WeddingWire 2010 Bride’s Choice Awards™

About a week ago, I received an e-mail from Wedding Wire, informing us that Heartland Photography has been awarded the WeddingWire 2010 Bride’s Choice Awards™.


We were extremely honored to receive this award in 2009, and it's a treat to receive it for a second consecutive year.

Mike and I are humbled to be among the top five percent of all vendors in the WeddingWire community, which includes more than 100,000 wedding professionals across the US and Canada, especially because the award is based of feedback from brides who we've worked with.

“We are excited to recognize and honor the success of the top wedding professionals within the WeddingWire Community” said Timothy Chi, WeddingWire’s Chief Executive Officer. “The annual Bride’s Choice Awards program has given us the unique opportunity to highlight the best wedding professionals in each region as reviewed by brides and grooms who have utilized their services in the past year.”

***NEW*** Web site is LIVE!!!! :)

*deep breath*

I am so excited to announce that our BRAND SPANKIN' NEW Web site is LIVE! (grin). This is something I've wanted to do for about a year. In fact, I started working on it almost a year ago. I was gung-ho for a few months, then sort of fizzled, but this fall, after we completed our weddings, I was back in action.


The biggest change I've been wanting to make is to separate things out. For example, all of our wedding-related *stuff* is in our "weddings" tab. Wedding photos, questions, tips, reviews. It's all there. Same goes for our family sessions and our senior portraits, too!

I also had a wild and crazy idea, and now there's also a back of house side for our clients. So, once your portrait session or wedding is done, we have almost all of our products and albums up with words and photos to help you see the differences and help you to select your album or other products that are the best fit for YOU!

There are a few minor tweaks that I'll be making, but the big stuff is all done. So, please CLICK HERE to peruse our new site. Take a look around, leave a comment here to let us know what you think!

PSA: With this switch, there is a tiny hitch with our e-mail. If you need to contact us, you may do so via our Facebook Fan Page HERE. Or, as always, you may call: 316-371-7846 (Wichita), 785-404-2802 (Salina) or 866-562-3042 (Toll Free).

Sacred Heart Basketball II

Last week, I also hung around for the Sacred Heart boys' game, too!

Check out this ninja action by Mark on the left. I'm not sure *exactly* what he's doing, but he was able to draw a foul during his attempt at a basket.

Sometimes photographing at the same place can be monotonous, but I'm headed back to Sacred Heart for a girls game tonight, and I have a few ideas on how I can keep visually changing it up. We'll see if it works ... but the beauty of photographing for kicks rather than for a newspaper is that if I try something and it doesn't work, there's no editor in my face wondering what happened. :)

Sacred Heart Basketball

Some of the parents of the high school seniors I've photographed here in Salina asked if I'd be willing to take some sports action photos. I said "Absolutely!"

So, Tuesday night found be back in a high school gym, photographing boys and girls basketball.

Here are two quick photos from the Sacred Heart girls' game. I'll have boys photos in a day or two.


(And I have NO IDEA why their opponent is actually SMILING whilst playing basketball. The girls are scrambling, and she's smiling like the Cheshire Cat — not sure what's up with that).

Mike's personal POY

So, what's that personal project I mentioned in Heartland's POY post a few days ago? As many of our regular blog readers and past clients know, my wife and I welcomed our first child into the world at the end of 2008. After about a week of the grandparents hounding me to share photos, I decided to start a blog. And so began "My Little Miss Maddie," a daily photo blog documenting Maddie's first year. It was a challenge some days and a piece of cake on others. But, as I look back over the past year, I'm glad I stuck with it. Currently, I'm working on turning the blog into a hardcover book so that we can give it to her when she's older.

I'm still updating her blog but no longer on a daily basis. I'm taking a bit of a reprieve until her brother comes ... in about four weeks! Yes, he'll have a blog, too.

Click here to see a slideshow recapping My Little Miss Maddie's first year! -Mike

Bridal Fashion Portraits

Happy New Year, faithful blog readers!

Well, back in April or May 2009, I photographed a bridal fashion spread for Kansas Wedding Plan magazine. When I heard editor Greg wanted to incorporate wind turbines into the shoot, I knew I had to be involved.


After living out in western Kansas and seeing first-hand the debate over installing wind turbines, I wanted to try to show the beauty of the wedding dresses juxtaposed against the largeness of these turbines.


We photographed these in spring 2009, with publication set for July. Well, the publication date kept getting pushed back, and I think the issue was eventually published in September 2009. We did a happy dance around here. :)


We were actually concerned we might have to cancel due to rain. But thankfully the rain held off, and we had some stunning clouds for our fashion shoot.


We were lucky and at the end, the sun even said hello to us.

Oh, and the dresses were from our friends at Simplistic Bride.

On a side not, since I shot some bridal portraits of my friend Sarah HERE, I've enjoyed doing mini-sessions at our weddings. But if our brides would like to have a full-fledged bridal session before or after her wedding, I'm completely game for one. :) You have a test run of your hair, so why not let us take some super sexy photos of yourself while you're having your hair done? ;)

Bridal show TOMORROW!!!!

PSA: Mike and I will be at a bridal show TOMORROW (Sunday at) The Airport Hilton in Wichita from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.