My Life Photo Blog

Blog

Welcome!

Hi my name is Catherine and I am so happy you clicked your way to my blog! I love everything about photography, art, weddings, my family, and my friendships, my clients and if you browse long enough you will most like find posts about all of these!

Here is a little snippet about me but be sure to come back from time to time to get to know me and my clients better!

I have always been drawn to art, even as a small child. I wanted nothing more than to be an artist when I grew up. I pursued this love all the way through grad school. I worked in galleries, taught art classes to teens and never felt complete. I knew I loved art but hadn't found my place in that world just yet.

I went on a shoot with a photographer friend of mine to help her out with a wedding back in 2004. I was in LOVE! That day I said out loud to myself "Why am I not doing this?". I have been smitten ever since and wholeheartedly pursued my wedding photography career. I am loving ever minute of it!

I am in love with photograpy. I am in love with weddings.

01-19-2012

Twitter Prize of the decade, Beignets and PPA

Now is the first time I have had a moment to sit and gather myself since the amazing trip to New Orleans for Imaging USA. I always love going to this conference every year. I come back excited and ready to revamp my business and run out with my camera and start photographing everything! This trip was especially wonderful, not only was it in New Orleans, a city that I particularly love, but I was able to spend time with great friends and see some old friends again from across the country!

Now every class is filled with hundreds of eager students ready to learn from those that speak at the conference. I listened to great photographers like Jerry Ghionis, Zach and Jody Gray, and Robert Evans. It is customary for them to give prizes at the end of the sessions and I never win these things. I know everyone always says this but it is really true for me! I never win something for free and as the Robert Evans session came to a close he began to give away things like DVDs, music licenses, and the like. Then at the end he gives away a one hour critique session for one lucky gal. One really lucky gal!!! Me! What?!? All I had to do was twitter, that’s all, just twitter in a room of hundreds of others twittering to win this awesomeness and somehow in the sea of short statuses he called my name! This is Robert Evans! Maybe you have seen one of his wedding photos before, like the ones he took of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes! Yes! He was their wedding photographer and he is going to spend an hour chatting with me about my work!!!!! So excited! We actually ran into him again the next day in our hotel lobby and I expressed to him how excited and thankful I am!

We spent the afternoons sipping coffee and munching on beignets in Jackson Square. We walked and walked and walked. I loved photographing the street performers and we even ran into Steve Jones the X Factor host!! What a crazy week! I loved it! Enjoy a ton of photos from the week and I will post a few more in the days to come!

We often had lunch guests fly to join us!

Did I mention that I loved photographing the street performers? We spent an entire day running around dropping money in hats just for the opportunity to take their photos. We nearly went broke there were so many performers up and down the French Quarter!

I loved this place so much I somehow managed to stop by 3 times in the 5 days we were there!

1

I love the girls getting excited over their cameras at the Cafe’

no comments

add a comment

01-08-2012

Maternity: The Suggs Family

I was so honored to be asked to photograph Jennifer and Xeric again! I photographed their wedding almost 2 years ago! Jennifer has always been so gorgeous and she looks more stunning now as a growing Mommy! We spent a few hours at their home on Saturday taking photographs, chatting and looking at everything baby! It was really such a wonderful session! Baby Brooklyn will be so adorable and I am so happy for all three of them! Congratulations on your new growing family! I hope I can come back to see Brooklyn soon!

no comments

add a comment

01-04-2012

Staring at a Blank Canvas

Five years ago this was the last thing I painted. I have forever loved drawing and painting and didn’t actually begin to study photography until my senior year of high school and throughout college. Prior to that I prided myself as a painter and illustrator. I love color and texture and the impact of a large artwork. I love artists like Chagall, Rothko, Kruger, Stella, Van Eyke and others. But you can very well see that the last thing I painted was my son’s bedroom before he was with us. He will be 5 years old this month. He is gaining a great deal of independence which in turns gives me a great deal more independence.

My independence somehow slipped into sitting on the couch eating popcorn while watching Simon Cowell on tv.

I looked at my husband one night a couple of months ago and said “I am wasting my time. I want to paint again. ” My husband is so amazing he bought me everything I could ever need to be a painter!

I was completely ecstatic at the idea of painting again…until I actually sat in front of the blank canvas. What do I do now? What if I forgot how to paint? I wasn’t quite sure if it was like riding a bike. I think I stared at the canvas for about an hour and I decided to not think too much and to just paint. Just paint. Paint what I want. Paint what I love. So my first painting in five years ended up being a portrait of my favorite artist Frida Kahlo. Based on a photo taken of her in the 1930s. I am so excited and scared at the path of painting again! I plan to stare at a lot of blank canvases this year and am eager to see what comes of them! I hope you enjoy my first painting in quite a while and hopefully the first of many!

‘

show hide 1 comment

add a comment

12-28-2011

Lifestyle: The Stout Family

I had such a great time photographing the newly expanded Stout family! I photographed Ashley and Troy 4 years ago as their wedding photographer and it was wonderful to be asked back to photograph them at home with their new baby girl! She is so beautiful and perfect! Congratulations to the both of you!

Sweet sleepy girl!

We couldn’t forget to take some photos of Jet! He was such a wonderful pup and I am am sure Millie will love him to pieces!

no comments

add a comment

12-27-2011

Wild hairs and laugh lines

Last week my assistant Tracy and I were headed downtown for an engagement session with one of my amazing couples when we got on the topic of editing. Tracy is also a photographer not just a fab assistant.

How much is too much and why do we, by we I mean photographers and those being photographed, feel such a strong need for it? In the beginning of my wedding photography I was like most. I edited and edited and edited to the point that the photo stops being a photograph and is now instead something that is reminiscent of my client with plastic smooth skin, perfect hair and not a bag under her eyes to speak of.

But what was funny was that all the photography I had done prior as a fine art student on my own and the photography of professionals I admire didn’t do this. Why? Because the photograph was real! A real moment. A real person. A real emotion. I did not start on this path to spend hours as a graphic editor in front of a computer. I love photographs. I wanted to be a lifestyle photographer. I love the real memory of that frozen moment that a photograph can generate for us years down the road. I love the wild hairs and wrinkled nose of a smiling truly happy bride.

The photograph ceases to be a photograph once you remove and edit out all of the wonderful details that made it unique and beautiful. It was this uniqueness that caused me to push the shutter to start with. I saw the beauty of the moment, not the possibly of the the beauty once I spend an hour in photoshop trying to make it better because I believe that I can’t make it better. I can’t make the client “better” they are who they are and they are beautiful and I truly believe that!

It is perfect, a perfect moment all by itself. Pure. Real. I want my photographs, despite all the possibility that technology gives us, should be just that….a beautifully captured moment frozen by the click of my shutter.