Caragh and Drew's Wedding

Caragh and Drew had the perfect day for a wedding. They were married in St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, which is just so awesome!

The bride and groom were so easy to work with as we started with some more formal shots. The soft colored flowers in Caragh’s bouquet, designed by Jay at Ensign Florist, were so perfect for her.

The reception was held at the Sheraton Read House, with The Walt Meyer Trio playing through the evening. We love the elegance of this historic venue. Caragh and Drew shared a champagne toast before cutting their beautiful and delicious cakes, made by Dan of Cakemakers.

Friends from far and near escorted them out through a cascade of bubbles.

Our best wishes go out to this wonderful couple as they begin their new life together!

Frank and Laura

Laura's family was my second or third portrait session when I opened Contemporary Portraits almost twenty-three years ago. I have photographed her many times since then and also coached her in soccer several years. What a beautiful (and sweet) young woman she became!

We photographed her portrait at her mother's home. The spring colors are unmistakable and her gown almost glowed in the soft, evening light.














She met Frank through friends at her church and they seem perfect for each other. I love their laughter when they're together...











I know nearly everyone from Signal Mountain was at their wedding. With both families from the mountain, I don't think they left out anyone!


















The escape... This look after the ceremony says it all!















Best wishes to two of our favorites...

A charmed life!

Maria and Marc's wedding was undoubtedly charmed! On the day and night before their wedding the weather was terrible with much wind, rain, and lightning. But their wedding day dawned pretty and got better and better. By the afternoon ceremony time the sky was blue and there was a gentle, cool breeze. There could not have been a more beautiful spring day for a wedding.










Becky and Rick went to great lengths to make sure their garden setting for Maria's wedding was spectacular. The ceremony on the steps to their gazebo, overlooking Lookout Valley with the sun beginning to set was picture perfect. Even Maria's dog Lilly was dressed and on her best behavior for the ceremony.

















Under the tents or under the stars, this is a wedding to remember. I thank them for including me in their wedding celebration and wish them well in their new life together.

Julie's Little Actors and Actresses

Julie's kids were ready and willing to be our great little actors and actresses. They loved pretending! ...and didn't even mind that we had to have "Take 1" and Take 2" and "Take 3", etc. Getting authentic interaction among kids is always difficult, because we, as parents, teach them from day one that you "look at the camera and SMILE!" Eventually they forgot about us and just became themselves.



What a very natural and contemporary family the are!

Helen's Newest

This is Maggie, all dressed up in her blue Strasburg Bishop dress. How beautiful, and smart. (I always know when I have a smart one in front of my camera, because they get bored with my "photographer's tricks" very quickly.) She was a joy!

I photographed Helen's first grandchild, Alexa, almost twenty years ago on Independence Day morning. She's all grown up now, but Helen's kids just keep having babies.




































This style below is new to Contemporary Portraits! I actually sketch the portraits using my computer! How fantastic is this! We will be offering the sketches mounted with wide matting and museum framed. The final presentation is incredible. And of course since we start with a beautiful photographic portrait, the likeness is perfect!

Mary Sue has a baby brother!

Dad, Jed, was looking to match a photograph of Alderson to one of Mary Sue. Alderson looks very much like her at seven months.

Boy, did we get it right. [Note: I'll be reminding them to write names on the backs of the photographs, so when they're OLD, they really will know which baby is in the photograph.]




















Mary Sue won my "Best Girl of the Day" award... and my heart. She was so helpful with Alderson that it made our job easy. She definitely earned more treats than anyone! I found out though, that she's not a chocolate fan, rather preferring her Skittles and Sweet Tarts.



















I even convinced Coughlin to get into a couple of the photographs. Alderson smiled (laughed!) bigger for her than he had all day.

Hayden and Harrison

So our garden survived the severe, damaging, late freeze in April 2007! It has come back beautifully this year and the hostas, jonquils, and dogwoods are more beautiful than ever.



















Hayden and Harrison were our first two to be photographed this spring in our garden. They are too pretty to be boys. Their eyes, from mom AND dad are hard to look away from. I'm jealous!


























They were very distractable, busy, and ultimately fantastic in front of my camera. Hayden's confidence and inquisitiveness kept me on my toes... he's surely going to be an engineer. What a great, big brother! And sweet, hesitant, tentative Harry just melted our hearts.

Sam asked Angie to marry him... and she accepted!

Sam and Angie are getting married!

He managed to tease her to come The Three Sisters Vineyards in Dahlonega without too much suspicion. Then while enjoying the breathtaking views of row after row of grapes from the gazebo overlooking the vineyard, he proposed over a glass of wine... and she accepted! How beautiful!









They are getting married in June in Chattanooga.























They are a joy to be with and very much in love. We can't wait for their wedding day.

Signal Mountain Junior Miss Program

Preparations for the Signal Mountain Junior Miss Program are underway! The girls are working hard to claim the scholarships.

This is not to say they are not having fun! They stopped their fitness routine rehearsals to mug for my camera. What fun... and what a great group of girls. They are all winners!

Tennessee Professional Photographers Spring Seminars

We've just returned from the annual TPPA Spring Seminars at Montgomery Bell State Park just west of Nashville.

We had an opportunity to study with several well known photographers from around the United States. A few stand out: Richard Ramsey, Elizabeth Homan, and Ross Benton. Richard is from the Memphis area and Liz and Ross are from Texas.

We especially were taken with Richard's presentation on turning photographs into pencil sketches and paintings. Wow! We've known about these techniques for years, but Richard has inspired us to learn them and make these beautiful images available to our clients, as well as traditional photographic portraits.

Look for them in the future (I'd say near future, but we have a steep learning curve that is going to take some time for us to climb).

We also enjoy the camaraderie we get with our fellow professionals. It is a chance for us to catch up with them personally, as well as to find out what's hot photographically in other areas. We always love the chance to learn and get better.





Pictured are (L-R): Josh Gilreath, Gary Moor, David Wright, Jeannie and Greg. All are from Chattanooga, except David, who is from Franklin.



















Charlie Garvey (Knoxville) congratulates Greg for winning a new T-shirt. Greg is excited!

We photographed Lizzie and Hugh this morning.

I'm usually hesitant to say "This is going to be a great session" and I'm usually pleasantly surprised how a very young big sister (or brother) can rise to the occasion and help with the new baby in the family.

Lizzie really was marvelous and became my best buddy during the session (at least as long as I had my trusty container of bubbles). She really has grown up a lot since I last photographed her as a baby!


Hugh, who was generally just happy with the world, as most boys are, made the whole session a pleasure. He was content to let us do just about anything.

...until he decided he was hungry! I laugh with young moms often about feeding time during sessions. It is my observation that they will be more ravenous and demand more food than they ever do otherwise. I tell moms to be sure they are prepared! I often hear, "They never eat this much!" They do! ...and then they will take the best nap ever!



...and did I say what a beautiful little girl Lizzie has become?

John Henry's First portraits

What a lousy, foggy day to have first photographs! It was as thick as soup an Signal Mountain this morning!




John Henry has a lot of energy and will need it to keep up with big sister, Julia. From all appearances, he's up to it. I don't think he ever stopped wiggling and smiling, except to take a snack break. I think he's going to keep mom and dad very busy.














I photographed John and Molly's wedding NINE years ago! When she told me it had been that long, I'm sure my look said disbelief. (I'm just sure I'm not that old! Ha!)



















I also don't think we could have gotten these without Molly's mom helping. I'm always amazed how these young moms keep everything together. There are lots of opportunities for "loose ends". Thanks, Susie, for helping Molly and me!!

"Engineered" Family

Linda and Cliff are both Electrical Engineers.









...and they've engineered a beautiful (and marvelously well behaved!) family. All of the kids (Alec, Ian, Evan, Linden, and Aiden) are very bright and a joy to work with.






Master Aiden has crowned the Parten cake! What a sweetie (and trooper) he is! Through all of the family photography, he loved on mom and dad, brothers and sister, and us. We just knew he'd fall apart and not have anything left for his first portraits, but he rose to the occasion. He loved being the center of attention... not that four brothers and a sister don't always love on him.































We think he had a blast. It shows!

Signal Mountain Junior Miss

Click photograph for more detail!

It is time for the second annual Signal Mountain Junior Miss Scholarship Program, an official preliminary to the Tennessee and America’s Junior Miss Scholarship Programs.

This year eight talented high school juniors from Signal Mountain will compete for the 2009 Signal Mountain’s Junior Miss Title and thousands of cash scholarship dollars.

Signal Mountain Junior Miss Week will be April 13 through April 19. The Junior Miss Program has a constructive goal, the bringing together of community organizations and individuals in mutual effort to the welfare of Signal Mountain’s young women.

The event will be at the Bachman Community Center Saturday April 19, at 7:30 PM. Tickets are ten dollars and include a program book.

The contestants will compete in scholastics, interview, talent, physical fitness, and self-expression.

We are the official photographers for the program. We look forward to getting to know all of these talented young ladies over the next few weeks.

Yes, It's been a while!

We've been hibernating! Not really. We've just completed a redo of our workstation computers. It was very trying!

Having built all of our computers for the last ten years, I jumped in to build us two identical great new computers. ...and that's where plans took a side turn!

I've never had any trouble with selecting, ordering, and building before.
























As you can see from this picture, I'm in the middle of some major surgery here... usually I put the components INSIDE the case. The RAM turned out to have memory errors (sorta like me!) but throuh a lot of trial, error, help from tech support and cursing, we eventually isolated the problems and finally have our computers.

[If you're a techie: They are Intel Core Duo quads running at 2.4 GhZ with four GB of this very fast RAM. Wow!] They should speed up our day to day picture editing and designing of wedding albums. Our old computers were about five years old and we were worried about their reliability, also.

We're back in the picture business!

Michelle and Chris

Michelle and Chris were married at the historic Read House in Chattanooga last Saturday, December 29th.

Their "Snowflakes" theme was perfect for a Christmas wedding. All enjoyed the excellent food, drink, and the fantastic cakes.

They are off to Florida, where they will honeymoon and Chris can continue his racing with the SCCA before returning home to North Carolina.
















Their first dance started slowly, as all first dances do, and then exploded into a sumptuous Latin and Ballroom feast!

...And they ended with this fabulous dip and kiss.

It was a treat for all!

Caroline's first Christmas

We first met Caroline's mom, Sherri, at the Chattanooga Premiere Bridal Show two years ago when she was getting married. Because we were already committed to another bride, we couldn't photograph her wedding.

However, we had a baby portrait at the show and when Caroline came into Sherri's life, she remembered our baby photography. We think her Christmas portraits are about the cutest we've seen.




























What a cutie!

A New Beginning

Kevin and Melynda got married tonight in the Mansion at Judges' Hill in Austin with their families and many of their friends looking on. During the ceremony Melynda held both Kevin's hands and in the glow of antique chandeliers recited her personal vows and promise of love for him. Her voice was steady and true, as she traced his eyes with hers. ...and they began life together.



















Kevin and Melynda's new family...

























It was a great, if rainy, day (Good luck, I hear!),
and the Italian Cream Cake wasn't too bad, eihter.

Chattanooga landmarks

That's what Gretchen had in mind...

Amidst all the rowers on the Tennessee River for the U.S.'s second largest regatta (The Head of the Hooch), we were able to tuck under the Walnut street bridge and find spectacular light. The early morning sun felt especially good this morning.




















































Who's taking care of whom here?

Laney Marie Updated

I think I'm going to talk to all moms in the future about me wearing my running shoes when I photograph one-year-olds!

Laney, our shining star, has become a VERY BUSY GIRL. She doesn't have much time for these adults! (That would be me!) But, how cute she continues to be. Her smiles are dear and I have to be very animated and quick with the camera to capture her.










How fitting that she's so busy. I do seem to remember that her mom, Lindsey, was also a very busy girl with not much time for me, when I photographed HER for the first time twenty years ago.