I'm oh-so happy to announce that I was interviewed for an article in Baltimore Bride on interesting photographic location around Baltimore, and how to make time for them on your wedding day.

Here's the excerpt:

Photographers recommend allowing a significant amount of time for photography. "It takes a lot longer than you think," says Jocelyn Mathewes of Studio Mathewes. She recommends at least an hour for each location. "That doesn't mean each photograph takes an hour, but it takes time to set up, and if people are wound up, they need time to relax and get into it." For couples intent on a specific location, she recommends two hours between ceremony and reception. "That way, you'll have time to stop somewhere."

I spoke at length with the author, Martha Thomas, and definitely had a lot more qualifiers about that two-hour statement than what got conveyed in the article. Those two hours are meant to allow for the lag time at the end of the ceremony--family photos, gathering all your belongings, greeting stragglers, and whatnot--as well as travel time between the ceremony and reception.

Example scenario: your ceremony ends at 3pm and your reception begins at 5pm. You've allotted 30 minutes for formal family portraits, and have 30 minutes of travel time to get to the reception. That only leaves about an hour for portraits of the bride and groom at a unique location. Sounds like plenty of time, right? It very well may be! But make sure you're accounting for travel time to that other location (perhaps another 20 minutes), as well as lag time for setting up and walking to and from each shot.

Really, the important thing is to talk over your timeline with your photographer beforehand so that both of you can be on the same page about what needs to happen when. And the second most important thing is to be flexible; things may not go as planned, but that doesn't mean you won't get amazing photographs in the end--just not the planned ones!

Oh, and they also squeezed in this fabulous shot of Nathalie and Cory at the end of their printed magazine. Sweet.

Is it strange to say that I'm almost more thrilled that they spelled my last name correctly than the fact that my image was published? The way I tell people how to spell my name is this, "Think of female sheep doing calculus: MATH + EWES." Works (nearly) every time.

Okay, okay, I know you guys hear about Nathalie and Cory a lot, but bear with me here. Their wedding details were so absolutely delicious that The Knot picked up on the wedding and published a feature in their MD/DC/VA Spring/Summer 2010 issue!

It's wicked cool. I'm so thankful that Leah Stern was there to help me capture all the loveliness of that day. Here's the little write-up:

(I also happen to be a 2010 Best of Weddings pick, too! How thrilling! Thank you, guys, for helping make that possible. I wouldn't be here without my cohorts and fun-to-photograph clients.)

I've started to notice a very strange pattern regarding the colors in my life. A year or so ago, I started surrounding myself with clothing, accessories, fabrics, and more that fell into the red, orange, and brown categories. I love these colors; they are warm, rustic, passionate, and sensuous. Here's a photo of all the previous acquisitions that I'm talking about:

But lately, everything I buy comes out some shade of blue or turquoise--a much more ethereal, dreamy, and floating kind of color. It's quite uncanny, and unintentional. I first noticed it about a week ago, then gathered all the objects I had recently acquired together. See?

I don't know what my subconscious obsession is made out of, but I'm getting suspicious that something is up. Perhaps I'm gathering these colors around me for an deeply intuitive reason. I'm also highly suspicious because I know (based on color theory) that blue and turquoise are the complementary colors of red/brown/orange. I'm also a huge fan of primary colors; I gravitate to those simple starting colors very quickly.

I started to think that I needed the folks at Pantone to come and analyze me. Then, I looked at their website and did a double-take. The Pantone color of the year is TURQUOISE. NOT KIDDING.

Somebody pinch me.

Wonder what it is? Good, I'm not telling.

I love the color on this shed; it stood out so wonderfully in the pure white landscape.

There's no one playing on the fields today.

This bell rings whenever services take place on campus at Holy Cross Orthodox Seminary. I laid down underneath the bell and shot upwards in the snow.

I wonder what the bird thinks of this real estate. Too much traffic, I'd say.

I'm jumping on the bandwagon and sharing my ten favorite wedding images of 2009. It's so hard to narrow things down to ten. I'd probably pick a completely different set of images on any given day. But here we go...

David and Colleen are obviously meant for each other.

Melodie surprised Evan with a camouflage garter.

Nathalie and Cory enjoy a picnic-table kiss!

Erin waits for her cue with her father.

I loved that Katie and her bridesmaids each had a completely unique bouquet.

Tracy had such a beautiful laughing smile after just getting married.

Amanda stood in a renovated church--her home--as if she was at the altar before heading to the actual altar!

And then she cut loose at her reception!

Leslie gets surprised while having her portrait taken...

...only later to enjoy a kiss with her new husband, Chris.

Thanks to all my clients for making 2009 a fantastic year of creating beauty.

The story is this: Molly (a friend of mine) had a fabulous dress that inspired me to put together this inspiration board (you can see her in the dress on the lower right):

I then dragged Leah from SmittenXOXO, and makeup artist Jennifer LaVanaway into the project. Even my mom donated a few of her props--a random set of teacups, linens, and other objects that didn't make it into the final project, but served as inspiration nonetheless.

Leah sent me hairpieces that went with the feel and colors of Molly's dress, and Jennifer worked with gold leaf on Molly's face, to emulate the style of the teacups. Quite lovely!

It does help that Molly is so romantically beautiful, too!

More excerpts from the shoot coming on Wednesday!

Remember Molly beautiful?

It turns out that Molly likes to collect vintage dresses, on top of being rather dazzling. This number was actually her mother's prom dress. How wonderful that she can not only wear it, but really work it!

Of course, I like to collect a few random things myself--old lace tablecloths, antique cameras, fans, umbrellas, parasols, and other such junky items that take up space in my closet, but turn out to be really useful when putting a photo shoot together!

The fan was a gift from my mother years ago, and the teacup is on loan from her massive collection.

More from this photo shoot coming soon!

Molly Sibley, model / Jennifer LaVanaway, makeup / SmittenXOXO, hairpieces

A preface: as a wedding photographer, very few of my clients send me an invitation to their wedding. I completely understand this! When I got married, I sure didn't bother to send my photographer an invitation. After all, they're paid to be there! Plus, fancy invitations can cost a pretty penny in production and postage.

And it's not like they don't know if I'm going to be there or not, either! I'm in frequent communication with my couples prior to the wedding, making plans, discussing timelines, and getting excited about the venue.

So imagine my surprise when Mariko and Jeff's invitations came in the mail the other day!

They're having their wedding at the Irvine Nature Center in Baltimore this April, and so I absolutely went ga-ga over the leafy nature theme they used all over the invitations--Audobon-like imagery, paper color, hand-stamping, and a delicate typeface too!

April can't come fast enough!

I'm reading through The Artist's Way again. A year or so ago, it was a gift to me from a dear friend of mine, and proved to be very useful in motivating me to keep up with making creative time for myself, as well as taking time to reflect and learn.

I have a habit of writing in the margins of my books, and did so all throughout college. When revisiting a book, it means that I get to see another side of myself, and what resonated with me in the past. Usually, something different resonates with me the second time around, but sometimes I find myself wanting to write the same things over and over again in the margins; occasionally I underline what I've already written.

Awhile back, as directed by the book, I started an inspiration jar, made from an old mason jar whose lid I lost somewhere. I hated to let the jar go to waste, or even be recycled, since a jar can be such a useful thing, even without its lid.

I started dropping little do-dads into it last August, while I was waiting for Lucas to be born. I remember feeling anxious about the birth, as well as creatively restless; I was saving my energy to bring a child into the world. The physical demands of late pregnancy, combined with a self-enforced leave of absence from any paid photo work, meant that I felt a tad useless too.

The jar has an Orthodox icon on it, featuring the Resurrection--a symbol of hope and triumph over death. Inside the jar was a scrap of velvety wrapping paper I liked, a few of my favorite wedding images, scraps of paper on which I wrote my anxieties, the foil lid of a wine I really liked (Irony Cabernet Savignon 2005--get a bottle while you can!). Other things--like a found friendship bracelet, the paper crane bottle cap, and blue jay feather--were things that reminded me of my childhood.

We'll see what more ends up in the jar later on; it's nowhere near full yet!

So I know I promised you some more of this wonderfulness from Molly. Here goes!

Towards the end of the photo shoot, the sun began to set; clear, warm, and icy light all at once. I had brought with me this ancient, crusty parasol given to me by my mother-in-law; it tore when I first opened it, but it proved to be quite beautiful in spite of that!

What a lovely shade of green, yes? It was quite windy, and I think that having a torn parasol was probably a better idea than a whole one! These backlit shots have to be some of my favorites.

...and my favorite of them all.

Thank you to Molly, Jennifer, and Leah, who made all of this possible!

Molly Sibley, model / Jennifer LaVanaway, makeup / SmittenXOXO, hairpieces

Siblings can make you laugh. They can be friends, confidants, and more. I wish I had a sister so I could share the same kind of relationship that Stella and Mary have with each other. They're so obviously at ease and full of grace.

And dare I say striking?

And silly, too. My favorite moment, however, was when they were finished throwing leaves at each other and gave a big squeeze.

Now if that doesn't warm your heart, I don't know what will.