Follow the journey
.
See you in late 2015!
On hiatus to hike the Appalachian Trail and relocate! Returning in late 2015!
Sunday, December 28, 2014
On Hold Until Late 2015
It as been an exciting year, and the end of it is no different. We are shutting down to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail, yep, all 2,185 miles of it! Once we reach Mount Katahdin in Maine, we will be headed for the Rocky Mountains in Colorado to launch anew!
Follow the journey
.
See you in late 2015!
Follow the journey
.
See you in late 2015!
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
Who said Headshots had to be boring?
It's pretty common to see well lit, studio headshots on websites and business cards, and there's certainly nothing wrong with that! I have shot a fair number of those myself, and I love providing those sleek looking studio shots! I also like to do some more creative headshot work.
I was recently approached by one of Northern Virginia's finest real estate professionals, and he was looking for something a little different for his marketing materials and website. He wanted something that really showed his personality, and his connection to the local scene, as he's someone who grew up in the area he now works.
We discussed several possible concepts, including some studio shots, but he preferred the ideas I had for location shots. Here is a sampling of what we made!
Contact us today, if you'd like to add new life to your headshots!
All Text & Images ©2014, Jennifer Tallman Magnuson, Magnuson Photographic
Unauthorized use or reproduction is prohibited.
Unauthorized use or reproduction is prohibited.
Monday, July 28, 2014
New Photos for ME!
Jeff and I have been making a point of getting out at least once a week to just do some fun, creative, therapeutic, personal shooting! He's sharpening his skills, and I am working to feel the art in my work, and get out of my head about the technical side of it! It's no small task after drilling technical and business information all through school!
Yesterday, we were out at McKee-Besher Wildlife Management Area in Poolsville, Maryland, where they have some gorgeous fields of sunflowers! Jeff is a big fan of sunflowers, so much so that I planted some for him in our garden this summer! I'd shoot them, but they are NINE FEET TALL! I don't own a ladder that big!
Despite it being a pretty hot and humid day with severe thunderstorms in the forecast, I decided that this photo walk was a perfect opportunity for me to update my personal portraits for my website. I set up the shots with Jeff as a reluctant stand-in, and had him shoot me after. I have to admit that the gnats that were swarming all around made me want to make the same faces that he did, but I smiled for the sake of the photos!
I think Jeff may make a great portrait photographer yet!
Jeff is a NATS fan, but not a GNATS fan, as you can see. . .
This one was my favorite, and is now my "about me" photo for the website!
All Text & Images ©2014, Jennifer Tallman Magnuson, Magnuson Photographic
Unauthorized use or reproduction is prohibited.
Yesterday, we were out at McKee-Besher Wildlife Management Area in Poolsville, Maryland, where they have some gorgeous fields of sunflowers! Jeff is a big fan of sunflowers, so much so that I planted some for him in our garden this summer! I'd shoot them, but they are NINE FEET TALL! I don't own a ladder that big!
Despite it being a pretty hot and humid day with severe thunderstorms in the forecast, I decided that this photo walk was a perfect opportunity for me to update my personal portraits for my website. I set up the shots with Jeff as a reluctant stand-in, and had him shoot me after. I have to admit that the gnats that were swarming all around made me want to make the same faces that he did, but I smiled for the sake of the photos!
I think Jeff may make a great portrait photographer yet!
All Text & Images ©2014, Jennifer Tallman Magnuson, Magnuson Photographic
Unauthorized use or reproduction is prohibited.
Thursday, June 26, 2014
Jenny & Sean's Wedding Album | Elegant Belmont Country Club Wedding
I am so excited to finally get to deliver this gorgeous handcrafted custom designed wedding album from their October wedding at Belmont Country Club!
Magnuson Photographic has chosen Pictobooks as our album supplier, because we share a commitment to excellence, and luxurious quality when it comes to displaying your wedding memories.
Check out Jenny & Sean's album below, and you will see why you want to invest in an album for your cherished photos, and why you want that album to be a Pictobooks album from Magnuson Photographic.
Magnuson Photographic has chosen Pictobooks as our album supplier, because we share a commitment to excellence, and luxurious quality when it comes to displaying your wedding memories.
Check out Jenny & Sean's album below, and you will see why you want to invest in an album for your cherished photos, and why you want that album to be a Pictobooks album from Magnuson Photographic.
Thursday, June 5, 2014
11 Important Things About Going Pro With Your Camera. . . (because this list goes to ELEVEN!!!)
I recently attended a Fireside Chat at my friend, Kat's, studio about how to get jobs in photography. It was born of a quite heated online discussion about taking jobs that pay far too little to be profitable under any business model. There were a lot of new photographers who were frustrated at the lack of opportunities to shoot to build a portfolio, and frustrated as well at getting lost in the crowd when people asked for second shooters. There were also a lot of established photographers who were frustrated at the volume of laughably low paying jobs being offered up. Most of them were also offering some really helpful advice on how they built their businesses and how they continue to build them in an industry that is constantly changing.
Here are some of the most important lessons I have learned from my three year journey to full time photography:
1. Technical skills - I'm not going to go into all of the skills you need to be a pro, because that's far more than a single blog post worth of writing. You should have a body of work that demonstrates your ability to create, on your own, consistently well lit, creative, well-composed, and well-focused images in a variety of circumstances. When people are paying your for your product, you can't rely on lucky shots or shots someone set up for you at a workshop.
Also, I wish it went without saying, but the work you display in your portfolio should be your own original work!! Stock photos and work like what you aspire to create someday don't have a place in your portfolio!!!! Best case, this is dishonest. Worst case, it's illegal.
What to do if your skills need work: Take classes; organize shoots with friends and family; immerse yourself in trial and error shooting experiments; go to workshops (just make sure that they're good quality workshops taught be qualified photographers); read photography books; ask for critiques, and listen to the feedback you get.
2. Network - Network with other photographers who have built businesses you admire. Join Facebook photography groups. You have NO IDEA how much I learned by lurking and reading a professional photography forum on FB for a few years before I ever typed a word on there. I made mental notes of what people were ranting about, what people praised, what advice people asked for and what advice people gave.
Attend EVERY networking event you can!! This is a great way to meet people who do what you want to do, find a mentor and get jobs! Most photographers won't hire you as an assistant or a second shooter based on your website alone. Most photographers want to have met you in person, so they have a feel for your personality, your attitude, and how you present yourself. It's a big responsibility to represent someone else's business, and the more they know about you from in-person meetings, the more comfortable they will be entrusting you to represent them.
Once you are established with other photographers, and ready to really strike out for clients of your own, network with established businesses that have the clients in your target market. Build friendships and business alliances with them.
3. NO EXCUSES!! - You would be surprised at the number of very well paid established professionals who are out there giving away their advice and knowledge just for the asking!! Seriously! I have met more generous and helpful photographers than I can count, and I owe a lot of my progress to the advice they have freely given me.
The only thing I see more than the amazingly generous advice of successful photographers are excuses. Yep. For every piece of advice I have read in response to a question on a photography forum there is a reason why "That won't work for me because. . ." "I already tried that, and it didn't work, because. . ." "I can't do that, because. . ." You name it; there is a reason that it won't work, and I can tell you that if you are committed to the idea of something not working, then it won't.
Excuses why you can't take the advice you asked for will get you nowhere.
4. Start from the bottom - I know how exciting it is to have your shiny new DSLR with its glistening lens and all of it's buttons and dials, but having a camera, even a really nice one, doesn't make you a photographer. It makes you a camera owner; which is GREAT! Owning a camera is a good first step!
Once you have the technical skills to produce consistent work, and you have met some more experienced pros, offer yourself as an assistant. Most pro photographers hire assistants. Most of the time, you need to leave your camera at home for these jobs. They involve carrying bags, setting up and/or holding lights, grabbing water bottles for the photographer, looking out for distracting elements in group shots (bunched up clothing, bulky items in pockets, people with drinks/purses/cameras in hand, etc.), and being generally helpful to the photographer. I find that it's good to know the timeline of the shoot, be constantly aware of the time, arrive early, and always double check that the photographer isn't leaving gear behind when switching locations. Your job is all about making the primary photographer look good, and making their job run more smoothly.
Most of the photographers that I know, don't hire a second shooter unless that person has a portfolio as strong as theirs, and trusts them to consistently deliver work on par with their own. Do your time schlepping bags and gear and helping light shots, and you will build a relationship and trust with the photographers you assist. Ask them for critiques of your work (not on the job, obviously!!). The more consistently awesome work they see you produce, the more they will think of you as a potential second.
Side note: You would not believe how much great information you pick up while you are holding lights/bags/reflectors! You get an inside look at another photographer's workflow, posing, styling, client interaction, handling of mishaps and unexpected glitches. All of these things are extremely valuable when you finally find yourself in the driver's seat of a shoot with your trusty assistant beside you!
5. Never let them see you desperate - This is HUGE!!! As you build your network, both online and in person, be very very aware of what you say and how you say it. Every human being on the planet goes through times when they feel like a failure, when they feel desperate to get hired, when they're afraid and frustrated and down on themselves. Those are the times when you call up your closest confidant or your mom or your sibling. This is NOT, I repeat NOT the time to update your social media statuses about how much you suck, or how you're so frustrated with your business. It's not the time to post in your networking group about how you REALLY REALLY need SOMEONE, ANYONE, to hire you to carry their bag or hold their light.
Why is that not a good idea? People value what appears to be valuable. You don't see Coach and Prada begging people to please please pleeeeeease buy their handbags, right? When you put all of your negative energy out there for the world to see, you make yourself look less valuable. When you publicly wonder what is wrong with you that you aren't getting jobs, the people around you start to wonder what is wrong with you too, and then they don't want to hire you.
In every interaction with your professional network, present yourself as positive, valuable, and in-demand. Responding to a post about an assistant position? Don't beg for the job. Keep it simple and positive. When I was in school, I would say, "I'm not taking on primary shooting jobs right now, due to being in school, but I would be happy to assist you on that day! Here are my skills. . ." Being positive about the way you present yourself makes people feel lucky to have scored YOU as an assistant.
You only get one chance to make a first impression.
6. Hustle like your life depends on it - I heard this at a presentation at WPPI back in March, and it really hit home. There are always negative events that will pop up and challenge us in our personal and professional lives, and we won't know when they are going to happen or the exact nature of them, but we do know that we can expect the unexpected to happen.
As people who want to control our own destinies by being independent entrepreneurs, that means putting in the work now to build a bomb proof business when that unexpected event happens. Have an idea? Try it! Afraid you don't know if it will work? Try it! None of us knows what will work, but trying and "failing" just gives us information about what doesn't work. We are in the driver's seat! If it doesn't work, we try our next idea, but we do not ever sit around feeling sorry for ourselves or scared of what might happen!
7. Know your business - I will be totally honest about this. . . When I first got asked to photograph something in exchange for money, I was caught off guard. I was an endurance sports coach who owned a consumer level DSLR camera and two kit lenses. I had taken a high school photography class, and I had always enjoyed taking photos. I had no idea what to charge, no idea what to do with the request really! I was desperate to take the job, because I needed the cash, and hello?! I LOVE taking photos!
Oh. Wow. It was a lot more work than I expected it to be, and it felt a little dirty to pimp my talent for some cash. That led to other little jobs here and there for friends, heading up a team of photographers to handle race photos for a triathlon and opening up the photography division of my coaching company, and I really sold myself short the whole time, because I didn't know the photography business. I didn't know what I needed to make for each shoot to be profitable. Almost everything I made ended up going to taxes and the people I had hired to help me get the jobs done, and I was left scratching my head. I was working without a contract, because while I had a coaching contract, it didn't occur to me that I needed contracts for shoots! I made every mistake I could make.
Get all of those ducks in a row before you agree to shoot professionally. Otherwise it's just a big headache that could backfire on you legally and financially! There are great resources for getting started, including sample contracts, at PPA (Professional Photographers of America), and there are a lot of other photographers out there who are happy to mentor you!
8. Pricing - I could write a whole post on pricing, because it's one of the things that I struggled with the most. Breathe!! This is one of those places where your network and your mentor(s) can help you more than you can imagine! There are also a lot of guides out there for sale that can help you get started pricing the type of photography that you want to do. Look at what you are buying, and ask around in your network for recommendations from more experienced photographers, but don't be afraid to lay down a little money for something that can more than pay for itself!
No matter what process you use to calculate your pricing, there are key pieces of information you are going to need before you start.
Here are some of the most important lessons I have learned from my three year journey to full time photography:
1. Technical skills - I'm not going to go into all of the skills you need to be a pro, because that's far more than a single blog post worth of writing. You should have a body of work that demonstrates your ability to create, on your own, consistently well lit, creative, well-composed, and well-focused images in a variety of circumstances. When people are paying your for your product, you can't rely on lucky shots or shots someone set up for you at a workshop.
Also, I wish it went without saying, but the work you display in your portfolio should be your own original work!! Stock photos and work like what you aspire to create someday don't have a place in your portfolio!!!! Best case, this is dishonest. Worst case, it's illegal.
What to do if your skills need work: Take classes; organize shoots with friends and family; immerse yourself in trial and error shooting experiments; go to workshops (just make sure that they're good quality workshops taught be qualified photographers); read photography books; ask for critiques, and listen to the feedback you get.
2. Network - Network with other photographers who have built businesses you admire. Join Facebook photography groups. You have NO IDEA how much I learned by lurking and reading a professional photography forum on FB for a few years before I ever typed a word on there. I made mental notes of what people were ranting about, what people praised, what advice people asked for and what advice people gave.
Attend EVERY networking event you can!! This is a great way to meet people who do what you want to do, find a mentor and get jobs! Most photographers won't hire you as an assistant or a second shooter based on your website alone. Most photographers want to have met you in person, so they have a feel for your personality, your attitude, and how you present yourself. It's a big responsibility to represent someone else's business, and the more they know about you from in-person meetings, the more comfortable they will be entrusting you to represent them.
Once you are established with other photographers, and ready to really strike out for clients of your own, network with established businesses that have the clients in your target market. Build friendships and business alliances with them.
3. NO EXCUSES!! - You would be surprised at the number of very well paid established professionals who are out there giving away their advice and knowledge just for the asking!! Seriously! I have met more generous and helpful photographers than I can count, and I owe a lot of my progress to the advice they have freely given me.
The only thing I see more than the amazingly generous advice of successful photographers are excuses. Yep. For every piece of advice I have read in response to a question on a photography forum there is a reason why "That won't work for me because. . ." "I already tried that, and it didn't work, because. . ." "I can't do that, because. . ." You name it; there is a reason that it won't work, and I can tell you that if you are committed to the idea of something not working, then it won't.
Excuses why you can't take the advice you asked for will get you nowhere.
4. Start from the bottom - I know how exciting it is to have your shiny new DSLR with its glistening lens and all of it's buttons and dials, but having a camera, even a really nice one, doesn't make you a photographer. It makes you a camera owner; which is GREAT! Owning a camera is a good first step!
Once you have the technical skills to produce consistent work, and you have met some more experienced pros, offer yourself as an assistant. Most pro photographers hire assistants. Most of the time, you need to leave your camera at home for these jobs. They involve carrying bags, setting up and/or holding lights, grabbing water bottles for the photographer, looking out for distracting elements in group shots (bunched up clothing, bulky items in pockets, people with drinks/purses/cameras in hand, etc.), and being generally helpful to the photographer. I find that it's good to know the timeline of the shoot, be constantly aware of the time, arrive early, and always double check that the photographer isn't leaving gear behind when switching locations. Your job is all about making the primary photographer look good, and making their job run more smoothly.
Most of the photographers that I know, don't hire a second shooter unless that person has a portfolio as strong as theirs, and trusts them to consistently deliver work on par with their own. Do your time schlepping bags and gear and helping light shots, and you will build a relationship and trust with the photographers you assist. Ask them for critiques of your work (not on the job, obviously!!). The more consistently awesome work they see you produce, the more they will think of you as a potential second.
Side note: You would not believe how much great information you pick up while you are holding lights/bags/reflectors! You get an inside look at another photographer's workflow, posing, styling, client interaction, handling of mishaps and unexpected glitches. All of these things are extremely valuable when you finally find yourself in the driver's seat of a shoot with your trusty assistant beside you!
5. Never let them see you desperate - This is HUGE!!! As you build your network, both online and in person, be very very aware of what you say and how you say it. Every human being on the planet goes through times when they feel like a failure, when they feel desperate to get hired, when they're afraid and frustrated and down on themselves. Those are the times when you call up your closest confidant or your mom or your sibling. This is NOT, I repeat NOT the time to update your social media statuses about how much you suck, or how you're so frustrated with your business. It's not the time to post in your networking group about how you REALLY REALLY need SOMEONE, ANYONE, to hire you to carry their bag or hold their light.
Why is that not a good idea? People value what appears to be valuable. You don't see Coach and Prada begging people to please please pleeeeeease buy their handbags, right? When you put all of your negative energy out there for the world to see, you make yourself look less valuable. When you publicly wonder what is wrong with you that you aren't getting jobs, the people around you start to wonder what is wrong with you too, and then they don't want to hire you.
In every interaction with your professional network, present yourself as positive, valuable, and in-demand. Responding to a post about an assistant position? Don't beg for the job. Keep it simple and positive. When I was in school, I would say, "I'm not taking on primary shooting jobs right now, due to being in school, but I would be happy to assist you on that day! Here are my skills. . ." Being positive about the way you present yourself makes people feel lucky to have scored YOU as an assistant.
You only get one chance to make a first impression.
6. Hustle like your life depends on it - I heard this at a presentation at WPPI back in March, and it really hit home. There are always negative events that will pop up and challenge us in our personal and professional lives, and we won't know when they are going to happen or the exact nature of them, but we do know that we can expect the unexpected to happen.
As people who want to control our own destinies by being independent entrepreneurs, that means putting in the work now to build a bomb proof business when that unexpected event happens. Have an idea? Try it! Afraid you don't know if it will work? Try it! None of us knows what will work, but trying and "failing" just gives us information about what doesn't work. We are in the driver's seat! If it doesn't work, we try our next idea, but we do not ever sit around feeling sorry for ourselves or scared of what might happen!
7. Know your business - I will be totally honest about this. . . When I first got asked to photograph something in exchange for money, I was caught off guard. I was an endurance sports coach who owned a consumer level DSLR camera and two kit lenses. I had taken a high school photography class, and I had always enjoyed taking photos. I had no idea what to charge, no idea what to do with the request really! I was desperate to take the job, because I needed the cash, and hello?! I LOVE taking photos!
Oh. Wow. It was a lot more work than I expected it to be, and it felt a little dirty to pimp my talent for some cash. That led to other little jobs here and there for friends, heading up a team of photographers to handle race photos for a triathlon and opening up the photography division of my coaching company, and I really sold myself short the whole time, because I didn't know the photography business. I didn't know what I needed to make for each shoot to be profitable. Almost everything I made ended up going to taxes and the people I had hired to help me get the jobs done, and I was left scratching my head. I was working without a contract, because while I had a coaching contract, it didn't occur to me that I needed contracts for shoots! I made every mistake I could make.
Get all of those ducks in a row before you agree to shoot professionally. Otherwise it's just a big headache that could backfire on you legally and financially! There are great resources for getting started, including sample contracts, at PPA (Professional Photographers of America), and there are a lot of other photographers out there who are happy to mentor you!
8. Pricing - I could write a whole post on pricing, because it's one of the things that I struggled with the most. Breathe!! This is one of those places where your network and your mentor(s) can help you more than you can imagine! There are also a lot of guides out there for sale that can help you get started pricing the type of photography that you want to do. Look at what you are buying, and ask around in your network for recommendations from more experienced photographers, but don't be afraid to lay down a little money for something that can more than pay for itself!
No matter what process you use to calculate your pricing, there are key pieces of information you are going to need before you start.
- Personal income requirement - How much do you need to take home to live the lifestyle you want?
- Type of photography - What are you focusing on shooting? Pricing varies so much for different segments of photography! Even within the "portrait" category there are a lot of factors that affect how you price yourself. A newborn portrait session takes a lot more time than a headshot, and the way those images are used will differ widely too! It's important to take these factors into account!
- Cost of doing business - How much do you need to bring in to pay for taxes, licenses, insurance (liability & equipment), studio/office space, sample products, printing, postage, editing, software, equipment repairs and upgrades, marketing, advertising, website hosting, domain registration, branding, accounting, legal consults, contracts, etc.? AND How much time will you spend working on shoots, editing, marketing, emails, phone calls, consults, pre-shoot preparation, location scouting, blogging, social media, etc.?
- Ideal Client - What is your target market? Who are they? What do they like? How much do they make? What are their interests? What do they want from you? What are their needs> Their values?
- Volume - How many weddings do you want to book in a year? How many portrait sessions? How much work can you handle without losing your mind? You may not book your target number of sessions in the first or even second or third year, but having the number is important to get you priced for success! Having that number in mind also gives you a goal to work towards and to measure your progress against. Also, think about whether you want to be a high priced business with fewer jobs or a lower priced business with more jobs.
Once you have that information in hand, you can crunch your numbers! Don't forget though that crunching the numbers is something you are going to be doing often as your business progresses! Pricing is something that you will revisit many many times. Some photographers I know revisit their pricing annually, and others do it as many as 4 times each year! You will get a feel for what works for you!
9. Workflow - One of the most eye opening pieces of advice I got from established photographers was this: write down every single step that you take to do each type of job from start to finish. Every. Single. Step. This helps you see where you can streamline your processes (email templates) and where you can outsource things (hiring a bookkeeper) that eat up tons of time for little return! It's a lifesaver!
10. Personal Projects - You want to do this, because you have a passion for the art of photography, right? Keep that passion alive by shooting something you want to shoot! Whether that's creating a styled shoot or taking your camera into the woods to shoot a waterfall or some birds, just go out and have fun with your camera on a regular basis!
11. Keep learning - Stagnation in your work will burn you out quickly! Find new ways to challenge yourself! See an image that inspires you? See if you can figure out how to make something similar? Go out for a personal project day with one lens and see what you can make! Always shoot portraits using natural light? Try some off camera flash. Whatever you normally do, shake things up by trying it a different way! Look for classes and workshops in an area of photography that you don't usually delve into! I spent last weekend at a Nature Photography Weekend and learned a bunch of new things, some of which I can even apply to what I do in my wedding and portrait work! This weekend, I'll be participating in a Night Photography Workshop from Andrew Fritz! I'm looking forward to shooting in the dark, and learning more about something I haven't played with in quite awhile!
Obviously, this isn't a comprehensive guide for how to build and sustain a successful photography business, but it's a compilation of things I learned over the last several years. I hope it gives you a starting place for doing more of what you love!
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Our Wedding, and why I love what I do!
I'm excited to finally share Stephen de Leon's images, and the story from our wedding day! When I look at the photos from our day, I get to see things about the day that I didn't see when it was happening. I get to see the facial expressions of our family as we were concentrating on not crying as we read our vows. I get to see exactly how many silly faces Jeff and I make at each other! I get to see the big picture and the little moments of what was going on while I was engrossed in living the experience of getting married.
This is why I love what I do. When I photograph a wedding, I give the couple the gift of the moments they might have missed. I give them the gift of reliving and remembering their day. I give them the gift of preserving, in a tangible printed album, their story.
Here is our story:
April 17, 2012 was a Tuesday, and a really odd and inconvenient night for my good friend, Ed, to have a birthday party, but I love Ed, and hadn't seen him in months, so I tore myself away from writing training plans for the athletes I was coaching, and went off to drop in for "an hour or so" at his party.
Across the potomac in NW DC, Jeff was having similar thoughts, and boarded a metro train into Alexandria to celebrate for "a little while" with Ed.
Knowing that I was a long course triathlete and Jeff was an ultra-distance cyclist, Ed introduced us, and the two of us talkative extroverts spent the next three hours deep in conversation. . . We met up for Thai food a week and a half later, and we shut the restaurant down with another long conversation. A hike, a bike ride, a movie, and it was clear to both of us that this was something. . . A trip to Colorado together, and we were both pretty sure that this was a permanent partnership.
We moved in together fast, just 3 months after that birthday party, but we're not 25. We know who we are, and we know what we want.
June 1, 2013, and Jeff gave me a ring, with gorgeous amethysts in a white gold setting, because I like purple more than I like diamonds, and he knows me. On top of Grandfather Mountain at sunset, I agreed to be his wife.
April 18, 2014, after nearly a week in a quiet mountain cabin at the foot of Grandfather Mountain, in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, we woke on our wedding day!
I made a big breakfast, anticipating that we probably wouldn't get lunch, and we sipped mimosas while waiting for our friend and photographer, Stephen de Leon, to get there.
We planned a low key day, small and intimate with immediate family and only our very closest of friends. The venue was McRae's Meadow at Grandfather Mountain. The dress was purple with white polka dots, from Mod Cloth, ordered online from my phone while Jeff and I were having a wedding planning meeting over black IPAs and reubens at one of our local bars, The Star and Shamrock. How many brides can say that they bought their dress in a bar?
My bouquet was yellow roses that I bought the night before the wedding from Food Lion for $12.99, and wrapped in ribbon I had found at Michael's before leaving for North Carolina.
As you might have expected, photography was the SECOND most important purchase of the day, behind only the license to wed, of course! Stephen is a well respected colleague of mine, and I trusted him to make amazing images of the day, because, really, what's left of the day after the sun sets and the guests go home? The marriage, and the photos. It's one investment that you'll never regret spending the big bucks on, because unlike the flowers, lighting, music, food, etcetera, the photography, good or bad, lasts a lifetime.
He captured the details of our day beautifully, using the cabin's lovely fireplace and deck view as perfect accents.
We designed the shoes ourselves direct from Converse, because I do not do uncomfortable shoes!
Our wedding bands are from The Jewelry Vault in Timberville, Virginia. They did a great job of bending my band to match the curve of my engagement ring!
My Wedding jewelry was a Christmas gift from Jeff! He found it at the Library of Congress gift shop near his office here in Washington, DC!
Jeff's tie is a one of a kind, hand painted silk, by our friend and textile artisan, Norma Colman, of Studio Three 17, and Fibergig. We are lucky to be surrounded by such talented and generous people!
We dressed in our purple wedding outfits, which ended up being PERFECT in spite of Jeff having to get a brand new shirt two days before, due to forgetting the original shirt at home! Thank goodness it was just a shirt and not something important like a social security card!
After getting dressed, Stephen and his second shooter/lighting assistant, Ellen Gwin, used the cabin's 50+ mile view off the deck as a backdrop for our first wedding portraits.
Stephen said that shooting another professional wedding photographer's wedding was easier than normal, because I planned the entire day around the position of the sun, but harder than normal, because he knows that I have a more discriminating eye! Even though I trusted him implicitly, he let us peek at the back of the camera a lot throughout the day!
After leaving the cabin, heading for the top of Grandfather to get some portraits at the site of our engagement, and with the famous Mile High Swinging Bridge, we stopped at a roadside pull off to get some shots with a small waterfall, and some graffiti covered rocks.
I'm tellin' ya. . . It's all about comfortable shoes!
When we reached the top of the mountain, it was SIGNIFICANTLY chillier and windier than it was at the bottom! One nice thing about usually being behind the camera is that nobody cares what I look like, so I can wear all of the layers I need! This was harder! I had to look comfortable and happy in my sundress! EEK! I think I did a pretty good job though!
In the nothing goes perfectly on your wedding day department, we got stopped in a paving roadblock on the way down the mountain with our families waiting in the meadow, and we had zero cell phone signal to let them know that we were on the way! At least that gave me a chance to scroll through all of the photos on the back of Stephen's camera!
Once we were in the meadow, Stephen got right down to business on the family and group shots, and I put on my sweater! We were done really quickly with great results!
With our parents:
With Jeff's parents:
With my family:
With our nieces and nephews:
With Jeff's family:
Jeff and his parents:
Jeff and his parents, brother and sister:
Jeff and his siblings:
With my mom and sister:
With my mom:
With my sister:
With my best friend since we were 5 years old!
With my best friend and her husband:
With Reverend ED:
With everyone:
Then it was time! My best friend of 32 years shoved some hand warmers in my dress pockets, and Jeff and I waited together behind the rocks for our signal, Chris Purkea's cover of Nicole Reynolds' Like a Movie. We walked into the little grove of trees together, holding hands, and faced our families.
Bringing things full circle, our friend who introduced us, Ed, officiated like a champ, telling the story of how we met, and reminding us that "routine maintenance" is the key to keeping all of our relationships strong and happy!
We asked that personal cameras and phones be stowed away during the ceremony, allowing our family to be present in the moment with us, and allowing Stephen to capture their expressions without the interference of everyone holding a camera or phone in front of their faces! I have to admit that I was nervous about asking for this, because we have several people who are talented hobbiest photographers in the family, but everyone was happy to abide by our request, and happy to get to really attend the wedding!
I lit a candle for my dad, who passed away in 1999, and Eileen, my best friend from kindergarten through the present, did a reading from Madeline l'Engle's The Irrational Season.
Both of us being big fans of craft beer, we created a "beer unity ritual" where we poured half of a Breckenridge Vanilla Porter and half of a Lancaster Strawberry Wheat beer into a glass together, and shared the resulting contents (hint: It's like strawberry shortcake in a glass!).
We wrote a little piece about how the beers are significant and about what they represent.
We also put together a wine box ceremony, where we locked letters to each other and a bottle of one of our favorite wines into a personalized wooden box from Mossy Holler that we will open on our 5th anniversary! It will be nice to share a bottle of Sugarloaf Winery Comus and read what we wrote to each other between breakfast and getting ready on the morning of our wedding day!
We wrote our own vows, and I threw in a surprise for Jeff by going off script and "Rick Rolling" him with the lyrics to Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up while Eileen cued up the music. After the gotcha moment, it was easy, for both of us, to get choked up on the real vows.
We exchanged rings, comparing them to bicycle wheels, pledging to each other "all of my miles. Through route changes and weather delays, on the fast flats, the steep climbs, and the exhilarating descents, I will be by your side."
With that, Ed declared, "by the power vested in him by the magic of the internet and the trust of the state of North Carolina" that we were husband and wife! We kissed, and walked out of the grove of trees to The Eels' Fresh Feeling.
We took a few minutes to hang out with everyone, finish the beer, and grab a couple more portraits before piling in cars to go to dinner!
We celebrated with dinner at The Best Cellar in Blowing Rock and cake from Stick Boy Bakery in Boone. Our bicycle cake topper is from Peachwik.
We finished out our vacation by seeing the sights with our families and friends and enjoyed a casual party with indoor bocce and DC Brau beer the next weekend back in our NE DC neighborhood at Vendetta, with 8 different pies from Dangerously Delicious Pies!
Yes. Beautifully preserving a couple's memories is why I love what I do, and having my own precious memories preserved so beautifully is why I value professional photography so highly.
Stay tuned for my photos from a recent wedding in Arlington, Virginia, engagements, some more professional headshots all coming soon, and our RAGBRAI honeymoon coming in July!
All Photos ©2014 Stephen de Leon, Stephen de Leon Photography
All text ©2014 Jen Magnuson, Magnuson Photographic
Unauthorized reproduction is prohibited.
This is why I love what I do. When I photograph a wedding, I give the couple the gift of the moments they might have missed. I give them the gift of reliving and remembering their day. I give them the gift of preserving, in a tangible printed album, their story.
Here is our story:
April 17, 2012 was a Tuesday, and a really odd and inconvenient night for my good friend, Ed, to have a birthday party, but I love Ed, and hadn't seen him in months, so I tore myself away from writing training plans for the athletes I was coaching, and went off to drop in for "an hour or so" at his party.
Across the potomac in NW DC, Jeff was having similar thoughts, and boarded a metro train into Alexandria to celebrate for "a little while" with Ed.
Knowing that I was a long course triathlete and Jeff was an ultra-distance cyclist, Ed introduced us, and the two of us talkative extroverts spent the next three hours deep in conversation. . . We met up for Thai food a week and a half later, and we shut the restaurant down with another long conversation. A hike, a bike ride, a movie, and it was clear to both of us that this was something. . . A trip to Colorado together, and we were both pretty sure that this was a permanent partnership.
We moved in together fast, just 3 months after that birthday party, but we're not 25. We know who we are, and we know what we want.
June 1, 2013, and Jeff gave me a ring, with gorgeous amethysts in a white gold setting, because I like purple more than I like diamonds, and he knows me. On top of Grandfather Mountain at sunset, I agreed to be his wife.
April 18, 2014, after nearly a week in a quiet mountain cabin at the foot of Grandfather Mountain, in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, we woke on our wedding day!
I made a big breakfast, anticipating that we probably wouldn't get lunch, and we sipped mimosas while waiting for our friend and photographer, Stephen de Leon, to get there.
We planned a low key day, small and intimate with immediate family and only our very closest of friends. The venue was McRae's Meadow at Grandfather Mountain. The dress was purple with white polka dots, from Mod Cloth, ordered online from my phone while Jeff and I were having a wedding planning meeting over black IPAs and reubens at one of our local bars, The Star and Shamrock. How many brides can say that they bought their dress in a bar?
My bouquet was yellow roses that I bought the night before the wedding from Food Lion for $12.99, and wrapped in ribbon I had found at Michael's before leaving for North Carolina.
As you might have expected, photography was the SECOND most important purchase of the day, behind only the license to wed, of course! Stephen is a well respected colleague of mine, and I trusted him to make amazing images of the day, because, really, what's left of the day after the sun sets and the guests go home? The marriage, and the photos. It's one investment that you'll never regret spending the big bucks on, because unlike the flowers, lighting, music, food, etcetera, the photography, good or bad, lasts a lifetime.
He captured the details of our day beautifully, using the cabin's lovely fireplace and deck view as perfect accents.
We designed the shoes ourselves direct from Converse, because I do not do uncomfortable shoes!
Our wedding bands are from The Jewelry Vault in Timberville, Virginia. They did a great job of bending my band to match the curve of my engagement ring!
My Wedding jewelry was a Christmas gift from Jeff! He found it at the Library of Congress gift shop near his office here in Washington, DC!
Jeff's tie is a one of a kind, hand painted silk, by our friend and textile artisan, Norma Colman, of Studio Three 17, and Fibergig. We are lucky to be surrounded by such talented and generous people!
We dressed in our purple wedding outfits, which ended up being PERFECT in spite of Jeff having to get a brand new shirt two days before, due to forgetting the original shirt at home! Thank goodness it was just a shirt and not something important like a social security card!
After getting dressed, Stephen and his second shooter/lighting assistant, Ellen Gwin, used the cabin's 50+ mile view off the deck as a backdrop for our first wedding portraits.
Stephen said that shooting another professional wedding photographer's wedding was easier than normal, because I planned the entire day around the position of the sun, but harder than normal, because he knows that I have a more discriminating eye! Even though I trusted him implicitly, he let us peek at the back of the camera a lot throughout the day!
After leaving the cabin, heading for the top of Grandfather to get some portraits at the site of our engagement, and with the famous Mile High Swinging Bridge, we stopped at a roadside pull off to get some shots with a small waterfall, and some graffiti covered rocks.
I'm tellin' ya. . . It's all about comfortable shoes!
When we reached the top of the mountain, it was SIGNIFICANTLY chillier and windier than it was at the bottom! One nice thing about usually being behind the camera is that nobody cares what I look like, so I can wear all of the layers I need! This was harder! I had to look comfortable and happy in my sundress! EEK! I think I did a pretty good job though!
In the nothing goes perfectly on your wedding day department, we got stopped in a paving roadblock on the way down the mountain with our families waiting in the meadow, and we had zero cell phone signal to let them know that we were on the way! At least that gave me a chance to scroll through all of the photos on the back of Stephen's camera!
Once we were in the meadow, Stephen got right down to business on the family and group shots, and I put on my sweater! We were done really quickly with great results!
With our parents:
With Jeff's parents:
With my family:
With our nieces and nephews:
With Jeff's family:
Jeff and his parents:
Jeff and his parents, brother and sister:
Jeff and his siblings:
With my mom and sister:
With my mom:
With my sister:
With my best friend since we were 5 years old!
With my best friend and her husband:
With Reverend ED:
With everyone:
Then it was time! My best friend of 32 years shoved some hand warmers in my dress pockets, and Jeff and I waited together behind the rocks for our signal, Chris Purkea's cover of Nicole Reynolds' Like a Movie. We walked into the little grove of trees together, holding hands, and faced our families.
Bringing things full circle, our friend who introduced us, Ed, officiated like a champ, telling the story of how we met, and reminding us that "routine maintenance" is the key to keeping all of our relationships strong and happy!
We asked that personal cameras and phones be stowed away during the ceremony, allowing our family to be present in the moment with us, and allowing Stephen to capture their expressions without the interference of everyone holding a camera or phone in front of their faces! I have to admit that I was nervous about asking for this, because we have several people who are talented hobbiest photographers in the family, but everyone was happy to abide by our request, and happy to get to really attend the wedding!
I lit a candle for my dad, who passed away in 1999, and Eileen, my best friend from kindergarten through the present, did a reading from Madeline l'Engle's The Irrational Season.
Both of us being big fans of craft beer, we created a "beer unity ritual" where we poured half of a Breckenridge Vanilla Porter and half of a Lancaster Strawberry Wheat beer into a glass together, and shared the resulting contents (hint: It's like strawberry shortcake in a glass!).
We wrote a little piece about how the beers are significant and about what they represent.
We also put together a wine box ceremony, where we locked letters to each other and a bottle of one of our favorite wines into a personalized wooden box from Mossy Holler that we will open on our 5th anniversary! It will be nice to share a bottle of Sugarloaf Winery Comus and read what we wrote to each other between breakfast and getting ready on the morning of our wedding day!
We wrote our own vows, and I threw in a surprise for Jeff by going off script and "Rick Rolling" him with the lyrics to Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up while Eileen cued up the music. After the gotcha moment, it was easy, for both of us, to get choked up on the real vows.
We exchanged rings, comparing them to bicycle wheels, pledging to each other "all of my miles. Through route changes and weather delays, on the fast flats, the steep climbs, and the exhilarating descents, I will be by your side."
With that, Ed declared, "by the power vested in him by the magic of the internet and the trust of the state of North Carolina" that we were husband and wife! We kissed, and walked out of the grove of trees to The Eels' Fresh Feeling.
We took a few minutes to hang out with everyone, finish the beer, and grab a couple more portraits before piling in cars to go to dinner!
We celebrated with dinner at The Best Cellar in Blowing Rock and cake from Stick Boy Bakery in Boone. Our bicycle cake topper is from Peachwik.
We finished out our vacation by seeing the sights with our families and friends and enjoyed a casual party with indoor bocce and DC Brau beer the next weekend back in our NE DC neighborhood at Vendetta, with 8 different pies from Dangerously Delicious Pies!
Yes. Beautifully preserving a couple's memories is why I love what I do, and having my own precious memories preserved so beautifully is why I value professional photography so highly.
Stay tuned for my photos from a recent wedding in Arlington, Virginia, engagements, some more professional headshots all coming soon, and our RAGBRAI honeymoon coming in July!
All Photos ©2014 Stephen de Leon, Stephen de Leon Photography
All text ©2014 Jen Magnuson, Magnuson Photographic
Unauthorized reproduction is prohibited.
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