Category: ChristineTremoulet.com

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ChristineTremoulet.com Wedding Photographer

Seal of Approval!

WPJA

On Thursday, I received the email I’ve been waiting for – the exciting invitation to be a member of the WPJA – Wedding Photojournalists Association! Oh goodness, ever since I discovered the WPJA last year, I have wanted to be a member. So when I got the news – I was so excited! I think I have told every single person I have talked to since then! What an honor, I can’t even put it into words.

Today I’m already at the hotel where I will be photographing Andi & Jason’s wedding — I covered the rehearsal dinner last night, and Mike suggested that I just stay here since I could get a room at the block rate and it would save me from driving home at 10:30 and leaving 12 hours later to start shooting again. It is going to be a long day – the ceremony will be at 7:30pm, and dinner will be served at 10pm, with the reception scheduled to end around 1:30am in the morning! Tons of celebrating, dancing, and rejoicing by all – it is going to be a blast! Elaine will be with me of course, and we’re being joined by my friend Jennifer Wilson who is coming in from New Braunfels to shoot with us. Tonight we’ll be crashing at the hotel all over again so we don’t have to drive home. So worth it to avoid the drive time!

Wheee! It is going to be a long day, with coverage starting late this morning – but I’m so excited about it all!

Another From the Seats

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ChristineTremoulet.com Picture Time

Liz & Dave – And a Challenge!

Love to Last a Lifetime

I’ve just blogged about the photos from Liz & Dave’s Texas A&M Engagement Session, and I just had to post about them here too. I love them so much. Plus Liz is a knitter! Whoo hoo! I love knitters. Knitters are the BEST. So go check out their photos, and feel free to leave comments and let me know what you think!

I can’t WAIT for their wedding at the end of March!

Now, on to the CHALLENGE!!! I am trying to be a good blogger and make a point of posting to the wedding photography blog much more frequently. I need you guys to keep an eye on me. My goal is to post 3 times per week – defined as 12:00am on Sunday through 11:59pm on the following Saturday – for the entire month. What I post is up to me, of course, but my goal is to make them pretty photo heavy as usual.

Where do you come in? Well, if you catch me not posting, and you are within a 2 hour drive of my house in Houston (so that includes Austin, Galveston, College Station, and a lot of other places too!) and you’re the first to point out in the comments on my last post on the ChristineTremoulet.com site that I’ve missed a post — you win a FREE PHOTO SHOOT! Valued at $250, my 1-2 hour lifestyle sessions are done on location – so I come to you. You can use it for an engagement session, a bridal session, a Fearless Bridal (aka Trash the Dress) session, a newborn session, a family session, a senior session … really, anything at all! The only stipulations are that you have to be close enough for me to drive to get to you – I can’t afford to fly across the country to do it – and I have to do the shoot in April or May when I’m not booked unless we make other arrangements.

So keep an eye on my throughout the month of March, and you could win a FREE session!

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ChristineTremoulet.com Wedding Photographer

What An Honor!

I received an email today letting me know that I had received a huge honor — I’ve been accepted to be a member of Photographik! My wedding site will be listed there soon. I’m so excited about this, I can’t even explain it! Maybe sharing some of the information from the site will help to put into words what I can’t seem to express.

We are determined to become THE place to find talented, truly elite photographers providing wedding and portrait photography services to clients in the United States and all over the world. We screen every member’s online portfolio and admit only those photographers who possess a high level of artistic and technical aptitude. By offering the consumer a pre-screened directory of photographers sortable by region and area of expertise, we hope to expose the consumer to top notch photographers in their region as well as highlight the differences between cookie cut photography corporations and independent contractors whose work, we feel, is far more artistic and beautiful.

Just go and read a little bit about their criteria for who they list on the site, and you will see even more about why it is such an honor to me. This isn’t your usual site where just anyone can sign up – I actually requested consideration several weeks ago, and only after they reviewed my work for the following, was I accepted:

  • Technical proficiency
  • Creativity, Originality, Emotion, Art
  • Online Presentation

I’m just so excited, I had to share right away with everyone! My listing will be live there in the next day or two. Thank you again to everyone for your support and encouragement — especially to the fantastic couples and their families & friends that I’ve had the opportunity to work with! I wouldn’t be doing what I absolutely love without all of you!

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ChristineTremoulet.com Picture Time

Because I Always Want to Know What You Think…

I’ve been having a big debate with myself for a few weeks. I’ve asked Mike’s opinion, and he raised the same concerns I had myself, but now I need to come to you guys.

Over there at Christine Tremoulet Photography, when you go to the root of the site (the main index page), you get a splash page. Personally, I freakin’ HATE splash pages. But it is there so that the search engines have something to read, since they can’t read Flash. Then you go into the portfolio if you choose the icon on the left, and you wait for the Flash to load and you get to see pretty pictures with music playing. This portion of the site is all good – it needs a photo update this week, but it is good and isn’t going away. Or you can choose the blog, the center icon. Going to the blog, you get to see all the latest and greatest photos, plus various posts and so forth. Good, good.

But I hate the splash page. And Google really likes blogs. So I’m considering moving the blog to the root of the site. If you were a first time visitor, you would go to the URL and see the blog right away. There would be a lovely option to get to the portfolio, which would then take you to the Flash portion of the site that currently exists. But you would get to see the latest and greatest photos right away when you first hit the site.

People don’t like extra clicks. I am well aware of this.

However, I am concerned that if you go right to the blog, it won’t look professional. (Not that the page with all that text at the bottom looks professional – if I don’t put the blog at the root, I am redesigning that splash page.) If you were (are) a bride or groom looking for a wedding photographer and you landed right in the blog – with a user-friendly interface and an option to get to the portfolio, the contact form, pricing – would you think it was an unprofessional site? Or would you be thrilled that a photographer wasn’t giving you a splash page for a change? Since the splash page – thanks to the Flash based websites – is really the industry norm it seems.

What would you think?

UPDATE: I should have included a link earlier to Holritz Photography – I’ve been considering doing this to my own site since October while talking with other photographers at the ShootQ training in Austin, so I was amused when Amber & Nathan launched their new site in November. Their layout is different than what I have in mind, but it basically is set up the same way.

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ChristineTremoulet.com Picture Time

Destination Newborn Session…

Reading His First Book

Back on October 15th, Gannon was born to Cari & Chris up in New York City. Chris is one of Mike’s best friends from high school and was one of the groomsmen in our wedding. When I went to NYC back in May, I had breakfast with them the morning that I was there, and Cari made the comment that she wished I lived in the city so that I could photograph their baby when it was born, she already went and find the babyzoom.net’s pick for traveling double stroller so she could take the baby to walks. I pointed out that a plane ticket to New York is cheaper than what most photographers there charge, and that if they would pay for it I would fly up and take his photos.

I spent the better part of a day with them – Gannon was fussy and had been having a hard time eating, so we took our time with him. (Plus it was great to have a chance to visit with Cari & Chris!) I love, love, love so many of the photos we got from the day! I’ve posted most of them on the photography blog, but had to post some here too.

The above photo is of Chris reading their first of countless books together. His brother, Scott, had sent over this super cool custom book all about Gannon’s name. I had been up on the rooftop getting skyline photos, and when I came back to the apartment I discovered this beautiful moment taking place – I’m so glad I was able to capture it!

Below are some of my other favorites from the day.

Mother's Love

Power to the Babies

Wee Buns!

(We’re saving that one for sharing with his first girlfriend!)

You can view his whole set over on Flickr. Interested in hiring me to take your child’s newborn photos? I would love to talk! More details at the Newborn photography site.