pre-Halloween Costume fun!

Wow!! Halloween costumes have really come a long way. I remember when I was young the costumes came in square boxes with a clear plastic window so you could see what the mask looked like. They had the face part of the mask that secured to your head by a rubber band 9and they still have those today, but the rest of the costume was basically a full body "suit" that had a picture of whatever you were supposed to on the chest. Can you say "cheesy??"
Well, not only are the costumes much better now, the Ditmores are prepared. Unlike years past, my entire family has their Halloween costumes!!!!
I think it helped that the wife and I were invited to a Halloween Party this coming Saturday (Thanks Brian and Rose!!!!). We usually plan to get the boys' costumes early and end up having to order on-line and pay for expedited shipping. The boys picked out their costumes early and we got them. We did, however, have to order one piece for Alex's costume but it was so worth it. For those who follow the blog, here are a couple of quick snaps of the boys tonight in our drive-way.

Halloween is always a fun holiday for me and especially so since we've had our boys. It is so much fun watching their faces light up with excitement at the mere mention of what they plan to be. We have had some great costumes over the years and this year is no exception.
The lone exception this year is that i won't be able to "help" the kids enjoy their candy. I will stay away from the extra candy the boys bring home this year and hopefully limit their intake a little as well.
The boys enjoy giving out candy and seeing all the trick or treaters who come to our house each year so we'll trick or a treat a little and then head home to answer the door for all those ghosties and super heroes who will come to see us.

We will doing more Halloween photos in the coming days and I will post the final product of that shoot.

Growing a business.......

Wow! What an awesome and humbling experience it is to grow a business.

Another shoot this evening......and more prints coming today!!

Looking forward to another shoot this evening.

Also looking forward to the UPS man delivering more prints today.


I'll also be sharing another football team shot a week from Friday. This was a commissioned work and the client asked me not to show it until he unveiled it.

No rest for the weary.............and we wouldn't have it any other way!

Wow!! August has been such a busy month for us, and we are lovin' it!!! For all you guys who have booked or are considering us, THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! We love what we do and we hope it shows. We love meeting new people and we love making beautiful images.

It just keeps getting hotter!

I cannot remember a hotter summer. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to August! School is just around the corner and

So....

Ok, so now that the family has seen the final group of images from Michael's set, I can share a few of them here. On the second day we shot a few in studio and after some slight tweaking in photoshop, we were all very pleased with the final product. I honestly think the poster came out even better than I expected. Michael's dad got me a UC logo from the school and a few hours later we had a poster that I am really proud of. And the coolest and most rewarding part is that Michael and his dad were diggin it too!

This one is gonna be really brief because I have a lot of work to do getting orders together. I hope everyone is having a great day and I'll be posting again very soon.
thanks for stopping by,
~greg

Myrtle Beach Work-cation

So I was fortunate enough to get an invitation to shoot at great band at a great venue in a great vacation spot. What could be better, right? Well, when the band is Frontiers - Journey Tribute Band, the venue is the House of Blues, and the vacation spot is Myrtle Beach, it doesn't get much better.
We found out Frontiers would be playing the House of Blues, Myrtle Beach at the end of May and singer Jeremey Hunsicker invited me to shoot them there. First, if you've never heard Frontiers, you owe it to yourself to check them out. They are THE Journey Tribute Band. You can check them out at www.journeytributeband.com or find them on facebook.

So the wife and I talked about the proposition and decided we could make it a mini working vacation, a work-cation if you will. So we arrived a day before the show and stayed a day afterward. We had a great trip and had a blast with the guys. I'll post more details about the vacation par of the trip on another post but suffice it to say the Frontiers gig at the House of Blues was the highlight of the weekend.

I hadn't been to Myrtle Beach in 10 years. And believe it or not, I had actually seen JGB at the House of Blues then. It is a truly great venue.

Before the show we met a friend from my hometown that I hadn't seen in probably 25 years and his wife. Our friends, Mitch Borden and his wife Lisa, made reservations for us for dinner at the House of Blues and in spite of my wife and I getting lost and arriving late, we had a wonderful dinner. It was great catching up with Mitch after all these years and the wives became fast friends. They are just really nice people and we are looking forward to hanging out with them again very soon.


As for the concert itself....WOW!! The guys really brought their "A" game. The best show we have seen by far. It was so much fun seeing them at this venue. So the moral of the story is.......great music at a great venue with great friends makes for one incredible night of fun!
Just back and I'll offer some more update on the guys from Frontiers and more on our Myrtle beach trip.
have a great day!
~greg

2nd Session........and a band shoot!

What a busy week it's been. Two senior sessions with Michael H, and a band shoot tomorrow at the House of Blues - Myrtle Beach! So when Michael and I got together for his senior shoot this past Sunday we knew we would run out of light before we were able to shoot everything we anted to do. So we did the urban part of the shoot on Sunday and scheduled the 2nd session for Tuesday.
The plan for Tuesday was to shoot Michael in his football gear. We met at 8:30 a.m. and had to go to a secondary location because our first spot was overrun with athletes working out. This does not make the most pleasing background so we ended up going to Central High and asked if we could use their field for a few photos. Well, a few photos turned into several photos. Coach Joel Helton was very gracious and let us use the field. I want to thank Coach Helton publicly.

After shooting at the field we took a short break for lunch. My wife and kid's were meeting my eldest son's teach from last year at Five Guys on Emory Road so we decided to meet them. Awesome burgers guys! Michael had never been there but I suspect he'll be back. If you haven't been to Five Guys Burger and Fries, you need to check it out. The burgers are great and they load you up with great fries as well. Man, I could throw down on one of those burgers right now.

So after lunch we headed over to the studio. I had a couple of ideas I wanted to try with Michael and he agreed to try them. I totally want to post a couple of these pics here but I have to wait until he and his family see them next week. I really want to see their expressions when they see them. They are some of my favorite photos I have ever taken (excluding my kids and my wife). I will be posting a few of these next week after Michael and his family have viewed them.

Next up is a concert shoot at the House of Blues - Myrtle Beach. I have been a musician for most of my life. I started playing bass guitar when I was 15 years old and I mess around with guitar as well. So any time I get an opportunity to combine two of my passions (music and photography) I am really stoked.

Back in the Spring I was fortunate enough to see a great band at the Valarium in Knoxville. The band was Frontiers - Journey Tribute Band. This is not just "a" Journey tribute band, this THE Journey tribute band. I'll save some of this for another blog, but suffice it to say these guys are awesome! And they're a great bunch of guys too. Well, except Stephen, the guitar player. Ok, I'm just kidding, he's a great guy too, even if he is a Brit. So anyway, my boys LOVE Journey so when we talked to Jeremey Hunsicker, the lead singer, after the Valarium show, he told us about an upcoming show in Gray, TN. It was at a Bar-B-Que festival and we would be able to take the kids. Sweet!!!

So at this gig we found out they were gonna be in Kingsport, TN., the following week. So again, we loaded up the kiddos and headed up I-81. Not only did we get to enjoy a fun night with great music, Stephen suggested we we should think about coming to see them at the House of Blues in Myrtle Beach. After talking to Jeremey, it was set. I was gonna be shooting them there. How cool is that??

So the wife and I are taking a work-cation to the beach (thanks Jeremey!) and I will have pics from the show as well as a review when we return.

Thanks for checking out the blog and please tel your friends and check back for updates!
~greg

Another Senior, this time....Michael H!

Yesterday I had an opportunity to shoot another senior. This time it was Michael H.'s turn. Michael's mom, Jamie, came along and we had a lot of fun. I've known Michael and his family for a few years and I have to say he is just a great young man. I know Mom and Dad are very proud of him as they are all their children.


Michael is an upcoming senior and though he'd never admit it, he's a football stud. He plays both ways for Union County High. He's been working out hard and he's really beefed up since the end of last season so I expect that he'll destroy people on the field this coming season. Write it down, the kid is gonna be a BEAST this year. After graduation he wants to play college ball somewhere and get that education. Michael loosened up really quickly and we got some great shot early in the session as well as later. Sometimes the first few shots aren't great because people are understandably nervous. They generally relax as they get used to that camera being pointed at them but we were getting great, natural smiles out of Michael almost from the first frame.

I'm starting to notice with my seniors that are involved in athletics the letter jacket is quite the prized possession. And I can certainly understand that. I want one!!! They are really very cool and have that old school vibe. And anyone who knows me, knows I'm all about old school!


Again we had to fight some humidity and Michael was great in that regard too. I hope to get out to Union County this fall and shoot Michael in action on the field as well. My first passion was sports photography so it'll be nice to get out and shoot some football. Look for a few more with Michael in the next few days as we decided to extend the shoot into a second day. Thanks to Michael and his mom, Jamie, we really had fun hanging with you guys and running around town.
Thanks for checking out the blog and come back, leave some comments, hang out with us.
~greg

Senior Shoot

Shout out to all my peeps! I hope you guys are finding ways to stay cool with all this heat and humidity we've been having lately. Things are heating up here and getting busy. To be honest with you, I've really just wanted to stay inside under a fan for the last couple of weeks. It has been nasty outside. I will, however, go out for a photo shoot! Few things motivate me to go out in the heat like the opportunity to put my camera to work.

I just wanted to share a few pics from a recent Senior with Kimberly. Kimberly lives up the road from us just a bit. She is such a sweet girl and we had a blast running around in the heat. Kimberly will be a senior this fall and she has her future course mapped out for post graduation. She has a beautiful smile and she is such a sweetheart. After many years playing basketball this year she's gonna be cheering and running cross country. And it is obvious this girl is an athlete. She was gracious enough to meet us at Cracker Barrel and allow us to finish diner before we hit the streets

.

When we finally ran out of sunlight we wrapped things up. After the shoot, the wife and I went back to Cracker barrel for some blackberry cobbler. That really hit the spot. I could literaly eat their blackberry cobbler with every meal. Good stuff indeed.

I'm very pleased with the images we created. Hopefully in the not too distant future we'll be doing a tandem Senior Shoot with Kimberly and her BFF.

Dover Family

A week ago yesterday I had the opportunity to shoot the Dover family. I've known them for a long time and I consider them very special friends. In fact, I met my wife at their wedding. So to say I owe them a lot is an understatement. I was excited when I got the e-mail inquiring about the date they had chosen. I knew we'd have a blast. I huge bonus was Papaw and Nana Dover would be there as well. I hadn't seen them in many years and I've always liked them a lot. I had a couple of places in mind to shoot but god ol' Mr. Murphy had something to say about that. The first place I had chosen was swarming with people having what looked to be a birthday party. So we regrouped and headed to another location. This one was teeming Prom goers. Strike two!! So once again we regrouped and drove to a third location. And the third time was a charm. We found a few really nice locations and had a great time capturing the closeness that is family. I am so thankful to the Dovers for allowing me the honor of helping them capture memories that I hope they will cherish for years to come.
I hope you all will have a great day and will come back often!
~greg

February 2010...finally able to get out and shoot!

Ok, so this post is WAY overdue. I promise to post more consistently this year starting.....NOW! The holiday season was wonderful at my house and we seem to be surviving all the snow. I am really looking forward to Spring. I enjoy the seasons and find that
I am ready for the changes when they occur. I am so over Winter though. We had a great weekend last week and the warmer temperatures made me really long for Spring. We were able to go outside and shoot some new pics in Market Square and that gave me some newfound energy. I love the warm weather. I like to get outside and play ball with my boys. I love going to the zoo with the family. I can't wait for the days to get longer. I hope you enjoy today's offering and I promise to have more new photos soon. Thanks for checking out the blog and hurry back!
~g