i love brides. i love weddings. i dreamt about my own, and loved planning and living it. now i dream about being a part of others. i feel a certain affinity for all things wedding.
several months ago i contacted my friends katrina and rachel and pitched a project. i wanted to shoot four different genres of bride: four different dresses, four different styles, four different movements. i knew, i was going to love the project.
these images aren’t new to my blog or my posts, but i have found myself revisiting one of the brides in the series. she just calls to me, and reminds me that i am an artist.
kalynne, my friend, and a beautiful model was our couture bride. she is also this month’s fine art! this is a revisit to a past shoot, but fine art nonetheless, because i can’t get her images out of my mind. i reread them like old love letters, replay them like favorite melodies, re-feel them like the beating of my heart after my first, real, kiss. may they move you too on some tangible level.
i have had several discussions lately with my friends concerning fine art and subjective definitions. it has been enlightening listening to the differing opinions. i am mostly interested in what people feel you should do with something that is considered fine art. put it in a museum. publish it. frame it. hang it on the wall. my friend and a colleague i admire x 1000, renee hindman, recently shared with me that her best pictures, her fine art, is of her children (was so inspired by that too!!). every shoot she has with her children she publishes in an album for them to have later: the fine art of their youth. i was so moved by this that i have started compiling images of my children to follow suit. thank you renee for reminding me to publish the fine art that is my children and their fleeting youth. it also made me think of everything i have published in an album. albums, i feel, are fine art. the culmination of the entire experience. several families ask me to make them albums, but mostly my weddings end in the delivery of a fine art album. it was only appropriate to join forces with my dear friend and album designer, april, of photostory albums, to create a display for the fine art couture bride.
“it’s here!” the text read!
i couldn’t stop smiling! i was so excited to see it in person, feel the pages, enjoy the color, celebrate the accomplishment.
i shook my head in disbelief at the turn of each page, “i took these? i really took these. they are pretty. really pretty.” i kind of, to be honest, felt like crying. you know, when you write an outstanding essay and you can’t stop reading it because it’s so good. or when you just finish running a marathon you have spent months preparing for. or when you see your child being the friend to the friendless. or when you work so hard to accomplish something, and after tremendous labor, you do it!! you know, when you accomplish something really, really good, noteworthy, and cool and you feel so proud… that’s how i felt.
couture bride belongs on fine art paper, in a fine art album. there is no other place for her…
the watercolor paper, the full bleed of images, the negative space on the image and the page design. all of it, each page, another audible response. to my friend april, thank you! thank you for joining me on this project and for reminding me that our art should be published, if not by others, then for sure, by us!!
i shot the image above with my macro lens so you could see the grain of the paper. it’s to die for! really, really beautiful!! the texture of it too, is unbelievable. and that paper has been coated so it’s protected against fingerprints, etc.
april surprised me with something when she came to deliver the album. something new she has been drumming up: an album box!! i couldn’t get over how gorgeous it was! i had visions of delivering albums to brides with their image on the box, and all i could do was smile, and, alright, i got a little emotional. i’m just that way, ok? 😉
i feel april is one of the key members of my kamee june family. one of my favorite things about her: the answer is always yes! that’s what she tells me when i call with album questions and inquiries. “kam, the answer is always, yes!” you must contact april for any of your fine art publication needs!!
you will be so happy you met her and had the opportunity to work with her! check her out here and contact her at april@photostoryalbums.com, today. she is a fine art experience in herself.
every bride i meet will also meet couture bride which means she is meeting kalynne, katrina, and april too!
thank you to katrina for sharing her art with hair, make up, and wardrobe.
thank you to kalynne for being so perfectly beautiful!
and to my good friend april for being a visionary and always being willing to jump with me!!!
may you do more with your fine art than just frame it; make a lasting memory that deepens with the turn of each page.
thank you again to everyone who was a part of this and who inspired the project and the push. i am grateful!!
for more fine art check out wendy vonsosen and follow all 15 fine art links. you will be inspired; i am sure!
ps for those of you who made it to the bottom of this post and are almost engaged, already engaged and planning a wedding, or know someone who is close to engagement or already engaged; the album above is the one i am gifting in this month’s i-am-grateful wedding promotion! 😉 read the details and spread the word!! would love for my brides to have this album in their homes as fine art, only filled with their own images from their incredible day!!