Here's part 2 of 2 of of our Real Wedding Workshop AND Jenni and Stevn's wedding day. After the ceremony, we headed off to celebrate at the beautiful William Aiken House. Sara Hosch, Sr. Event Planner, from Southern Protocol made every ounce of Jenni's wedding a dream come true! There wasn't anything missing from their puppy, Jackson, greeting them with his bow tie, to every single perfectly placed candle and hanging chandelier. She and her team did an amazing job! The William Aiken House is the perfect location for a Southern wedding and I love that the movie "The Notebook" filmed the wedding dress fitting scene in the room that Jenni and Stevn cut their cake.

The love in the house was overwhelming... and it's no wonder. Jenni and Stevn are nicer than they are beautiful and that says a lot because they are both gorgeous. After everyone danced the night away, Mr. and Mrs. ended the evening with a sparkler exit and off they went in a rickshaw... so much fun!

Day 3 of our Real Wedding Workshop was quickly upon us. We spent the morning at the Charleston Center For Photography looking through images from the wedding and recapping what Bob had shared on Day 1 and wedding day as well as going through our approach to sales, marketing and branding. I love this part of the day because it's where I get to share how we run our business. Bob and I have made our fair share of not so great decisions in our business that have brought us to where we are today. I'm grateful for those mistakes as we've learned a lot from them. It's nice to be able to share what has worked for us and what hasn't.

After lunch we hit the streets of Charleston again for another session with Jenni + Stevn. I'm amazed they were up for it as they had a long evening dancing the night away at their beautiful wedding. We began at the United States Custom House and ended at the famous Pineapple Fountain. I love these images because the kids were so amazed that Jenni and Stevn were in the fountain all dressed up! It was so cute to see their reaction.

This was definitely a once in a lifetime experience. Jenni and Stevn, we are so happy for you and wish you both and your beautiful families a lifetime of happiness. Thank you so much for trusting us with your very special day. We love you both!!!

xoxox,

~ Dawn and Bob

It's hard to believe it's August 1st... where did July go? Where did June go? It's been a crazy busy summer and we're so excited for Skip Cohen University August 11-14, 2013. This is a conference you will not want to miss. It's at the Doubletree Hilton Hotel in Oakbrook, Illinois which is not far from where we live! It's a close ride from O'Hare and Midway airport, so no excuses! Come and join the fun. The group of speakers is incredible. There will be so much to learn and the networking possibilities are amazing! Last year Bob and I spoke on the husband & wife panel for married photographers. What a blast! The energy this conference brings will be sure to set you up for success for the rest of the year!

The list of speakers is crazy cool from, Clay Blackmore, Michele Celentano, Bob Coates, Joe McNally, Adam Sherwin, Zach & Jody Gray, Dixie Dixon, Justin & Mary Marantz, Jen Rozenbaum, Ryan Schembri, Suzette Allen and of course, US, there is sure to be some amazing sharing of knowledge going on.

A HUGE thank you to Skip Cohen for organizing this event all these years! I know this is going to be one of the BEST conferences yet! Thank you for providing an incredible atmosphere of learning. We have never been more proud to be part of such an amazing industry!

There are MANY big incentives going on right now to sign up, so please check it out. You will be glad you came! To register, click HERE.

We can't wait to meet everyone and share the love and passion with everyone who will be attending!!!

xoxo,

~ Dawn & Bob

Welcome to the beginning of our Italian adventure. Bob, our kiddos, + I flew to Italy to host a real wedding workshop where we photographed the beautiful wedding of Giulia + Marco, along with 11 of our second shooters. Yes, you absolutely read that right. As many of you know, we host photography workshops around the world and this one was beyond our wildest dreams! With the help of our dear friends, Max + Cris who organized our workshop and introduced us to our bride + groom, we spent 6 glorious nights + 5 fun days photographing a pre-wedding session, sunflower fields, a wedding in a castle, and the rolling hills of Umbria and Tuscany... a dream come true! After countless hours of laughing and sometimes crying, we all said goodbye in tears. The friendships that were made were incredible and will last a lifetime. I can't wait to write more about that soon.

Bob and I are super excited to share with the world a video created by Anton Lorimer of Lorimer Works. I'm not sure how to quite describe this video other than it being a workshop promo video, however, this wasn't filmed at one of our workshops. It was filmed at our Ghost Town photo shootout in Vegas. A big thank you to Crystal Pickering, Bob Young, and Tracey Taylor + Dee Green for the most incredibly kind words in the video. They have all been to one of our workshops in the past and we have remained friends and always will.

Enjoy, and let us know what you think!

xoxox,

~ Dawn

So, I've been holding out this amazing shoot from our REAL WEDDING + WORKSHOP of the year, where Tiffany + Miles said "I Do" in front of 100+ friends and family at the most beautiful southern chic venue, Cedarwood Weddings in Nashville, Tennessee.

We all arrived the day before the wedding to begin our workshop and take Tiffany + Miles out for an incredibly fun photo shoot that Arline + Doug, T+M's parents set up for us. We were so excited to begin this day........ and you can see why when you look at the photos.......... A TOTAL DREAM!!!

Their wedding day photos can be seen here:
Tiffany + Miles | Wedding on our website
Tiffany + Miles | Wedding on our blog
Tiffany + Miles | Wedding book design
Tiffany + Miles | Wedding on our Facebook Page.

Enjoy and leave us some love! Tiffany + Miles will love it and so we'll we!!!!

God bless you always!

~ Dawn + Bob

This is it........ the REAL WEDDING WORKSHOP of the year, where Tiffany + Miles said "I Do" in front of 100+ friends and family at the most beautiful southern chic venue, Cedarwood Weddings in Nashville, Tennessee. I think this is the largest amount of images from any one event that I've ever posted. I hard the hardest time narrowing down the images. You can see even more on our Facebook page, right HERE.

I don't even know where to begin. This was such an incredible wedding + workshop experience. Tiffany's mom, Arline, is a photographer that attended our Vegas Love Story workshop in 2008, and assisted us with our 2nd wedding + workshop of Sarah + Brent in St. Simons Island in 2009. Arline is now a dear friend of ours and well, it's was her daughter's turn to get married. Tiffany + Miles wanted to share their wedding day and make it a dream wedding for photographers to walk away with a beautiful portfolio southern wedding. So, with that being said, we had 18 photographers sign up to shoot this wedding with Bob and learn from him. With the amazing help from, Angie Garbot, plus Arline's crew of 3 photographers, I would bet I could safely say this was the most photographed wedding in history totaling 24 photographers. You ask "how in the world does 24 photographers not get in each others way?" and "who on earth would want 18 photographers be educated on their wedding day?" well, all I can say is that we were blessed with 18 of thee most amazing attendees/photographers to shoot with and well.... only a couple who comes from a family of photographers, Ace Photography, would be this crazy!!! We all had the BEST time ever at Tiffany + Miles wedding and the images below will show you how incredible a dream southern chic wedding can be!

Thank you, THANK YOU, thank you Arline, Tiffany + Miles for letting us be part of your incredible wedding day. Tiffany, you looked stunning in your Karen Hendrix Couture gown. If you're a bride reading this, you must check out Karen's work. She is an extraordinarily talented, creative, designer who is a beautiful, sweet woman and so gracious about her success. Also, a huge thank you to Karen and Linda, the owners of Historic Cedarwood Weddings who made us feel so welcomed. Their southern hospitality goes beyond any simple expectation. Their exceptional team graciously worked around all the madness and all our photographers beautifully. I dream about the day we can photograph another wedding there!

Tiffany + Miles, from the bottom of our heart......... THANK YOU! You two are so meant to be together. You are crazy in love and it's so fun to see!!!

Much love and blessings for a long, happy, healthy life together!!!

xoxoxo,

~ Dawn & Bob

Ps: This is just the wedding day blog post. I still need to go through all the images from our day before and after the wedding... OMG!

Bob Davis and I are very excited to announce that we'll be speaking at the 2nd Annual Convention International Del Foro De Fotógrafos in Madrid, Spain. We are very honored and can't wait to meet everyone. All Spanish speaking attendees will be wearing headsets for translation. We couldn't be more honored to be presenting with some incredible speakers such as Yervant Zanazanian, Jim Garner, Kimberlee & Marissa from The Boudoir Divas, Sergio Photography, David Beckstead, Rogelio Romero Serrano, Clemente Jiménez Fotografos, Vinicius Matos, & Francisco Guerrero. A HUGE thank you to Rodolfo Apria for the invitation. And we're also happy to see that our fine art book company, GraphiStudio, is one of the sponsors! We are very honored and can't wait to meet everyone!

TWO OF OUR FAVORITE IMAGES FROM THE DAY!

Wow........ time flies when you're having fun! Summer is in full blast and so is wedding season! This post is long overdue and I'm excited to finally share some photos from our last workshop in May. We were invited back to the Schaumburg Regional Airport by John Rippenger, Justin Barchfield, and Sean Kline. What a great group of guys!!! Our workshop 2 years ago was such a success, it was a no brainer to say YES, we'd love to do a workshop at the airport again! And the biggest surprise was from John's friend, Chuck Greenhill, who made a special appearance with his P-51 Mustang airplane. Chuck is so cute and completely stole the show. The photo above is one of my favorite photos of the day!

We had another amazing group of photographers join us at this workshop! Laura Brantley, Brittany Caryl, Stacie Kemp, Lisa Recine, Richard Reyes, Kelly Scarlati, Jessica Shirk, and Gus Zimmerman. I absolutely loved each and everyone of them. They are not only amazing people, they left us feeling really inspired. They were full of great questions! They shared their passion, their heart and souls with us, and we couldn't have asked for a better group to spend 2 incredible days with!

I just don't even know where to begin thanking our Operations Manager, Michele Gonzalez, she is also my niece. She works for us almost full-time and she keeps us on track. As our business flourishes, she manages everything for us so we don't absolutely lose our minds. We love her to pieces and are so thankful to have her in our lives for so many reasons!!!

Michele did a fantastic job organizing this workshop for us and taking care of all behind the scenes stuff. Finding reliable models and makeup artists are no easy task, and she always finds the best! She arranges all the meals that are sponsored by our incredible vendors that make our business so much better, Pictage, Photographer's Edit, Pixel2Canvas. Thank you to our vendors who shouted out about our workshop and supplied us with goodies to give away, FJ Westcott, Camera Bits, Radiopopper, Showit, GraphiStudio, and Kubota Image Tools. We are surrounded by amazing vendors who are vital to our success. Make sure to check them out!

And lastly, a big thank you to everyone who helped out with the over-the-top shots Bob got of John Rippenger's T-34 airplane. Radiopopper loaned us 45 units to make these shots possible, along with all the flashes our attendees & friends contributed, thank you Kenny Kim, Jenn Gaudreau, Jaclyn Simpson, Veronica Hinojosa, and Todd Pinckney. Thank you Angie Garbot for helping us out with our Nikon shooters. And wait... can't forget about Fritz Cripe who took Bob up in his chopper to get these photos! Fritz even took me and Kelly, our model, for a ride! We love you all and are so blessed to call you friends!!!

Thank you everyone for investing in us and trusting us to help you further your passion for your photography business. We are so grateful for to have met you all. Bob and I want you to succeed in this crazy fun photography industry, so please know that we will always be here for you if you have any questions! Just say the word!!!

We love you all...!!!

~ Dawn and Bob

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INCREDIBLE MODELS:
Gigi Schiller
Kenny Morrow
Jenna Martinelli
Kelly Marie Campbell
Adrianna Gnoit

TALENTED HAIR/MAKEUP ARTIST:
Jaycie Kurfess
Rebecca Morrow

Just because your camera can shoot at a crazy high ISO doesn't mean the quality of LIGHT is good.  Bob will go through the evolution of light using small speed lights, direct flash, bounce flash and multiple wireless remote flashes, and show you how to create studio quality light anywhere, anytime, as shown in the helicopter photo above.

Attract clients that appreciate you as an artist. Raise your prices successfully without losing your client referral base. Get your work published.  Be confident at sales meetings. Dawn will be thoroughly covering these topics, their workflow, retouching, and sharing how they grew their small town business into a high-end, low volume signature brand and how YOU can too.