MERRY CHRISTMAS & HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Mod Ornaments Holiday Card

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I'm in love with my holiday cards this year! Elisha Orin took these for me back in October. I just love her work and am so happy to capture these moments of my girls.

I'll be leaving island on December 27th for a trip up to the mainland - my oldest has been asking to see snow this year and so we're taking a trip in search of the white stuff! I probably won't get to blog too much while I am gone so I wanted to wish all past, present and future clients a very Happy Holiday season and a Happy New Year too! See you in 2011!

Another fab event...

I know I have been sharing a lot of links lately - I do hope to have some time to share some of my own photos soon, but for now, I want to share another fabulous event captured by another off island photographer - Elisha Orin. My couple, Aviva and Andrew, were married at the St. Thomas Synagogue. I have a whole blog post in my head dedicated to these two! I will hopefully get that done before the end of the week, but in the meantime, you must check out their wedding feature on Destination Inspirations.com:

http://destinationinspirations.com/?p=2312

If you're not familiar with this website, get familiar! It rocks!

Canvas Prints! Go big, or go home...

Or go small and do a grouping of four, that would be cool too!

I think there has been a trend in recent years for people to order framed canvas prints of their professional photography, as opposed to traditional framing. Pretty much every professional photographer out there can or will offer this product and it is one that I encourage everyone to consider. While canvas prints are not cheap, they are so unique and a different way to display your memories.

Last fall, my family had the pleasure of being photographed by Elisha Orin. Elisha gave me the CD of our images which gave me the freedom to order my own prints. But I wanted to order some canvas and I knew the best way to do this was with the photographer and going through their lab. Online canvas print shops are popping up everywhere online, cashing in on the canvas craze, but there are a few products that I believe should be ordered directly from the pro that took the image and a third party online (I'll discuss the other products in another post). A few months ago I received a coupon in the mail for one of the online canvas shops and couldn't pass up a good deal. I ordered a canvas print of a photo I had taken of my daughters. The 4x6 print looked very nice to me...and when I got the 16x20 canvas in the mail, I realized the baby had some serious gunk in her eye. A professional photographer is going to look over the image and do any touch ups that may be needed before going to print. As one local photographer told me..."a leaf in the sand in a 4x6 image may just look like a leaf in the sand, but when blown up to a large image - it may look like a large dog just visited the area right before the photo was taken, if you know what I mean...". It's true - a small glob of mascara on your eyelash in a small photo may not be noticeable but in a large print, may look like a horsefly!

Now that you've suffered through my lecture to order from your photographer, I'll reward you with the images now proudly displayed in my home!

Merry Christmas

from my crazy little family! Beautiful photo captured by Elisha Orin Photography - thanks Elisha!

Sand Dollar Estates

Last week I had the pleasure of being back at Sand Dollar Estates. This villa can sleep up to 22 guests, making it the perfect ceremony & reception location for small groups that want to stay together. Our wedding last week had 15 people in attendance and everyone was staying at Sand Dollar - great way to cut down on transportation costs as well! It's also a great spot for larger weddings. Hosting a reception at a villa is such a great way to keep the event intimate and personal.

There is a small beach at Sand Dollar, but with the tides, you never really know if it will be large enough to host a ceremony. We decided to do the ceremony on the pool deck.



We then had Passion Fruit Chefs do the catering for dinner (red wine and steak! it's was a man's man feast!) and set up dinner on the upstairs deck, with amazing views of Magen's Bay.



I really loved the way the cetnerpieces came out.




But are you ready for my favorite element?



Confused? Check our Elisha Orin's blog: www.thatstalk.elishaorin.com to see the professional photos of this day. Elisha is new to the Virgin Island photography market, but has such an awesome skill and is so easy to work with. We have another wedding with her next week - is it cheating if she is my favorite element for that wedding too?? =)

Here's a few shots of her in action:

Orin Foto

I wanted to share a few of the photos Elisha took for one of my brides this past summer. I just love her work and her website is just beautiful - www.orinfoto.com. She does a great job of capturing those tiny details that are so popular these days.

Elisha does not currently live on St. Thomas but is hoping to make the move here soon - possibly working here part of the year and in the mainland the other part (best of both worlds!). She offers a great destination wedding package to brides. We don't often recommend photographers unless they are local, but her work is just so special, I can't keep her a secret!