Trystan Photography: An Intimate Portrait.

This is the worst time of year to be a photographer…

Is business slow? No, business is great.

Are the kids getting cabin fever? Nope kids are great.

This is the worst time of year because it seems like every other photographer on the planet is at one special, magical wonderland: Las Vegas. It’s WPPI Vegas time, and I (the avid blog reader I am) cannot help but to feel a deep seeded jealousy of all of my fellow shooters who, ( it may be due to the fact they are actually slow right now, or that they are not trying to do all this business stuff and raise two kids at the same time ( that’s right, I wear my daddyhood like a merit badge)), manage to be having the time of their lives in Las Vegas.

Regardless why my colleagues are there and I am here, the sad fact is that Char and I have never been to this Mecca of photography events. And we’re the kind of people who would use any excuse to go to Vegas (destination wedding, anyone?).

I am making a promise to myself today: next year this time, Charlotte and I will be at WPPI Vegas 2009! You mark my words, we will be there. The kids will be old enough that we can be apart for a while (that’s mostly for our sakes, I think), and we are purposefull making attempts to scale back our bookings for both weddings and portraits so that we actually have some time off next winter. (Yeah, right.)

So to all of you carefree photogs soaking up all that wonderful oxygen-rich casino air and who might end up reading this: somebody bet “The Hammer” at roulette, and somebody think of us when you’re seeing that great new wedding product as it’s being unveiled to the public for the first time.

And look for me there next year: no, not at some seminar, but at the Paris buffet. Mmmmmmmmm…. all-you-can-eat king crab legs. Ahhhhhhhh.

I just recently spent an hour or so taking a few pictures of our own kids. I never expect much from these photo shoots. Ages 2 and 1 are probably the most difficult ages to photograph, especially when they’re your own children. They did a pretty good job and we got to have some fun playing in our jungle of a backyard too (note: If there are any landscapers out there that have any photography needs, we should talk!). They both look so grown up in these pictures. Ella’s really turning into a little ham and Trystan has the best hair to style! There are quite a few in the slide-show, I just couldn’t help myself.

It’s that time, juniors. The ‘08 seniors are about gone and you’re getting ready to reign. ( Just take it easy on the incoming freshmen next year, okay?).

So how early is too early to book your senior portrait sitting? Answer: It’s never too early, especially when we’re offering such a sweet deal:

Book your senior portrait session anytime between March 15th and April 15th 2008 (book it for whenever, next week or in August, it doesn’t matter) and you’ll recieve 48 free wallets.

But wait… it gets better.

Refer a friend (who books) and you’ll get a free 16×20 canvas board print (and all of our wall prints include digital retouching)!

Refer 2 friends (who book) and you’ll get our “Digital Age Special” (5 retouched full-resolution digital files, a $400 value) for free.

So, basically, refer enough friends and you’ll get everything you need, for free!

Follow this link for details on all of our sitting fees, portrait print products and packages.

You’ve just had a baby.

Oh, sorry… I meant:

You’ve just had a baby! Yay!

(Sorry about that, that must have been “Freudian-typing”. I was just thinking about how tired I was when Ella and Trystan were first born and it looks like the memory of the extreme fatigue leaked through into my first sentence there. I’m usually much more upbeat than that.)

So, now that you have that unbelievably precious bundle of spit-up snuggled so tight in your arms, are you even remotely aware of just how fast this stage of life is going to be over? No, for real, that baby is going to be a terror, (sorry, I meant toddler) before you know it and all you’ll have left of this heavenly time, before they could walk around and put foreign objects in their mouths (that you didn’t even know you owned), is… your memories of it.

The photos Char and I took of our own kids are so precious to us because a child’s infancy really does go by so much faster than you ever could imagine…

So let us help you preserve the memory of your sweet little one in their first year of life with our outstanding newborn / baby portrait package: “The First Year”.

Here’s what comes with it:

4 indooor portrait sessions (3, 6, 9, and 12 months)

1 20×24 One Year Collage of photos from the entire year!

And the whole package is only $150!

Please call 303-872-4678 (Denver) or (719)359-5520 (Springs) and reserve your package today, and make sure to check out our other portrait products and packages.

Sometimes you get a day that’s perfect.

Sometimes the weather is warm but not hot (you do not want to see me sweat).

Sometimes the Colorado skies are extraordinarily beautiful.

Sometimes you can feel just how much your clients are really in love.

These were just a few of the things that made Nadja and Joe’s Mystic Meadows wedding really special for us.

Such a beautiful little family!  Gracie is 6 months old and by far my favorite age to shoot. I truely love shooting all children, but 6 month olds make my job just a tad easier. Most can’t walk or even crawl at this age. They usually can’t talk and they definantly can’t say (what my 2 year old says so well right now), “NO”.  But the best thing of all is that they’re usually full of precious little smiles and lots of funny facial expressions. The Amendt’s were such a joy to photograph and I can’t wait to take some outdoor photos of them this summer.

This last New Year’s Eve was really one for the books.

Suzanne and Patrick are a very exciting, energetic and eclectic couple who’s wedding had a clear penchant for… non-conformity, shall we say?

It was an outdoor ceremony. In December. At night. And candle-lit. Oh, and did I mention it was possibly -7 below zero?

In all honesty, the ceremony really was beautiful, and the amazing thing to us was how many friends and family from Denver (at least 100 or more) braved the weather (I-70 was shut-down that day) to arrive at this tiny little night-time wedding at the Salida Golf Course. I don’t have many friends like that: it’s sad but, it’s true, and it speaks volumes as to the kind of people Suzanne and Pat are.

The cermony was short and sweet, but I was shocked at how hard it is to move around and get shots when it’s that cold out. We were all standing in snow, and when it’s that cold the snow squeals and squeaks almost like Styrofoam. The couple would be in the middle of the vows and I would try and move and… not good. So Char and I apologize to any wedding guests who couldn’t hear anything because of my awkward-self making all that unavoidable noise. Maybe it really wasn’t  loud at all, but to me it sounded like it was amplified!

On top of that, the liquid crystal displays on our camera’s didn’t seem to like the cold. Everything ghosted a bit on the back of the camera, but amazingly the image sensors functioned normally (I think the Nikon sensors are designed to withstand up to -30 or something absurd like that). And we had those hot-pack hand warmers in our pockets that we would periodically press against the cameras, so they were just fine.

Then came the dance. Suzanne and  Patrick didn’t want to do just any dance, so they did a live interpretation of what seemed straight out of the opening puppet show from “Being John Malkovich”. It was hilarious,  and all of the guests were floored with laughter. It was satirical ballet at its best, but in the midst of it all we still managed to get some really sweet shots of the couple, too.

Overall, it was the biggest small wedding we’ve seen, the most challenging, and the most fun.

Congratulations Suzanne and Patrick!

We shoot so many weddings at the Air Force Academy Chapel, it’s nearly impossible each year to select only one to show as our sample from that venue. But for ‘08 we finally narrowed it down to Celine and Steve’s wedding. Overall it was a dream wedding: nobody was late, the ceremony didn’t run long (which can be a really big deal at the chapel because you only get two hours, period, and once your time is up you’re out of there!), etc.

The chapel can be very colorful and bright if you know how to photograph it. I don’t understand why some photographers (and maybe their clients) prefer the aluminum interior to look so stark, cold and gray (kind of like the Death Star), when the chapel never looks that way in real life. Even on cloudy days, we can still capture the celebratory colors streaming down from the long stained glass windows. I very much prefer it that way. A wedding is happy celebration (hopefully), and to me color says ,”Celebrate”! (You should imagine me throwing my arms flamboyantly in the air and shouting like Rip Taylor.)

We also got a break in the fact that once our time was up in the chapel, the sun was setting outside for our couple shots, and nothing looks better for the shots we call the “romantics” than makin’ out in the beautiful Colorado sunset!

They continued on to the Academy’s Officer’s Club for their reception, where they had some very emotional and fun dances. I don’t know if I’m just a huge sucker for dances, but I seem to love almost every dance I photograph. It’s such a personal moment between two people, and you can capture some amazing shots during a couple’s dance, or the dances with the mom or dad. I love when we get to the dances. The sad thing is Char and I almost never dance ourselves due to the 2 year old and 1 year old that are usually right under-foot, or literally hanging off of us during our days.

It’s finally here: our Denver photography studio is actually here! We are so proud to announce that Trystan Photography will finally be opening a brick and mortar studio in downtown Denver, CO!

We’ll finally be able to stop meeting in Starbucks with our Denver clientèle. And we’ll finally be able to accommodate all those prospective portrait clients who’ve called hoping we had a space in Denver and they didn’t have to come all the way to Colorado Springs.

Our new studio is sooo posh and cool. It’s part of a cooperative of artists’ studios that collectively are called the Raven’s Nest Galleries. The building is an old freight train depot that has been reborn into this gorgeous high-end, fine art space. The atmosphere of this building is to die for. I got a little overwhelmed by it, because just moments after stepping inside it made me want to dress all in black and refer to myself only in the third person!

We’re not ready for business just yet (we still need to go drape shopping!), but we’ll be announcing our grand opening about mid-March, so please stay tuned for the very latest.

Erica and Renzo had a lovely wedding at Sunrise Methodist Church with a reception at the Air Force Academy Officer’s Club. It was a cold day but not uncomfortable and Sunrise Church has such a lovely modern sanctuary, I thought it really photographed well.

At the reception, their emcee extraordinaire Randy Rodriguez performed wonderful renditions of Frank and Tony (Sinatra and Bennett for those of you who don’t know who Frank and Tony are) for the lovely couple and their guests while they dined. If you like a classy throwback to the good old days of ol’ blue eyes, then Randy is a sure thing for your wedding. He not only croons with the best of them, but he’s a true pro when it comes to coordinating the party, and he does have a man on the turntables for when the party really kicks up!

My favorite part of the evening came when the dances began. The couple had a sweet dance. It seemed as if no one else was around and they were completely lost in each other.

But then Erica’s parents hit the floor. Holy Moley! They could dance! That got the party going, everyone was cheering, even I was cheering (wishing I could dance like that with Charlotte).