Heather had a lot of great help putting together her wedding:

• Samantha did Heather’s makeup – www.PotionBeauty.com
• Wedding Ceremony music by the Carolina Chamber Players
• Lake Norman waterfront wedding site at Jetton Park
• Wedding reception in the wine cellar room of Del Frisco’s Double Eagle Steakhouse Charlotte
• bridal bouquet and decorations by Huntersville Floral Design
• Desert from Cake Expressions by Lisa
• Wedding hairstyling by Bella Lago Salon & Spa, Mooresville, NC
• Wedding dress shopping and fitting by The Lily Rose, Cornelius, NC
• Wedding Planning and ceremony by Patrick and Dottie Maloy – Calm Blue Water

Leave your comments below!

Here’s the wedding details for all you planners out there:

• Flowers by Fioravanti Florist
• Ceremony location, reception location and catering, wedding cake design all by the Burgundy Basin Inn
• DJ entertainment by Go Sound Systems
• Wedding dress was the Chiffon Empire Dress BR1007 by David’s Bridal

Thanks guys for having me document your day!

• Wedding Ceremony downtown Lake Placid NY at the Adirondack Community Church
• Wedding Reception at the Lake Placid Club Boathouse by Crowne Plaza
• Flowers and decoration by Trillium Florist, Tupper Lake, NY
• Wedding cake by the Lake Flour Bakery, Saranac Lake, NY
• Slideshow music free courtesy of Amazon.com
• View slideshow without music
• Login to Make Love Real.com to view all the photos and order prints

Penny and Will held their wedding near their first and favorite vacation spot – Lake Placid NY.  Penny and Will are silly and full of love for life and each other while they brought their friends and family together to celebrate this shared love.  Will was excitedly explaining to me how he wanted to drive to the top of Whiteface mountain to take pictures between the ceremony and reception and I was hesitant to make any promises knowing that the weather on top of a 5000ft mountain in the last days of May in Northern NY is as likely to be snow as sun.  Again this day the universe smiled on me and gave us good weather while on the summit of Whiteface Mountain.  Here are a few of my favorites from up there.

When we first came up a cloud was rolling up the mountain, while the sun was still shining over the cloud giving us a mystical and unique light!

The temperature on the summit was a brisk 45 degrees with a stiff 20-25mph breeze. As the cloud rolled over the summit we were momentarily lost in fog and then rested just under the belly of the cloud.

Will and Penny were surprised when I told them on the way to the summit that it would be great to be hit by a cloud, and they were even more surprised when it happened. My wilderness experience in the High Peaks has taught me about the amazing ecological conditions these mountains reside in. If you are yearning for a mountaintop wedding ceremony, Whiteface mountain just North of Lake Placid is an amazing summit. You can drive to within a few hundred feet of the summit and then take either the elevator or stairs to the top. But here is the panoramic view:

The Adirondack Park is really just a big swamp with mountains interspersed amongst it, and this picture captures that quintessential environment with the bride and groom.

Thanks so much guys for bringing me back to the Adirondacks for your great wedding day!

The wedding took place at the Glengoyne Highland whiskey distillery and we all enjoyed the generously poured high-quality scotch!  wowsa!!

Congratulations Gerry and Jenny – thanks for bringing me to your wedding!

I had an awesome time visiting the clubbing scene in Glasgow and partying till 3am – at that latitude the sun rises at that hour and I got to experience my first Celtic ‘time between’ with a beautiful sunset departing Gelengoyne, and a sunrise after dancing all night through the packed clubs of Glasgow. 

If you’re wondering why I’m not answering e-mail, slow on voicemails read on – if you’re not ok with my sillyness – don’t read on!!

This is my photographic family – from these minds my career has been molded – and to whom I give my highest gratitude:

FW7 from Vladimir Chaloupka on Vimeo.

Did you catch my multiple cameos?

Each year in North Dallas TX we gather for the most intense, most personal, and most life changing photography workshop on the planet – Foundation Workshop. It was out of this workshop that my wedding photography career was born – and I have been returning for the last three years as a Mentor to the students of the workshop.  The team leaders are Huy Nguyen, Brooks Whittington, Amy Deputy, Greg Gibson (my team leader in 08) and Tyler Wirken (my team leader this year – blonde spiky hair in the hotel room edit scenes).  

Recognize that shadow? my opening presentation

There are two unique things about the Foundation Workshop – first, the students shoot assignments like newspaper photographers.  Second, the student to staff ratio is 1:1 to ensure a crazy, intense, and personal level of instruction and connection.  I was privileged to lead off the workshop with a talk on creativity kicking off day one’s four lectures and team building exercises.  Day’s two and three are full shooting days for the participants to shoot assignments.  While day 4 had a dinner deadline to edit all the photos into a short slideshow for a presentation after a celebratory dinner.

This year Team Wirken started the week off with a very silly hotel room bonding experience.  After which our team member’s took on assignments like the South Fork Ranch – where Dallas the TV show was fashioned shot by Stacy Doyle.  A chocolatier who just opened shop – shot by Duncan Kerridge.  A local Veterinary hospital in Plano shot by Dan Shuman.  An organic tree farm shot by Jerry Yoon. Finally a family caring for their father stricken by Lou Gherig’s disease shot by Joseph Allen.  It was a real privilege to be able to speak into these people’s lives and I hope I’ve made a positive impact on their shooting, thinking and feeling pictures.  My role as a mentor is to visit the team members in the field and help them gain new perspectives, think new approaches and generally push them out of their comfortable ways of shooting and thinking.  Then we take it back to the editing suite…..and talk about all their mistakes all night!  

Stacy Doyle shooting at the Dallas TV show museum

Duncan at the Chocolate shop above and Dan at the Vet below

Really – it’s just plain brutal honesty about almost every picture.  Tyler Wirken our team leader has a graphically driven taste for images and he can see every compositional flaw within seconds.  He also has the mental energy to talk about it for 6 hours straight!!  A totally revealing experience for the participants and the staff alike as we warm up our creative brains by realizing all the things we should do better!  So as you see in the video a lot of sitting around and talking – that’s us critiquing our work.

If you’d like to see a still image slideshow by David Pullum and Anna Kuperberg our official staff photographers there’s the link!

Bedtime stories with Neil & Liesl in HD.

Browse our site from the top – following the numbered sequence :
1. Meet Us (intro to our services and thinking) 2. Enaging Products (a rundown of all the things we make)3. Click for a Contract (packages and pricing)

 

Sarah & Jeremy had an emotional (men crying during the ceremony) silly (did you see those bridesmaids) and funny (um, ringbearer’s finger in the cake – people eating goldfish) wedding celebration. Entertainment for the night was masterfully hosted by Kevin Colangelo. And is Jamie trying to stalk all my NY weddings, or has she just become the best wedding hair babe in WNY? Liesl and I drove up with the family to see friends so Sarah got the bonus as Liesl as the assistant photographer. She seems to be sneaking pictures of herself into everyones proofs lately, so if you got one psychoanalyze it for me.

• Wedding Location at Belhurst Castle
• Hair by Jamie Lynn
• IPod version music by Jap Jap
• Bridal Jewelry by Something Blue on Etsy

Blogger contest take two and Youtube version.

And so all sorts of crazyness breaks loose….drop your comments on the main post if you want to get involved!

Blogger contest take two and YouTube version

Blogger talent search contest or YouTube version.

Ungodly Fruit – Soundtrack by Wax Taylor

The prize is a free multimedia engagement session by Neil Cowley with a value of $3000. The quest is for a storyteller with heart and humor to tell the stories of wedding planning and engagement from inside their head and out through the web. Submit your journal, blog, video log, or contest entry to the comments here to be considered! Multimedia submissions will definitely score you bonus points!!

What is a multimedia engagement session?

• Sara & Jeremy – dog lover’s extended love story
• Letchworth New York destination engagement shoot slideshow
• Erin + Josh Engagement story at Centeral Park West and MOMA NY
• Where art lives with Courtney & Charlie shows you how a couple designed their engagement session

If you are chosen as the new blogger, I will help you design your engagement session and schedule it for as soon as possible.  Your themed shoot will also produce Save the Date Cards, and a Signature Wedding Guestbook.  You will then be responsible for writing 20-30 posts from your engagement and wedding.

Who else has blogged for you?

Deanna was our first bridal writer who’s creative, heartfelt and zany posts were a lot of fun!  You can view her multimedia engagement shoot slideshow, her post reflecting on the engagements, her wedding slideshow, and her post reflecting on the wedding experience and journaling/blogging.  Deanna is planning to incorporate some of her reflections in her album design.

The entries will be judged by Neil, Liesl and Deanna on the basis of creative writing, personal presentation and emotional candor.  We are looking for writing style, emotional expression, and humorous visual flair (like Deanna’s barbie page).

How can I blog this, pass on the word, tell my friends?

Click the </>Embed button on the above video and copy the code to your own blog or site – or use the YouTube Version with Neil or Liesl.

Paste the link to your post in the comments, so everyone reading here can find your site!

http://makelovereal.net/blogger/

Click this button to post this page to your Myspace, FaceBook, bookmarks or other sites:

Thank you cards illustrated watch in High Definition Video on Vimeo.

Thank-you cards are a fun way to show everyone your wedding style with a lovely photo card.  You can purchase your card set from one of the many types we have in our shopping cart:

8.5 x 5.5 Color Postcards – 250

4×5.5 Folded Delux Greeting Cards

4×6 Color Postcards – 250

5×7 Folded Delux Greeting Cards

Album Delivery by Neil

You’ll be just as excited and enthralled to open your album for the first time!

Order a Custom Design Series Album from our three sizes: 8 Series, 9 Series, and 13 Series

We also have an a-la-carte option that starts at $300 – and you build the album with only the photos you want by starting with an either an 8 inch cover, or an 11 inch cover.  Add each page of your album by selecting ‘album page’ from the photo page in your private gallery on the shopping cart.

PSSST – You’ll want headphones to savor this 4min experience.

The slideshow track is by John Martyn – Small Hours from the album Sweet Little Mysteries: The Island Anthology

Many of the slides on this slideshow are longer than 10 seconds.

I enjoyed stretching the rules and am beginning to feel the space between the photos more fully.

Check your wedding date to see if we are available for your wedding!

This was my last wedding in Lima, my once-upon-a-time hometown, where Liesl and I bought our first house, and where the sky invites the face of god. It reminds me of the amazing tropical thunderheads I’ve seen in Puerto Rico and the Bahamas.  I am so grateful I was blessed to experience this August evening.

Just a technical note of interest – the web is the best place to view these photos because of the amazing Electric Magenta, or Fucia color of the sky.  It is nearly impossible to reproduce that coloring in a print as explained by wikipedia:

Electric magenta vs. process magenta

When electric magenta is reproduced on paper, it is called fuchsia and it is physically impossible for it to appear on paper as vivid as on a computer screen. In order to reproduce it, a small amount of cyan printer’s ink must be added to printer’s magenta to make fuchsia, and therefore fuchsia is not a primary color of pigment–it is the color of printer’s magenta that is one of the primary colors of pigment (along with cyan and yellow).

The name fuchsia was chosen as the alias for electric magenta because that is the color name for the color that in printed reproduction is its equivalent.

Since prior to the introduction of personal computers magenta was synonymous with printer’s magenta, colored pencils and crayons called “magenta” are usually colored the color ofprocess magenta (printer’s magenta) shown above.

So while we experience it – it’s not yet something that we can fully capture!

I just thought that was a beautiful analogy to a photograph.

Who is Make Love Real? from Neil Cowley on Vimeo.

…the first section of four short films about our business.  We’re totally excited to share these with you over the next couple months as we book new weddings, meet new people and get used to our new home in Charlotte – anyone in the world can meet with us through our site.  A BIG thanks to Andrew Marzano the producer of our series.

I have to dedicate this first video to Liesl, the love of my life – who’s inspired me to such great heights of experience, and such great depths of understanding.

With this post, I’m initiating a new category in the site called ‘Love Note’ where anyone can send in a love note that will be published as a public proclimation for the 5-10,000 people who visit this site every month.  We’re open to any kind of media, and will help you host and present it.  I hope to see us develop this into a little bit of a friendly competion – since my love note to Liesl started with a big production budget – I’m winning!

But like the old horse says, “when you are real, you can’t be ugly” – so don’t be intimidated, start sending it in!!

I can tell you a little about it though:

• “I’m In The Mood For Love” – Tommy Dorsey And His Orchestra
• “Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You” – Lauryn Hill
• “Pa’ Bailar (Siempre Quiero Mas)” – Bajofondo

Check your wedding date to see if we are available for your wedding and get an instant response!

To view the rest of their photos login to www.Make Love Real.com

I don’t think I need to add any words, cause I just stayed up all night again to finish it, and they’d probably just be crappy words compared to everything I felt in the pictures. I look forward to getting back to Toronto for the next big event!

Enigma – Gravity of Love is the slideshow soundtrack

Details:

• Bridal preparation at the Renaissance Hotel
• Wedding Ceremony rooftop at Ontario Place Atlantis Pavillions
  
• Wedding Reception and dinner in the Trillium room
• Toronto Wedding Planning by Angelique
• Flowers by the Pink Twig
• Dresses by Jealous Bridesmaids

Check your wedding date to see if we are available for your wedding!

Just start up this little YouTube video for your soundtrack as you browse on down!

Read on to see the emotional rollercoaster

My eyes are wet just posting this….

….more to come soon…till then this small podcast!

I’d like to credit the tunes to John Martyn’s Head and Heart from the album “Sweet Little Mysteries: The Island Anthology” and Jem’s Stay Now from the album “Finally Woken” The story is an instant classic by Jeremy and Sarah, look for their upcoming wedding in September and recommend me to all your friends who are getting married and need their love story told.

And Sara would like to thank her stylist Ellen at Scot Miller Salon, along with her colorist Jarrod and the sweetie Cory for doing her makeup and giving the dogs something to lick off.

If you would like a multimedia presentation for your engagement, wedding, anniversary, or just as a family journal – you can read more about these two packages:

3 Media package – Custom Slideshow – Documentary Audio

]]> http://makelovereal.net/extended-love-story/feed/ 11 http://makelovereal.net/multimedia-engagement-video-presentation/ http://makelovereal.net/multimedia-engagement-video-presentation/#comments Sun, 20 Apr 2008 13:59:37 +0000 Neil http://makelovereal.net/?p=1323 Presented below is a video montage of Courtney and Charlie’s relationship story that they played at their rehearsal dinner

Courtney & Charlie engagement project from Neil Cowley on Vimeo.

This one was a team production where I did the audio and Courtney hired a video director to put together the extended slideshow with historical family photos.

Entry #62 poses the question – Is Beauty Enough?

Visit his page to download from his site.

“Why do most great pictures look un-contrived? The deception is necessary if the goal of art is to be reached. Only pictures that look as if they have been easily made can convincingly suggest that beauty is commonplace.“

This simple quote strikes to the heart of the struggle of ‘choosing a wedding photographer’ when the issues of budget and beauty, of posing and photojournalism collide in your mind.

I hope you enjoy the podcast and this bit of art theory and criticism as you contemplate your photography investment and how it might pay off for you in the future. I hope our pictures look easily made to your eye, because the beauty I see is all around me.

For us, beauty is not in the way your wrinkles can be erased out of the way, but how they can so easily be overlooked when the picture is of a genuine moment or thought – and thereby looks so easily made. While photojournalism is a good word for what we do, it’s become an overused catchphrase in the wedding industry – but an understanding that we strive to make our work as ‘un-contrived’ as possible every time we shoot is probably the best way to understand what we do. The most common, and the most satisfying complement we get from our photos is “it feels just like we were there!” And that complement may not be coming from someone who attended the wedding!

If you are considering spending 5-10,000 on wedding photography and are unsure of what style photographer you want to go with, maybe you should consider reading Robert Adams short collection of essays on Beauty in Photography to find your personal preference for beauty and meaning in photographs. Maybe you’ll even decide the most lasting perspective or approach for capturing your family memories. I would not wish for you to have a personal preference of ‘romanticism’, where you prefer imaginative poses or very stylized images, and hire someone who spends their time finding unique moments of personal interaction. I would equally regret for you to be enticed by overtly romanticized wedding photos and 10 years from your wedding regret that a more inclusive approach had been taken that captures how much your grandmother appreciated being a part of your wedding.

I intend for you creative blessing and peace in your choice,

 

So do you know where the best art comes from now?

I didn’t include the story of Courtney and Charlie’s first date, but if you’d like to listen to it here:

[audio:http://makelovereal.net/whereartlives/first-date.mp3]

…you can see how their engagement shoot reflected their first date and how tucker got included.

In case it’s not totally clear, the framed photos are the shadowbox that I made with Charlie’s input. The frame is antiqued barn wood, and it has a two inch deep sealed wooden shadow frame. The glass is painted from the inside to harmonize with the weathered edges of the photos and handmade paper in the backing. The photos are mounted on raw nails to avoid adhesives which lower the archival stability of the piece.

I look forward to blessing more and more of your lives with joy, strength, memories and moments

Creative Chaos #14

Listen in your browser, or by Podcast

[audio:http://makelovereal.net/whereartlives/courtney-first-date.mp3]

Yes, thank you, thank you, please hold your applause.

The site that used to host everything, got way too big, way too confusing now hosts a simple wedding portfolio, and to introduce that I’m posting a podcast version of the main gallery here, but do check in to the www.NeilCowley.com gallery and view the fullscreen, high resolution view of this show as it will certainly knock your socks off as you view the photos in high resolution clarity and brilliance.

Subscribe to the podcast in iTunes to get your mobile copy of the slideshow.

[audio:http://makelovereal.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/ceremony-audio.mp3]