Luke & Leia

The other day we got to have a family session with my friend Sahrie! I am so excited to edit these photos, but I must finish an album first. I wanted you to get a sneak peak at her truly amazing children! Luke is 8 years old and Leia is 6 years old. (Yes, they are named after Star Wars)

Luke & Leia

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Package Design

So as a graphic designer, I not only want our photography to be perfect, I want our packaging to stand out to people when they receive their DVD with all of their images on it.

We have come a long way for the image on the DVD its self, from just burning a disk, to printing on the disk, to printing on high quality, water resistant DVD’s that look just as good as a DVD you can buy from the store, if not better.

We have also come a long with the presentation of the package, from a regular jewel case, to a simple square envelope, to petal paper from Paper Source secured with a button tied through the envelope to hold the disk down so that it does not get any scratches during shipping.

Missy & Dave CD-4

Nick & Katie-2

Maggie & David CD-6

Nate & Bethany-5

I like the overall look at this time, but I do feel there is a slight problem with how people understand it. I feel that it is a little bit of a complex design. When someone receives this package they open the petal, which is great! But then they seem to be a little puzzled about what to do next. I need to step back as a designer and see its functionality. So the next step is to untie the bow, but I see many confused faces when we hand deliver the DVDs. Do you have any suggestions? We would still like to use our crafty materials, because the look is perfect! Function is important too.

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Baby Ian, 3 months

We photographed Ian, and he was already quite expressive at just age 3 months!  Check out some of these:

ian napping

ian without cap

Ian-2

Ian-2

ian with lamb

what ian thinks of my camera

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Move to Wordpress

I’ve moved the blog to wordpress!  My previous host software was blogger, but Wordpress was more flexible and people say that it does better with search engines (go SEO!).  It wasn’t too difficult, though I took the more adventurous path by downloading the software from wordpress.org and setting up the blog on my own site.  If you want an easier solution, wordpress.com offers free blogging, it’s not as flexible.  I imported the old posts, but I’m still learning how to customize the blog.

Here are three features I like about Wordpress so far:

  1. Nicer looking.  I started off looking for blogger templates, but the really cool ones seemed to be for other services, such as Wordpress.  However, even wordpress.com only has a limited selection, so I went with wordpress.org for the fullest flexibility.
  2. Easier static pages.  I don’t know how to do this in blogger, but a quick “add new” button in Wordpress lets them show up in menus and in the side bars.
  3. Plugins and widgets!  I like being able to extend the functionality.  Already, I’ve added a contact page with the contactform7 plugin.

I could see how people could base entire websites off of just a Wordpress site with some tweaking!

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Nate & Bethany

We recently got married as well :) which explains the delay in posting. But now I’m ready to get back on schedule!


I met Bethany a few years ago though some photographer friends. So when she and Nate asked us to photograph them, we knew we’d have to be on top of our game! Fortunately for us, their fun-loving attitude put us at ease. We had an engagement session with them last fall and we’ve been looking forward to their wedding ever since!

First some details: here is her beautiful dress, and Nate’s grandfather’s cufflinks

white dress

cuff  links

Their first look at each other, all dressed up
first look

… and of course they were excited! They’re both swing dancers so they got the moves
dip

We took photos of the wedding party
wedding party

while the kids were being cute
Nate & Bethany-2

They had a beautiful ceremony
flower girls
singing
unity sand
bubbles

Finally, there was a reception, with lots of cake and dancing! Congratulations!
cake
feeding cake
toast
little photographer
first dance
other dancers

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Dave & Missy

I’m finally making my first post on the blog! I’ll start with a recent wedding of two of our friends, Dave and Missy.


Cool rings:

rings on branch


flower girl being cute!

flower girl and bridemaid

A beautiful ceremony:
prayer


A fun bridal party:
golf cart fun

Tasty food, including an omelet station and home made cupcakes!
ham

cooking omelets

cupcakes

And of course, the happy new couple!
first dance

geometric flare

couple in love

God Bless your new life together!

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Facebook Fan

So we are starting to network, hence the blog… We decided to make a facebook page so people can become our fans. I really want us to be accessible to people the way that they find most convenient. If you like to use rss, tweet, or are an avid facebook follower, you can find us with ease. So if facebook is your thing come to our page and become our fan!

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Lydia is one now!


Lydia-2
Originally uploaded by leeann3984

This is Lydia! She is one of our friend’s babies. We have had the privilege of photographing her since she was about 3 weeks old. I can not believe that she is one year already. She was the first baby we got to shoot together professionally.

Her blue eyes make her photos pop. She is a delightful baby to be around. And she cheers me up, no matter what mood I am in. I love little Lydia and her fantastic photos!

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Chang2 Studios


Nick & Katie-081102-2938
Originally uploaded by leeann3984

YAY! Oh I am so excited! We finally choose a name for our business. We went with Chang2 Studios.This is fitting for many reasons. The obvious, we are getting married in 3 months and I will be a Chang too! So we will be Chang Squared. Plus I had already drawn out a really cute logo for it. I can’t wait to design it and get it up on the site and business cards.

So we do have the domain name for our site www.chang2studios.com , but there is not much up on it yet. We will have to keep everyone informed. For now we are still using the www.ohtoberich.com/weddings.

We have been so busy, hence why the website and name has taken extremely long. We have shot a few weddings each month. We have another one tomorrow up in Rockford. And the following weekend we have Nick and Katie’s. Here is a photo from their engagement session with us. We are so excited to shoot their wedding. Such a great couple to work with.

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We needed this!

So I have decided that we need to start promoting ourselves and our photography. We have had great word of mouth so far for most of our weddings and engagement sessions. Keep posted and we will let you know how each of our sessions have gone along with some photos!
model-20
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