Before I decided to give this whole photography business thing a try, I was reading lots of blogs and books mostly on business. I already had a background in photography, growing up with a darkroom in my basement and given my first all manual camera when I was about 8. I still crave the smell of that d76 chemical that would turn your clothes brown. I think it was a status thing in the art department in high school, if you had the most stained jeans from d76, that made you cool. I was wicked cool.

I still have my srt 201, which was my mother’s. All of our childhood photos were taken with that camera, and it was given to me with a insanely dented up 50mm 1.4 prime lens. Aw, mum! We had the same fave lens! (I know that the 50 is most people’s fave, but I found it extra special that it was my mums and it was all dented) After the srt, I grew up mostly on Nikon’s. I think it was my high school photography teacher, Mr. Norwood, (which by the way, if anyone knows where this man is, please TELL ME!) who got me into Nikon’s…I just loved how heavy and sturdy they felt, so I stuck with them.

Around May-ish last year I wanted to upgrade my first digital camera that I had for a few years, a D70, to a D700. My then boyfriend, now fiance told me that he would buy me that camera, complete with 50mm 1.4 lens if I gave what I had dreamt of my entire life a try. I spent a couple of months offering to hold people’s gear, change out batteries, anything to be friends with a photographer in the biz. Nobody really wanted me, and after a full year in the business, I know why. I was offering in the middle of the most stressful time of the year! I finally found someone looking for a second shooter on craigslist & her name was Audrey Polito, who I still love and keep in contact with. I second shot for her 1 year ago today, and of course as excited as I was, posted photos from it same-day.

I am so thankful for my fiancé, Danny, for telling me to stop complaining about what I wanted to be and just go and do it! And for Audrey for giving me that chance. There have been *so* many ups and downs, the biggest one being that I did all of this while holding down my full-time, sometimes 70 hours a week, day job as a web developer. Thankfully, my boss has been fully supportive of me and even let me leave early one friday last fall to second shoot for a photographer who I really admire, yay! He even modeled for my Valentine’s day conceptual shoot, thanks Sean!

Thank you to everyone who has supported me this year. From my Dad & bro for always commenting on my blog, Rob for checking it for typos and holding my reflector/bags in snowstorms and zero degree weather, every single person at my day job who tells me “last nights post was awesome”, the friends that I have made from being in this industry, especially Lara, Meredith, and Janice. I want to give an especially huge high five to all of my clients this year who went out on a limb for me, you all rock!

In my first year as a photographer, I have shot 22 weddings 18 engagements, 5 portraits & 3 family sessions and loved every minute of it. I’ve had guests come up to me at weddings just to tell me that they can tell I love this job because I have a constant smile on my face. Friends who assist on shoots with me tell me that this “different” Alex comes out, someone they’ve never seen before and I love hearing that! I really feel in my element and the extremely happy when I am photographing. I am already about 30% booked for next year, woo!

Now, for something biz related. I recently decided that I needed to revamp my packaging. And by revamp I mean go from basically nothing, to something that reflects my brand.

Here are a few photos of what my clients get in the mail after their shoot with me when they order a DVD only. Album packaging is a whole other beast but since this is the most common, I really wanted to create something truly me. Tell me what you think!

DVD case with special Alexandra Roberts Photography “tree” die cut out of wood tag wrapped with grey/white baker’s twine, I love bakers twine!

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First, a lovely back yard wedding in Winterport, Maine for Audrey & Homer.

An e-shoot for Sarah & Karl in the fens

A super-silly e-shoot in the North End with Michael & Jeffery:

My very first wedding in Oregon! This one is at McMenamins Grand Lodge in Forest Grove for Chantel & Mike:

A wedding in a barn in Holliston, Ma for Linda & Steve:

I was away in Oregon for a week for the wedding and something else happened. Danny and I are engaged!
This is where he did it, not bad eh? (I took this the day after, because the day he did it the weather was overcast, you’ll see in the next photo) I have received many comments on my ring and people wanting to see photographs of it. Here is a link to jeweler Heather Wang’s page about it: My e-ring. I think it’s the coolest piece of jewelry ever made, but then again, I think that about every one of her pieces!

Thank you for taking the time to read this, I have two more weddings this weekend and those will be added to the queue! I super miss blogging my shoots but hopefully once things relax a little, I will have time once again! xoxoxo

I’m sure every photographer who has a dog says this but, I think Emma is the most photographed dog on the planet!

I took the stones to Heather and she came up with the most awesome design! It’s not finished yet, so you won’t see any photos until it’s done. hehe

Heather holds an MFA in Goldsmithing, Silversmithing, Metalwork and Jewelry and gets commissioned to make many wedding bands, engagement rings and other wedding related accessories. If you want something unique and not the plain diamond solitaire, you must go to her. She also teaches jewelry making classes during the week! Can you see why I love her?!

I ask a lot of questions whenever I meet crafty people like, “what’s this for? what do you do with these? How do you cast things? you use these cool colored powders for what now?” and Heather is happily ready to feed my curiosity, I love that!

I went to her studio this weekend to check on my piece and I had to have a pair of her earrings, so I got one pair for me and one for you! Here are some photos of Heather in her studio and I have a pair of her Bright white enameled copper Cherry Blossom earrings swing from fine sterling silver hoops to give away! (I got that description from her Etsy shop)

All you have to do is leave a comment and I’ll use a random number generator to choose a winner on Sunday, March 7th. Please limit to one comment per day.

Heather Wang Jewelry: Website
122 Western Avenue, Studio # 319
Lowell, MA 01851 USA

UPDATE: Jess is our winner! Here is the random number generator screen shot to prove it:

Thank you everyone for participating. Jess, congrats girl! You deserve it because you commented every day, too xoxo

I’ve met so many great people in this short time and I am so excited to see what 2010 brings. For me, I want 2010 to be a year of me trying new things, busting out into a whole new world of photography that is currently unfamiliar to me. I kicked off the new year early by getting some friends together and doing just that.

I am typically more of a “natural light” kinda girl but I really wanted to take advantage of the season’s outdoor lights and try a portrait session with some off camera flash. I don’t learn very well from going to workshops and having someone show me how to use my gear or watching video tutorials. I need to go out in the field with some patient friends and just tinker with my camera until I get something I like. I have enough of a photography background where I know my equipment well, but when it comes to new ideas, nobody can teach me how to create what is in my head. That’s up to me!

Thankfully, I do have some really great friends who were willing to stand in the 20 degree weather here in Boston and let me shoot them and a kick-ass boyfriend to hold my light stand. This is Christina and Rob. Rob was one of the first friends I met when I moved to Boston 3 years ago and Christina is his lovely wife. They are from Texas!

Thank you to everyone who has helped me get to where I am today and it goes without saying, but I wouldn’t be here without your help.

xoxo

I wanted to go somewhere in the southeast because I’ve never been and I am fascinated by southern culture. I wanted to eat boiled peanuts, hear people say “y’all” and experience the “southern hospitality” I’ve heard so much about.  Here is a teaser image from our weekend!

Us:

Here are some of the highlights from downtown Asheville.  I’ll try to explain most of them, as Asheville is so very unique!

First, there was a cute soap shop that sold fortune cookie shaped soaps in about 10 different scents.  The cat is to symbolize the catwalk where delivery trucks needed to go to bring goods to the shops in the old days.  The purple wall and monk was by a new Belgian beer place (yum!).  There was a spice shop that sold maybe 40 different kinds of salt, and in the photo you see 4 or so different kinds of smoked paprika.  Of course I had to snap a picture of Boston Way in Biltmore Village and a sign of the Biltmore Estate.  We didn’t go here because they charge $60 a person just to drive up to it.  No thanks!

This place was my favorite in all of Asheville!  It was a double decker buss/coffee shop!  It is called “Double D’s” and I highly recommend a visit to anyone passing through.  They even had a live musician playing on the top floor!  How awesome are the tables?

After we had seen the sights of Asheville, we wanted to go see some of the nature around town.  We headed to Chimney Rock to climb to the top and work off some of those calories consumed in town.   All of these photos were taken in Chimney Rock, NC.

All in all we loved Asheville. The town was about 10 years in the future as far as being environmentally friendly. Everything seemed to run off solar panels and there were recycle bins of all types all over downtown. Tons of coffee shops to just hang out and not a Starbucks in sight! All of the shops had signs on them saying “locally made here in Asheville” and all of the restaurants had the same. There was live music happening in every pub on Saturday night which is something we’re not used to here in Boston, or they charge you $20 to get in.  We just roamed the streets and found ourselves in and out of places at night. “DW” from Tupelo Honey Cafe helped us find things to do because we went to Asheville with zero plans and no knowledge of the city. He was great!  Also, Tupelo Honey Cafe’s food was so good, I highly recommend it. Even the police officers were friendly, asking how we were doing as we walked on by.  In Boston most of the time I am scared to look a police officer in the eye for fear they will start yelling at me for no reason like they typically do.

I leave you with one last photo. As we drove back to Charlotte to catch our flight back to Boston Danny saw this house on a hill and immediately pulled over because he knew that I would love it. What do you think?

As always, thank you for reading!

xo

My brother sent me a link to some of Meredith’s photographs a few months ago because she is a pet photographer and gets great shots of dogs and their owners. Who doesn’t want to spend all day looking at photos of cute dogs? I loved her style and so we started talking through tweets. I know, I know. Meredith and Stacey had already met in person and also initially met online.

It was so so so fun to hang out with other photographers. We met up at the Fells Reservation in Medford, MA. We bring Emma here quite a bit, and it was awesome for her to have some friends to play with this time!

Here is Meredith and Orvis!

© Alexandra Roberts Photography

And Stacey, Brewer, and Bromley!

© Alexandra Roberts Photography

I have a whole new respect for pet photographers.  It’s SO hard!  The pups are never looking where you want them to be looking and are usually distracted by whatever bird or squirrel is passing by.  Both Stacey and Meredith have some great techniques for keeping the dog’s attention that seem to work really well!  Meredith cracked me up so much because me and Emma were posing and I hear her make this sound I can only describe as a “chirp”.  It definitely kept both Emma and my attention.

When you have such beautiful women in front of you, it makes the job easy!  Here are a couple portraits of each of them.

© Alexandra Roberts Photography

© Alexandra Roberts Photography

And here is a shot of the girls hard at work!

© Alexandra Roberts Photography

I hope we do this again and often! For more images from our adventure, head over here.

Last fall, Jess emailed Danny to see how he was doing and catch up.  They talked and Danny found out that Jess’ father had stage IV colorectal cancer that radiation and chemotherapy had done nothing to fix.  As some of you may or may not know, I lost my mother to brain cancer just 3 years ago.  Danny knows that I am always willing to help people and so gave Jess my email just in case she had any questions or wanted someone to scream at who would understand.  I got an email from Jess and we’ve never stopped talking.  We shared our experiences, helped each other through tough memories, laughed, cried, you name it!

It’s been nice to know someone who I can call and gush over a cute bride/mother interaction that I see during a wedding. Jess can listen and not say anything at all and that means the world to me.  She doesn’t feel bad for me, she just gets it. Almost anyone who has been forced to have their mother or father (or both) ripped away from them 4o+ years before they were supposed to knows what I mean.

© Alexandra Roberts Photography

On August 28th of this year Jess’ father, Tom, passed away.  Last Thursday was her birthday, so we thought we should meet in person on her birthday weekend.  I had a photo shoot on Saturday and so Jess and her boyfriend, Travis, flew up here to see us.  It was so great meeting you in person, Jess!  I only wish we lived closer together.  Both of them had never been to Boston before so we took them on a whirlwind tour!

We hit up Faneuil Hall of course where Jess tried an authentic cup of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee and Boston Creme donut.

© Alexandra Roberts Photography

On Sunday (today) we went for a nice walk in the Harvard Arboretum and showed off our ever-lingering fall leaves.

© Alexandra Roberts Photography

© Alexandra Roberts Photography

It was so great to finally meet Jess (and Trav!) in person.  She has made a difference in my life and I am so happy to have been able to connect with her.  I can only hope that I’ve helped her in the same way that she has helped me.  It is nice to think that if my mother and Jess’ father are looking down on us, they are proud of this connection that without their encounter with the big C, would never have happened.

© Alexandra Roberts Photography