Karin & Trevor: Engagements at Riverwoods Mall

  Karin and Trevor were such troopers- our engagement session was bright, sunny, and COLD.  Very cold.  They were awesome to work with though!  What a cute couple...

Mindy & Curtis

  Just a short post today!  Here's a few highlights from an engagement session at the Riverwoods in Orem.

50% Off One Day Special!! Mini Portrait Sessions, Wednesday April 13th

It's SPRING!!! (I'm ignoring the fact it snowed on Sunday.  Didn't happen.  Nope. )  It's warmer, there's green showing up around on the ground and on the trees, and flowers are starting to make an appearance.  However, I fortunately have a break from weddings this month to catch up on all my editing from the last three months.  It was a busy winter!
Since I have a little more spare time, I've decided to have a special, one-day event!  On Wednesday, April 13th, I'll be doing 6 portrait mini shoots from 2-8pm at the Riverwoods Mall in Orem.

What does it mean?

Mini shoots include the following:

• 45 minutes per session
• Up to 4 people
• A disc of 25-30 edited high-resolution images

The mini-shoot can be any kind of outdoor shoot you'd like- kid, family, engagements, bridals, headshots.... you name it!  This is a great opportunity to save more than 50% off what I normally charge for a stand alone portrait session.
To reserve a slot, email me at whitneylewisphotography@gmail.com

Amy & Jordan

We took Amy and Jordan's engagement photos at the Riverwoods in Orem.  They are a super casual couple, and were great to hang around.  No stress, no worries.  Jordan is over a foot taller than his lovely bride-to-be, and so we had fun getting creative with some of our posing.

I loved the VW bus we found.  It was rad.

You can see all of Amy and Jordan's photos here.

Mountains and Lights

I have decided that Bridal Veil falls looks 115% better frozen.  It's so majestic!

Brittany and Jordan were super fun and easy-going.  Sometimes when I'm taking photos it just feels like I'm goofing off with friends and I happen to have a camera along.

I was so glad to see that the Riverwoods in Orem went all out on the Christmas lights for the area.  Remember boys and girls..... lots of light in the background = super-awesome-colorful-lit-backgrounds smudged into perfection by the camera's depth of field.  Candles, lit windows, street lamps, Christmas lights- all of these will give you gorgeous results used properly.

I was sad to see they removed the old train car from Vivian park (Thomas and I even shot our engagements around it)- they did, however, replace it with a very colorful newer-style train car that is just as fun to work with in its own way.

Take a look at the full engagement gallery here.

Noteworthy- Riverwoods Concert

Tonight Thomas and I went to the Riverwoods Mall in Orem for their big reopening-Christmas-lights-lots-of-little-food-stands thing.  Noteworthy was performing on the brand new outdoor stage right next to Tucanos (mmmmmm.... Tucanos).  I was asked to photograph the concert for some candid shots they would use for promotional photos/facebook profiles.... just as important, right?  Loved watching them sing and ended up with several photos I was happy with. 
After the concert, Riverwoods had an awesome "We-know-it's-not-even-Thanksgiving-but-we're-still-going-to-celebrate-Christmas" ceremonial turning on of the Christmas lights all around the shopping center.  So I will pass that along to y'all:  Merry Christmas!...  6 weeks early.  Yeah...

They shared fun facts about each member of the group between songs.  Katie Jensen's special talent can be seen below. 0.O

Katie and Chris- Explosions of cuteness and color

About a year ago, I took an entrepreneurship class at BYU. I take a class every now and then with the intention of graduating one day. Working 60 hours a week on weddings doesn't leave a ton of time for homework. ;) In the class we got divided up into groups, and a large majority of our grade involved starting a brand new business and generating a specific amount of revenue by the end of the semester.

Given my existing business, I saw this as a wonderful way to kill two birds with one stone. We started up an advertising business for our first (and primary) client- Whitney Lewis Photography LLC. It was fun, successful, and we found some very effective ways to increase my market exposure at the time. Another happy side effect of this class was that several of the class members were able to find a superbly talented, creative, and outstandingly attractive photographer for their own weddings!

Erin and Cole booked me to shoot their wedding in Newport Beach, CA, which we did just a couple weeks ago. Katie and Chris were looking to book me for their wedding in October in Oakland, CA, but unfortunately I was already scheduled on their wedding day (headed back out to my hometown Austin, TX though! oh yeah!). So we ended up booking an engagement session, and might be doing a formal bride and groom session before the wedding. I love formals, and think that every bride and groom should do them. They frequently produce the best photos from the entire wedding package, they are low stress, and a great trial run before the wedding. Plus, we get to pick the perfect time of day to shoot and lots of fun locations. But I'm getting distracted.

We started Katie and Chris' engagements at the Tahitian Noni Gardens (officially the "Morinda Gardens"), and finished up at the Riverwoods Mall nearby. They were both so cute during the shoot; I loved how their personalities really came through and that how happy they were was able to just pop in every photo. It seems to jump out at you, sprinkling happiness all over your monitor screen. As an additional bonus, Katie used to be a dancer; I love working with dancers because they are often so easy to pose and natural in front of the camera. Katie was simultaneously elegantly graceful and stinking cute. It was great!

"Scooch on over closer, dear...." :)

But my favorite part of this shoot was how cute and colorful Katie's outfits were. I suggested that they bring a few different outfits with different colors, and she showed up to the shoot with this enormous duffel bag. I'm pretty sure it contained her whole closet. It kind of made me feel like I was ten years old again, playing dress up. So fun!

See Katie and Chris' complete engagement gallery here.

Lindsey and Justin

The Riverwoods in Provo is a beautiful spot for photography, with lots of interesting architecture and greenery. It was one of the first locations I ever did a couples shoot at, too, so going back was nicely nostalgic. It had been a while!
When I got there, I remembered why it had been such a long time. The Riverwoods is the home of Tucanos, a Brazilian Churrasco. Churrasco, of course, is Portuguese for place-where-they-feed-you-until-you-explode. You sit at a table and a parade of meat begins, until suddenly it's been three hours and you can no longer find your feet. At this point, my husband will get up and shake it all down before a quick last round, a bit like topping off his gas tank. Tucanos is delicious.
Anyway, the smell is heavenly, and shooting downwind is… distracting.
In spite of that, Lindsey and Justin seemed to resist the temptation and we had a fantastic time taking their engagement photos. They even brought a change of clothes to mix it up a little, which always makes my day. To any future clients that are reading this- bringing two or even three or four changes of clothing can lend a lot of variety to a session. I highly recommend bringing at least a casual set of clothes as well as a more formal set. But hey, whatever floats your boat- the pictures should also reflect you!
(Photographers, like many other artists, often tend toward the clotheshorse-ish. Texture and shape and color in clothes can really bring a shoot to life. There’s also nothing better than a photo that really *looks* like someone – even if your five-year-old gets her picture taken with the bicycle helmet she wouldn’t take off for two weeks straight one summer, those seem to be everyone’s favorites later on.)
Gotta love the easy and natural expression here- and the gorgeous light!

I've said it before, I'll say it again. I LOVE color, and this red wall is to die for- such a nice, soothing shade.

When we decided to go shoot at the Riverwoods, I remembered this big tree, and thought it might be fun to incorporate it. I couldn't help but laugh when right at the beginning of the shoot Justin mentioned he'd love to see if we could get a picture of them in a tree somewhere. Why yes. We can.

We didn't take as many formal outfit shots. They both said they liked the casual outfits a lot better. I gotta say though, I liked the blues.... blues all over in this picture.

Can't you just feel the happiness jumping out at you here?

Take a look at some more of my favorites from their shoot at the full gallery here.
I love me some sunflares.