Stacey Bode Photography

Our good friends, Tim and Shelby, finally got to meet their little boy the other day. Maximillian Joseph Habeger has officially entered this world, and he’s about as perfect as can be.

Shelby is my new hero. I won’t go into all the details, but she had to work extremely hard for nearly THREE DAYS before getting to hold that little fella for the first time. I hope she reminds him of this every Mother’s Day and every time he refuses to clean his room.

When I first met Sheila and Todd, I knew they were planning a wedding with unique details that would truly reflect who they are. The big day took place at a quaint church with beautiful windows and rustic charm. All the special elements they added were evident to all who attended. There were decorations and adornments everywhere, and glimpses of medieval flair.

Sheila and Todd’s friends and family all pitched in their skills to add to the celebration. It was clear how much everyone cares for this happy couple, and how much they wanted this event to be a memorable one.

Their day included many moments of joy, romance, laughter, and love. I feel really privileged to have been chosen to capture this important milestone.

I’m so excited about this post! John, one of my former work pals recently got married to the super-sweet Rhi. When I was at the biomed company, Rhi also worked there, but sadly we never crossed paths (big company). I saw John a lot since he worked in Quality Assurance and I managed a laboratory. You do the math. Let’s just say that I knew all the folks in Quality really well. I think my wrists are still sore from all their slapping. Good job, fellas! I’m just glad that nobody ever wrote me up for performing show tunes while performing heart dissections.

John is about to start medical school in a couple of weeks, so send him some good vibes and calming thoughts. A while back, I took a quick headshot for him to use on his application. Now I like to take full credit for all of his success.

It was such a happy surprise when John called to say that he and Rhi got hitched in Vegas! They wanted some “bride and groom” portraits here in Atlanta with them all gussied up, and I was beyond pleased to oblige.

In between some sketchy weather and even sketchier downtown construction and detours, we met up at the park to capture them in all their married glory.

It was cool to see John all tuxed-out, and Rhi is one truly stunning woman. Photographing this handsome couple was like, well, a walk in the park! They have such a beautiful affection for one another that the shoot felt more like watching a romantic movie than posing people for photos.

It was so great to see Travis, Stephanie, and Rowe! They are friends who used to live in Atlanta, but are now way up yonder in New York.

Travis is a jack of all trades: comedy, music, writing…the list goes on. The size of his ideas are equal to the size of his heart. He’ll probably think I’m a dork for writing that, but it’s true. Stephanie is smart, stylish, and me and the other gals who know her often wish we could break off a little piece of her firecracker personality and make it our own.

And Rowe is growing up so fast!!! Thank goodness we got to take some family photos before she starts driving and voting! They also said that there are NO photos of the three of them together! Definitely time to remedy that!

The first time I met Ayesha, I sat across a table from her and stared with total cow-mouthed disbelief. The reason for my lame behavior is that I was truly that struck by how gorgeous she is.

As I got to know her, I quickly discovered that she’s far from just a pretty face. She’s a multi-talented lady with a larger-than-life personality who I can only describe as a beautiful supernova.

I wish I could be Ayesha when I grow up. This won’t happen though because she already does a fine job of being herself and surely doesn’t need me added to the mix, and there’s the SMALL fact she’s also younger than me. Sigh.

She had some time to get together and “play photo”, which made me do a little happy dance. The crazy thing is, we both had a hard time coming up with specific ideas to capture. She’s super creative and I usually have a million ideas playing kickball in my brain, but our ideaometers were set to “dangerously low”. So we just played around with whatever scenarios we could shoot at her apartment. Turns out, we didn’t need anything fancy…just two wacky gals and a camera. Who knew?

This lovely young lady is Carla. We took some headshots for her the other day in the good ol’ East Atlanta Village.

She’s a very sweet, soft-spoken gal. I asked her if she often has women beg her to give her hair to them. Of course they do. She totally has the kind of hair you only see in movies and in magazines. I’d trade my fine, wishy-washy hair for hers any day.

I also think she looks like she could be another Kardashian sister. They need one who’s pretty AND sane, so I think Carla would be a much needed addition.

I had the pleasure of taking some family portraits this weekend for Heather, Jill, Caitlin, and Kahlua. It’s always a good time to capture special moments, but we had an added agenda. Kahlua is a puppy…a Great Dane puppy who is destined to become the size of a Hummer. So, they thought it might be a good idea to catch some puppy shots before the growing process becomes unstoppable. I agree!

Below is my favorite quote. It satisfies both the scientist and the romantic in me (it’s hard to find quotes that can do that).

I made labels with the quote on it, and I stick them everywhere. I put them on packaging for my clients…things like info folders and envelopes. I promise that I don’t slap them on wedding albums. I like that this quote is universal, and seems appropriate for anyone who I might cross paths with.

I know my favorite quote will never be as good as the likes of….

“It is wonderful to be here in the great state of Chicago” – Dan Quayle

…but I like it just the same.

So, do YOU have a favorite quote, saying, philosophy??? I’d love to hear it.

The 21-day cleanse is over! It’s shocking that I don’t feel like indulging in piles of small animals or eating my way through 5 cheese logs and 3 key lime pies. I ate a small bowl of organic cereal with some soy milk. I did finish off my cleanse-free breakfast with a fudge bar, but I decided against the tequila. All in due time.

I may even do the cleanse for a week every month. Yep, it made me feel that good. A note to my friends: I promise that now you won’t have to sit through as many lengthy discussions about food. At least not until they come out with a new flavor of Doritos or Skittles.

I thought it was about time to post another version of “before and after!”. I’m always talking to clients about how artistic digital editing is included in their packages, so I like to show examples of what the heck I’m talking about…and assure people that by “editing” I don’t actually mean “sit at my computer watching YouTube videos all day”.

As always, I will stress the importance of getting the exposure right in the camera. Then you can “enhance” the image instead of “fixing” it. I am by no means a Photoshop expert, but I’m happy to share some of the tricks I use to make happy shots a little happier.

For this first set, we were on the go, and I didn’t see on my histogram that I could have bumped up the exposure a tad. So, I brightened everything up a bit and added some sharpening. Easy to do, but adds a lot of impact to the final image.

For this next one, I wanted the bride to just glow and really stand out in the shot. So, I added some vignetting and made the hue of the green a little darker as well.

Since I had lots of ceremony shots that looked similar, I decided to give this next one a classic effect. First, I adjusted for the backlight by adding some fill light, slightly lowering the exposure, and bumping up the contrast using curves. Then, I ran an action preset to give it an antique tone.

For this next one, I wanted the flare to be more obvious, and the bride and groom to “pop” more in the image. I increased the contrast, added some vignetting, and saturated the colors in the flare.

When I do before/after posts, I always want to include one where the editing is really subtle. For this one, all I did was bump up contrast, balance skin tones to make them even more dreamy, sharpen, and crop a little to put the focus on the groom’s expression.

For this last one, I intentionally “over” exposed the image so that the main interest of the image (the people) wouldn’t be way under exposed. I knew that if I shot it like this, I could just play with the curves, vignette, and increase the black content to keep lighting on the people dramatic, while also emphasizing the shadows and flare. Since I was this far away, I couldn’t fill in with flash. If I had under exposed the people, it would have been more difficult to “fix” later.

I love looking at before/after pics of other photographers, so I’ll try to keep blogging some of mine occasionally. I’m happy to hear about any other tricks that folks might have, so if you want to share….let us know how you wave your magic editing wand.