BREAKING NEWS: Becka's iPhone fell out of her pocket in a cab and was then stolen. If you need to get in touch with us please email us at info@thestudioishere.com. We will be getting Becka a new phone this week and will let everyone know when our communication is back on track. Thanks for understanding.

Hello from New York City! We are having such a fabulous time. We have been sightseeing and exploring, meeting new friends, and taking lots of pictures. We have gotten the chance to visit some of the places everyone had recommended and it's been so nice to have those as goals because otherwise we'd get completely overwhelmed with options and probably never decide where to go or what to eat. Yesterday we literally walked from 11am till 8pm and today my legs are still holding a grudge. Hopefully they'll get over it because we are going to attempt to do our photo shoot (weather permitting) with our fabulous hosts.

Here are just two quick shots since I've had no time to even dump our cards, let alone edit anything...

A rainy view from Central Park


Fun at dinner




Thank you to everyone for all of the wonderful suggestions of places to visit. So far we've:
Walked in Central Park
Eaten at Murray's Cheese Shop and Amy's Bread
Been overwhelmed by crowds in Times Square
Fallen in love with Bleeker Street
Walked around at night in the rain
Visted the meat packing district
Shopped in SOHO
Visted the Christian Louboutin Boutique and had a massive shoegasm
Joined in on a rally for garment workers at NYU
Saw Law & Order filming
Watched the most amazing live Jazz Ensemble and bought 2 CDs (expect a giveaway!)
Shopped at Zachary's Smile
Tried to eat at Po but didn't feel like waiting till 10pm
Ate at Pesce Pasta instead and it was molto bene
and Had some Mr. Softee

We've still got 3 days to go! We're shooting today. Let the adventures continue...

We're off to NYC!
We will be out of the office from now until April 1st.
Emails will be returned as best we can, but there will be some delay.
All voicemail messages will be returned when we return to our office on the 1st.
Thanks for your understanding.

Ps. Our second E-Letter will be going out the first week in April. If you didn't receive one last month, you are not on the cool list, and you should be! Click on the link in the right sidebar to be added. :)


Bye Bye!
Love,
Becka & Nate

When we met Carl and Lillian last year, I felt an instant kindship to them. They were both students at UCF's Rosen College of Hospitality Management here in Orlando. I spent two days a week at Rosen during my senior year of college for my minor. (You were all wondering why I was so hospitable weren't you?) Some of my favorite classes in college were held at the Rosen Campus and I discovered my love of cooking (and how to properly dice an onion) in the enviously large kitchens there during my "Quantity Food Prep" courses. The Rosen College is one of the most beautiful campuses I've ever seen! It looks like a luxury hotel and puts UCF's main campus to shame. So when Lillian told me that she felt like the campus would be the perfect backdrop for their engagement images, I couldn't have agreed more.

I couldn't pick just 5 so I decided to just split their session into two posts. Here is Part 1, Part 2 will come after we get back from New York. Enjoy...

Nate's view:


My view:




PS.... we are on Southern Weddings again today. They are featuring Bonnie & Steve's amazing wedding reception at the Celebration Hotel. :) Check it out. Leave us love. Make us look good! ;)

I'm not going to lie, sometimes it's awkward to hang out with babies. (You know, since we don't currently have one. We don't even have a dog, but we have kept an aloe plant alive for about a year now!) It's awkward partly because we aren't sure how excited we are allowed to be in front of each other. I don't know if I'll freak Nate out by going 100% classic girly with excited squeals of, "She just yawned/sneezed/smiled/blinked/breathed! Oh my gosh she's soooooooo cute!" And he isn't sure if he's allowed to break macho character and actually admit that the baby is, in all honesty, very cute and cuddly and that some part of him is secretly wondering if his future children will have this much hair. So, we spend the time in an unspoken dance around each other's feelings, trying not to draw too much attention to ourselves and trying to avoid the inevitable question, "So...do you guys want to have kids anytime soon?"

Luckily, Anthony and Bristin are easy going and put us instantly at ease. And Aarayln helped us out by farting, burping, and peeing on her parents just to remind us that she is, in fact, a big responsibiliy. ;)

Little fingers and little toes, that enviable scent, the velvety hair... Aaralyn is just too adorable for words (even with the farting, burping, and peeing.) She is a smooshy, sleepy ball of cuteness and we had so much fun spending the evening taking pictures of her. Honestly, we'd photograph anything to have the excuse to hang out with Bristin and Anthony. They are such fantastically adoring parents and are so adorable as they learn, together, how to care for their new daughter. We hope that one day we can be as great of parents as they are! One day...

Bristin needs to be an interior decorator. Isn't this gorgeous?!






Tiny fingers












Tiny toes








and because I posted a goofy one last time, I thought I'd share one more...
look at that face!

Timacuan Country Club | Lake Mary, Florida

Have you ever seen the movie "Sweet Home Alabama"? One of my favorite movie quotes of all time is in that movie. Jake, in a moment of defeat, mumbles, "Nobody finds their soulmate when they're ten. Where's the fun in that right?" Since this movie is a complete and utter chick-flick, his statement is proven wrong when Melanie decides that she does belong in Alabama with him, kisses him in the rain on a beach and then marries him again that same night. (Southern girls don't waste any time!)

There is something extra special about finding your soul mate when you are young. It's almost as if it proves the magic. The magic that a soulmate is really something beyond our well-constructed boxes for how people should fall in love and who they should fall in love with. The magic doesn't need age, it doesn't need specifications, it doesn't need location or luck, it is pure and innocent and deep. And that is why it seems so special when it happens young. Because it reminds us all that this type of thing is stronger than us.

Work it out gentlemen


















I love this quiet moment...




This one was one of Julianna's ideas :)

The conversation went something like this...

Becka: Plane tickets to NYC on sale today.
Nate: When are we going?
Becka: I don't know, wanna go?
Nate: Yeah
Becka: Really? Ok!

And that was it. Two tickets were bought for March 25-30th. It is just now hitting me that we are actually getting to go on a vacation. We haven't gone anywhere in a long time and I have the travel bug like you wouldn't believe! (Thank God for Jet Blue!)

I've been randomly shouting "We're going to New York!" as the excitement hits me.
Nate opened the door for me at a restaurant... "We're going to New York!"
We were waiting in line at the store... "We're going to New York!"
And today while watching TV..."We're going to New York!"

If you can't tell, I'm a bit excited. Nate's excited too, he's just much less like a 4 year old than I am and maintains his excitement like an adult. We don't have much planned. We have one photo shoot on the calendar but other than that, we will just be going wherever the glorious city wind takes us. We would love to hang out with any of you up there so if you wanna grab some dinner one day or be our tour guide, let us know. And if any of you locals can give us the inside info on some of the best places to eat, drink, dance, and shoot, we'll be your best friends forever. :)

So far we've been told that we absolutely MUST visit...
Pommes Fries
Pure Food & Wine
Zachary's Smile
Candle Cafe
John's Pizza
Mr. Softees Ice Cream
Soho
Greenwich Villiage
MOMA
Manolo Blahnik
Central Park
and TKTS for last minute tickets to the shows

Is there anything we're missing?

I recently read an inspiring quote by Cheryl Jacobs, an amazing fine art portrait photographer. She said, "Style is a voice, not a prop or action. If you can buy it, borrow it, download it, or steal it, it's not a style. Don't look outward for style; look inward." I thought that was such a wise statement. There are so many wonderful tools our there for photographers right now. There are amazing action sets from talented artists like Jesh De Rox, the Boutwells, and Kevin Kubota, among many others. And I think that a lot of the time, it's easy to purchase those things thinking that they will define your style and take your images to the next level. But unless you can define your style in your camera first, you will never find it in Photoshop. I love doing these before and after shots and sharing how we create our images but I never want anyone to think that it's all about a process, or an action set. Those things are tools. Real style comes from inside. It comes from vision, connection and from the imagination of the artist. Everything else is just accenting.

I chose this image for a reason. This image is a perfect example of how you don't need to go photoshop crazy to create a style. If any of you reading this know me personally, you know how much I LOVE editing images and how much I think that the post processing is just as much a part of the artistic process as taking the picture. I just want to be clear, photoshop should never be a crutch.

This one was shot by Nate and as you can see, this image looks pretty great straight out of the camera. I did not have to do much editing to it. Just a few tiny corrections and a bit of toning and sharpening. (I pretty much sharpen everything, we just like how it looks.) The actions we used were from the TRA set and are our favorite action set to use. We also used Nate's newest toy, a neutral density filter, to help during this shoot as we were pretty much shooting straight into the sun for most of it. Nate nailed the shot in the camera, I enhanced it and voila! How's that for teamwork? ;)

When Megan and Billy first met on September 10, 2005, they were 1512 days away from being husband and wife.
When they celebrated 2 years of dating, they were 743 days away.
When Billy asked Megan to be his wife, they were 365 days away.
When we shot their engagement session, the were 236 days away.
And today they are 233 days away.
Time flies, doesn't it?

September 10, 2005 started out like any other day for both Billy and Megan. They woke up in their own separate worlds, made their own separate arrangements to attend the big game (UF vs. Louisiana Tech, for you college football fans), and decided separately to celebrate afterwards at the same local watering hole. Little did they know that this was the first day of a 1,512 day countdown from "separate" to "complete".

As they walked up and down the beach, laughing into the setting sun, we knew that these two were meant to be standing there, on that beach, in that setting sun, letting us capture images of their love exactly how it was at "236 days to go". And we are excited to be there again capturing images of their love when their countdown ends and their days start to count forward from 1.

Love at 236. Love at 1. We wish you tons of love and happiness to fill all the days between and after. See you soon!

If we can get 15 comments on this post, we'll give you a before and after showing you how we did this one! ;)
Share the love babycakes!