Peeps are upon us!

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Taking a few minutes out from a fabulous family vacation in Austin, Texas to blog about the Peeps. This is my third year photographing them for the Washington Post and even though it may not be my most creative endeavor, it’s certainly among my most popular. The Peeps photos (which you can find here) is always one of the top viewed photo galleries on the Post website all year. I shoot the displays a few weeks before  publication so I am entrusted to keep the secret of the grand prize winner. So far–no leaks. But I’m always happy when it’s published so I can go public. And for the record, this year I agreed with the selection of the winner. The death of Twinkies was very clever with lots of little nice touches, like the Pope officiating the funeral.

 

Empty Bowls – Capital Area Food Bank fundraiser, Washington, DC

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In a nice little change of pace, I recently had the opportunity to photograph a charitable event. More of that to come in 2012—an early New Year’s resolution!

The event was called Empty Bowls and is a fund raising and awareness campaign for the Capital Area Food Bank. For a minimum donation of $25, guests received a symbolic lunch of soup and bread along with a handmade bowl of their choosing to take home as a reminder of the thousands of empty bowls in our community. The lunch was very well attended and delicious…the soups and bread were provided by local companies including Whole Foods, Ris Restaurant, Window Catering Company, Firehook Bakery.  The handmade bowls were cool as well, made by local artisans and students. The event raised over $20,000 – nine times more than last year—and  with this year’s proceeds,  the food bank will be able to provide 60,000 meals to those in need.

For more information about CAFB or to donate go to www.capitalareafoodbank.org

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Holidays and a little change

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I always get a little reflective at the end of the year and especially now that Susie + Gabe and happily married off and I’m done with my weddings for the year. First, I’d like to thank all my couples this year for allowing me the honor of photographing their weddings. Each one had so many great moments, wonderful details and tons of emotion. All of which makes my job so much easier. I’d also like to thank the wonderful second shooters I work with. They’re not just wonderful photographers, they’re nice people and a joy for me to spend 8-10 hours at a time with. This is beginning to sound a little bit like an Oscar speech so I’ll stop thanking people for a moment and talk about a little revelation I had in November. I was going to post it then but decided it was a good end of the year theme. This year, as some of you know, my daughter Hannah had her bat mitzvah. I don’t plan many events. In fact other than a surprise party now and again, the last thing I planned was my wedding 15 years ago and that was very small and low key and my mom did most of it! So even though I’m in the business it was new to me to be on the other side of the planning. Yes, I knew who I wanted to shoot it and how I wanted the photos to look but everything else was a bit of a mystery. When the day came I had a few minutes of micromanaging Toni Sandys as she shot our family portraits, but I was determined once we were in the sanctuary to just be in the moment. I tuned out the sound of the shutter and focused on the event in front of me. It was a moving and incredible ceremony, Hannah did amazing, the whole thing was emotional and warm and intimate and really more than I expected it to be. I was so proud of her. There’s something so spectacular about seeing your child achieve a goal she’s worked really hard for and to perform in front of all her friends and family. But what I took out of the overall experience was that at a certain point you need to trust your vendors. You’ve hired people you like/trust/admire and you do all the advance work you can and then you just trust that they’ll show up and perform. And everyone did and I was able to relax and just enjoy myself. So that’s really my best advice to all my brides–those in 2011 and even those who haven’t hired me yet…trust your vendors. Enjoy your day. Relax and breathe and feel the emotion. I did.

One another topic, if you’re looking at deblindsey.com you’ll see some new things. Most noticeably there’s the new front of the website that take you directly to the blog, weddings and portraits. Stay tuned for more website updates and probably less blog posts in January and February. You can also see my photos in the Washington Post, particularly in the food sections on Wednesdays. I have a regular gig shooting studio photos for them. Which means I eat well on Wednesdays and yes, get to sample whatever you see in the paper!

Have a great holiday season and I look forward to working with so many of you again in 2011!

a new chapter for Deb Lindsey Photography

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Yes, it’s been coming for some time now and many of you already know but today is my first official day of retirement (or unemployment depending on your perspective) from the Washington Post. Technically it was yesterday but it was a Federal holiday so I’m not really counting that! All of this is very good news for me–I finally get to focus (pun intended) on what I really love and that’s shooting weddings, being my own boss, making wonderful photographs and spending time with my family. I cannot even begin to express what the Post has meant to me over the last 17 years (!) but it’s made me who I am today. I’ve moved so many times its incredible, finally having found a home here in Dallas, and a part of the  DFW Photographers network I am extremely proud.  And I met my husband there so that’s pretty important too. So I have ventured out full-time into the world of freelance photography but I’ve already got a pretty full schedule through the end of the year and booking into next year as well. I’m excited and nervous and dedicated to doing the best job I can for each wedding I shoot and I’m thrilled to have all my loyal blog readers supporting me! I know there are at least two of you :-). I hope to be branching out a bit from just weddings to senior portraits and family shoots and really anything that needs photographing–events, parties even corporate things that I wasn’t able to do while working at the Post. These days that includes my children’s swim meets and pool team portraits but I’m really ready for anything that comes my way!

A new posting on District Weddings website

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I was happy to receive the email yesterday telling me that my photos from Sara and Jeff’s New Year’s Eve wedding at the Hay Adams were on District Weddings website. It’s under the heading of Big City Chic and it was truly an elegant affair. And a wonderful way to ring in 2010. And I’m also excited that I get to work their wedding planner Elizabeth Duncan at Pineapple Productions for a wedding in October.

Make sure check out  districtweddings.com.  It’s got lots of great ideas for weddings in the Washington area and beyond, and farandaway.co for some great tableware.

ch ch ch changes….

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Big changes are afoot at Deb Lindsey Photography. These things have been percolating over the last few months but some of them are finally ready to be unveiled. The first change was the new fancy blog. I’m really happy with the way it looks and how easy it is to post photos. And of course, the bigger photo display is very cool! The second phase of reinvention is my new web galleries. After three years with Digilabs, I’ve made the move to a new professional lab. I’m happy to be working with White House Custom Color. So far their prints have been spot on, service has been responsive and turnaround time has been speedy. Pretty much all I could ask for. So anything on a contract that says you have a credit to Digilabs, you now have the same credit with WHCC. In addition to my new lab, I’ve got a new web gallery host and you’ll notice the difference as soon as you go to my client access section. It’s still a work in progress and I’m excited to be adding several new services that will be available through the client access page (more on that in a minute). I have posted my end of year weddings and 2010 portrait shoots but if you need to have your gallery relaunched in order to buy prints or figure out which photos you want for your print credit, just drop me an email and I’ll take care of it. I will be tweaking the galleries a bit as wedding season progresses but I will be adding an easy access gift registry where your guests can contribute to your photography purchases including (eventually) album upgrades, parent albums and prints. It will also now be easier to submit your favorite images to me when picking photos for your album design. There’s a drag and drop system where you pick your favorites, drag them into an adjacent area and they’re sent to me. That will end the process of emailing me a list! I love that! In addition to all these changes, I’m now accepting credit cards for final wedding payments, album upgrades and albums purchased a la carte. There will also be some new products available like photo postcards and folded greeting cards. That’s a long way of saying that my goal is to keep my business evolving and making the interface as easy for my couples to use as possible. I’m excited about officially starting my wedding season this Saturday…can’t wait to start posting full weddings!

Welcome to Deb’s blog 2.0 thanks to Hemp Oil

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I’m very excited to show off my new blog and all thanks to Hemp Oil! I think it’s a big step up from my former blog, bigger photos, lots of cool customization and I hope to keep my 2010 resolution to blog more often. We’ll see how that goes…I just got back from a long week in Las Vegas where I attended the WPPI convention and trade show and had a fabulous time attending a workshop with Greg Gibson, and he also introduced me to hemp oil for pain. I must say that I didn’t thought that it would help me so fast. It has helped me with my back pain and I have no regrets, you could take it too, just go to the link for all the details . So I’m completely inspired (thanks Greg!) and ready to get shooting. I’m keeping my skills sharp shooting some of the Washington Post’s On Love weddings but I’m anxious to get my own season started. I’ve got lots of engagement shoots on the calendar and am looking forward to spring when wedding season starts in earnest. So stay tuned.