Trystan Photography: An Intimate Portrait.

Kim Harms is a rock. She might just be the most patient and resilient person in the world. She has demonstrated her ability to wait and soothe newborn babies to sweet slumber to she can get those amazing sleeping baby portraits of hers.

Now she has shown she has more willpower in her little finger than most of us have in our whole body by releasing her showcase of birth documentary photos. Kim’s birth photojournalism might just be the most amazing, moving, and priceless photography in the world. Why? a) It’s a once in a lifetime event. b) It’s wrought with emotion and drama, c) her work is extraordinary. Her entire life in on hold in the weeks around the due date (because all parents know that them babies don’t always cooperate on schedule!), and once she gets that call, she is there at the hospital until that baby is out!

But, for once, I’m not gonna talk anymore about it, because her slide-shows are stunning. I will let them speak for themselves. You can view her showcase here.

Please share this with everyone you know who is pregnant, even if it’s just to share the emotion of it!

What in the world are “The Trystan Way” and “The Petite”?

It’s a revolutionary way to think about fine art photography. They are two portrait programs optimized for the two most pressing demands we’ve seen from our wonderful clientele over the last 6 years:

a) “The Trystan Way” is a guided, hands-on approach to the creation of custom artwork for your home and office.

b)”The Petite” is a fast, affordable, and easy way to get portraits to share online and access to the most popular sizes of standard prints for friends and family.

“The Trystan Way” is a premium service, entirely based around custom quotes for the commissioning of completely unique display art  in the home or office. “The Trysan Way” is the pinnacle of fine art photography. We’ll help you from start to finish, from planning to installing the final piece on the wall.

In this age of digital photography, many aspects of the art and power of photography are becoming lost to more imminent needs such as ease of sharing and access to the digital files. While we will not deny that it is a wonderful thing to share these amazing moments and photos with family and friends all over the world, we feel it is imperative that our clientele still have an option to take advantage of one of the most rewarding and satisfying experiences of fine art photography: the creation of custom art that surpasses mere portraiture and becomes a priceless heirloom for generations to come!

While this service does mean you’ll need to make a more meaningful investment than “The Petite”, it provides each client with expert guided care along every step of the process of creating stunning artwork for the home.

No concept is too aggressive. Dream big and beautiful and become part of “The Trystan Way”. Please visit our pricing page or call us at 719.359.5520 for more details on the “Trystan Way”.

“The Petite” is the best of both worlds: the finest photography, but in a more compact and timely form.” The Petite” is perfect for those who know they won’t want wall portraits, and are interested in standard sizes (from wallets to 8×10′s) or digital files. It includes a Mini-session, online proofing and ordering for two weeks. It’s fast, easy, and (other than the session), done completely from the comfort of your own home!

 

 

Amber and Pete are a blast. We are so blessed to have only clients that like to laugh, have fun, and truly love each other. It makes photography so much fun and easy. It may have been a little chilly that day, but they made it HOT and fun.

You’ll see Amber and Pete’s wedding photos later this year after we shoot their wedding at The Cheyenne Lodge at the Broadmoor.

Please click the photo or follow the link to view our favorite photos from Sarah and Jon’s wedding at The Red Rocks Visitors Center.

Wind. Colorado is widely known for it’s picturesque vistas, perfect wilderness and mountain areas, blue-bird skies, and awe inspiring rock formations. A lesser known trait of Colorado, and one which has been on full display this year is: Colorado can be a very windy place. Most years there are a few notable wind storms, but Spring 2010 was the season of gale force winds. I hate them. They ruin hairstyles and blow hair into eyes. They blow dresses around in the most unflattering manner. They ruin equipment.

I’m not kidding about the equipment thing. This wedding will be forever remembered The Great Photography Equipment Destruction Day. The primary victims were our wireless lighting flashes that we use for our more dramatic shots. Even with sandbags, and wedding guests helping to hold the light stands, the hurricane force wind gusts STILL knocked the stands down. One almost nailed a flower girl (but missed, thank God) and I caught another with my head. Another collateral loss was our Manfrotto tri-pod. In the middle of all of this hustle and bustle we left it behind while shooting in the amphitheater, and 10 minutes later, it was gone (it’s a $400 tri-pod and head, so I’m sure it was a great prize for that piece of #$&* who stole it).

But here’s the amazing part of all of this: Sarah, the Unsinkable Bride. Gale-force freezing winds, blowing flowers, whipping dresses, uncomfortable guests, and hundreds of milling visitors constantly in the shot should have been enough to bum her out a little. I mean, she had every right to feel bad: over a year of planning, and your dream day is just this side of pure chaos because of the weather.

You know what? Not Sarah. She had the best attitude. When the wind howled, she’d laugh. When equipment crashed to the ground, she’d sigh and smile again. When we’d stop and have to ask people to “move along” she just smile and shrug. If you were to gauge what kind of day it was based on her photos, it was clearly the perfect day for a wedding. And that, my friends, is the indomitable power of positive attitude. Sarah and Jon turned what should have been chaotic, frustrating day into a joyous, loving, and perfect day, all with their amazing vibes and attitude.

Oh, and another thing: Sarah and Jon’s ceremony had the coolest little symbolic ceremony in it that I’ve ever seen. Instead of communion, or a unity candle, or a wine ceremony, they each drank and tasted different items as the officiant read about the stages of marriage and it’s symbolism: in the beginning everything is sweet like sugar, then it gets hot like pepper, then things can get a little sour like lemon, then things can get absolutely spoiled like vinegar, but then after you work through it all and learn to really love, share, and compromise, then it’s truly good and wholesome, like honey. And they ate and drank these things, experiencing together a little hint of what was to come. I love it when I see new couples treating marriage like it really is: the best, hardest, most up and down, loving, sad, inspiring and meaningful thing they will ever do in their lives. Couples that seem like they think everything is going to be singing birds and sunshine scare the crap out of me. If that’s what they really think marriage is, not only are they doomed, but they are missing the WHOLE POINT! Couples  like Sarah and Jon keep it real, and I know they will make it because they see marriage for the challenge and reward that is really is! And if they can handle the gale-force winds of their wedding day with such composure and joy, then they are going to be great with the trials of life…

Thank you so much, Sarah and Jon for sharing your incredible day with us. You two are inspiring and we had a blast photographing it!

This is heartbreaking. As of the time I’m writing this, Char and I were supposed to be at The Briarhurst shooting Schary and Greg’s wedding. But unfortunately Schary is very very sick and she is spending her wedding day in the hospital.

Can you imagine? All this planning and preparation, and instead of exchanging vows your exchanging fluids via IV.

We’ve heard it was her gall bladder bursting, but we still haven’t heard anything as of this morning, so it might be more serious than initially thought.

Please keep Schary and Greg in your prayers. We hope she’s okay!

January 2010. You’d think a winter wedding in Colorado would be pretty darn cold…

Nope. Sunny, upper 50′s, and quite lovely actually. Katrina and Peter had the perfect day for a small intimate wedding at the Chief Hosa Lodge and Red Rocks.

We have joked with some of our Spring-time weddings (which have been bitter-cold and windy at times) that if they wanted nice weather for a wedding, they should have booked mid-winter.

What a crazy state Colorado is. Never the same and unpredictable, but always stunning to shoot photographs in.

I have no good excuses other than this year has been “busy-nuts”: I am a terrible blogger.

Case in point: here’s an awesome engagement session from… this winter. Jeez. That’s sad. Nothin’ like blogging about a session 4 months later!

Anyway, Lisa and Chris are getting married at The Pinery in September, and they were awesome to photograph. After a little nerves, they instantly got “hot” and were loving and fun from then on.

You two were perfect, and your photos capture two people, completely in love with each other. Thank you for making it easy to shoot, and for waiting this long to get your spotlight on the blog!

My God in Heaven, after nearly a month of arguing with Vonage’s (SUCKS) completely inept customer service reps… TRYSTAN PHOTOGRAPHY HAS 719.359.5520 AS A PHONE NUMBER AGAIN!!!

Nearly a month ago, our main business phone number of 6 years was “slammed”. That’s when somebody fraudulently poses as you, and steals your number. To what end I don’t know. Initially, our number just went dead, but then it started ringing to a family here in Colorado Springs!! They started receiving our business calls!!! And the best part, Vonage says it has no idea where the number is, but then it turns out the family getting the calls are new Vonage (SUCKS) customers! And for a month, that’s the story. A Vonage customer is receiving calls from our number, and yet Vonage says it has no idea where the number is. It’s been a nightmare.

I can’t believe how hard this was to fight the number slamming. Whoever faked our identity and put in the fraudulent transfer really put the screws to us last month. The phone line going dead really worried some of our wedding clients, obviously. How many potential business calls did we miss for portraits? My cell phone was ringing off the hook last month, but how many people didn’t find that number and just stopped trying?!?

I have to tip my hat to Verizon, though. Even though they were the company to which the number was slammed, they worked their butts off to track this down and find the fraudulent order and get the number back to Vonage (SUCKS). The rep from Verizon actually got into an argument with the rep from Vonage (SUCKS) because the Vonage (SUCKS) rep kept insisting that because the transfer was “authorized” Vonage (SUCKS) could do no more. The Verizon rep kept insisting that because the original owner was on the phone saying that the transfer was fraudulent, that Vonage (SUCKS) should file a fraud claim and take the number back! “Nothing we can do: it was a “legitimate” transfer…”

“I am telling you it is fraud. It’s me!! I’m telling you this, THE OWNER OF THE NUMBER!!”

“Yeah, but the transfer was legitimate” Dear God, I might have reached through the phone and done horrible things at that point…

1 month Vonage (SUCKS)!!!! 1 month you’ve left me, my business, and my family hanging. The entire “single contact” department at Verizon was working on this at one point with conference calls and constant contact with me. My “Executive Response Team” member at Vonage (SUCKS) won’t even return my phone calls for the last two days.

Did I mention they charged me a $90 cancellation fee and a $50 activation fee because I “transferred” the number out and then brought it “back in”? What a bunch of incompetent fools.