gailwernerphotography.com bio picture

I've moved!

If you've landed here, you've come to the first home of where I documented my growing photography business.

But like the Jeffersons, I've moved on up, so you should too and come on over and check out my latest work at www.gailwernerblog.com or check out my Web site at www.gailwernerphoto.com!

If you're a client of mine, all the same rules will still apply. Prepare to have fun. To smile a ton. Laugh a lot. Even joke around a little.

'Cause that's my style, that's how I roll and that's how I like to take photographs. Got it?!

The last time you’ll see this Werner on THIS blog!

I must have been wanting to relive my high school days of designing posters for Homecoming (Fact: I once made this really elaborate sign only to finish, look down and realize I’d spelled it ‘HOMECOMIG’!” GAH!) but earlier this week, I had this idea to announce my big move to the new blog via the same grand gesture. Only this time, instead of getting high off a Sharpie in the process, I let Photoshop help me out (spelling errors are a lot easier to tackle that way too!) :)

So all this to say, GO, SHOO, SKEDADDLE and head on over to www.gailwernerphoto.com and www.gailwernerblog.com!!! Oooh, I’m excited about this move, you guys! It feels good both to see my work represented the way I’ve long dreamed of seeing it displayed and also to get this project off my shoulders!

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One last story before I abandon this trusty old blog (oh but she was good for me while it lasted!): While Nick was helping me out taking the above photo, I decided to take advantage of a) having my hubby within range of my viewfinder (I swear, we get pictures of the two of us about as often as there is an eclipse) and b) to test out the new tripod I purchased that will come into use for our family vacation we’ve got coming up.

THEN I thought, heck, why not make it a TRUE Werner family portrait and get DAISY in the shot!!!! Ummmm….. seriously, WHAT WAS I THINKING?! Mission impossible, that was. So on that note, it took these four frames (and about 50 more) to go from chaos …..(seriously, that first frame makes Daisy look like a white speeding bullet and that’s TOTALLY how she was behaving throughout all this!)

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To the photo I’d been hoping to capture (minus the pup after all). Oh Nick, I do love ya babe! Muwwwaahhhh (and thanks for being understanding about your status as a “living room widower” the past few weeks as your wife holed up in front of the computer to finish this redesign!)

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Jen and Josh’s Sneak Peek

Okay, so you know when you have something that’s shiny and new that it just KILLS you to have to return to the old? It’s like when you get a new car but still have the old one puttering around (I guess this isn’t necessarily the best personal example I could have dreamed up considering I’m the lucky gal who drives our Subaru while Nick gets stuck behind the wheel of my ‘97 Oldsmobile with a muffler so rusted I can HEAR Nick coming home from work before I SEE him).

All this to say that that feeling of “Out with the old and in with the new”? It’s SO what I’m going through with the new branding I’ve been working on that I’ll be introducing to all of you THIS THURSDAY!!!!! WOO HOO! I cannot wait! Until that happens, I had to get a sneak peek in for Jen and Josh of their lovely engagement session. And yep, that’s the new branding making its appearance on this photo. I couldn’t help it - that logo crawled right off my computer desktop and into that shot — it was all, puhlleasseee pick me! :) So pick it, I did!

More to come of this session post-launch! Yippee!

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Betsy’s sneak peek

So I might as well not even write anything here … I mean, your eyes are going straight to the photographs aren’t they? And how could they not with Betsy’s mega-watt smile and her family picture right below that?

Well then, I’ll keep what words I did intend to write brief and say that there will be more of this family to come WITH the new branding (have I mentioned on here I’m getting a new web site and blog? Oh yeah, scroll down ;) )

But I’ll also say that I felt really privileged to shoot this family. They were — in looks, personality and bubbleyness (is that even a word?) — the model family and along with that privilege of shooting them, I’m blessed to call them my friends (thank you Bobbi for the introduction to this trio so many months (years now?) ago). It’s late, so I’m shushing now. Happy Friday everybody!

Oh … one more thing: Half of this shoot was to help Betsy out with some new profile pics (a lack of which she’s been lamenting on her Facebook as of late), so Bets, HERE YOU GO!!!!

Gorgeous, no?

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Or wait .. maybe this one: She’s going to give all her seniors she photographs a run for their money in the youth department. Betsy, where’s that fountain you’re sipping from?

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And one to end on — Bets and her super sweet hubby and that SUPER ADORABLE tot of hers, Miles

I know, you want to be in that family picture too, right? I think there was room in the wheelbarrow (you could have snuck in :) )

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A new look is on its way …

I can’t pinpoint the exact moment when, but at some point within the past year or two, I’ve become obsessed (!) with white. White space, white walls, white everything. I’m pretty much constantly scheming of ways to turn our home (with its funky colored walls) into a more simple, streamlined white fortress and so far, I’m failing kind of miserably at it.

But the “white rules” mentality has stuck with me and, a few months ago, I found how amazing the concept would mesh with some new branding ideas that had been pinging around in my head ever since I got back from my workshop. So, on that note, take a sneak peek at the new logo for Gail Werner Photography:

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You like????!!!!!!!! I know, I know … there’s not much to it. But that’s kind of the point. It’s simple, it’s clean, and I think (I hope anyway) that you guys will love how well it puts the focus on my images and how well it integrates with the new brand for my business.

And while I’m talking about this big change-a-roo that’s just around the corner, I’d be remiss not to give a big shout-out to my photo BFF, Betsy King. Betsy and I have bonded over a mutual amount of elbow grease we’ve both put into building our businesses these past two years, and earlier this summer, I knew she’d be the perfect person to help me out with some new photos of myself for my site and blog. (I’m a big believer you need to feel like you KNOW your photographer before you meet him or her and visual cues in the form of photographs are a big part of that!)

Betsy blew me away with what she gave me and in return, last weekend, I shook in my KEEN flats with nervousness as I returned the favor and took photos of her cute-as-a-button, kind-as-can-be family. Woo — it is INTIMIDATING to photograph another photographer! You’ll be getting a sneak peek of the Kings soon, I promise!

Then, you’ll see even more of them come next week, when they hit the new blog (I’ll have a new blog!) for Gail Werner Photography! Until then, here’s a peek at the images Betsy took of me, soon to grace the new Web site (I’ll have my own Web site!) of Gail Werner Photography! It’s gonna be one heck of a launch, so I can’t wait to share it with you !!!! Stay tuned!*

(*and I just gotta add that “Stay tuned” is an entirely appropriate way to go out on this entry because I really believe you’re going to switch from following me on this old blog to the new blog and new site and be all, “Whoa…it’s like Gail went from analog to high-definition!”) And yep, those of you who just called me a dork are totally in the right at the moment — HA!

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Going in circles …

Based on conversations I’ve had with my photographer friends, I’m starting to think those of us who wield cameras on a regular basis are cut from the same cloth: We all live so far in the future — booking sessions into 2010, taking appointments for next month, thinking about that batch of photos we have to edit this week— that we can have a hard (SO HARD) time living in the moment. You know, just sitting still. Doing nothing. Chillaxin’ … (Even if I do take a minute to curl up on the couch, I’m all, “Where’s a book? What can I be knitting while I watch this show?” I take multitasking to a level that’s unheard of…)

Enter my husband. In this department, he is the ying to my yang. Nick grew up in the prettiest pocket of Indiana (Brown County for the unfamiliar), which means the man craves nature like I crave the click of my shutter. On any given weekend, we exchange a hug and a kiss, and I’m out the door shooting a wedding while he’s spending 7 hours fishing or kayaking or bicycling through the countryside. It’s a lifestyle that suits us perfectly, but every so often, Nick asks if I want to come along. On Sunday, I said yes.

So we took a little venture complete with picnic, boats and a stretch of sandy little beach to just relax and say “Ahhhhhh.” It was SO worth it. I love doing things like this with my husband. It centers me. Reminds me how good it is to get out. And how sometimes, in this thing called life, we need to do just that. LIVE IT.

Now, this wouldn’t be a tale of adventure without uncoordination on my part (this is, after all, the same gal who, when attempting to ski with her husband for the first time in Colorado, ended up with a bruise on her tailbone the size of a 4×4 tire). As we were headed back to shore, for some reason, no matter how hard I tried to correct it, I started paddling in circles.

Nick: “Just, just … I think you’re thinking too hard about this.”

Me: “Nooo. I promise you, I’M NOT.”

Nick: “Well, keep your eyes on the shore and maybe if you focus on that, it’ll get you there.”

Me: “Okay, do you see how well this is working” (paddling furiously as my eyes stay focused on the horizon and whole body shifts to the left with the boat)

Nick: (Pulls a rope from his kayak) “Do I need to pull you back to shore with this?”

I’m not even kidding when I say that little scenario could act for a tidy little summary of my marriage (and just for the record, I DIDN’T NEED IT :) )

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PS - I was totally rocking the “I-just-rolled-out-of-bed-and-didn’t-do-a-thing-to-myself-but-put-on-sunscreen” look here, so my apologies if that close-up gave you all a scare. At least my hubby’s cute, right? :)

I really love …

Our new vacuum sweeper.

Okay, I know, I know … it’s TOTALLY lame to be writing about a VACUUM SWEEPER on this little blog of mine. And I just lost the interest of 85 percent of you by venturing into household appliance land. But Internet peeps, if you even knew what kind of trade-up Nick and I just experienced with this purchase, you might then have some appreciation for why I now feel like opening my door, running out into the middle of our street, and shouting to any neighbor in earshot, “YOU ALL NEED TO COME LOOK AT HOW CLEAN OUR FLOORS ARE NOW!”

See, we have this dog. One that, despite her cuteness, sheds about a pound of hair, oh, I don’t know, EVERY DAY. And our old vacuum? Well, if the government had a clunker program for vacuums, we would have traded it in for the Chevette that it was. Because it had ceased to do the job for a while now. Which is how we found ourselves last Saturday at the local sweeper shop, purchasing the Cadillac of sweepers after listening to a kind and knowledge salesman explain to us all the pros and cons of the vacuums in the store while sweeping up swirls of dog hair and pink dust. (For real, if you saw how much the Dyson sucked at … well, sucking, you’d be surprised!)

This morning, as I cleaned house, I felt like dancing a jig from behind this machine. And suddenly, I was vacuuming things in the house you probably shouldn’t be vacuuming. Counter tops, the bathtub, the inside of my bread drawer, the interior of our refrigerator. If Daisy’s not careful, I might just suck her up next.

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Kristen and Billy: The Wedding

Family, friends and gettin’ down havin’ a good time — the three things Kristen and Billy knew their big day had to be all about.

Fast forward through the months of stress-inducing planning to the muggy afternoon of their August wedding. There was plenty of family (seriously, Kristen and Billy’s families were HUGE — I don’t think I’ve ever photographed that many families at the altar — but they were SO great to work, and Kristen’s grandpa was SO cute). Plenty, too, were the friends who were quick to ooh and aww over this beautiful bride (she looked SO pretty). And let’s not forget the post-wedding bar crawl, which provided AMPLE opportunities for “gettin’ down havin’ a good time”.

I’ll shush now and launch into my “day-of” commentary with photos below, but not before encouraging you all to watch this must-see SLIDESHOW. If you are friend or family of the bride and/or groom and want to see all the proof images from their wedding day, click here.

Okay, first of all, can we all just take a second to admire how gorgeous Kristen looked on her wedding day? She blew me away!

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And then we have Kristen with her and Billy’s little girl, Cyenna. Hands down one of the cutest flower girls in 2009 :) (don’t you love how her little strap is sliding off her shoulder? It’s my favorite thing about this particular image — that and her little heart/cross pendant. TOO SWEET)

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I’m a sucker for all the details of a wedding day. I love how each little thing makes an event so unique to that couple. Which meant every time I looked at Cyenna’s little crocheted slippers, I had this little “Awww” moment from behind the camera. Kristen, WHERE did you find those?

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I’m sorry. I just can’t help it — to not post the gorgeousness that is these next few images would be a photographer crime!

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FAVORITE!

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On to the gentlemen. That’s right crew, their future’s so bright, they have to wear shades (what can I say, I’m a child of the ’80s!)

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I love both of these next images for so many different reasons. We’ll chalk that one on the right to “being in the right place at the right time” — and it’s on the right side of the frame — HA! (sorry, it’s late, and when it’s late, I get corny).

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Right after taking this shot, I looked at the back of my viewfinder and started giggling. BUBBLESSSSSS!

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LOVE THESE

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So the first stop as part of this wedding party’s bar crawl MIGHT have been this place called The Kickin’ Chicken. And a certain photographer MIGHT have thought that this handy dandy little board covering the pool tab would be the perfect place for a ring shot. SCORE!

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And oh yes…there MIGHT have been some dancing ON THE BAR. I told you these kids liked to have a good time!

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On to stop No. 2 before the reception and I might have spotted some tasty light in an alley. “Hey Kristen, can you humor me for 5 minutes, crawl over these rocks in your 3-inch high heels and look hot?” DONE!

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As we were coming out of this bar, Kristen spotted somebody’s motorcycle and started to mimic getting on it. Well, before you know it, this big burly biker comes out and is all “What’s going on?” Thankfully, he let us take a couple photos with it, but something tells me this wasn’t exactly what he thought I had up my sleeve! SECOND FAVORITE!

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First dance (if you peep the slideshow, you’ll hear what song they picked to play — any reference to Johnny Cash and June Carter is alright by me!)

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Thanks again you two for letting me document your wedding day! Kristen, I’m so happy for you that you’ve met your perfect match!!!! And Erin, when you marry that hottie in the photo above, you remember who to call, ‘kay? (and I totally get to put you on the spot since the pair of you caught the garter and bouquet :) )

Moved to tears …

It’s a powerful thing when a client tells you, “That slideshow of yours moved me to tears.” And it’s one of the things I love most about doing this — creating art for people that evokes so much emotion they feel so gosh darn happy they want to cry about it :)

It’s been a while since I’ve had that experience myself — to have a token of kindness or a gift of gratitude bestowed upon me that’s been worthy of waterworks. Then Friday comes along and I get this package in the mail with familiar bubbly handwriting. Now, y’all know how much I love a hand-written letter. So when I opened this one, I was tickled pink to see a wonderful note from my friend Krissy, along with a beautiful charm bracelet with my initials and a miniature camera.

Touched as I was, it was when I got to the last few pages of Krissy’s letter, thanking me for our family session earlier this month, that a big ‘ol crocodile tear formed at the corner of my eye.

For there, underneath Krissy’s note were two notes from her kids, Bryce and Brooke. Each one held a few sentences they’d dictated to their mama — the kind of innocent sentiments that make you think of your own marker-filled childhood — and each one meant the world to me.

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Thank YOU Krissy for taking the time to share with me how much our time together meant to you and your family! And Brooke, I’ll TOTALLY come read to you again but you have to let me share your iPod so we can listen to Hannah Montana together :)

I really love …

etsy seller lilarubyking.

See, here’s the AUH-mazing thing about buying fun stuff on etsy. Like Forrest Gump and his chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get. Now, I knew I would get a pair of earrings. After all, I’d ordered them :) But what I love SO much about this online emporium of artists is how each person I buy from customizes my purchase for me. And Miss Lila Ruby King took that to a new artform (literally). I was like a giddy little girl opening this package from her, as evidenced by the conversation that went on in my head when these showed up in my mailbox this week:

[Opening mailer]

“Wow, she’s from Australia … I like her already.”

[Peeking inside]

“Well, isn’t that clever — she wrapped the box in twine. Oh, I almost hate to open it, it’s so cool.”

[Envisioning make-believe announcer's baritone exclaiming, 'BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE']

“She wrote me a thank you? That is so swee…..wait, POSTCARDS?! How freaking cool are these!”

[Imagining where said postcards will hang in my office]

[Opening box]

“SHUT UP. How cute is this BAG?!”

[Opening bag]

“LOVE THEM.”

And that, folks, is how you make a customer so excited about something they take the time to sit down and BLOG ABOUT IT — haha. Need some cool unique bling for your own lobes? Join me as I covet these, these and these. Isn’t this fun? :)

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Kristen and Billy: Sneak Peek

I knew it was a streak of weather that wouldn’t hold up forever. Indiana was blessed with one of the mildest Julys on record. Upper 70s all month without a trace of humidity. Then August comes around and BAM! it gets hot again (is it bad I wanted to tack on the words ‘Emeril-style’ after that 3-letter exclamation? I can be such a cornball …)

Back to Saturday. It was muggy out. So muggy I think I could have wrung my shirt out half-dozen times and still been wet. But thankfully, the rain that threatened to make its appearance held off by picture time. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU. See, hot and muggy I can do. But rain? Well, who’s a fan of THAT on their wedding day? Not a wedding photographer, that’s for sure!

Lucky for me, Kristen and Billy were looking as h-o-t as those afternoon temps. I’m looking forward to sharing more images from their big day with you, but until then, these will have to tide you over. On a quirky personal note, Kristen and Billy are honeymooning at the EXACT SAME all-inclusive where Nick and I spent 10 GLORIOUS days on our own honeymoon in Cabo San Lucas back in October 2006. How random is that? It’s surreal for me to think that not that long ago, I was all excited sitting behind the monitor of a computer in our hotel’s little Internet room, sneaking a peek at the photos our photographers captured of our wedding day. To know I’m giving that experience to others now — in this case, a friend in the same place (literally) that I was — is such a special thing and I don’t ever want to take it for granted. Enjoy these, newlyweds — and have a bowl of nachos with a Corona by the pool for me :)

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AJAXed with AWP