Sorry for the temporary absence from the blog and website! I’ve been oh so busy.
This month will be full of new sessions and weddings though, I promise! Stay tuned.
There are also major changes coming to the blog, so watch out for those as well!
If you want to be kept up to date, check out my facebook page here.
One thing many of you don’t know about me is that I LOVE to read. My bookshelves at home are absolutely full and my e-book collection is relatively large at this point. I read enthusiastically and it provides great joy to me. I have always loved to just “get away” with a good book, my imagination is extremely over-active though, so I tend to get attached to characters very quickly!
Apparently, The Big Read thinks the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books that they’ve printed. According to this list I read more than the average person, I suppose!
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicise those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE, add a strikeout to the books you’ve read but didn’t like.
1. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11. Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare
15. Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch – George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34. Emma – Jane Austen
35. Persuasion – Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
41. Animal Farm – George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45. The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50. Atonement – Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52. Dune – Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones’ Diary – Helen Fielding
69. Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72. Dracula – Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses – James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal – Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession – AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte’s Web – EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94. Watership Down – Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables – Victor Hugo
Hey guys!
As of tomorrow, I will be on Vacation! So I wont be scheduling any consultations or answering emails. You are welcomed to email me and/or call and leave a message. I will get back to you as soon as my vacation is over.
To recap: Vacation is from May 14 through May 21. Email me and I will contact you back as soon as possible!
After vacation is over, I will be announcing a sort of contest freebie. I’ve been so swamped with weddings and I miss all of you and your little ones! Anyway, I’m especially interested in scheduling a few newborns and maternity sessions! So, if you’re interested, let me know. And be watching out for the freebie contest. It will be lots of fun!!
I’m not good at choosing themes for these, so I’m just going to tell you what randomly comes to mind, okay?! 
1. My wedding season has officially started, 4 weddings this month, 5 engagements, 3 bridal sessions! Yay!
2. I’m listening to T.I. “Dead and Gone” – I LOVE his music! It’s not really my style necessarily. But as a musician, I stand true to the fact that you have to be opened to EVERYTHING to be an artist. And hey, T.I. kicks major butt!
3. My husband, Dan and I are going on our first vacation together from May 14-19. So no sessions that week, sorry guys!
4. I’m lovin’ this weather.
5. And you’ve GOT to see my yard. It’s so pretty! Spring is amazing, it’s full of so much life. I love life!
Also, look at these little guys…they’re my little brothers and they’re twins! Double the trouble, I say, and double the sweetness!
1. if you aren’t yet a fan of my facebook page you should do so here. why, you ask? because i said so there are going to be some really exciting cha cha cha changes and specials coming up over the next few weeks and you want to be the first to know about it. trust me.
2. this week i planted a garden in my front yard. it’s PRETTY. and the cherry blossom tree is blooming beautifully as well. i LOVE spring!
3. tomorrow is my housewarming party! finally! after 7 months of owning a house we are having a housewarming party.
4. i am absolutely addicted to fruit2day, 100% juice with real fruit bits in it! it’s so yummy, and a healthy snack. -siiiiiigh- on that note, i HATE working out. 
5. tomorrow (before the party!) i have an engagement session, part 2 with veronica and jonathan! it’s going to be fabulous, and they’re going to rock it again! can’t wait!
and because a post is not complete without a photo: yesterday was my grandmother’s (who DOES NOT look like a grandmother, mind you) birthday! so wish her a happy birthday, and have a magnificent weekend!
xo
Since wedding season is upon us and I’m booked solid until July, I wanted to do a wedding edition of “Five on Friday”. (which I missed last week, so I’ll be doing a two part five on friday this week to make up for it!)
This list is going to talk about my favorite type of details.
1. The favors. The way the tables at the reception are decorated. A lot of brides pay TONS of attention to it, a lot don’t. Personally, I prefer when you do! Details are such a huge thing for wedding photographers, and more than likely, they’ll be some of your favorite shots. You’ll want to remember all of the planning you did to make it perfect for you and your honey. The photo above is from the etsy.com shop Nature Favors, and is a pack of 200 bird seed hearts. Etsy is an amazing resource for brides.
2. Another favorite detail is the veil. I absolutely LOVE birdcage veils! They’re so classic and make such a great detail. The one above is also from an etsy.com shop: Brenda’s bridal veils. This shop has a ton of birdcage veils, there are several other shops with different types of veils on etsy as well! LOVE.
3. The boutineer’s. The photo above isn’t actually a boutineer, but it’s a really cool detail for the bridesmaids/groomsmen from The Angry Robot shop on etsy.com.
There are really cool handmade boutineers on etsy.com, like this one:
and this one:
A few of my favorite planning resources are also:
Shannon Kelley (one of my personal favorite photographers! She’s in Knoxville [again, TN represent!] and she does unique and fun weddings and portraits. <3 her!) does five for friday (10 for tuesday, etc.) and she had a how-to guide on her website, so I’m following it! I think this is a great idea, and I always have so many issues keeping my blog updated, unfortunately.
Today’s theme is favorites! I’m a big lover of all things HAPPY; laughing, music, dancing…these are things you can catch me randomly doing for the heck of it in my kitchen in the morning.
1. SUNSHINE. Spring has almost certainly sprung, yesterday the high was 55, today is similar and tomorrow the high is 63! The tree and bushes that adorn our front yard are blooming and the grass is turning green! Speaking of beautiful weather for tomorrow, I have an engagement session, so be watching out for that update as well!
2. Starbucks iced chai. Oh my god. My favorite! In honor of spring, I’ve been purchasing iced coffee’s and tea’s from starbucks. And the iced chai latte is always my personal favorite.
3. My iPod. It is almost always attached to me, or playing music. As a matter of fact, it’s attached to the iHome right now and it’s playing “Unfinished Memories” by Eowyn. I don’t know how many people in the internet world knows, but I am a musician. I live and breathe music, actually that’s a cliche and an understatement. It’s worse than that though, I am addicted to musicals and broadway. I’ve got just about every soundtrack imaginable (including disney!) on my iPod currently. So if you can’t handle life being a musical, don’t hang out with me! 
4. The Wicked pop-up book. I bought this yesterday. It is EPIC. Enough said. Favorite.
5. The book “14,000 Things to be Happy about” – is so random. It makes me happy! Everyone should own this book, and have it as a reminder of why you should cherish every single day. Life is happy. Life is what you make of it. I love life! You should too.
Hey everyone
It’s time for a catch-up post. Dan and I are settled into our new home in Memphis.
This is a little peek of our living room right now:
We just adopted a new puppy, Ella!
I’ve been meaning to post about my 2010 pricing. As most of you know, I’ve recently relocated to Memphis..and although I still have sessions in Jackson, I can’t continue advertising in both areas with my pricing at the current price.
My session fee for portrait sessions will be $200, my minimum print order will be going up to $200.
I will not be posting my wedding packages until December, however, I can tell you that my lowest package will be $1600 (my current lowest package is $850).
There is just a little less than 2 months left to book your wedding at my low 2009 prices! On January 1, 2010, my pricing and packages will undergo a complete overhaul. Please take advantage of the lower prices now while you can.
Contact me at amber@ambertakesphotos.com if you would like to schedule a consultation!
Hope all is well with everyone!
Hey guys!
I’ve forgotten about this the last couple of weeks. So sorry!
To make up for it, here is one of my favorite songs from one of my all time favorite movies!
Who is your favorite artist and why? Send me your favorite video by them and I’ll choose my favorite of the ones sent! If I choose your video, I’ll send you an 11×14 wall print of your choice! (If you want an art print, I can send you a gallery to choose that as well!)
Peace, love and rock n’ roll
-Amber
Hey guys!
I was reading through Dawn’s site, who happened upon this article from Grant Perry’s site. It’s a really great article and it’s definitely how I normally do things!
Written by: Grant Perry – his website - dawn’s website
So you’re meeting your prospective wedding photographer for the first time. You found them on a Google search, and their site seems nice enough. But how do you really know they are the best for you?
The easiest answer is also the most ridiculous; in 30 initial minutes you can’t. BUT … there are a few things you can look for to become more comfortable with your decision.
1. Relationship – Relationship – Relationship
The absolute most important aspect to you reaping the results you desire from your final wedding photography is that you fall in LOVE with your wedding photographer(s). And by LOVE I don’t mean you’d ebay your rings, cancel your date and marry them – but I do mean you feel so comfortable that you’d be able to brag about them to your closest friends or have them over for dinner at your house.
A wedding photographer worth hiring doesn’t take pictures, and that sounds totally weird, I know. A great wedding photographer isn’t really a photographer at all but an artist who uses a camera and lens to paint and CAPTURE MOMENTS in digital files filled with emotion and passion. Their images – each and every one – CAPTURE a narrative or story that with one glance creates an emotion from the viewer; namely you. ANYBODY can take a picture, especially with the advances in today’s geeky low-priced digital cameras. But only true wedding photography ARTISTS can capture your story with passion and emotion.
Someone who is bestowed such a precious and significant task as being your ONLY wedding photographer must be someone you absolutely love and admire. In fact, a true wedding photography artist will almost always be easy to be comfortable with because they themselves are depending on building a strong relationship with you so they may better understand what is important to your final outcome.
2. Passion
Ask your prospective wedding photographer if they take their cameras with them to family birthday parties or if they shoot pictures of their niece’s soccer games. Only someone passionate about their craft integrates that passion into their lives – and a great wedding photography artist always integrates their passion into their lives.
When you’re sitting across the table from them, how do they make you feel? Are you getting excited about your day as they talk about their involvement? When they talk about their product, do they exhibit a kind of giddiness or are they just selling? What adjective comes to your mind to describe them if you were asked 5 minutes after you’ve left the appointment?
Passion HAS to at least be a likely adjective you could choose. If not? Run – do not walk – to the next photographer.
You see – any great wedding photography artist is in the “game” for more than just the coin. They are always – and I mean always – looking to become your wedding photographer because they are passionate about painting your special story with the lenses of their camera that tell the story through fine art photography. In fact, a passionate wedding photography artist will always be a remarkable artist.
3. No new stress – please!
The wedding photographer sitting across the table from you has no idea what your plans are for your upcoming fairy-tale day. In fact, just because they’ve taken pictures for hundreds of brides before you, there are no other weddings even close in style or substance as yours, period.
If your prospective wedding photographer isn’t asking the right questions of you, questions pertaining to your day, how YOU plan it to unfold, how many bridesmaids, groomsmen, the venue, is there going to be dancing, will your dad walk you down the aisle, who your maid-of-honor is and who she is to you …
If they are insisting on showing you their previous work, and how awesome they are, and who they’ve photographed before ever asking about how YOU envision your day? RUN – do not walk – to the next prospective photographer.
The most counter-productive and stressful situation is to have your wedding photographer not clearly understand your time line. And the best scenario in this situation is to have a needy, whiney, and question ridden person running around taking pictures creating more stress. The worst scenario? They don’t ask and subsequently don’t GET the pictures you envisioned. In either scenario? Stress and disaster.
Actually, the absolute BEST scenario is a wedding photographer who sits across the table and interviews YOU. That’s right, you’ve invited them to the table to choose them – but what you really want is someone who wants to work with you because you both click. Someone who asks you a bunch of questions, and diligently writes down YOUR answers about YOUR day as they interview YOU. Why? Because when they truly understand YOUR day, and how it will unfold, you have found someone who doesn’t need to create stress on your day (or before), you’ve found someone capable of discovering and understanding what you want prior to your day. Someone who can click with you (and hopefully – FOR you – wink).
4. Show me your stuff
More than likely, you’ve seen a lot of your prospective wedding photographer’s work (and probably their best work) from their web site. And having a look at an album or prints or canvas or … is a good thing too. But understand this, nothing they show you across the table is going to be what you get – ever. You are seeing a compilation of work from perhaps their best work, which is understandable. But even on a perfect day, no two weddings are the same, nor are any two wedding albums, or prints, or … the same.
Obviously your wedding photographer needs to be able to nail their focus, and exposures, and all of those technical photography details in order to even be considered. But, going back to the number one “must” – other bride’s relationships with your photographer have got to be great.
Ask your potential wedding photographer to give you a couple of brides you can contact. And when they provide those names, call those brides and ask one question; “What do you remember most about Photographer xx?” That’s it! You’ll get the whole story from that one question. And the best part? You’ll also get your answer overall from that question.
5. It’s gotta be fun
Ask the wedding photographer this question; “So what do you do for fun?” Not that you need to care WHAT they do for fun – but you do care if they do anything that IS FUN.
Just because your wedding photographer will be working as a “vendor” on your awesome day does NOT mean they have to portray it as work. They have to have fun at it – and you’ve got to have fun at it – and that does NOT mean it’s up to you to make it fun. THEY have to make it fun – the whole day. It may be 98 degrees in the shade or 2 below zero – but THEY have to be able to roll with the punches or change direction at any given time and still make it fun and stress-free for your entire party.
And there is really no way to know if that person you just met is that person other than to know they know how to have fun on their own, hence “So what do you do for fun?”
Fun = happy. Stress = ugly. Which do you choose?
