Engagement session in downtown Chicago = good times!

I swear, we have so much fun when a couple, myself and my trusty camera go out looking for something amazing. It's just great! We laugh, we cry, we tease, we . . . rather they, hold each other tight . . . oh, by the way we don't really cry. Actually, that never happens. We are too busy having a great time. Duh! :P

So here is one of a few engagement pictures I hope to share with you over the next couple of days. :)

Samantha & Jared—downtown Chicago Engagement



This weekend I'll be in California helping shoot two engagement session . . . but  I'll do my best to keep the posts rolling in. :)



Signing off for today. God bless your socks off,

Capture. Create. Discover.
Something Amazing!

Britton Felber
www.photographybybritton.com | Britton@photographybybritton.com | twitter.com/brittonfelber

Time for a new header . . .

The old one was nice . . . but new is better. Let's welcome the new header. :)

Signing off for today. God bless your socks off,

Capture. Create. Discover.
Something Amazing!

Britton Felber
www.photographybybritton.com | Britton@photographybybritton.com | twitter.com/brittonfelber

Look what I found!

 I wish that every morning I could wake up to this. I love Lake Tahoe. Are you sick of me saying that yet? Lol. Well, here is another one of my favorites from the trip. Praise the Lord for great weather.




Me taking the picture above I think . . . thanks to Rob Bennett.





If you would like a print of this image just click here.

Signing off for today. God bless your socks off,

Capture. Create. Discover.
Something Amazing!

Britton Felber
www.photographybybritton.com | Britton@photographybybritton.com | twitter.com/brittonfelber

It's not just my "big" or "fancy" Camera.

You know, I love this topic. It really makes me laugh when people come up to me and wonder if I can take their picture with my fancy camera. Lol. I'm so tempted to reply with, "Let me just turn the switch to fancy mode so I can crank out some 'fancy' pictures for you." :)  My camera I'll admit is pretty awesome. I am currently shooting with the Canon 5D Mark II. The output is pretty outstanding. But I like to think that if it came right down to it I could still pull off some pretty amazing stuff on a Canon point and shoot. Someday I think it would be fun to go somewhere and trade cameras with someone using a point and shoot for the day and see what happens.

I'd like to argue that it isn't so much about the camera's size, make or model. It's all about who is behind the camera. It's the eye of the artist that has to learn to discover and to see. And that holds true for what to do with the image once captured. What do you do next to make the image shine with its full potential?

I used to spend about 8 hours of editing/stylizing on my images for every hour of shooting I did. I've gotten a lot faster since then. I think I'm currently down to about 2-3 hours for every hour if nothing goes differently than planned and depending on how much stylizing I'm planning to do on an image. And of course it depends on the client's taste.

Here is an example of editing and stylizing one of my images.

Original



Add some padaz. (How do you like my new word?)



I'm a huge lover of antique images.



And now to do something totally different. :)




If you would like a print of any of these images just click here.

Signing off for today. God bless your socks off,

Capture. Create. Discover.
Something Amazing!

Britton Felber
www.photographybybritton.com | Britton@photographybybritton.com | twitter.com/brittonfelber

Meet beauty . . . and dig deeper.

Tahoe is one of the few places that simply takes my breath away. When I see that place I'm reminded that God loves beauty. He has surrounded us with his unmatched beauty in his great creation. There is something very powerful about it too. What does it do for you? Do you ever stop to just look around and discover what beautiful amazing things God has put around you?

This is Donner Lake, on the way to Squaw Valley USA where I was going to spend the rest of the day enjoying the forces of gravity plus the lack of friction snowboarding. I almost overlooked this spot. Almost drove right by it—never even stopped to take a look. Needless to say this spot was probably one of my favorite spots of the whole trip. It was one of those places where I just knew something amazing was about to be discovered. I couldn't wait!

Beauty comes in different forms you know. I believe that just like a beautiful scene, people are over looked and ignored too. Their true personality and person are no more valued than a poke on facebook.

Just like this image was almost never captured, never seen, never appreciated—I'm reminded that people too are over looked and not understood. It's like we don't even care about who they are. That grieves me so much. People are our biggest asset. I love meeting people! What would life be without the ones we love around us? What would life be like if we stopped and showed some genuine interest in the ones were around? Like what if we remembered a name, if we talked about something they like, better, if we got them talking about something they like?  Maybe we don't know what they like and we just need to start asking some questions. I would say that 99% of the time when I make time to dig a little deeper and get to know someone on a real down to earth level, I'm amazed at what I discover. God made us beautiful in his likeness. And somehow we still get the "cool" group and the "not-so-cool" group. What's up with this?

When booking a wedding I'm a huge fan of an engagement session for all my local clients. It gives me a chance to get to know them better. To discover what is uniquely amazing about them and their personality. It helps me to know what they love and what they want to remember when it comes to their wedding photography. It helps me to capture, create, discover . . . Something Amazing. 


If you would like a print of this image just click here.

Signing off for today. God bless your socks off,

Capture. Create. Discover.
Something Amazing!

Britton Felber
www.photographybybritton.com | Britton@photographybybritton.com | twitter.com/brittonfelber

The Crater at last.

It was really cool driving up to this huge hole in the middle of New Mexico. The three things that ran through my mind were:
1. How glad I was that I wasn't standing there when that thing hit.
2. How powerful, wild and yet extremely romantic and loving is my God.
3. That this would be fun to blog about. :) So I hope you can enjoy it as much as I did.




I tried to get some of the moon-like rock in the foreground of this image so you could see the texture. It was pretty crazy. I'm not sure I've ever seen anything like it. And I'm not so sure it really even looks like moon rock. I just assume it does. I haven't been to the moon . . . yet! (And just a side note. When I do get to go, I'm not going alone . . .)




Me, chillin' on the edge. (Sorry, I'm a wedding photographer. I can't do landscape for very long before a person shows up in my pictures . . . even if that means it has to be me. I just do landscape because I have this camera that seems to go everywhere I go like it's married to me.)

Enjoying life! 

This isn't the coolest image in the world. But it serves a purpose for those of you interested. This was shot with my Canon 70-200mm 2.8 IS L Series lens. I zoomed in as far as I could and this is what I got. The little speck of a guy on the bottom right hand side of the fence is 6 feet tall. So I hope this helps put the size of this crater in perspective. Okay, you still can't see him . . . hmmm . . . look for the American Flag. The red and blue should give him away.




Playing with the sun. We were buddies till I couldn't see anything anymore.




I like grass in pictures . . . and believe it or not I found some up there . . . okay, more like weeds.




Last but not least, a picture of the guy who basically kicked us out because they were closing. I think my uncle (on the left) was getting a laugh out of the fact I was doing a group shot with the guy who was hurrying us out of the place. Hey, he probably needed to get home to his wife and kids. And that place is a million and one miles away from anything. It's smack dab in the middle of Nowheresville!




If you would like a print of any of these images just click here.

Signing off for today. God bless your socks off,

Capture. Create. Discover.
Something Amazing!

Britton Felber
www.photographybybritton.com | Britton@photographybybritton.com | twitter.com/brittonfelber

Do you ever dream of open roads?

Open roads are great! And they really deserve to be photographed . . . so I did. :) You probably dream of the kind you can drive freakishly fast on . . . and that's okay. I do sometimes too.

I know I said I was going to show off some pictures of the crater in today's blog in yesterday's post but I ran across this one and had some fun with it. Fun is cool to me. I love how things will just pop out at me sometimes . . . and the coolest things just kind happen when I go with the crazy ideas that start coming into my head. HEY, my philosophy is, "Try it, there is always 'command Z'" . . . not something we always get in life. So, here goes: The original, the image I was going for and then the image that makes you feel like you are driving there too.


Original.



This is what I thought I was after.



And then I had this crazy idea. What if I made the image look like I was moving? :) So that's what I did. How do you like it?



Shooting out the window . . . does anyone else do this besides me? I love just shooting out the window sometimes. It's not often you get anything all that great but that's all the chance we get at capturing something amazing. So, we give it our best shot, right?



I'll post pictures of the crater tomorrow . . . I hope. :) And until then I hope you enjoyed a bit of how my brain works sometimes. Art is fun like that if you can just go with it.

If you would like a print of any of these images just click here. I'm going to try and make all my images available from now on.

Signing off for today. God bless your socks off,

Capture. Create. Discover.
Something Amazing!

Britton Felber
www.photographybybritton.com | Britton@photographybybritton.com | twitter.com/brittonfelber

Old route 66 . . . is getting older

Route 66 at its finest, maybe. It was really rough actually. And we pretty much only drove down this part of it to get to some cool little ruins. (See next image)



Ruins right off of the Historic Route 66.



The buggy that got us there. (Uncle Dave, this one is for you.)


Tomorrow I'll post some pictures of our time at the big hole in the ground, AKA the crater in Arizona.

Signing off for today. God bless your socks off,

Capture. Create. Discover.
Something Amazing!

Britton Felber
www.photographybybritton.com | Britton@photographybybritton.com | twitter.com/brittonfelber

The start of my trip

So if you've been following my blog (meager as it was, since it was basically me updating from my phone) you would have gathered by now that I was just on a long road trip out to LA. . .  2,182 Miles. A total of 33 hours of driving time.

We left Sunday morning at around 9:00 A.M. (CST) and arrived at the Hyatt in LA at 3:16 A.M. (CST) Tuesday morning.

Here are a few images for starters. More to follow. :)

The truck I helped drive out.



The route we took.



What I look like after driving for about 20 hours . . .



New Mexico sunrise.




Signing off for today. God bless your socks off,

Capture. Create. Discover.
Something Amazing!

Britton Felber
www.photographybybritton.com | Britton@photographybybritton.com | twitter.com/brittonfelber

Well, i'm on my way to the SFO airport now with a ton of new images to show off and write about. Updating my blog from my cell phone...

I keep trying to send pictures of my trip here in Tahoe from my phone... But it's not working. Any tips?

St. Lucia

I love Island humor. If you can't figure out what these are, don't go to the islands . . .








Signing off for today. God bless your socks off,

Capture. Create. Discover.
Something Amazing!

Britton Felber
www.photographybybritton.com | Britton@photographybybritton.com | twitter.com/brittonfelber

Drive 2182 miles. Check. 39 hours in a a truck. Check. Arrive in LA California. Check.

I'm in new mexico!!!

While. I've driven 900 miles out of the 1026 miles we've traveled today. We're half way there now. It's my turn to sleep :) In groom TX now.

700 miles down and going strong. PtL for good driving conditions. Thanks for your prayers! God bless your socks off! Again, this is coming from my cell ... :)

Goal, drive to LA CALIFORNIA. Currently in Dwight, IL on 55. I'm writing these next few post from my cell phone... I'll try to post pics too.

Goal, drive to LA CALIFORNIA. Currently in Dwight, IL on 55. I'm writing these next few post from my cell phone... I'll try to post pics too.

New Born—Jack Williams

Last night I was at my Aunt and Uncle's home for a Welcome-Jack-into-the-world party. (I have NO idea what the real name is for something like that.) So I brought my camera along for fun. I thought it would be nice to go ahead and grab some images of the little guy for his parents while he is still so small. It's really amazing how fast newborns change. So, here are a few of what I got.

If you would like to see more just click Here.






That's his Mother's wedding ring. . . yeah. Tiny cute feet. I guess you could say, you can take the photographer out of the wedding but you can't take the wedding out of the photographer.







If you could have seen what was on my nose you would have looked at me just like that too. :)




Just too cute. I have this feeling he's going to be just as cute as his older brother.











Signing off for today. God bless your socks off,

Capture. Create. Discover.
Something Amazing!

Britton Felber
www.photographybybritton.com | Britton@photographybybritton.com | twitter.com/brittonfelber

The one who inspired my photography.

May I introduce you to Joy!



She was one of the most inspiring photographers I had ever met. I remember the first time I really noticed someone's photography as outstandingly, outrageously and perfectly awesome! It was Joy. I remember thinking, "Man, if I ever get into photography I would want to be a wedding photographer . . . a wedding photographer like, Joy. Even though our styles are now a bit different, I still love Joy's art. It's wonderful! She always gets what she is after: fun! Her clients love her, they love her fun look on life . . .  they just love Joy.

A year or so past and what do ya know, I did get into photography! I went ahead and took one photography class that Joy happen to be an instructor. I started working for a non-profit organization shortly after that in the graphic arts department, in hopes I would learn a lot more about what it means to have professional images.

I remember thinking more than once to myself that if I could ever work and learn under any wedding photographer, I would work for Joy Lyn! That would be a dream come true. . . but that would never happen. I mean, I was just a newbie photographer. Well, guess what, I'm sitting in my office and I get this call. It was Joy! I couldn't believe it! Seriously, I couldn't believe it! Not only did she offer me the chance to carry her bags and even shoot a little, but she even offered to pay me! WOW, a dream come true. It was one of those serendipitous moments in life that can only come from God. And I praise him for it. There was no way it could have happened otherwise. This was just too good to be true. 

I don't remember now, but I think she told me she had like twenty-something weddings lined up that year and would love it if I could help her with some of them. I think I ended up shooting about ten weddings with her that year. I just loved it. I photographed every wedding as best as I could. I watched her every move.  It was fast-paced, hard work, creatively stretching as could be. . . and just plain fun. Each time I photographed a wedding I loved it even more than the last.

I owe so much to Joy for her investment in my life as a photographer. And I just wanted to take this moment to give a shout out for Joy Lyn Photography! And say thanks! I can never really repay her. She handed me my dream that day she hired me. I can't really put the feeling into words that I had when I was living that dream—learning first hand how to shoot weddings under the one I considered to be the very best in the industry.

Thanks, Joy! I really appreciate you!













Signing off for today. God bless your socks off,

Capture. Create. Discover.
Something Amazing!

Britton Felber
www.photographybybritton.com | Britton@photographybybritton.com | twitter.com/brittonfelber

Sam and Jared, the slide shows.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Samantha and Jared. Enjoy!

Please note Samantha's cool shoes . . . Jared picked those out for her himself and I think they are awesome! 




If you would like to see the slide show a lot bigger . . . just click here. BIGGER SLIDE SHOW!

Outdoor shots don't happen when it's 8 degrees and windy outside . . . just thought I would mention that too.

Signing off for today. God bless your socks off,

Capture. Create. Discover.
Something Amazing!

Britton Felber
www.photographybybritton.com | Britton@photographybybritton.com | twitter.com/brittonfelber

Samantha & Jared

This is just a teaser post till tomorrow when hopefully I'll have the slide show up and rolling. Stay tuned!






Signing off for today. God bless your socks off,

Capture. Create. Discover.
Something Amazing!

Britton Felber
www.photographybybritton.com | Britton@photographybybritton.com | twitter.com/brittonfelber

Dane Sanders' workshop. Near boulder, CO.

I have been putting off writing about a workshop I did a few weeks ago out in near Boulder, CO for way too long. "That was life changing. . . " were the words I used to tell Dane how much I loved my time at the workshop. They are also the words I will use to tell you about it. It was life changing! I learned so much and got so much clarity about myself and my business. I feel more equipped than ever before about myself and how I work.

There was so much that I learned that has truly changed me there is no way I can write about it all now. So I will pick the first one that struck me.

I like to give things my best try. I try very hard to be a professional photographer. I try very hard to be organized about my time. I try very hard to learn and know everything there is to know about photography, especially in the area of wedding photography. . . and the list goes on and on. But that's the problem: I try.

To "try" has nothing to do with "being" or "doing." It's like a thirsty guy walking up to me and I go to hand him a bottle of cool water and all he does is try to take it out of my hand. My hand is open . . . and he tries very hard, yet does nothing. I tell him to take it out of my hand. I'm confused why he just doesn't take it. All he does is he stand there and try. . . his fingers are wrapped around it, his eyes are fixed on it . . . yet he simply doesn't take it. He doesn't pick it up out of my hand. That man was no closer to getting a drink of water than he was before I even offered it. It's sad really, to see a person who knows what they want and need, but sits and tries.

I've often been like that thirsty dude. Trying to get things organized. Trying to get my photography out in front of people. Trying to get people to understand who I am as a photographer. Trying to show people why I have something different to offer them. Trying—when in fact it was time to start being the Britton Felber I was meant to be. It's time to start doing the things I need to do. It's time to truly commit in a way that is life changing. It's time to be the one who truly, "captures, creates, discovers . . . something amazing!" in everyone's life that I photograph. I'm done trying. I'm going to be Britton Felber.

Here are some of the photos we took at the workshop. Meet Jenny and Allen.

They were so cute together it was just fun. . . the hard part . . . keeping my fingers warm. . . Allen's fingers . . . well, yeah. I can only imagine they weren't too bad.

We had a total blast with Jenny & Allen. We were so glad they came out and let us photograph them.

Signing off for today. God bless your socks off,

Capture. Create. Discover.
Something Amazing!

Britton Felber
www.photographybybritton.com | Britton@photographybybritton.com | twitter.com/brittonfelber

New Years Eve

One thing I love more than almost anything else is people. I just love being around them. I hate leaving when I'm at a party; I hate having to say "no" to friends when they invite me to activities. It doesn't really matter how I get to be with people—whether it's playing, working, photographing, partying, brainstorming, reading, or traveling, I just love being with people. About the only time I don't feel like being with people is when I am either sick or I'm super tired.

Last night was no exception. It was a night filled with friends and family, and not only friends, but some of my best friends. . . all that were there were indeed some of my closest companions who have gone through some crazy times with me. It's been so much fun. And it's been great how we keep finding reasons to just get together. Love you guys!

We played some seriously embarrassing games of charades that pretty much had us all roaring our heads off too. I wish I had pictures of everyone pulling out their moves. Oh man, you would have laughed.



I hope you all had as wonderful New Year Eve as I did. And I hope you too have a reason to be grateful for another year ahead!

Signing off for today. God bless your socks off,

Capture. Create. Discover.
Something Amazing!

Britton Felber
www.photographybybritton.com | Britton@photographybybritton.com | twitter.com/brittonfelber