Last week, Steve and I made a quick little jaunt to Bloomington, Indiana to visit with inspiring photographers Jeff and Michelle Richardson.  Jeff and Michelle graciously shared their time and expertise with us as we prepare for the next developmental step for our business. While we were there, they helped us enjoy the lush 70s temperatures and gave us some recommendations to see in their lovely state.

We flew to Indiana on Monday on American Airlines – in coach, thank you very much.  But as we were flying the friendly skies we remembered about a session back in July with Celebrated Living magazine’s editor Janet Thomas. It was time for Janet to have new photos done for her editor’s page of the magazine and she wanted something a little more relaxed and true to her and she thought of us. Celebrated Living is the magazine for American’s First Class fliers so as we departed the airplane, we snuck a copy off.

As these are scans of the magazine pages – the photo doesn’t look as great here but you can see it on the CL website here.  If you get to ride First Class anytime soon look for Janet’s pic and our itty bitty photo credit hiding near the seam in the bottom right corner.  We took a variety of photos so Janet could change her look based on the season.

Janet is actually greatly responsible for Carpe Vita Photography being even alive today, because back in 1994, she introduced Steve and I to one another.  This is a photo Janet’s husband Steve took of that fateful night.  I sailed regularly with Janet and her Steve on their boat – second from the left – and our Steve sailed with other friends on the red boat.

We probably passed one another many times on the docks during racing season but because we raced in different fleets, we never really met.  But this night July 23, 1994 when we were supposed to race, there was no wind so a raft-up came about and the rest is history. We celebrated our 15 year Introversary this July.

Now the little surprise that came our way yesterday – Carpe Vita was named Best Photography for the Northern Region by Texas Meetings & Events Magazine this week at an awards gala in Austin, Texas.  For more details, here’s the link.  We were honored to be nominated and blown away that we were selected.  We love photographing all the work and thought that goes into meetings and events.  As we don’t tend to do the print on location event photography, we are available to showcase what all the vendors and planners spent all of their genius on creating for their clients.  It is amazing to be recognized and wow, would you look at the other peeps who won!

Best Caterer: Creative Cuisine (go Geni and the rest of the amazing gang)
Best Conference/Convention/Exhibition Center: Plano Centre
Best Entertainment: Lone Star Murder Mysteries by Lagniappe Productions
Best Florist: Macaux Florals (we photographed their amazing florals earlier this year at the Johnson-Long Wedding)
Best Destination Management Organization: Plano Convention & Visitors Bureau
Best Golf Resort/Country Club: Cowboys Golf Club
Best Holiday Event/Party Venue: City Club of Fort Worth
Best Hotel with Meeting Space: Gaylord Texan Hotel and Convention Center (we love our neighbors)
Best Green Meetings/Event Venue – Garrett Creek Ranch Conference Center
Best Unique Venue: Circle R Ranch
Best Rental Service (tents, tables, linens): Ducky-Bob’s Event Specialist
Best Teambuilding Facility/Organizer: Rockin’ C Ranch
Best Transportation – Premiere Transportation Services
Best Photography – your’s truly Carpe Vita Photography
Best New Venue – Union Station (which we had the honor of doing promotional photography for earlier this year – which reminds me I never did a blog entry for…)

Fourth of July fell on Saturday this year and this was a Saturday that Carpe Vita Photography did not have a wedding to photograph so we helped some of our wedding industry buddies out and documented some of their labours of love.

The vendors involved were:
Wedding Planner/Coordinator – Shanna Marko of The Organized Event
Florist/Creative Designer – Stacey Murdoch and the talented crew of The Wildflower
Venue – Tristin Jumper and the incredible staff of The Gaylord Texan
DJ, Master of Ceremony, and Lighting – Randal Stout and his outrageous techs at LUMEN
Cakes – Audrey Ross, the Cake Chick (I lost her business card so I hope she calls us for pics)

We got some fun working photos as well as the splash before the bride and groom arrived. Here’s Stacey designing on the fly.

 
Shanna Marko and a Gaylord Texan executive help the lighting guys get the spots just right so there are no unsightly shadows.  And Tristin from the Gaylord acts as a MOH (maid of honor).

The Gold Chevalier chairs are courtesy of Posh Couture Rentals.

Audrey Ross brings the bride’s cake together while Stacey adds some floral touches.

Then when they finally turned down the lights in the ballroom, the magic really happened.
 
Aren’t uplighting and pin spots the best things?  They add so much drama!

The little chandeliers were a sweet little touch for the entrances into the ballroom (way to go Stacey).
 

The different sized tables and floral arrangements also added more visual interest to a spectacular view.
  

|

Can’t you just smell heaven?


As you can tell everyone involved did an amazing job and this had to be a dream come true for the bride and groom.  Kelly Alexander Photography was responsible for actually photographing the wedding and they seemed to be blessed with a beautiful couple.

Kim and Steve Cooley of Carpe Vita Photography spent the first few business days of July photographing a great deal of the inventory of Posh Couture Rentals.  Laurel Howell and Jami Goetz have recently opened the doors to this innovative approach to exquisite party rental items.  As the ladies haven’t yet unveiled everything, we can’t be letting their complete secret out of the bag before their grand opening launch this fall but they will definitely be offering the creme de la creme to make any party be the talk of the town!

Here are a few sneak peek photos we did…
 

Here’s a fun little self portrait of Kim Cooley in the reflection of a coffee part – how about those really long fingers…

We love photographing pretty things – parties, details, people – everything has beauty in it’s own way, we just have to find it and bring it to the light of day.

The Carpe Vita Mission is “Providing unique perspectives of your life” – what a fun challenge it was to do this with something that can’t really smile.
 

The detail shots were our favorite to do…

Their glassware was a ton of fun to photograph.  Here’s two from the Chloe pattern in the Couture Collection.

Fun with Filigree.

And as a fan of red and black (the Posh Couture logo colors plus Go Red Raiders!), I was really liking their new Onyx glassware group.

This is just the tip of the iceberg of all that we photographed.  Check the Posh website in about 6 weeks and you should start to see everything involved.