As my business has grown leaps and bounds in the last year I have decided to change the business name to be more in-line with my branding and who I am as a photographer.
Ali Girl Photography is now Suzanne Melissa Photography.
Same photographer…just a new name and website. Please check out the new site for current work and pricing information.
Thank you!!
Meet Joe and Kelly.
Joe and Kelly were married at Tatum Ranch Golf Course just this last weekend. My 2010 wedding season has kicked off with the most amazing couples and these two were no exception. Kelly has the most infectious smile it made my job so easy! I love the look on Kelly’s face as her father is walking down the aisle.
And here is Joe anxiously awaiting his bride.
Tatum Ranch provides the perfect Arizona backdrop for an outdoor wedding.
Although the rain held off, it was a little windy. This made the sand ceremony tricky!
Married!!
I LOVE this picture of Kelly!
We explored the grounds at Tatum Ranch to captures these next few images.
Some of my favorite details shots from the day.
Joe and Kelly live out of state, so it was actually Kelly’s parents (Dave and Mary) who booked me for their wedding. I exchanged several e-mails with Dave and coordinated most of the days details with her Dad. One thing was clear from the first time I met Dave, and that was the pure unconditional love he had for his daughter. It was so clear that Dave and Mary both wanted this day to be perfect for Kelly in every way. The father daughter dance was one of the sweetest I have photographed and it left few people with a dry eye (including me).
Kelly’s sister was her maid-of-honor. During her speech, is was again clear the special bond and love that Dave and Mary both have with their daughters.
As if the emotions of the wedding day wasn’t enough, it was also Dave’s birthday! Kelly planned ahead to surprise him with a birthday cake.
As the sun was setting we went back outside to take one last picture.
Joe and Kelly I know that you are on your honeymoon now. I am so thankful that your parents chose me to photograph your day. Meeting the bride and groom only hours before photographing their wedding can be a challenge, but the love that you have for each other and the love in both of your families made it such a joy to be apart of your day.
March 5, 2010 - 3:07 pm - You did an amazing job! I love each and every picture that you have posted here- I cannot wait to see the rest of the photos from Kelly and Joe's special day! -Kelly's Maid of Honor- Ashley Gillen
March 5, 2010 - 3:28 pm - I am cousins of the bride and also live on the east coast. most of my family could not make it out to az for the wedding and these photographs help us share that day with them! well done!!!
March 5, 2010 - 3:53 pm - Tatum Ranch -- looks familiar! ;-) Beautiful wedding!
March 5, 2010 - 5:10 pm - The pictures turned out beautiful! Wonderful job capturing such a fantastic day and the greatest couple!- One of the Bridesmaids, Ashley
Philip and Danelle are married!
Philip and Danelle are two of the most genuine and down to earth people you will ever meet. Their love for each other and joy to marry each other was so easy to see and so easy to photograph. They chose to see each other before the ceremony which gave me a chance to capture these favorite images.
I LOVE bridal portraits. With images like this how could you not!
Beautiful flowers!
Danelle has an infectious smile and I think it’s clear that it runs in the family. I love how her and her father smiled all the way down the aisle.
The ceremony was very special, but even more so because Philip’s father performed the ceremony.
Probably my favorite images from the ceremony. It is so easy to see the love they have for each other.
Married!!
Phillip and Danelle thank you so much for allowing me to be apart of your day.
Just a quick side note. Wedding season is starting to kick into high gear and there are some big changes about to happen here at Ali Girl Photography. Starting with a business name change. I promise I will explain it all soon! Thanks to all of my Facebook friends for helping me pick my new logo!
March 2, 2010 - 11:00 pm - Thank you, Suzanne! You do such amazing work - we are so lucky to have you as our photographer!!
Meet Nate and Kelly!
For most engagement sessions it is my first time meeting the groom, but in Nate and Kelly’s case this was my first time meeting the bride and groom! Both live out-of-state and Kelly’s mom was actually the one that met with and hired me! After meeting Kelly’s mom and send e-mails back and forth with Kelly is was great to actually meet my clients!
We met a few days before Christmas while they were briefly in-town. For a couple that are planning a wedding out-of-state and throw in the holidays just a few days away they both were amazingly calm. Here are a few of my favorite images from the day.
I love the variety of pictures from the corn fields above to the row of trees below with their beautiful fall/winter colors.
Nate and Kelly it was great to finally meet you and I am looking forward to your wedding in May!
Happy New Year! I had this post drafted and ready to go a couple of weeks ago, but like many people the holidays ran me over like a mack truck. I am slowly getting back into the swings of things…blogging included. So, here is my 31 in 301.
I have to admit that aside from the standard “lose 10 lbs” I typically don’t make New Year’s Resolutions. Life is good, my family and I are all happy and healthy. I kind of figure why change anything. Well-this year I am going to change things up! There are a lot of transformations in my life that are going to happen throughout the next year (moving into a new house!!!! And potentially starting a family-mom stop jumping up and down…you’ll break your new laptop) and I’ve decided to set some goals. I couldn’t narrow things down to just one or two or three. Since I will be turning 31 this year (I know-hard to believe I am a day over 21..ha!), I thought 31 goals was a good number.
I am posting my list here as a reminder to keep me focused on reaching these goals. As each goal is achieved I will cross them off of the list and do a blog post to let you know how the goal was achieved. At first glance it seems like this should be an easy list, but if you do the math I have to average one goal every nine days. That kind of seems like a lot now huh? Okay, maybe just to me.
Since this is less about New Year’s Resolutions and more about setting and achieving goals I don’t feel the need to start on January 1st. The official start date will be December 12, 2009 and the end date will be October 9, 2010. Many others have done similar lists so I don’t want to front like this was all my idea, but this IS my list so here we go! NOTE: The goals are listed in no particular order!
31 Goals in 301 Days
Since no post is complete without a picture here is one of the flip book design I did of Baby L. More to come later on flip books and other studio products!
Meet Philip and Danelle!
I met Philip and Danelle several months ago at a Starbucks. They were very nice and very thorough in their questions about hiring a wedding photographer. At the end of the meeting they thanked me and said they had other photographers to interview and would be in touch. I assumed that I didn’t get the job. To my happy surprise, several weeks later they e-mailed to say that they picked me! Meeting perspective clients to document the most important day of their life is like hoping to be asked out for prom when you have already bought the dress!!
Philip and Danelle picked Papago Park for their engagement session. This was the first time I shot here and I love the all of the images that we were able to capture.
We had lots of desert photo opportunities, but some of my favorite images were these few that we took in the parking lot.
After thoroughly exploring the parking lot we ventured over to the nearby fishing lake.
When I asked Danelle to sit on Philip’s lap they both almost ended up in the water! Thankful they stayed dry and I kept shooting to capture these images.
It was getting close to sunset, so we were on the move to get into position. As we were walking along the park’s inner streets I snapped these shots.
A few more favorites before sunset.
If you follow my blog at all you might notice a pattern. I LOVE sunset shots. I am fascinated with the challenge of capturing the perfect sunset picture and all of the different options. Sometimes the lighting and location is just perfect for silhouettes and sometimes it’s perfect for bright vivid shots like these.
Philip and Danelle I had a blast getting to know you and shooting your engagement session. You both are two of the nicest people I have had the pleasure of working with and I am so excited to photograph your wedding!
January 4, 2010 - 12:52 pm - Good afternoon, I am curious, what equipment do you generally use for weddings, especially night weddings? I'm planning to expand my equipment but I've been told different things like softbox vs. umbrella light, light meter. I mostly use the flash on my camera or natural light but I've noticed some good techniques with other lighting equipment. Any advise? Also, what type of paper do you use (i.e. matte, luster, gloss, etc)? Do you do the printing yourself? By the way, I love you photos!!! You wouldn't happen to do studio sessions now would you? Maybe shadow you during a session by chance? That's a long shot, but I thought I'd try!! Looking forward to your response!!! Danielle
January 7, 2010 - 9:51 am - Hi Danielle! For all of my shots here and in the previous engagement session I just my SB-600 mounted on my camera. Off camera flash would be sooooooo awesome, but a little bit of a pain to lug around for engagement sessions. If you are looking to learn more about off camera flash I highly recommend One Light DVD. Well worth the money. As for printing I use Millers Lab. Feel free to send me an e-mail and we can set-up a mentoring session! contact@aligirlphotography.com. Thank you so much for the comment and for reading my blog:)
Meet Kyah and Kajer-the newborns that never sleep!
The week before Christmas I had the opportunity to photograph these cute little twins! Newborn sessions are always unpredictable because we are on their schedule. Although we waited about two hours for these two little cuties to fall asleep, they just didn’t want to miss any of the action. So, we went with their schedule and got some great shots while they were awake!
Here is Kyah.
On this day she was happiest while in mom’s arms.
Here is Kajer. One word to describe this little guy-MELLOW! Such a sweetie and just as content as could be. These are some of my favorite images from this session.
He was also very content to be in mom’s arms!
Grandma was on hand to help comfort and soothe the babies. (Grandpa was there too-he was holding Kajer in some of the images above).
Okay-so they did sleep…just a little.
When dad got home he seemed to have the magic touch. Or the magic “pat” I should say. He took turns laying the babies on his chest and patted their behind. They LOVED it! It would quiet them right down.
The group of pictures below seem to sum up our session and I suspect the next couple of years for mom and dad. Lots of holding and soothing of these cute little twins!
Meet Chris and Becky!
The end of the year has been a VERY busy time. Not only professionally, but also on a personal level. We have recently moved into a new house AND hosted Christmas dinner for our entire family. Until two days ago, I had NEVER cooked a turkey! CRAZY!!
To say that I am behind on blogging is the understatement of the year! I have three engagement sessions and a new born session (with twins!) to share. I will be blogging a lot this week, so be sure to stop by!
With all of that said-let’s get back to Chris and Becky! We met for their engagement session and Chris informed me right away that there would be no kissing. “It would just look fake” (per Chris).
Hmmm…any other rules you want to tell me about? Because I will just break them!
All kidding aside, Chris kept me and Becky laughing through their entire session. We had a lot of fun and captured some great pictures.
LOVE this picture!
The lighting and sunset during their session was amazing! Perfect for silhouette pictures…which I LOVE!
Note to other photographers: You can get great silhouette shots like those above and this one below. Expose/meter for the sunset and your subjects (in this case Chris and Becky) will be dark.
Keep your expose the same and turn your flash on to manual mode. Lower the flash power to about 1/4 or 1/3 and you will get your subjects exposed AND the sunset like these next two.
Chris and Becky I had a great time getting to know you at your engagement session and I am looking forward to your wedding. Note to Chris-there WILL be kissing! (Becky of course).
Meet Brad and April.
April contacted me a few months ago and asked me to take engagement pictures for them. They are getting married in South Dakota, but really wanted to take their engagement pictures here in Arizona. We met in Scottsdale on a cold overcast day, but Brad and April seriously couldn’t have been any nicer of a couple to work with! To top it off they were so sweet and cute with each other!
LOVE this image!!
Although I have done several engagement sessions at this location, we found this new little spot that I LOVE!!
April really wanted a few pictures in front of the LOVE statue, so these next two are for you April!
What I really enjoyed about photographing Brad and April is how at ease they were with each other. There were several times during the session that I could hear Brad whisper, “I love you” to April. So sweet…doesn’t that just melt your heart!
I think these might be my two favorite images from the day!
Meet Demar and Sarah!
These are two of the nicest and sweetest people I have met this year! Demar and Sarah are so down to earth and clearly enjoy each other’s company so much it made my job so easy to photograph them. After spending the afternoon with them I am so excited to be apart of their wedding in March.
We started their engagement session at Glendale Westgate and as soon I saw these escalators I knew we had to start here.
I snapped these pictures as we walked around to find our next location.
I LOVE this yummy, glowee (is this a word??) yellow background!
With a quick change of clothes we headed over to our second location. We took these next few images in a parking lot! This is the back wall of a building, but this goes to show you we can make great images anywhere! A totally awesome couple helps too!
If you haven’t noticed already, Sarah knows how to work the camera. I am going to tag this post for “Tips for Clients”. These next few pictures are great examples of how to work the camera with your eyes and your smile. Tyra Banks talks about this all of the time and Sarah has it nailed!
This next image captures how every girl dreams that their guy will look at them. Sarah you have a great guy!
A few more of my favorite images from the day as the sun was fading.
Demar and Sarah you are an amazing couple and I am looking forward to photographing your wedding!
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