One thing that I just LOVE about SDS clients…is when they come back! I got to photograph Kinley’s older sister, Darby, (who’s slideshow you can see HERE ) last year.  And the family came back this year for more! I can’t tell you how happy that makes me. Well, I noticed Kinley had picked out her favs on Pictage so I went ahead and made her a little slideshow.  You all enjoy.

These past few months (years maybe?) I have done a great deal of soul searching, prioritizing, and exploring.  Life changes have enabled me to really take a step back and look into where I’m spending my time and what is important to me. It has also allowed me to really look into my business model to see what Southern Design’s priorities and talents are.  Of course, owning the business, it’s really quite hard to know where the business ends and I begin… I’ll make an announcement on specific SDS news after the details have been hashed out, but just know that I’m so excited about the future of SDS.

During all this thought, meetings with other professional photographers, and time spent reading, I have really fine-tuned what I feel is important to me about photography and my business, and I want to try to put into words what my goal is with Southern Design through my different Photographic specialties.  I will start with Wedding Photography:

Weddings are a wonderful mash of love, beauty, pressure, details, and emotion. I did my first wedding at 16 and not only fell in love with the pageantry and traditions of the event, but also with the photographer’s role in all of it.  You see, my first wedding was shot on film, and throughout the wedding, as I shot, I was never truly certain what the images looked like, but here’s what I did know: my interactions with the bride, the groom, and their families in helping them be comfortable with everything that was happening was of equal importance.  I recognized this as I watched my clients move from being stressed and detached into a more “photogenic” frame of mind just from my being sensitive and intuitive to their needs.

So through the years, I have come to understand portrait photography as more of a service, less of an art.  It is absolutely artistic, but anyone that knows me recognizes that my attraction to weddings is not just the pictures I take, but rather the connection with my brides, my grooms, and their friends and family.  The end result is a photograph, of course, but how we get there is so much more than that.

I am, admittedly, an art school drop-out.  I spent a few years doing the standard art school thing, but quickly grew bored with the standard artist mentality.  Creating art is very much an internal process and personal expression.  It is rather selfish, which is neither here nor there, but my love for photography was so much more involved than just my own personal expressions.  I could care less about inanimate objects, they have no life, no context, no emotion and I did not like the objectification of human subjects for my own art.   Where I get satisfaction is when I have successfully put someone who is admittedly “terrible at taking photos” at ease on the other side of the lens and bring out their life, their context, their emotions … especially on what could be the most stressful day of their lives.  I love me a challenge, and what’s more of a challenge than a wedding?

Naturally, your skill should never be in question.  Switching from getting ready photos in a windowless, florescent lit basement of a church to doing bridal portraits at noon in the parking lot should be effortless and require as little time as possible… after all the bride and groom are running absurdly late and the church lady needs me to wrap it up 5 minutes ago.  This is where “artistic” eyes are needed and why you don’t just hire a wedding coordinator, best friend, Uncle Joe, or Aunt Susie to do your wedding photography.  While many of my clients feel the day is a beautiful blur, rushing past them, I can’t afford this luxury.  The focus and determination that only seasoned professionals can muster is what is required here, and that is what I thrive on.  The creation of beautiful portraits amidst high energy and emotion makes me so very happy and excited and is, luckily, a natural expression for me.

This is my hope for you, potential SDS brides: that despite this simple blog post, you’ll be able to see where my heart is and why I do what I do.  After the music ends, your memories of the day are what you’ll take with you, so more than anything, I hope that your wedding day memories are more than art, and whatever you choose to do with your wedding photography is something truly beautiful and meaningful… but I also hope you’ll be doing it with me! 

Love,

Sara B

I’ve been super super busy! But I wanted to do a little update with Courtney and Thomas’s wedding.  We had a wonderful time at Carahills II for Courtney and Thomas’s wedding.  Courtney and Thomas are so wonderful to work with and were just darling the day of their wedding. And weddings at Carahills are ran so well by the staff there! They sure do know what they are doing.

Here are some photos!

Meridith and Shawn got married on a rainy and gloomy day at the Cadre Building in downtown Memphis.  Our original plan was to do portraits outside, but of course the weather didn’t allow us to do that! So we ended up just using a back room in the Cadre and I’m really really happy with the way the images turned out.  Take a look!!!

Getting ready photos taken at The Peabody in Downtown Memphis

Ceremony and reception at The Cadre Building

Coordination by Andria Lewis

Flowers by Southern Event Planners

I got to photograph Meridith recently and she has given me permission to share with you all some of my favorites from the session!

My number one rule in boudoir is I WILL NEVER EVER EVER EVER warp, photoshop, or otherwise enhance a image of a woman.  I feel that we need to learn to embrace ourselves in what shape we are and celebrate how we look! So you will never see an image that has been warped by me or really enhanced in any other way than a little contrast boost or color shift.

Remember YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL!

I have know Anne for *gasp* about 10 years! I worked for her brother, Gene, with Mangiante Photography waaay back in 2001/2002… Back when his company had its first little bitty office on Poplar avenue.  Anne and I shared an office after the move to a bigger space.  Anne is just such a doll!! (and a little LOONY) This wedding was so laid back and easy to photograph and I appreciated my second shooter Jennifer from Little Meadow Photography and my “Go-For” Tyler for their help!

Katie and Jason are such a special couple… they are just so sweet and natural!! I don’t think I took a single bad photo of the two of them!! It was a hot one at Shelby Farms but these guys were troopers.  Enjoy the preview!

I got to photograph the public reciting of vow for Kristen and Jason this past Friday.  They had already been married by the Justice of the Peace and decided to have a public reciting of vows for their closest friends and family.  The event included both of their darling children and was just so sweet, laid back, and joyful.  It was so wonderful to be able to spend so much time with this darling couple and I’m so happy for the two of them! I hope life treats you both well way down there in Abilene Texas!

We decided to beat the Memphis heat and do this session at 7:30 IN THE MORNING!! I have actually never photographed at Shelby Farms during that time of day and it really opened up some new locations.  It was also wonderfully cool and pleasant and Courtney, Thomas, and their puppy Bella were oh so fresh faced and chipper so early in the morning!  Well onward to some photographs:

I have know Anne Mangiante from the ‘ole Mangiante Photography days when we shared an office! Well now Anne and T.A. are (finally) getting married! Their wedding is just in a few weeks!!! I tell you what ya’ll this year is flying by.  Anywho, here are some photos that we did at the oh so fab Collierville Town Square: