The photographs from Bryan and Meghan Curlew’s wedding are now available for viewing on the website. If you’re interested in viewing the photos, you can click here or navigate to the photos by going to their album on the left side of the website under the Wedding page. There are over 150 photos for you to enjoy from their magical day!
For those of you interested in purchasing copies of any of the photos, feel free to e-mail us at cmaustinphotography@hotmail.com with the following information:
- Name, address and telephone number
- Which photo(s) you would like to purchase
- What size(s) you would like to purchase
- How many of each size would you like to purchase
When you go to the gallery to look at the photos, you can hover your mouse over the thumbnail and a file number will pop up (001, 002, 003, etc). Please use these numbers to indicate which photos you would like to order.
Please Note: In order to ensure that you receive the correct photos, it is very important that you relay the number that pops up from the thumbnail and not the number below the image when you click to enlarge it on your screen.
The sizes offered and the prices per size are listed below:
Wallets (Sheet of 4) $3.00 each
4×6 Print $3.00 each
5×7 Print $7.00 each
8×10 Print $15.00 each
11×14 Print $25.00 each
16×20 Print $40.00 each
20×30 Print $55.00 each
All orders that need to be shipped will incur a $5.00 shipping cost. Orders with print sizes larger than 8×10 may incur additional shipping costs. Depending on the size and quantity of your order we may be able to work with you on the shipping fee.
Once you email us with the above information we will get back to you with a total for your purchase and determine a payment method. Our desired payment methods are either by PayPal or by a personal check. PayPal is preferred as it is quicker and easier to process. All checks will be required to clear before we process your order. Unfortunately, we cannot directly accept credit cards or debit cards of any type at this time. Once payment is received we will order your prints and ship them on their way!
For those of you who grabbed order forms at the reception and wish to mail them to us, you can send your orders to:
Chris & Melissa Austin
34840 W. 8 Mile Rd., Apt. 203
Farmington Hills, MI 48335
Checks can be made out to Chris Austin or Melissa Nelson.
Please Note: If you choose to mail in an order form from the reception, please specify on your form that your picture numbers come from the webbing album that were on display at the reception. The picture numbers from those albums differ from those on the website.
All photos are printed on high quality Fuji Crystal Archive photo paper and will be personally inspected by us prior to being shipped.
If you have any questions or concerns please do not hesitate to contact us by email at cmaustinphotography@hotmail.com . Thanks and enjoy the photos!
Posted by Chris 10 months, 1 week ago at 11:06 am. Add a comment
Here’s my photo for February… finally. I only got one good one in my opinion, I didn’t have as much time as I would have liked to.
I took this of my mom’s feet, she’s used to be a dancer so I thought it would be fun to do this type of pose. We did it in our living room with natural light. I converted the image to black and white in Photoshop and tried to give the skin an aged look. It was hard to come to a good point where it looked aged and where it didn’t look too “dirty”. I have some other versions, but they looked bruised and dirty. This version is the best of all the ways I tried editing it. I’m still not 100% thrilled with the tonal range, but this is the extent of my skills and patience.
Totally didn’t take anything for March either… hopefully April brings more free time, and more photos.
-Melissa
Posted by Melissa 1 year, 1 month ago at 10:43 pm. Add a comment
It’s been a while since my last update. I’ve been shooting a lot this winter, but my computer monitor crashed at the beginning of the year which has severely inhibited my ability to edit photos. I’ve been using some monitors generously donated to me until I can find a new one, but unfortunately I haven’t been able to get consistent results for my photographs with these monitors, specifically with Black & White photos. Regardless, a new monitor is on the horizon and with that I will be able to edit photos and post more updates.
Anyway, as Melissa stated in her last post, we decided to try something new this year. Our goal is to assign a theme to every month and then create two-to-three photographs that interpret that theme in some fashion. It’s a great way for us to keep shooting and stay consistent throughout the year, but also for us to get creative and push the boundaries of our photography in new directions.
The theme for February was “Body Parts.” When Melissa suggested this idea, my mind immediately gravitated toward more ambiguous and abstract ideas. My set-up for the shots was very basic. I had two lights with umbrellas attached that bounced the light onto my subjects which helps create a much softer feel than if I were to directly shine the lights onto my subject. After setting up the lighting, I basically took my camera and started doing a comprehensive study of body parts. I also knew before I started shooting that I wanted to convert the photos to Black & White, which I felt helped add to the abstract nature of the photographs. Check out the final results below:
Melissa has her photos for February completed and should have them up shortly as well. I’ve already got ideas for March’s theme and am basically waiting for a little bit of warmer weather so I can get out and shoot! Thanks for looking!
Posted by Chris 1 year, 2 months ago at 12:14 pm. Add a comment
I got in trouble from Chris because I never make blog posts. I finally was able to finish a project now that school’s done and the weather is so crappy that there is nothing else to do.
So I’ll give the entire story that started this project, then you can see a little bit how random things in my life lead to a little bit of creativity here and there.
A co-worker of mine is constantly getting flowers from his boyfriend, so naturally, I have to tease Chris every time and ask “Why don’t you buy me flowers anymore?”. Of course Chris, being the smarty pants that he is, said that he won’t buy me anymore flowers until I buy him a golf ball bouquet. YOU’RE ON!!! I stole some golf balls and tee’s from him and went to JoAnn’s to get some sticky stuff, a pretty flower pot, some styrofoam, fake moss, and ribbon. I made the bouquet and gave it to him for his birthday last month and he loved it. So now I can get some flowers!! I opted for my birthday next month instead of Valentine’s Day.
So flash back to JoAnn’s. My mom was with me and she saw this cute little skirt for a toddler, it’s red and pink tool with ribbon. Well it was soooo cute, so she bought it for my cousin Kendall, who by the way is the cutest little girl in the whole wide world. My mom had the idea to have me take some photos of Kendall in the skirt and make a print up to give to my Aunt Sarah and Uncle Rob as a Valentine’s Day gift. We enlisted my Gramma’s help (I know that’s spelled wrong, but that’s how my family spells it =o). Gramma babysits Kendall on Saturday’s, so my Mom and I went over there two Saturdays ago and took some photos of Kendall in her cute little outfit. Of course we had to get some other props to complete the look. For taking the photos right before her nap, she was wonderful!! Only started getting crabby toward the end.
I started editing the photos on Sunday, there we’re so many cute ones, it was hard to pick. So I decided to make a collage out of it. Now, usually this is Chris’s department, I’m not that great when it comes to graphic design. Well, as you can see below, I think it turned out pretty darn good. I found a stock photo of conversation hearts and decreased the opacity and used it as the background. The individual photos are just a 3×3 photo with a 1/4 white border and a drop shadow. I printed it 11×14 and framed it in a thin white frame and gave it to Aunt Sarah this past weekend. She loved it! I was really happy that she like it so much. I even sent her the high res file so she could use it for the Valentine’s Day cards that she was going to mail out.
All in all it was a very productive project and I really enjoyed doing it. Photographing kids isn’t that hard, you just need a little bit of patience and a lotta bit of room so she can run around and you can chase her with the camera… haha. Check out the collage below, and I have the individual images on my portrait page.
Check back often. Chris and I are starting a project for the year. Instead of doing a project 365, which we really don’t have time for, we are doing a theme every month and you have to have 2-3 completed and edited photos, and I just made the rule that we have to do a blog post at the end of the month with our finished images. February’s theme is Body Parts… check back toward the end of the month to see what we come up with.
-Melissa
Posted by Melissa 1 year, 3 months ago at 8:44 pm. Add a comment
This past weekend I decided to take advantage of the nice weather and head down to The Heidelberg Project in Detroit. For those of you who don’t know, The Heidelberg Project is a massive, constantly evolving community art environment that began in 1986 and worked to transform abandoned buildings and fields on two neighborhood blocks on Heidelberg Street into bright, colorful works of art. I visited The Heidelberg Project for the first time earlier this year when Melissa and I went down to shoot photos for a class project. At that point I only shot film and didn’t get any digital shots, so I’ve wanted to return to the site since and capture some photographs with my digital camera.
Here are two photos from the shoot. Both of them were taken at the stuffed animal house which is literally covered from top to bottom in stuffed animals that are nailed to the outside of the house. It’s really a pretty cool thing to see. Both photos are HDR photographs. This is a technique that I don’t normally make a habit of using, but it is growing on me more and more because it gives you so much more latitude to maintain detail in both the highlights and shadows of the photograph. I also used a new sharpening technique called “high pass sharpening” which I absolutely love because of how much it enhances the small details of the photographs (like the bear’s fur in the first photo). Anyway, take a look and enjoy!
By the way, if you ever get a chance to visit The Heidelberg Project, I highly recommend it. It’s really something different and unique to experience, plus it’s constantly evolving and changing so you can always go back and see something new. For more info, Wikipedia has a great write-up about it here, or you can visit the official website.
Posted by Chris 1 year, 6 months ago at 10:05 pm. Add a comment
October is a wonderful time in the state of Michigan for two reasons. First of all, fall is in full swing and that means that the leaves are beginning to change color and produce incredibly beautiful and vibrant imagery. This is definitely one of my favorite times to be a landscape photographer and to just get out and explore new and old terrain with my camera – whether it’s for an entire afternoon exploring a new park or just a quick walk through an old haunt after work. In fact, Melissa and I will be heading up north this weekend to visit a few locations and hopefully come back with some stunning new photographs. Be on the look out for a blog post or two later this month with some new fall photographs.
Now onto the second reason why October is a great month in Michigan. Of course it’s because the Detroit Red Wings begin their new NHL season! The Wings began the regular season last week with a decisive 4-0 victory over the Anaheim Ducks and then moved on to defeat the Chicago Blackhawks 3-2. The team suffered their first loss of the new season in a shootout last night to the Colorado Avalanche. It’s a long season, however, and I’m excited for hockey to be back once again!
In honor of the new NHL season, I decided to post a Red Wings-related photo that I took in 2009 when the Red Wings took on the Pittsburgh Penguins in the Stanley Cup Finals for the second straight year – a series they ultimately lost in seven games. In honor of the Wings’ trip to the finals, the city of Detroit dressed the Spirit of Detroit with a Red Wings jersey. I made sure to get down to the statue one evening in order to snap a photo of the statue with the jersey on. You can see the results below:
Not only is this image a panoramic image, which means I took several side-by-side photographs and stitched them together in Photoshop to create one seamless image, but is also a high dynamic range (HDR) photograph. To create an HDR photograph, you typically take three or more exposures of the same scene – one overexposed image, one regularly exposed image, and one underexposed image. Then you combine them together in Photoshop and get an image with a higher dynamic range than you would typically capture with just one exposure, meaning you get more detail from the shadows and highlights compressed into one photograph. I personally have a 16×20 inch print of this photograph for myself that is signed by both Jimmy Howard and Nicklas Lidstrom of the Red Wings.
On another note, I made a few additions to the website in recent weeks. I added a handful of images to my Landscape Gallery and I also added several photographs to my Urban Landscape Gallery.
Lastly, make sure to keep checking back for details about our upcoming 2011 Calendars! That’s right, Melissa and I will be pulling our images and combining them into a 2011 calendar that we will be selling through website. We still have some kinks and final details to work out, so look for more information to come forward in a few weeks!
Posted by Chris 1 year, 7 months ago at 11:50 pm. Add a comment
I just got finished editing the first batch of photos that I took at Matt and Sarah’s wedding two weeks ago and wanted to post them online and share them with everyone. The ceremony took place on August 7th at Our Lady of Victory in Northville. After the ceremony, the bridal party traveled to Laurel Manor and then to Heritage Park in Farmington Hills to take photos before heading back to Laurel Manor for the reception. Since I was part of the bridal party I ended up having to pose for many of the photos, but I still had a good time trying to capture some of the candid moments that occurred when the official photographer wasn’t looking. Hopefully these photos and the other snapshots that are floating around will help tide everyone over until the official photographer delivers his proofs in a couple of weeks!
Matt hanging out in the waiting room at Our Lady of Victory while Sarah and the bridesmaids rushed through the halls to their changing area. All natural light, no fill-flash.
The happy couple after the ceremony. I didn’t have nearly the right equipment to deal with this lighting situation, so I had to use my on-board fill-flash and some creative editing in Photoshop.
Matt and Sarah on the staircase at Laurel Manor. The official photographer posed this shot, I just managed to sneak a few frames myself.
Sarah and her bridesmaids rushing to one of the locations at Heritage Park to take photos. We were on a slight time crunch and wanted to make sure we got all of the locations and poses taken care of. The bridesmaids were wearing a vibrant royal blue, but I really liked the look and feel of this shot in black and white.
Sarah at Heritage Park acting formal…
…and Sarah at Heritage Park acting silly.
Posted by Chris 1 year, 9 months ago at 11:14 pm. 3 comments
The final project for my Advanced Photography class entailed each student choosing a subject matter or theme of his or her choice and creating a series of four photos from that theme. This is the standard final for most photography classes that I’ve taken, so I’ve done a variety of themes over the years ranging from “Motion” to “Detroit” to a 20-picture exploration of the light spectrum that spanned Ultraviolet light, visible light and Infrared Light. With this being my last real photography class for school, I had a wide variety of ideas that I considered for my theme. In the end, I just decided to go with something that I love – landscape photography.
One of my favorite things to do on a nice sunny day is to grab my camera and go to the park and walk the trails. Not only is it a great way to get some exercise, but it forces you to sort of slow down and look at the world around you. Sometimes I come back with five or ten awesome shots that I can’t wait to get home and edit, and sometimes I leave the park without snapping any photos at all. Regardless of the outcome, I always feel like the time was better spent at the park walking the nature trails than in front of a computer on Facebook.
Anyway, although my project was shot using film, I managed to snap off a few digital images as well. Below are two of the digital versions of photos that I submitted for my final project. The first photo was taken at Heritage Park in Farmington Hills. I actually woke up early and got out to the park around 8 a.m. to shoot this photo before I had to be at work. It was a perfect day with great weather, so I certainly didn’t mind starting off the day with a successful photo adventure.
The second photo was shot at Kensington Metropark. While it wasn’t an ideal day for shooting, it was definitely a perfect day for this capture. The overcast sky really helps accentuate the mood of the photo.
With spring in full swing and consistently nicer and warmer weather on the way too, I’m very excited to get out and shoot more photos and share them on the site!
Posted by Chris 2 years ago at 8:28 pm. Add a comment
Lot’s of good stuff happening, so let’s get right to it!
First off, Melissa and I will each have a photo on display at the 2010 Exposures Exhibit! The exhibit is a juried group photography show put on by the Lawrence Street Gallery in Ferndale and will run from March 31 through April 30. This will be the second year that I am inlcuded in the show and the first time that Melissa will have a piece hanging in the gallery. It was a great show last year with a lot of very talented photographers, so we are really excited at the opportunity to have some of our artwork included with so many other wonderful artists! For anyone interested, I’ve listed the address to the gallery below:
Lawrence Street Gallery
22620 Woodward Ave
Ferndale, MI 48220
In other news, I finally found some free time to update my galleries! I added photos to the Landscape, Portraits and Wildlife galleries. I hope to have even more photos posted soon! In the coming weeks I will also be looking into getting many of my old black and white negatives scanned, so those should be making their way onto the website in the coming months as well. We are well on our way to completing the website and hope to have it fully functional with regular updated within the coming weeks!
Lastly, my friends Aatif and Ashleigh and their beautiful daughter Sophia came to the studio a few months backs to help me out with a photo assignment for class. I edited one or two of the photos for the assignment, but only just recently got around to editing the rest. I’ve posted a few of the photos from the shoot below.
Posted by Chris 2 years, 1 month ago at 10:33 pm. 1 comment
