I heart faces entry

This photo was entered into the I HEART FACES entry for May. This was my entry for the theme "FACES" :) Please vote, and check out all the other great entries. They are truly amazing!

bringing up the old building the new

I was looking through and perfecting my new fine art website I found some of these goodies from the past. I'm hoping to have my fine art website up in the next week! :) 

Seattle Washington! So, today I went around in our Downtown area in Wilmington, NC. And I thought after hearing this great seminar on CreativeLIVE on Journalist photography I'd be apt to see what our downtown has to offer. I was stumped.. Living in a small town is not as great as people think it is, for a photographer. My creative side seems to have died since I have moved here. It's so hard to be inspired about the UN-inspire able. It's hard to see things different after seeing them repeatedly and the scenery never change. So, I came back home looked through my photography stock that I have on my good ole hard drive and found something to be inspired about. SEATTLE! Robbie and I went there on our honeymoon last year. Well, it was our first and last stop on our cruise to Alaska and it was so cloudy and dweary that I think I almost lost sight of "LIFE" that was happening around me. Here are some pictures that I felt were what I was looking for today in Wilmington, but had already apparently captured somewhere else. 

Inspiration

I was looking through my images and I can't help but see a noticeable resemblance to certain ad companies photography. I love the American Eagle, Gap, Lauren Conrad & Ann Taylor's look books. I would love to take their images one day, it would be a dream :) But til now, here are some of their examples... of their work


(all images courtesy of AnnTaylor.com and Anntaylorloft.com, AmericanEagle.com, and Laurenconrad.com)

Nelson, Nevada

NELSON, NV- Ghost town? When I went to Vegas I had one session that was supposed to take place at Nelson,NV. So because I like to scout out all my locations prior to shooting, we went and scoped out this so called Ghost town. After 30minutes of driving off a dirt road we finally reached an area we thought was Nelson. Well, it was Nelson but we ended up going right instead of left on the road (mind you we were following every bit of directions Map quest dished out) So this put us in an area were both my phone and my sister's phone's signals dropped, the road became very rocky and we quickly realized we were going up a hill or some type of mountain. Needless to say, we pulled out of that area really quickly as we saw ourselves being the main stars in a new slasher film called "THE HILLS HAVE EYES 4:  Nelson,NV". Yeah we were very paranoid but what can you say, there is nothing around you, when you go onto this road the sign reads, "no gas stations, or rest stops next 30miles".. These words do haunt you once your more and more into the road and experience complete solitude.  Alright, so we finally made it to Nelson, after making the correct turn, and following a road that lead us to this Ghost town. The town is set to look like a historic 1800s town, but failed short because I think it really look liked a 1950s ghost town. Coke and Cars? Yes, 1950s not 1800s.. But it's a pretty cool location.  If your not into rattle snakes, and the fear of them biting your calf off. (yes, your calf) Than don't sign the waiver you have to sign upon arriving in the area. There is a gift shop museum of sorts, you have to check in and they are nice enough to fill you in on all the possible critters that lurk in the old abandon things as well as possible scenarios of things that may happen to you while your there. This is why my family shoot did not happen here, Kids, rattle snakes? I don't know thing so.  Safety people, safety! (Yup, thats what PaulaAndreaPhotography is all about ) :) 

However, when it comes to family and knowing one another's limits we decided to venture off "safely" and take pictures as quick as we could before we heard things moving and freaked out thinking there was snakes all around us.

Here are a few pictures of Morgan at the Nelson,NV location

packaging

I thought it'd be neat to share my packaging. It's still a long ways of what I ideally would LOVE it to be, but I think this is a good start to show my customer's that I take pride in my work, and who doesn't like to receive a gift?

The boxes come from DNLPHOTO.com, they are awesome and have great customer service!
Labels printed from Zazzle.com
CD cases are from DNLphoto as well.
CD White envelope from Office Max
Ribbon and Paper stock from Michael's