everybody’s favorite flowers are the most finicky, most fleeting. hydrangeas fall victim to only the former condition, since at least they’re available more or less year round. they’re best in the fall, by the way. you can find the prettiest colors then.
even still, the demands of the hydrangea are well worth the trouble. its giant pouf of a flower is so easy to design with, complements so many styles, that sometimes i have to force myself not to use them. i wish i’d snapped a few photos of these blooms when they first arrived, but there was just no time. they come packed in boxes, their poor little heads smooshed and thirsty. one by one, unwrap, dunk, chop chop, plop. and the next day, the flowers thank you.
these are for a wedding this weekend, i promise there’ll be pictures of actual arrangements. join me over on facebook to see ‘em as i make, ‘em, or tune in here next week.
this board is inspired the lovely sara and chris, who happen to clean house every time they go to vegas and take a seat at a blackjack table. the look is old vegas, with free flowing champagne, lots of sequins, and dashing young men in tuxedos that sound like sinatra. there may or may not be a marquee involved. the palette is soft and shimmery, in champagne, ivory, and twinkle lights, accented with gold. i’m calling twinkle lights a color from now on.
who thinks this could be pulled off in jackson hole? yeah, raise those hands up there. (that might explain the inclusion of the photo on the bottom right.)
p.s. let it be known that i don’t like tumblr. perhaps, i’m just biased since i use pinterest, but when things have been pinned after they’ve been tumbl’d a few times, it’s basically impossible to track down the true source of an image. so if you know something i don’t know, please do share.
p.p.s. if you only click one link in those credits, let it be the one to edyto szyszlo’s website. it’s maybe the cutest, most inventive site for a photographer i’ve ever seen.
have you ever seen such an enormous echeveria? i swear that’s a normal-sized coffee cup chillin’ there on my counter. who knew they came in eight-inch pots! i spotted this at down to earth on olive in eugene, but i think i snatched up the last one. sorry.
this guy has quite a bit more pink in him than hipstamatic lets on. he’s destined for a bouquet, and i’ll take real (ie non-iphone) pictures then. what a showstopper.
oh anne nunn, how do i even begin? i’m not sure i’ve ever met a nicer or more generous person, but can we just talk about the pictures? no? you mean they’re just too gorgeous for words? well, yes, i suppose you’re right about that.
i was fortunate to meet anne last october when we worked together for a wedding and since then we’ve been plotting and scheming all sorts of fun things together. she truly is one of the best eugene has to offer, so take a peek at some pics and scope what she has to say. make sure to stop by her website and blog for even more lovely images.
melissa and matt are too sexy for this blog.
a: how did you first get interested in photography?
anne: I took a non-credit photography and dark room class at LCC when I was 18 and instantly fell in love with photography. I continued to photograph landscapes, but shifted my focus more towards lifestyle and wedding photography when our first daughter was born. I still love photographing Oregon’s beautiful landscapes, but these days it’s a little more difficult to pull the car over in a moment of pure inspiration with 3 kids in the car. :)
the wedding that corresponds to this engagement shoot is going to be even more awesome than the groom’s mustache. that’s a lot of awesome.
a: where do you turn for creative inspiration?
anne: I do have a couple photographers who I absolutely adore (Jennifer Skog in San Francisco, for one example), but I gain my greatest inspiration through other facets of art, such as current and vintage fashion, photography from the 1920’s to 1950’s, and sketches of people. I keep a bloglist that I check on a weekly basis and tap into those springs of inspiration.
a: how would you describe your style to somebody who doesn’t know a lot about photography?
anne: We are a distinctive fusion of fashion and photojournalism. I love emotion, but I also want my clients to feel comfortable in front of the camera. So typically I pose the couple and photograph not only the couple in the pose I put together, but I also pay close attention to the way they interact and continue to document the “in-between” the shots.
something tells me this is one of those in-between shots. :)
a: aside from taking amazing pictures, how do you like to spend your time?
anne: I love to read. It helps me get a clear head and actually gives me more inspiration. I don’t know if it’s a combination of what I am reading, or just thinking about something else other than photography, but I have noticed that when I carve out some time to curl up with a book, I become more creative. I also love to cook. :)
a: what music is currently playing in your car or on your computer?
anne: Zach Williams. He is amazing. You can find his free album on noisetrader.com :)
a: what’s your best piece of advice for brides?
anne: I know they hear this over and over, but the only thing left after the wedding is the pictures. When creating your wedding budget, make sure photography is a priority. Look through several different photographers’ blogs (specifically focus on their most recent work) and make sure you love their work, then write down your top 3 favorites photographers, and book a consult with them. After you consult, decide which ones you meshed with best. You will be spending 6-14 hours of one of the most important days of your life with your photographers and you want your wedding day to be spent with people whom you love to be with!
thanks for sharing, anne! make sure to check out her facebook page for more loveliness to come as wedding season takes off.
i came to floral design in a roundabout sort of way. before i snipped stems and made bouquets, i trekked through the forests and wetlands around oregon staring wide-eyed at wildflowers. my major in college was biology, but only because the university didn’t have a botany program.
much of my focus was given over to systematic botany, studying the evolutionary relationships between different families of plants. it’s still fascinating to me to relate commercially grown cut flowers to each other and their wildflower relatives.
one of the largest families of flowering plants, the ranunculaceae, is also one of the most diverse. it’s an ancient family, and the diversity of it lends well to hybridization for our purposes–it’s easy to select for a bazillion petals over time, which is precisely what we’ve done.
ranunculaceae is the buttercup family, and the typical form is easy to find in the spring time. these guys, ranunculus occidentalis, are native to the area and a great example of a few key characteristics of the family–five petals and lots and lots of stamen.
florists mostly use hybrids of a different species, ranunculus asiaticus, aka persian buttercup. they seem pretty wildly different from those sweet little buttercups until you peer inside and notice all those stamen.
photo by aviad2001 via wikimedia commons
hellebores and anemones are part of the ranunculaceae, each in their own genus. it’s getting easier to spot the relation, right? if you buy these guys at a flower stall or nursery, they’re much closer in appearance to their original form, unaltered by our artificial selection. kinda. hellebores are remarkably easy to cross and hybridize, and i swear there’s a whole gardening subculture devoted to doing just that. gardeners have come up with all sorts of crazy colors for hellebores, and have even added rows and rows of petals. the latter seems to be humans’ favorite way of altering plants for our own enjoyment.
photo by jerzy opiola via wikimedia commons
photo by haolrd supfle via wikimedia commons
things get weird when you consider delphiniums (also used by florists a lot, at least around here where they’ll be growing like weeds in a few weeks) and columbines, with their crazy spurred petals. the spur that juts out behind the face of the flower holds a tasty nectar reward for passing bees, enticing them to stay awhile and unknowingly gather lots of pollen to deliver to the next flower over. what look like petals in this case are actually sepals, fused in various ways. as alien as they appear next to the buttercups and anemones, the many stamen are still present, and they bear the same sort of fruit as the rest of the family.
thanks for indulging my science kick. i could go on and on about all sorts of flowers and their relatives. which ones would you like to see next?
confession: i’m excited. not excited enough to stay up till/get up at one in the morning to watch, but certainly excited to waste a big ol’ chunk of time watching and reading about it online tomorrow.
it took me a while to actually care. for a long time, my tagline when asked was, “she better not choose a pain in the ass bouquet.” and that was it. but when you really think about, the whole thing is going to be so influential for years to come. not just for weddings, but for our whole culture. not only that, but it’s a really interesting reflection of our culture at the moment. and it’s not just about what shows up at the wedding–it’s about everybody’s judgement of it, the commemorative souvenirs, the money being spent.
i swear every other tweet i see is about the wedding. here’s where some of my favorites have led:
why you should care. at least if you’re into weddings, you should care. if you work in weddings, you have no real choice.
they make some freaky crap in the name of the royal wedding. the best of the worst is here. (and some pretty sweet wallpaper. not something i’d use, but still.)
i met russell and jayme elsevier of harvest moon photography back in 2009 when the mister and i hired them to photograph our wedding. it’s been so fun since then to watch them grow and develop as artists and business people. these days, i love that i get to call them allies, if you will, in this crazy business of gettin’ hitched.
we get to work together again this june and i can’t wait to see how they capture the day! take it away, you crazy kids…
a: how did you first get interested in photography?
russell:My love affair with photography started as a freshman in high school. My father surprised me with a trip to Egypt when I was only 15. I had less then 24 hours notice before leaving the country! I knew that this trip was going to be an absolute eye opener. If I wasn’t surprised about the trip I would have brought my mother’s Pentax MESuper 35 Film Camera, but I didn’t know in advance. I am pretty sure that my Dad knew that if I knew, my Mom would find out and the trip would be canceled. So having very little time I went to Pay-Less Drugstore and bought a cheap Minolta point and shoot and 10 rolls of film. Needless to say on the third day standing amongst the Pyramids and the Great Sphinx my camera stopped working. I was pissed! It was in the mid day sun that I made a promise to myself. When I returned home I would enroll in a photography class and buy my own camera. And that is exactly what I did and how it all started. By the time I was a Junior in High School I was regularly being published in our local newspaper.
a: where do you turn for creative inspiration?
russell:Pre-internet days (that really dates me dosen’t it?) I used to spend lots of time at the local libraries pouring over photography books. The work of Cartier Bresson, W. Eugene Smith, Annie Liebovitz, David Doubilet, Joe McNally, Sam Abell, the list could go on and on! Now the internet brings everyone and everything to your doorstep. Flickr is an amazing community for sharing creative work!
jayme:We do spend alot of time on Flickr. :) I also love to look at my favorite wedding blogs for insperation. Some of my faves are Oncewed, Style Me Pretty , and Moment Junkie.
how adorable is this couple!?
a: how would you describe your style to somebody who doesn’t know a lot about photography?
russell:My style is evolving. For many many years I primarily enjoyed candid photography. A real hands off approach to moment capturing. I want to be forgotten and just shoot pictures in the background. See what I could capture from what is going on around me. Now I am starting to learn more about using artificial light to create portraits and mood. The absolute wonderful thing about photography is it’s diversity. There is so much to learn. I think that is why I enjoy it so much.
jayme:Our photography is about capturing the “moment”. The first time you see your groom as you are walking down the aisle. The first time you dance together as Husband and Wife. The emotion. The happiness. Those are the moments that you can’t set up or create. We love finding those moments and capturing them for you to show your future children and grandchildren exactly how you fealt on your wedding day.
a: aside from taking amazing pictures, how do you like to spend your time?
russell:A few years ago we planted our first garden. I learned to love the tomato. A fruit I couldn’t stomach for years. Store bought tomatoes taste nothing like home grown. We love gardening and eating our own home grown food.
jayme:Pretty much anything to do with outside! We love to go for walks/hikes. We love to camp in the summer and sometimes when it’s rainy we just jump in the car and go hunting for the sun. :)
ohay, that’s me. hi dad!
a: what music is currently playing in your car or on your compy?
jayme:Pandora. At this very moment Apocalyptica. Yesterday it was Broadway musicals. My tastes change wildly depending on my mood. :)
russell: I just listen to whatever Jayme is listening to. I know better that to change the station. :)
a: what’s your best piece of advice for brides?
in perfect unison:Make sure you like the images your wedding photographer produces. Narrow down your choices by styles of photography that resonate with you. Choose from that group. There is no one right style of photography only what is right for you. At this moment there have never been more photographers on the planet to choose from. A total win for you!
Make sure you “click” with your wedding photographer. He/she or they will be with you and around you all day. Personality is extremely important!
on sunday afternoon, we hiked to the top of mt. pisgah. the day was perfect for it, not raining, but not too hot. predictably, i wanted to do nothing but ogle the flowers.
western buttercups
oregon iris
fawn lily
shooting stars and camas
houndstongue
and some fantastic fungus for good measure
all the usual suspects for spring flowers around eugene. are you heading for the arboretum’s annual wildflower festival? see you there!
on monday night, one of my favorite couples ever officially declared that they’re in it to win it. chris proposed on their dating anniversary with his grandmother’s gorgeous ring. not to be outdone, sara whipped out a ring for her man and proposed right back! how awesome is that?
i love you guys and i can’t wait to see you get weddinged next year!
hey, sara, can we trade eyelashes? after the wedding, of course.
p.s. i’ve said it before but it bears repeating, here’s hoping i don’t drive the poor girl crazy while she plans. i’m kinda into weddings.
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