Colorado Children and Wedding Photographer

Wow, what a wild ride! I just flew in last night from the WPPI photography convention in Las Vegas. I was supposed to take a red eye back last night, but was eager to get return to my husband and my cat, Joey. I only “just” made it on the plane. It was overbooked by 5 passengers and they were having peole volunteer their seat. So someone got kicked off, so I could fly home early! God is good, as I would have had to wait till the next flight at 11:59 pm.

I’m still recuperating from all the great seminars, meeting the most amazing photographers and attending some killer parties!

I got in late Sunday night, woke up early to register for my classes and ended up missing the first one, as there was a long line for registration. There were over 6,000 photographers registered for WPPI!! That is a whole lot of people. Knowing that my next class didn’t start till 4:30, I hopped in the car with my roommate, Michelle. (Michelle creates some really cool actions…you should check em out on her site) from California and we headed over to the Stratosphere Tower, which is the tallest free-standing observation tower in the US at 1,149 feet tall. It was a beautiful panoramic view of the Las Vegas Strip and the surrounding valley. Here is a pic below.

Exhausted from the time change and wanting to rest up for the night’s shoot, I took a quick nap. Afterwards I met up a group from Open Source Photo, created by David Jay and we shot a bride and groom on the strip in Vegas. Look for those photos to be posted soon! I took about 900, so I have to go back and edit the best ones.

After the shoot we got ready to attend Blu Domain’s party at the Kingpin Bowling Suite at The Palms. There was a huge bowling show down for $1,000 grand prize. All the big photographers were there!

Here is http://www.thebecker.com/ taking his shot for the cool grand!

Here is http://www.jcsphoto.com/ the infamous Jessica Claire, Becker’s girlfriend.

We hadn’t eaten dinner yet, so we left the party a little early (midnight) and found a Wendy’s open.

Tuesday morning we went next door the the Belagio for their buffet. It was incredible! They even had fresh sushi. Here is a pic of the view from my friend’s http://www.kellymccordphotography.com room.

Here is Danielle Gillett and I in the bathroom at the Belagio. I loved the wall paper, so we used it for our back drop. Danielle was my other super cool roomate. You should check out her work. She is such an inspiration. I just wish we could have hung out more!

After our big brunch, we hit the WPPI tradeshow, which was overwhelming with 256 vendors!

Then it was off to the afternoon’s seminar held by Kevin Kubota http://www.kubotaimagetools.com he has the most amazing photoshop actions. If you’re a photographer you should definitely check ‘em out! He is a really amazing photographer, voted one of the top 10 wedding photographers in the world. His seminar was pretty fun too. If somebodies cell phone went off, they had to get up on their seat and dance to the music. This is genius and should be performed every time some one’s cell phone annoyingly goes off during a talk or church.

I headed back to my room to get ready for the big Becker party at the Mandalay Bay hotel. We had the best time yet! There were so many incredibly talented photographers in attendance.

Here is Michelle, Becker and I (very excited).

Here is Jay Lawrence Goldman who shot Snoop Dog’s wedding, Robert Evans who shot Tom Cruises’ wedding and myself.

Here is me with my idol Jessica Claire

Here is a picture I stole from Becker’s site. This is the back of my head talking to the totally cool Denver chick, Frances Marron. Things were still rocking at 1am.

We didn’t get back to our hotel till 3am, but we had the best time ever! I was amazed at how many wonderful photographers are out there willing to answer any questions I had about the industry. I’m so grateful that Skip Cohen, the president of Rangefinder, provided me with the free pass to attend!

Look for more images from Vegas coming soon!

I’m off to Las Vegas for the WPPI convention!!!  I’m so excited, I don’t know how I’m going to sit still for the entire flight.  I am so pumped about all the cool stuff I am going to learn, all the amazing people I will get to meet, and the sweet parties I’m going to.

That being said, I will be out of the office from March 25-29th and will have limited access to email and voicemail.

However, if you need to request packages/ pricing info or to book your wedding date, please email me and I will do my best to get back to you in a timely manner.

Look out, Las Vegas.

Our second ski session last Wednesday did not end well. My mom dislocated her shoulder and my husband took a bad spill too. The only cool thing was that I got to ride on the back of the snow mobile up the mountain, as they ski patrol pulled my mom in a sled to the emergency room. Below is a picture of her shoulder before they put it back in place.

We were able to get some good photographs from the top of the mountain before everyone crashed.

This is my mom and I on the Gondola on the way up the mt

This is my cousin, husband, uncle, mom, cousin & me at Keystone.

Here we are again with Lake Dillon in the background.

On Thursday my uncle, two cousins and I headed over to the back bowl for some beautiful spring skiing. It has snowed a few inches the night before making it the best day of skiing yet. We were whisping down 85 degree runs that were 2-3 miles long, as our legs burned and our hearts raced from the thrill of flying down the mountain. Check out the picture of me below in action

I’m sitting in our chalet in the Rocky Mountans of Colorado getting ready for our second ski session of the day. We arrived in CO on Sunday for our family’s annual ski trip to Keystone and we are having an amazing time. It has been sunny and 50 degrees all week…perfect spring skiing. This afternoon session will be complete with video and photographic documentation. I hope to have some posted by the end of the week. In the mean time, check out the photo below of my husband and I at the continental divide.

I love it here. If I didn’t have an established business in Pittsburgh and my husband didn’t have such a great job as a software engineer, we would be out here in a heart beat. The sun is always shining, it’s very outdoorsy and a majority of my family lives out here. My mom finally purchaed a set of skiis of her own, however they aren’t fitting her properly, so I’m going to have to let her use my rentals while I suffer through using hers. It’s a tough life!

I will be out of the office starting March 11-20th and will have limited access to email and voicemail.

However, if you need to request packages/ pricing info or to book your wedding date, please email me and I will do my best to get back to you in a timely manner.

Thanks!

Since we changed providers for my web hosting company, we were unable to use my old blog, so welcome to my new blog! It’s a lot easier to read and has various categories that my blogs are posted under.

My husband, Wade stayed up till 1:30 transferring all my old blogs over to my new blog, he rocks!

Feel free to leave comments and let me know what you think about all the crazy new stuff that is going on at Center Avenue Imaging!

Cheers,

Shannon

I picked up a black and white 16×20 photograph I was having framed for a bride today at Wexford Frame and Art Gallery and I was so impressed. Jan Doherty, the owner, always welcomes me with a smile and her staff is always professional and very helpful. If you need to get something framed in the near future, you should stop in and see them. They have a variety of frames to choose from along with limited edition prints to adorn your dining room, living room or office.

I met with Kevin and Stephanie yesterday for a consultation and they are such a handsome couple. Well Stephanie called back today and booked her wedding date in August. They’ll be getting married at one of my favorite churches, St. Mary on the Mount (the beautiful church on top of Mt. Washington) and having their reception at The Rivers Club in downtown. They are a really fun couple and I’m looking forward to shooting their wedding! Stay posted for their E-session, which we hope to shoot in April.

I am really excited (but that is pretty normal) because we’ve finally launched my new site! It’s still at the same address, but it has more images and they are a lot larger than my previous site. If you haven’t already seen it then just click here. It was hard to pick out my favorite images to post because all of my brides were so beautiful! I am so blessed to be able to document the start of two people starting their lives together….I love what I do. We are still taking a few available wedding dates this year, so if you are recently engaged contact us to set up your complimentary bridal consultation. Dates are filling up fast!

Be sure to check out the new “lifestyle” section too. Complete with all my favorite “environmental portraits.” I love to take photographs of people in their everyday life, not posed necessarily, but candid images of people in their backyard, playing in the leaves or hanging out in their kitchen. Call me today to set up your portrait session!

I had the opportunity to do some promo photographs of the Phoenix Jazz Project last night for their website. They sounded wonderful and the house was packed! Here are some of my favorites. Jessie, the lead vocalist celebrated her Birthday too. The guys from the band brought out a surprise Birthday cake and shared it with everyone. Thanks for sharing, the cake was delicious!