find some old barns.  We also took a couple of stops to find some things that we love to photograph anyway!

This is what we came up with:

Corners – our new obsession – this comes from some images at the seminar we attended and just blogged about!

Courtney – Like Brandi & I – is an avid pin-er and she showed up with an ampersand – it was something that I pinned not to long ago.  Cross one photo off the bucket list for this year

There is something about this image – I just love it.  It reminds me of an old movie – the train, the steps, the good bye – something about it.  Just love it!

Another shot inspired by someone else – this shot is very Bobbi & Mike, two photographer that we love to follow and re-pin all their work.  I have been waiting to get a shot like this!

We are making good use out of this ampersand!

Ahhhhh – the Barn.  Just love it.

Words with Friends – anyone?

Courtney & Nick brought Scrabble tiles too.  I guess she has something planned for the wedding day too – CAN’T WAIT!

and finally… since we had all this snow, and it was good snowball snow – who can resist a little friendly snowball fight?

Hope you loved our first engagement session of the season!

If this session is anything like our shoots this year will be – we are in for a good year!

There is so much more to show you with this shoot – but you may have to wait a day or two – we like to keep you in suspense!

Such a great shot – love this one!

Every kid, growing up knows the story.

The story of the Pilgrims, and how they landed on Plymouth rock after a LOOOOOOOG voyage across the Atlantic.

This…. isn’t a re-cap of that story.

BUT – much like the Pilgrims, we took a similar voyage.  A voyage that started out in our office in Bucksport and lead us to Plymouth.

But we went for a photography convention!!!  The PPAM convention to be exact!

Every year we try to hit up one or two speakers on various topics that interest us – it’s what you have to do to stay fresh in this business.  This year we decided to try something a  little different – why instead of just going to see one speaker – why not cram 4 or 5 in the course of two days?  Well that is just what we did, and it was a great experience for us.  Whenever we come back home after attending a workshop we are FILLED with so many great ideas on how to grow, move or change our business and this experience was no different.  We are totally refreshed for the year and just itching for the first wedding of the season.

We are also itching to go to another conference!!  We have to say – all the photographers out there – look up your local or neighboring state’s chapter of the PPA and check out their yearly convention.  Chances are it will be in a place you may not have been, you will certainly meet many new people there and you’ll learn something too!

BUT – if you look at our images above (instagram of course!) you will see there are NOT many photos of the convention.  That’s ’cause we had an afternoon off and we went exploring.  Let us give you the photographic tour!

We needed a photo by the sign – and since no one was there to hold the camera… Brandi posed!

The actual rock itself.  It was smaller than I expected.  And I even read stories online of how people chipped pieces off of it.  Weird.

Small must of been the theme for the Pilgrims – cause the Mayflower II was TINY!  It was unfortunately closed in January and February, but we were at least able to see it – and she was small.  She’s no Royal Caribbean Cruise liner thats for sure!

Um – Mayflower Beer – of course.  I think the Pilgrims drank it too!

Brandi and I – on our dinner break found one of the BEST Pizza places we have ever been to.  The Upper Crust - if there is one near you… run to it now.  So good!! Usually I am not a huge fan of the thin crust pizza, but this was delicious.  We each had to order our own pie – and they were bigger than the table we were at.  Brandi had potatoes, caramelized onions and two kinds of cheese – the Patata Rossa.  I had the MGH – Spinach, Broccoli and Feta – and since I like them – I added tomatoes!  YUM!

Another great – and unique thing about the pizza place – they hung pizza plates from the ceiling – too cool – and it you look closely in the corner – the shadow from the plate makes a heart… awwww

And the final image – Plymouth Harbor – very nice!

Hope you enjoyed our tour of Plymouth!

And photographers – we challenge you to find your local PPA and check out their convention – We will be hitting the Maine convention next year!

Yes, things have been a little slow on the blog, so we wanted to share with you some things that have been filling our time…

PINTEREST, yes Pinterest.

A 2012 Bride turned us onto Pinterest – she is trying to plan her wedding with bridesmaids who live ALLL over the country, so they have been pinning things to each other and planning the wedding that way, so of course we thought – we like weddings, we like planning, we like new hip things – HELLO PINTEREST!

So, hopefully we can start sharing things with you that we find on pinterest.

Be sure to follow us:

Ryan

Brandi

And without any further delay – this week’s pins!

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This first pin was recommended to me by a long time friend – who also shares our love for Words with Friends.

Now, seriously, where can I get some giant scrabble tiles?

Since I don’t want anyone to think we stole the above image – here is the original blog!

The second pin of the week – Red Velvet Whoopie Pies

Um, yes please.

The heart is for Valentine’s day, the Red Velvet is for Brandi, and the Whoopie Pie is for me.

Make some for your loved ones on Valentine’s day – the recipe is here.

And the third pin of the week:

Just cool – and our house never has a shortage of wine bottles.

And you can purchase these babies here!

Hope you like our new thing of the week!

Leave us some love and let us know what you are following on Pinterest!

And lets not forget the warm summer days filled with engagement sessions (my second favorite session – weddings would be the first )

So we wanted to jump on real quick and post a short little blog about our remaining availability this summer – yah know, for those of you who think it’s too late to get us for your wedding!!

We are looking forward to our 2012 couples, they are sure to bring us smiles, laughs and some beautiful images to share with you all.  Be sure to keep coming back to the blog this summer and check out what our couples have planned.

So, our summer is almost perfectly planned out – BUT there is a lot of room left for your wedding – so don’t hesitate to call or email us!  We would be happy to show you what we can do for you, and just hear all about what you have planned.

May – One Wedding Opening

June – One Wedding Opening

July – Two Wedding Openings (Actually we are open alllllll month!)

August – Happily Filled

September – Happily Filled

October – One Wedding Opening

November – March – Wide Open!

So yah, that’s it!

Can’t wait to start blogging some weddings soon!!!

I think the two things that are going through our heads are WOW, and thank you!

We just wrapped up our very first ever facebook/blog contest, and we thought we would get a good response, but we were blown out of the water!

Like the old school battleship game – blown out of the water!

Just to put this in perspective:

We had over 300 votes.

We had almost 100 new fans

Over 1,500 views on the blog during the contest

More visits to the fan page than I dare to count

See what I mean when I say blown away?

So – THANK YOU.  Thank you for playing, thank you for visiting, thank you for supporting us!

A million thank you’s

And like we mentioned at the beginning, there were going to be three winners – we already told you about how we won.

But we also gave away a great prize to one of our 2011 Couples Allen & Jessica

And last but not least, because we wouldn’t be anywhere without our fans – we gave away $50 to Amazon (because you can really get anything on Amazon) to one lucky voter!

It feels good to give something away.

So again – WOW, and THANK YOU!

We have been watching as all of our friends, photographers and photographer friends have been re-capping their year.  Now it is our turn.

We also wanted to take this re-cap to the next level and involve you, our blog readers, our facebook friends and fans, and new fans and friends who are yet to be discovered.  So we are running a contest.  This is the first contest that we have ever run.  Like ever!  We enter a lot of contests but never run them!  Now it’s our turn.

We are asking you – What was your favorite wedding of 2011?

There are going to be a couple prizes too!  A prize for our wonderful winning wedding of 2011, a prize for a lucky random voter, and a prize for us!

Here are the rules:

1. There will be a gallery posted on our Facebook Page, you can visit the gallery and LIKE one photo of your favorite wedding.  It doesn’t have to be your favorite photo of the couple because you are voting for the wedding.  Your vote won’t count unless you are a fan of our Facebook Page, so become a fan.  We would also encourage you to share the link to the gallery on your facebook page!  So you get one vote for your like.

2. You get one vote for your comment on your favorite wedding of the year – this is your comment on the picture of the couple of the favorite wedding you are voting on.  Again – you must be a fan for your vote to count!

3. Since we don’t want this to be a Facebook only contest, we are giving the non-facebookers out there a way to vote too – by your comment on the ORIGINAL wedding blog of the couple (you will find the links below).  Have no fear, we have tallied up the comments that are already on the blog, and those don’t count – so comment again!!

So everyone can have up to three votes in this contest!

What do you win you ask?

The winning couple will get an 8×10 framed image from their wedding of their choice.  This will be framed and matted as an 11×14 size!  These are BEAUTIFUL!!! We are liking them even more than the canvas prints that we have been buying for ourselves.

The random voter will win a $25 gift card to Amazon – cause Seriously, you can find anything on Amazon

And we win, many many many more facebook friends – so like us, and tell your friends to like us!  Help your favorite couple win!!

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Allen & Jessica

Follow the below links to refresh yourself on this great wedding – be sure to leave your comment on one of these links!!

Blog Post 1

Blog Post 2

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Matthew & Tara

Follow the below links to refresh yourself on this great wedding – be sure to leave your comment on one of these links!!

Blog Post 1

Blog Post 2

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Chris & Jennifer

Follow the below links to refresh yourself on this great wedding – be sure to leave your comment on the link!!

Blog Post

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Josh & Heather

Follow the below links to refresh yourself on this great wedding – be sure to leave your comment on one of these links!!

Blog Post 1

Blog Post 2

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Dane & Katie

Follow the below links to refresh yourself on this great wedding – be sure to leave your comment on one of these links!!

Blog Post 1

Blog Post 2

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Brad & Kristina

Follow the below links to refresh yourself on this great wedding – be sure to leave your comment on one of these links!!

Blog Post 1

Blog Post 2

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Jarred & Samantha

Follow the below links to refresh yourself on this great wedding – be sure to leave your comment on one of these links!!

Blog Post 1

Blog Post 2

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Jason & Alicia

Follow the below links to refresh yourself on this great wedding – be sure to leave your comment on one of these links!!

Blog Post 1

Blog Post 2

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Josh & Candice

Follow the below links to refresh yourself on this great wedding – be sure to leave your comment on one of these links!!

Blog Post 1

Blog Post 2

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Adam & Corinne

Follow the below links to refresh yourself on this great wedding – be sure to leave your comment on one of these links!!

Blog Post 1

Blog Post 2

So that’s it folks.  Those are our 10 couples of 2011

You know the ways to vote.  You get three votes – Liking the picture on facebook, commenting on the picture on Facebook, and commenting on the Blog.

Make those votes count.

Remember too – your votes on Facebook only count if you are a fan.  Be a Fan!

This contest will run until January 31st – which just happens to be the day Brandi & I got engaged!

Now that we have wrapped up an Awesome year, we are quickly preparing for the new year.

We are filling up fast for weddings in the summer.  Booking engagement sessions on free weekends in the Spring.  All indications point to a really fantastic year ahead.

With that being said, we also can’t forget where we came from, and all the great weddings that we had in 2011.

I have been preparing for this image below all year.  The 9 ties of 2o11, from our 9 handsome grooms.

If you know me well, you know I have a thing for ties.  The brighter the better for me, and I have a fondness for Striped, Polka dots and even a little argyle (go figure right?).  So of course I had to make sure I photographed the ties of our grooms.

Which one is your favorite?

Start thinking – leave us a comment and let us know which one is your favorite.

This family just happens to be my family too!!  Even better!

Gotta love Jack rockin’ it on the tree swing!

Emma was promised she could go visit the horse.  Best sentence ever!  That got a smile!

It’s always great to get together with family right before the holidays!!

]]> http://www.rjmoorephotography.com/2012/01/06/family-the-bishops-surry-maine/feed/ 0 http://www.rjmoorephotography.com/2012/01/04/family-kevin-jacquelyn-olivia-millinocket-maine/ http://www.rjmoorephotography.com/2012/01/04/family-kevin-jacquelyn-olivia-millinocket-maine/#comments Wed, 04 Jan 2012 12:00:56 +0000 ryan http://www.rjmoorephotography.com/?p=2842 I was thinking this was going to be a short post.  I mean the photo session wasn’t even 30 minutes.

But there are just so many great pictures – especially of Olivia and her cute little face!! I couldn’t resist.

I grew up with Jacquelyn.  She is the sister I never had.  So of course I couldn’t wait for another opportunity to photograph her beautiful daughter – who I of course consider my niece.

We start off slow.  Olivia wasn’t quite sure what was going on.

Still not really sure.

Yup – not quite warmed up to me yet.

Distracted…

We may be onto something here…

Wait… not sure again.

This may have been the point where I started throwing snowballs – not at her… yet.

Woosh!!!!!!!

Ok, and now we are throwing them BACK at ME!

She hit me quite a few times too!

LOVE

THAT

FACE!!!!!

OOOOOO I could just eat it up!!! But I won’t, cause that would be weird.