Happy New Year!!!

Just a quick note to wish everyone a Happy New Year. We're spending the evening working. I'm on one laptop and D is on the other. Fun stuff, huh?

See the fruits of our labor in the new slideshows on the Hope Photography website.

Oh... there goes the big ball in Times Square! Happy New Year!!!

-Wes

We've Joined WedFog

We just joined WedFog an online directory site for brides put together by the fine folks at the Digital Wedding Forum, a community of professional wedding and portrait photographers . So what, there are a million directories out there right? What makes this different is that the goal is to be a one-stop resource of wedding photography for brides (check out the about us on the site). A bride will be able to take part in a forum and have their questions answered by pro photographers, search through hundreds of images to get ideas for their wedding, and search for photographers in their area.

It's all part of us trying to get the word out about Hope Photography for '08. Something else we're taking part in is the Digital Wedding Forum convention next weekend in Tampa. Four days of intense seminars, discussions and networking. I expect to come back babbling like a fool about all the cool things we're going to learn.

Thanks for reading and feel free to pass this blog on to friends and family... especially if you know someone getting married!

-Wes

We hope you had a Merry Christmas!

I know we did. Actually four Christmas' to be exact (4 different family groupings that wanted to see Maddie). It was nice spending time with family and relaxing and not thinking about work for a few days.

And of course the gifts weren't too bad either.

Gift of year for Danielle: a 9x12 Vision Art book of photos of Maddie. These are the art books we use as wedding albums (if you've seen them or have one, you know how nice they are). She's been hinting around for months about wanting one, but I completely surprised her. Not that I had any photos of Maddie lying around or anything.

Gift of the year of me: an iPhone! I was totally surprised. I've never really been into cell phones (always went for the free one whenever I signed up for service), but when I saw the iPhone earlier this year I was definitely intrigued. So far, I absolutely love this little thing (and have only dropped it once)! Surfing the net, emailing clients, keeping a calender and all my contacts with me at all times in a convenient little package... it's too cool. I mean, it's something we needed for the business of course. She also got me a "I Love My Wife" t-shirt that I will proudly wear because, well, I do love her a little bit. ;)

Gift of the year for Maddie: Name it, she got it. A bazillion Care Bears. Disney Princesses, Shrek, Legos, a toy laptop. But the thing she keeps up with the most? These little tiny toy horses I found for $2 at WalMart and this squishy $2 snow globe my Mom got her from Walgreens. Figures, huh? She does love all her new toys though and it's fun for Danielle and I. We'll clean the living and leave the room for two minutes only to return and it looks like someone dropped a Toys-R-Us bomb on the carpet again. How does the kid do it? This isn't something they warn you about in the parenting books.

Again, Happy Holidays to all our friends out there and we hope you have a great New Year (where the crap did '07 go? Geez).

-Wes

Linda's Z

One of the first things that made me really think that photography would be a cool job was drooling over car magazines with my buddy Brent Jackson in Myrtle Beach, SC. He and I would check out Car and Driver, Motor Trend, Road and Track from the Myrtle Beach Air Force Base library (our dads were both in the Air Force) and cut out awesome photos of even awesomer (is that a word? How about more awesome) cars and tape them to our Trapper Keepers and notebooks (sorry about that if you were browsing those 'zines in the late 80s at the base and came across a hole in a page or two).

Since I've grown up (ha!) and actually become a photographer though, I've yet to take the time to pursue cars aside from shooting my own vehicles from time to time. A couple of weeks before Christmas a good friend of mine asked me if I would be interested in shooting her slick Nissan 350Z so she could give her husband some prints as a present. Of course I jumped at the chance. We had a few rain delays, but finally got to meet up and did half the shoot on the Maryville College campus and the other half in a new parking garage in downtown. It's been killing me not to post these, but I never know if Tony keeps track of the blog and Linda would probably have shot me if I let the cat out of the bag.

Enough chatter, check out the Z:















Short story long, if you've got a car that you want to show off, PLEASE don't hesitate to call or email. I'd love it if cars became a whole new facet to Hope Photography.

-Wes
Hope Photography
865-977-6483

Robert and Amanda 12-15-07

A few weeks before Christmas we got to shoot Robert and Amanda's wedding in Greenback. This was another friend of the family affair. Well, actually they're more like family than friends. Danielle used to babysit Robert and his brother Michael when they were little. And their mom Teresa is best friends with Danielle's mom Kathy. Following all of that?

Here are several favorites from their beautiful evening winter wedding.





A Tennessee wedding just isn't a Tennessee wedding without Mountain Dew (who can send all royalties to: Hope Photography, Maryville, TN...)


Amanda informing the girls that we were locked out of the church.


Another Hope Photo first: we used the back hatch of our van and our umbrellas to shield the girls from the rain (that's Danielle on the left). See, not only are we awesome photographers, but we're handy in emergency situations!










Robert gets a lift from his "little" brother Michael. Believe it or not, but Michael was the ringbearer in our wedding almost 8 years ago.


















Maddie got to join us since this was a family wedding. She had a good time except when Danielle told her she had to stop blowing bubbles and eat. Geez, Mommy you're so mean.


I have no idea what this is about. It must be a girl thing.




A little self-promo with their rings and ornaments they were giving out as gifts. Being the dad of a 2-year-old though, I keep seeing Patrick from Spongebob.


Maddie loves to dance.




Thanks for looking! I'm hoping to post some cool car images tomorrow so stay tuned.

-Wes

Merry Christmas!!!!

We hope everyone has a safe and Merry Christmas (or holiday of your choice)!



Love,
Wes, Danielle, and Maddie

ps: I'll update the blog after Christmas with photos from our Dec. 15th wedding and let you see some pictures of Maddie's swingset that I finally got finished.

Daniel and Lara 11-24-07

Here are a few shots from our last wedding. Lara and Daniel had their wedding and reception at the Foundry in Knoxville. It was a beautiful fall affair.
















Lara's not as sneaky as I am. I caught her trying to catch me.

As you can see, I'm trying a bigger format for displaying the photos now. One of the many little changes I'm making as I figure out how to tweak the html code on this thing. Stay tuned for more updates!

Thanks,
Wes

Consider this a Christmas e-card from us.

We were "Elfed".

Now if I could only dance like that in real life. I have no idea where Danielle finds these things.

-Wes

Yes, we made it back alive.

Wow, it's been almost a month since my last post? Where did November go? As soon as we got back we were hit with Thanksgiving and then a wedding and then order after order for Christmas cards, prints and albums before holiday deadlines. I'm just now starting to get a little breathing room and realized that I need to update the blog.

Our trip went well. I wouldn't call it a vacation really, but we did have a good time. There were several hiccups along the way, but all and all the family is still talking to one another, no theme parks were destroyed and everyone came home with all the appendages they left with. 

Here are a few vacation snaps from along the way:

So if you're dying to see more (and you know you are... who doesn't love sitting through someone else's vacation photos) scoot over to this slideshow on our website. 

Thankfully things are starting to level off a little now and I can get caught up on a lot of things like overhaul the website (and more than likely the blog). Plus get ready for both the Digital Wedding Forum Convention in Tampa and the HUGE Premier Bride wedding show in January.  

Check back in the next couple of days for an update from our November 24 wedding.

-Wes

Shane and Kristi Engagement

Okay, so I lied, I'm not back to packing yet. I had to share a few shots from a fun engagement shoot last Monday. Meet Shane and Kristi. We're doing their wedding in May.

Sorry to be so brief, but I really have to get busy packing.

-Wes