Amber Wilkie Photography » Wedding and Portrait Photographer - Arlington, VA and Washington, DC

Monthly Archives: July 2011

07.25.11

Awesome stuff to buy | A tale of two canvases

All my wedding (and portrait) coverage comes with full-resolution files on DVD or jump drive (thinking about switching to jump drives soon).  So why would anyone want to buy a canvas from me when they could just go online and order from the discount guys?  Well, that’s why I’m writing this post.  Like any good frugal girl, I scooped up a Groupon recently for a Cafe Press canvas – $39 for a 16×20 – what a steal!  And when it came, I was happy… for about 30 seconds.  I’ll show you why.  The Cafe Press canvas is on the right, a canvas ordered from my professional lab is on the left:

comparing canvases from professional lab and cafe press

(For full disclosure: the photo on the right comes from Scenic Las Vegas Weddings – yes we got married in Vegas – and the one on the left is courtesy of Tara Welch.)  They both look pretty good, right?  But take a look at the original files for both of these.  First, from Tara:

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Category: Products
07.22.11

Wilmington Hotel Self-Portrait

It was a bit of a nutty trip to Philly, but I still managed to sneak in a hotel self-portrait.  Frequent visitors might remember some of my more recent hotel escapades and long-time readers may even be familiar with my Flickr set (where I keep all my final project entries), dating all the way back to 2008.  I’m starting to think that Artomatic, the intended final destination for this project, is never going to happen again.  If so, I’ll just have an ongoing project forever, I suppose.

wilmington, delaware hotel self-portrait

To make this image, I put the desk chair on the bed and propped it up with my lens cap.  Lens caps make for great tripods, really.  Desk chairs are just so-so.

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Category: Self-PortraitsTags:
07.21.11

Philadelphia helicopter ride

Many visitors to my blog will already know that I am not a full-time wedding photographer (yet).  This means lots of things.  For one, it means I can’t photograph as many weddings as full-timers because I simply don’t have the time – this makes my brides extra mega special to me, and it also means I get to be really selective about who I work with, which is completely awesome.  Sometimes it means I have to be away from DC for a while and might be a bit late returning phone calls.  And very, very rarely, it means I get to ride in a helicopter.

philadelphia hazy skyline from a helicopter

It was the nastiest, haziest day ever and hot as all get-out, so this post-apocalyptic look is really the only feasible one, given the conditions.  I dig it.

philadelphia skyline from a helicopter

abandoned or really old factory on the river

four oil container things

I have no idea what this bridge is.  It might be the Betsy Ross….

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Category: TravelTags: ,