{a free destination wedding?!?}

This morning begins the start of my new contest in partnership with The Wedding Chicks! I am givnig away a photography package for a destination wedding to one of the WC readers! The lucky chick and her man will receive:

• Complete photographic coverage for their destination wedding
• An online gallery of all images to share with friends and family
• A hi-res dvd with all images
• 8x10 Handmade Leather Album with 24 pages up to 36 photos!

All the winner has to cover are the travel accommodations!

If you would like to enter, start by going to The Wedding Chicks website and leaving a comment here with your name, wedding date, and destination location!

Next, send an email to heather@vallentynephotography.com and include:
1. name
2. wedding date and location
3. the story of how you met and fell in love
4. a picture of you and your man

Entries must be received by Wednesday, April 9th, 2008 midnight. Winner will be
announced on The Wedding Chicks website on Friday, April 11th, 2008.

{the knot: real wedding awards!}

Calling all Vallentyne Brides and Grooms! Have you entered your images in The Knot's first annual Real Weddings Awards? Just go to The Knot's website to submit your favorite 7 images from your wedding by March 31st, and have your friends and family vote for your photos. Anyone who submits photos is automatically qualified to win a 10-day safari worth $20,000!


Good luck!

{wppi print competition}

This year I entered the WPPI 16x20 print competition for the first time. WPPI is Wedding & Portrait Photographers International. I decided to enter the print comp to see how I would do and received 2 accolades of Excellence! There was some really beautiful and inspirational work from all over the world in the competition so I feel pretty lucky to have been selected! If you scroll down a little, you will see the prints I entered:)

{the wedding chicks}

There are lots of websites out there who provide information for new brides looking for unique ideas on how to make their wedding amazing. My new favorite one is The Wedding Chicks , they are connecting wedding professionals and real brides to feature the best ideas and vendors so you don't have to search the web for hours! They are talking vendors, fashion, details to help inspire and create the wedding that suits you.

Yesterday Vallentyne Photography was featured on The Wedding Chicks website and traffic to my website tripled! It says a lot about what a great job these girls are doing! Check out the nice things they had to say about VP by clicking on the links above:)

Thanks WC, I can't wait to see your next ideas!

{making your logo into a brush}

First off, sorry about this one to all my brides! It is a totally nerdy graphic design tip for my fellow photogs reading this:) Here is the tip of the day, Making your logo (or anything really...) into a brush for quick stamping onto images and designs.

Step one: Turn your logo to 100% black on a transparent background, usually with the wand. I did it in color at first but it just means that you will never get the stamp to 100% opacity in the future.
Step two: Marque the area closest to the object becoming a brush.
Step three: Select Edit - Define Brush Preset...
Step four: Select Window - Brushes to open your brush palette.
Step five: find and select your brush at the end of the list

Step six: choose your favorite color:)Step seven: Use the right and left bracket keys to make you logo bigger and smaller and stamp away!!!
.............just try not to make something as hideously ugly as this example here!!

Enjoy:)

{exquisite weddings features}

Today I got an email from one of the editors of Exquisite Weddings magazine! They are featuring 3 of my weddings in their Real Weddings department and considering another for print! What a great email to wake up to:) This year I have been actively pursuing editorial coverage and it is really starting to pay off....there will be a wedding in the summer issue of Modern Bride and another under consideration at Martha Stewart Weddings!

Here are the 3 weddings they chose to feature today, thanks EW!

Deborah & Jeff, September 8, 2007

Heather & Adam, March 31, 2007

Alli & Ryan, May 27, 2007

{kimberly and scott}

On March 15th 2008 I photographed the wedding of Kimberly Spilker and Scott Medwar. The wedding was at The Darlington House in La Jolla, truly one of my favorite places to shoot! It was such a beautiful day and I can honestly say that everything flowed perfectly. Kim and Scott were so much fun to work with and I could really see how much they love each other. I was also touched by the closeness of their families, it is so refreshing to see people who care about each other so much. Here are some of my favorite photos of the day!

{two birds bridesmaids}

One of my October brides, Kacie Corey, just turned my attention to this awesome new bridesmaids dress company, they can be worn so many different ways and even offer coordinating ties for the gromsmen and wraps for the chilly evening. I actually want one of these dresses for myself! The one universal criteria that I hear all the time from brides but is the most difficult to accomplish is....they want the girls to be able to wear the dress again!! I think this might be the dress:)

DRESS
What: TwoBirds dresses come in one size (fits 0-16) and can be worn ten different ways to flatter all figures, so you’ll have pretty maids all in a row.
Why: Kill two (or ten) birds with one stone.
Where: Online at twobirdsbridesmaid.com.

{just released: the wedding chicks blog}

Wedding Chicks is an amazing new resource for brides started by my good friend Amy Squires. I am already totally hooked on this blog, they have some really great ideas and suggestions! Here is a brief description of what it is all about, but you really have to check it out yourself to see how great it is!

"A wedding resource that speaks to our clients – or anyone who is interested in weddings. We are connecting wedding professionals with real brides. Everything that cool chicks need! We are talking vendors, fashion, details, you name it! Wedding Chicks has it all! We want to help inspire and create the wedding that suits you! This is wedding info for real wedding chicks. We've got all sorts of great tips from engagement to honeymoon and everything in between!"

{off to wppi!}

Tomorrow morning I am leaving for 4 days in Vegas....WPPI is an international photography conference and tradeshow where photographers from around the world get together to view the latest technologies, products, and share information about our profession. In between all the sensory overload I really hope to get some sunshine time in by the pool:)

This year I am pretty excited to have entered the 16x20 print competition. There are actually thousands of entries so the odds of actually winning the thing are pretty slim....but hey, you never know until you try, right? Here are the images I entered, I would love to hear your feedback in the comments section!

{I love Blurb}

I have known about Blurb Books for a while now but lately I have discovered some great uses for these amazing little books. You can do virtually anything with them but I am using them as cross-promotional pieces for some of my favorite vendors such as coordinators and florists. After all, they need beautiful books to showcase their creativity and talent also! Check out a few I have done lately:

Another great thing you can do with these books is to make gifts for your family of your wedding day or engagement, make your own album, put together a cookbook, or even do a bound blog compilation....so many options!

Also, if you want to look inside of any of these books, just go to the Blurb website and do a search for my name: 'Vallentyne'

{my new lens bag}

Speaking of my camera bag, I just bought a new one! I have been dreaming of a bag like this to make my life easier and was about ready to invent it myself. It is called a Boda Bag and it is awesome. Even though they totally beat me to the bag idea I ordered it immediately because I am tired of carrying around my improvised shoe string/lens pouch (don't ask, it's really sad!). Here it is in all it's glory:

{what is in my photo bag}

At nearly every wedding I shoot someone asks me about the gear I use to do my job. I love this because it is what interests me too! Photography started as a small hobby in junior high and high school and quickly grew into the amazing (but very expensive!) habit that it is today. There are always more items that I would like to add to my gear but for weddings, I try to travel lite:) I want to be unencumbered by heavy and obtrusive equipment but still have enough to produce high quality work.

So, I love Amazon.com (big online shopper here!) and today I discovered the joys of an A Store. This is where I have listed the things I use regularly, great idea books for photography that interest me, and also some cool wedding stuff I like. Check out "Whats in my Bag" here or in the sidebar to the right, I will update as I buy/find new stuff!

{totally original first dance}

ok, I will be so, so happy when I get to shoot a wedding with a totally original first dance like this one! It is true that my husband wanted to have the "chicken dance" as our first, now I really think we should have done it! This one gets tons of points for just being cool. And I have to thank Jesh for bringing it to my attention:)

{tagged by amy squires}

Amy tagged me with this little blogdea:

What was I doing 10 years ago?
: : 10 years ago I was 18 years old and living in Cambridge, England. I was studying foreign political science during the time that Tony Blair was being elected British Prime Minister and the IRA was very active...pretty eye opening for a young and sheltered American student.

Things On My To Do list

: : set up my photography business to be a successful, self-running enterprise

: : travel, travel, travel, and be able to work while i am doing it

: : find a way to shoot lots of destination weddings and have them published

: : find and buy a commercial space where i can put my studio and my husband can have his surfboard business next door

: : surf more

: : do more camping trips with my husband and dogs

: : find a way to split my time between living in So Cal, Hawaii, and the East Coast

: : live in hawaii and have an organic garden and tons of fruit trees

Bad Habits
: : i don't like to clean

: : i love plants but always forget to water them

: : i am on the computer WAY too much....like now, blogging on a beautiful Saturday

Places I have Lived
: : oceanside, ca

: : okazaki, japan

: : santa barbara, ca

: : cambridge, england

: : san francisco, ca

: : malaga, spain

Things Most People Don’t Know About Me
: : i am a vegetarian and was actually raised that way

: : i love to cook and and bake and watch the food network while i work

: : i am an only child but want to have lots of kids someday

: : i love to read and also love audiobooks

: : i am super ambitious and like to have friends who are the same

: : i exercise nearly every day for an hour or 2...either yoga, running, swimming, weight training

I tag you!

: : Summer Hogan

: : LaVonne Zamora

: : Suzanne Hansen

: : Kristy Tootle

Link an External Response

Have a response on your own site? You can either use the [Trackback URL] for this entry, or link to your response directly.

I want to leave a comment directly on this site »

Article Title:

Article URL:

Article Excerpt (optional):

Site Name:

Site URL (optional):

Author Name: