MudEyes

post by: holly

This past saturday we had the privilege to do Kayli’s senior photos. She lives in grand rapids so we went there for something different since we do most everyone in kalamazoo.

First, I must say, this girl has quite the personality and it was awesome. She was just a joy to work with and I just so wish more people were spunky like that. I love people who are just so free spirited, it makes our job so much easier because she wasn’t really being “posed” she was making everything her own when we were downtown and it was just great.

Something to note is that I think when you see her photos below you will be able to see who she is and that is so important. With seniors, I know it is awkward and uncomfortable at first but I just encourage all of you who we have yet to shoot, to dig deep and forget we are there and that you are uncomfortable and just let loose and be yourself because it really will show in the photos, and thats what its all about, right?

First, she loves art and was telling us about this pieces of grafiti she loved so we went to it and found it was covered by a stupid fence. So, I thought it would be cool to put a page together with the quote on the grafiti for her. It has been a while since I have done pages, but gosh, I think this turned out great, i love it!

This was the beginning of the shoot and she was less comfortable here, haha. You have to have stuff for the parents though, so I think this is the most parent-y shot we have.

I put some cool textured in some of the photos I thought were cool and I just adore how this looks. It makes it kind of dark and interesting to me.

This is one of my favorite photos of the day. The cutout just worked so well and she just nailed it with her face. There are certain things about this pose that she did that made it work PERFECTLY. First, it is the eyes that sell it, and she just seemed to know what we were going for and her eyes just are captivating in it. Also, the lips being slightly apart makes that impact as well. It is hard to just “tell” people to do something like that you know, sometimes you just have feel the idea and go with it.

Another sweet sweet texture…and i love it on the this photo. I also have a thing for stripes..obviously. We have many upshots of her I feel like but this one felt different to me from what we do with other people. Where your arms and legs are really make the difference in a photo.

I love this because it shows something about her rather than just standing there smiling.

I have “regular” edits of these photos without the texture on them that I gave to her, but it just feels like this works so it gets in my favorites post. 🙂 It has mood and emotion and was just made for sepia! I love it!

This was part of the graffiti that had the fence obstructing us, but we made it work. 🙂 The fence kind of made a cool texture anyways.

I spotted this and it matched her sweatshirt so well I figured it was just destiny…and I really love how it turned out. Again, her face really sells it.

This is my favorite of my creative edits! It just turned out really cool and texturey… 🙂

Ryan was going to reject this one! When I saw it, I knew it would edit well so I saved it! 🙂

I love this, who says senior pictures have to sooooo serious all the time? I mean really, when your 17 years old, you shouldn’t be all that serious anyways.

Best fisheye face…ever. That is all that needs to be said.

She kept offering all these things she could do and we were like….go for it. So this happened, hah. Her tongue is sticking out too…haha. priceless.

An upshot with some sass!

This reminds me of the movie “house bunny” when she stands over the steam to try be all Marylyn monroe and freaks out cause its so hot.

Two very awesome poses! Who knew such a ridiculously awesome photo could happen on an old dumpster!

So this is the second time that day we tried the bubble picture. The gum we bought just was not the greatest even though it was BUBBLE tape. This is the best we could do. I am going to get a different kind of gum for the next time we try it with someone.

Ok so that is the end of the shoot! This was a big preview but I liked so many of them, haha. I spent like 5 hours editing her photos which is crazy longer than it usually takes, but there were just so many good photos!!

So the moral of this story… it is so much better to just let loose and be who you are rather than trying to fit the mold and just busting out a cheese smile in every photo. The end. 🙂

post by: holly

We have been working so much lately so I thought it was about time we have a little date to get out of the apartment. So we went to see Eagle Eye last night. I must say, I really liked it!

This Shia LaBeouf fellow is a great actor. I have really liked him in all the movies he has done lately. He was kind of a stubborn jerk in most of this movie, but it worked.

The general idea is that these two characters “jerry” and “rachel” are brought together by a call from this woman neither of them knows. She threatens the life of Rachel’s son and sets Jerry up as a terrorist so he has to obey her so he doesn’t get locked up forever. Pretty clever…

This woman is everywhere…she uses all the technology everywhere to keep track of them and to communicate with them. I can’t help by think if something crazy like this happened to me if I would just comply. I think after the first act showing her power over everything around, I would be pretty willing.

I was pretty captivated through the whole movie, it kept me thinking which I like. I think it was a really smart movie because I think stuff like this really could happen someday….crazy stuff.

So, go watch it, it’s good! 🙂

{post by: holly}

I haven’t really done any posts on all the seniors we have been doing. It feels like we have done…well, a lot. I like doing them, they are very different from weddings. First off, they are so much quicker to edit. Second, we get a lot of time to go to a bunch of places and it gives time for ryan to think and it helps stretch our creativity. The extra money helps out too! haha.

Since Ryan got full frame his photos have just been amazing. They make editing a lot easier and they are so sharp! I love it! I can’t wait till I get to upgrade too.

Anyways, this is Brittany and she is my favorite senior so far. I felt like she just made it easy on us and that is nice. Her photos turned out amazing, the best so far in my opinion.

{{This is my favorite of the day, I love these two together.}}

{{Doesn’t she look like Jennifer Aniston in this picture? I think so…its freaky. haha}}

{{I made her into one of the statues!}}

{{We do upshots with everyone but this one is kind of different and I like it. I like how her legs are crossed. Little details like that really make photos great}}

{{We did this for an engagement and to me…it is just not getting old. I think I really have a thing for the color yellow right now. I want to paint my dining room/office area yellow…real bad.}}

{{Ryan has really gotten better at fine tuning poses for people…but like I said, she made it easier. The feet are my favorite part of this. I love those shoes, especially with a dress!!}}

{{We were exploring a new part of downtown and came across this amazing door. When we walked passed it, I literally gasped, haha. Her dad was with us and opened it to see what was in there and turns out it is a ballet school…that was in progress at the time which was really funny.}}

{{Ok so I said at the beginning that the other set was my favorite. This is ALSO my favorite. I got that umbrella when I was at cedarville because the rain there was insane but I sacrificed dryness for its amazing pattern because that umbrella is super small and really worthless…but isn’t it the greatest for photos! Amazing!!}}

{{We had a ton of her, but this is the last one I am putting in here. She did serious so well}}

Ok no more procrastinating from me anymore…gotta go finish drying my hair. The new season of The Office airs tonight!!! YESS!!

Hope you enjoy the photos!

post by: holly

I guess it was bound to happen sometime. With all of this hurricane business the odds just were not in anyone’s favor for a wedding that was planned to be outdoors.

Danielle & Charlie got married in Grass Lake Michigan at this farm location. There were some pretty cool things on the property to work with if the weather would have just held out! Unfortunately, it was raining all day and since it was a farm, the ground was all muddy and dragging a wedding dress around in mud isn’t really ideal.

Because of the weather and the lack of buildings to shoot in (just 2 small buildings) we didn’t want to stress them out about not getting any good bride and groom photos so we offered to give them a free bride and groom session if they wanted to get all done up again, so that is what we will be doing soon. The weather is nobody’s fault so it is just about making the best of what you have to work with. So when we get those taken and edited I will put them up in a separate post.

The wedding was moved inside the first barn which was pretty small, but tall. It had three levels to it which was very different and made for a cool shot from up above.

Anyways, lets go back a day. We typically go to the rehersal to check things out and look for locations to do photos in the transition time of ceremony and reception. On our way there it was pouring rain like crazy. I am pretty certain we would have died if I was driving. Thankfully, Ryan always drives and we continue to live. I try to just keep my eyes closed because he scares me when he drives but then I get car sick so there is usually a lot of gasping from me. He thinks it’s funny…ugh…anyways…

We didn’t want to drive back and forth for the wedding the next day since it was kind of far away so we got a hotel. It was a motel 6 somewhere around jackson and man, from the outside it was one sketchy looking place. They didn’t even have internet! It was clean in the room though and didn’t smell so I was alright with it.

Since there was no internet, Ryan was playing with his camera and showing off how sweet it is at crazy high ISO. So we had some fun with that haha ryan calls this flubber… This is done with the D700 and 8 frames per second! also 6400 ISO.

annnyways, back to the wedding the next day…

{{They wore this really awesome plaid so I felt the red background was fitting. The plaid was something about his family, but I can’t specifically remember…but it was really cool, I liked it a lot.}}

{{Getting ready. She got all the girls bare minerals sets and was showing them how to use it, so they all took turns. It was kind of like a QVC moment.}}

{{Her dress was huge! We have had weddings with the big poofy dresses and such but none with a train like this one. It was amazing. It had more detail in the thread than with beads which was on a more sheer layer which I thought was different from a lot of the dresses we see.}}

{{The sash part was great as well, I just love the dresses that sit lower on the waist. I’m not gonna lie… seeing all the dresses and jewelry is one of the favorite parts about wedding photography.}}

{{They had a bagpiper at the ceremony! How amazing! I love when weddings have stuff that is different!}}

{{The flowers were pretty interesting, those stick…things were an interesting touch.}}

{{The brides parents during the ceremony.}}

{After the ceremony we found a place outside that was covered and took bridal party photos.}}

{{The bride}}

{{The Groom}}

{{I always get a little stressed out when its time for the bouquet toss because I shoot a ton of photos and just hope that my flash fired on the money shot. This time…it did! Yes! I love it}}

{{The cake smashing! YESS!! So many people do not smash these days and it is soooo boring. This is just the perfect shot too! I was so excited when I reviewed my pictures and saw this. Magical, simply magical.}}

{{Danielle dancing with her dad}}

{{The “other” Holly and Ryan! What are the odds?}}

{{Greatest tattoo ever, dr. suess!}}

{{This turned out so cool! Ryan is so creative. The DJ had a little colored ball thing and ryan made this awesomeness happen.}}

{{Bride and Groom Dancing. I am pretty sure I probably took this and it was one of my exposure mistakes but I really like it how its just a subtle outline of her…its kind of different.}}

{{They had a fireworks show at the end of the night too. We took quite a few shots of them but this was our favorite because its different and wonderfully out of focus.}}

That is the end of the night for us. We will be scheduling the bride and groom shoot soon so I will be sure to put that up as soon as possible!!

Also, if you want to see the full preview of all our weddings you can go to our weddings site at www.ryanrichardphoto.com and click on {wedding favorites} We put up about 40-60 of our favorites from each wedding.

I’ve decided to catch up on the blog one day at a time, so tomorrow will be the brammer wedding from back in August.

{post by: holly}

{Wedding, iPhone(s), smores, shoes, oh my!!}

Last weekend Ryan and I had the opportunity to have a bit of relaxation and to shoot his friend Sarah Toupin’s wedding in Traverse City.

On thursday we went up to Muskegon to go to the dentist (no cavities for either of us, what are the odds?!) and to visit my mom. On the way up, I caved and decided to switch to AT&T and let Ryan get an iPhone. I have been saying we can’t afford it for a while, but verizon doesn’t work in our apartment and well…we just love gadgets. So that day we went and god new phones. I got the LG Shine and well…compared to the iPhone, it wasn’t very exciting.

Friday morning we headed up to Traverse City, I slept most of the way. 🙂 The location of their wedding was beautiful! It was kind of indoor/outdoor because the walls were rolled up since the weather held out. Speaking of the weather, it was perfect!

We stayed in a Baymont where most everyone from the wedding seemed to stay as well. It was really nice! For the wedding before this, which I will be writing about later, we stayed at a pretty sketchy motel 6 so I just loved this place. I wish I would have taken photos. The sheets were so soft I could have stayed in bed all day!

{{For our website, I add my favorites…of the favorites that we put up a few days after the wedding on the main page of the site. I thought it would be cool to kind of “present” the new couple before there photos with something cool. This is my first one and I like it, I think I shall continue it.}}

{{Getting ready in the hotel room. The girl who did the girls hair was actually one of Ryan’s really good friends from Junior high, what are the odds. She did a great job!}}

{{I usually do most of the getting ready shots but since it was all happening in the same hotel and Ryan wasn’t doing anything he went instead of me. I was playing bejewelled on the new iPhone anyways so I was like…go ahead haha. I LOVE how the hairspray actually shows!}}

{{The Dress! I love how the fisheye worked with this door without making the dress look all crazy.}}

{{I just love how soft this is. Just because a dress doesn’t have a gigantic train doesn’t mean it can’t be just as beautiful. Love it!}}

{{and…finally, the bride! I know there seems to be a lot of black and white, but it just edited so beautifully that way so I couldn’t resist.}}

{{Ryan does a jumping shot with the guys at all our weddings and I think this could quite possibly be my favorite. The guy second from the left cracks me up!}}

{{Something I really enjoyed about this wedding is that it was not all that traditional. It was really laid back and fun. The guys all had these shoes and to me, thats just the best. Way to step outside the box!}}

{{This is one of my favorite photos of the day. She was also my favorite flower girl so far. This girl was so crazy! She was just so curious about everything around her and just seemed so full of joy…and probably sugar, haha. She was just the cutest. Ryan got this shot and I was so excited because I couldn’t get it from across the room. Another reason its good to have two photographers!!}}

{{I was in the back with the bride but I assume he was playing while she went down the isle.}}

{{and of course, the upshot! I think this one turned out pretty good, I really love the red brick.}}

{{Their cake topper. I didn’t edit a full photo of the cake yet, but it was pretty cool. It was a little mountain with a trail going up the side. They are very outdoorsy people so it was cool that they had a cake that fit who they are. Josh and Sarah were at our wedding and they said our cake inspired them to do something different! That makes me feel good, I live to inspire. }}

{{There were a couple amazing little trees with the red leaves on them which is just perfect for the ring shot.}}

{{Ryan does the coolest stuff. They had little christmas lights over the dance floor and he thought of doing this. I love it! I learned how to do it too, so thats exciting for me.}}

{{They were crazy dancers! I loved watching them, wonderful for photos.}}

{{They had a pretty cool band play, I wish I could remember their name. They were really interesting. I liked it a lot, it was very different than most weddings}}

{{Smores!! What a fantastic idea! They had a table FULL of chocolates and marshmellows and a fire pit. I stashed a couple of those hershey bars in my pocket for later. 🙂 It was cool to take photos of fire, I don’t think I have ever really done that before. I got some cool ones, but ryan didn’t pick those as a favorite. They will be on the pictage when its up though.}}

That is the end of the night for us! The day seemed to go by really fast to me but I was exhausted by the end of it! The following morning we drove around Traverse City to see what everyone always talks about and we didn’t find much mostly because we didn’t know what we were looking for, so thats too bad, haha.

We went back to muskegon and stayed at my parents again to break up the drive. I went shopping with my mom on sunday and she bought me these amazing shoes!! They can be found at TARGET I call them my mac shoes, and yes that does show what a dork I am. 🙂

We also got ME AN IPHONE TOO!! Ryan saw how disappointed I was by my stupid phone so I get one too, gosh I love him. So overall, it was a pretty great long weekend! We have a couple weeks until our next wedding so that will give me some time to catch up on everything and update you all with the last few weddings.

…ok on to editing backed up weddings!

posted by: holly

It is a very odd feeling sometimes how time goes fast yet feels so long. Ryan and I have been married for like 3 months and it feels like it has been so much longer than that! We have been working non-stop which is a good thing. This summer really has been such a miracle to have all this business and to be booking for next year already! I am just so thankful for everyone who spreads the word about us.

Being married is shall I say, fabulous. I feel like we are getting more of a handle on it all and finding a way to separate and balance work and life. It feels good to figure things out together. I am finally feeling better and starting to adjust a lot more to our new life together which is a great feeling. I am so blessed that Ryan is such a sensitive guy. I would probably be a basket case all the time if he wasn’t so nice and patient with me. God really did make him for me that is for sure. 🙂

We have a few weddings and a bunch of seniors to put up here since katherines. I just got a new program called “Mars Edit” which makes updating the blog much easier now. It works directly with flickr for images so thats cool. I am going to be putting up a new design for the blog hopefully soon. When we get some extra cash that will be happening.

As far as other new things….I am trying to get my new website up sometime soon as well. During the winter months when photography is slow, I am going to try and shift back to doing graphic design so I want a new site to be able to showcase all my new work and such. If you know anyone or need any design work done for yourself, let me know! I would love to be filling up right now for the winter. That is something I am really praying for. After this break from it for the summer I am just so refreshed and itching to get back to that.

We added a new member to the family. A new 24 inch iMac and it is glorious. We were just to the point with the laptops that they couldn’t handle all these weddings. So it was time for an upgrade! This thing is amazing.

All in all, God has been really good to us. Things haven’t been perfect, but in the flaws of life is when you really see the beauty of love and it just makes you really grateful.

{post by: holly}

First of all, “katie” has always been “katherine” to me so that is how I will refer to her. I simply cannot adjust to this name change. So…I met katherine in 2005 when I transferred to Cedarville University. Her room was next to mine and she was my RA. We have quite a few things in common but have completely different personalities. It makes the friendship interesting. She was such a great help at my wedding and to return the favor, Ryan and I did a sweet job on her wedding if I do say so myself.

Katherine and Jared got married a couple weeks ago and we just finished editing all the photos. They are so absolutely in love which made shooting their wedding so enjoyable. I don’t know about Jared, or any guy really…but Katherine loves photos so that also made it easier. I love people who love having their picture taken. 🙂

We are crazy swamped right now so I am really going to be going backwards with these posts. It has been so amazing to have gotten so much work this year! I love all the love in these weddings, it just such an awesome job to have.

{Bride upshot…beautiful!}

{Those were real buttons, you don’t see those very often these days. i just love all the blur on this, Ryan did a great job!}

{One of the things Katherine and I have in common is crafts and artsy stuff so I just loved what she did with her runner. She painted their monogram on there! It looked flawless.}

{They were so awesome and gave us a ton of time for photos between the ceremony and reception. This was our first stop.}

{This was the second wedding we got to use Ryan’s D700 and I am officially jealous. That thing is amazing. This is 32000 ISO with hardly any editing! It gives us so much more freedom to show what the room actually looked like.}

{This photo was a mistake of mine. It was WAY over exposed but when we got it into lightroom it turned into this! I shall call it a beautiful disaster. 🙂 I am kind of known for that I feel like…}

That is all for now.

{posted by: holly}

I love making photos more edgy when I edit. I think it is great how an editing style can change a photo so much and give it such a different feel.

I always love the photos I see with interesting textures in them yet I just didn’t know where people were getting those filters. Then I started thinking about what I already have and I have about 2gigs of digital scrapbooking supplies and the textured papers for scrapbooking work perfectly! In this photo are two different papers, one textured and one a pattern.

I get all my digital scrapbooking supples from www.designerdigitals.com they have a great selection and good prices!

Here is the original photo straight out of the camera:

The edit:

{post by: holly}

Dave + Lacey {7.12.08}

Ryan and I had the privalege of photographing the wedding of his sister Lacey and her man, Dave. We have been looking forward to this wedding for a while because we have first hand knowledge of all the hard work that went into it so we knew it would be beautiful. It also makes a much bigger impact when you know the bride and groom, especially for Ryan as I think he was feeling the pressure because it was his sister and he wanted this to be the best possible for her {and I think he did the best job yet!}. He handled the pressure wonderfully. I just love happy brides and Lacey has such a joyful personality and is so incredibly beautiful that photographing her is an absolute joy!

In the past month we have experienced some amazing miracles. First was our wedding on June 7th. The whole week prior to the wedding it was saying thunderstorms and on the night of our rehersal there were tornados all over battle creek and kalamazoo. We had a lot of people praying and the morning of our wedding the sun was shining and it was perfect. Next was Emily and Josh Tishouse {I will post about their wedding soon}. Their wedding was about 2 weeks ago and was an outside ceremony. The weather was saying thunderstorms and like 40% rain. Again, we prayed and the day was absolutely perfect.

Now, the biggest of all! The wedding we had been looking forward to for so long and knowing that photos outside are so important, seeing that it was a 70% chance of thunderstorms made my heart sink. The night of the rehersal sprinkled a little rain, but not much. By the morning I could hear the rain pounding down outside of our apartment. Ryan and I prayed the night before for a big miracle and when we woke up to that rain, it took some big faith to believe this was going to turn out ok. We left the house at 9am and it was pouring, we thought things might even be flooded. After taking all the girls getting ready photos, we went outside to go to the church were the ceremony was being held at and the rain was completely gone and everything was already drying up! It didn’t rain AT ALL for the rest of the day.

I think it is so fabulous how God looks after us even for such small things. In the big picture of all the pain and problems of this world it never ceases to amazing me that He shows us His love in such a comparitively small way by gracing us with the beauty of His blue skys and sunshine.

On the way home after the wedding Ryan said to me he is happy we have God on our side. I could not agree more. I am so impressed by God and every July 12th I will remember His grace and power over things we cannot control.

So with all that said…here are some of our favorites from the day.

{to start things off….a nice beauty shot of the lovely bride}

{this is ryan’s trademark – the “up-shot”}

{the actual scene for the up-shot}

{this is my favorite “veil kiss” shot we have taken yet….and I took this one even!}

{post veil kiss}

{this is a lot of feet. dave had a lot of groomsmen.}

{I did not take this nor was I around for it. However I did need to find a place to hang laceys dress for photos and while looking for a good location I did look down the hallway and see all the groomsmen without their pants on. I was very confused as to what Ryan was doing, but the result is pretty funny!}

{daven and his men – I love this effect!}

{lacey put individual crystals on each of the placecards – she had some amazing details!}

{to finish it off…the beautiful bling!}

Ryan and I chose to write our own vows for the wedding. I highly recommend doing this as it makes the ceremony so personal and intimate. When will there be a better time to open your heart and share how much you love your future spouse in front of everyone you know and love. As you can see, our writing styles are very different but showcase who we are and how we communicate. I love weddings that are a little less traditional and a little more real and personal.

So for all of you who either could not make it to the wedding or just could not hear them – enjoy! :

HOLLY’S VOWS
Ryan,
It was really hard for me to summarize what I vow to you. It is unbelievable what God has brought each of us through to get to this place right now. I feel like my words are so small and just can’t express how thankful I am that God made you for me…and as of today, I get you forever.

There is nothing in this world that can hold us back but ourselves, and I promise to put forth my best effort to be strong when your not and lift you up when things get frustrating. I feel like our dreams and ambitions are so strong and clear that God has a purpose greater than ourselves. His plan is why we are together and I promise to faithfully be by your side every step of the way to fulfill it. I promise to trust you, lean on you, and be there for you no matter what.

I promise to always be open and excited to travel to new places as that will be a huge part of our lives and God’s plan for us. I promise to be willing to try new things even if they terrify me. and to trust that you wouldn’t put me in harms way and that you just want the best for me.

I know that there will be difficult times or things just won’t go right, but I promise to try and always be thankful for all the amazing things we do have in spite of what life brings our way. I hope that in the times that I forget to be thankful, you will be there to remind me and I will be there to remind you as well so we never take anything for granted.

I promise to put you before myself and do everything in my power to be there for you and help you in any way possible.

I know that I will just be human and that I will make mistakes. but I promise to always be open to learning from them even when I am being stubborn.

You are my best friend and now your going to be family and that means the world to me. I am thrilled to experience life with you because everything just means more when you can share it with someone you love and the thought of that gives me an unmeasurable amount of joy in my heart. It is so comforting to know that there is a reason we are standing here today. You are a rare find and only God could have created a man so unique that fits perfectly with me.

Most of all, I promise you will always be my #2 and God will always hold His place as the first love of my life. I know that it is only with that that our marriage will be filled with love that only He can give us the ability to have, give and experience.

I love you Ryan and i’m ready to be your wife and your helper and to love you sacrificially and unconditionally for the rest of our days together.

RYAN’S VOWS
Holly,
You are my prize of patience.
God has always promised me reward if I honor his will
His will isn’t easy and I wasn’t perfect, yet he still showed me his perfect grace.
When I cried out to find you, he challenged me further.
He challenged me to know him first. To love him first.
It was the biggest test of patience I have ever faced.
The reward was great… and the responsibility, even greater.

Therefor I promise to love you as he loves,
To guard you     as he guards, and to grow us in his love forever more.
I promise to stand above the world’s standard of effort, loyalty and patience.
I wont cease to try knowing you will love me if I don’t.
I will seek your love everyday.

I promise to defend you from those that mistreat you
I promise to guard your sensitive heart God has given you.
I promise to appreciate your whole being. All that he has made you.

Mostly I vow to put him first, and you second. And I pray you do the same.
I promise to love you more tomorrow then I do today,
as long as God blesses me with life, I will love you.
Through stress and pain, Angst and apathy
I will be yours and you will be mine. Forever, so help me God