Mardi Gras Chic featured on Love Wed Bliss!

Our Mardi Gras themed concept shoot is featured on Love Wed Bliss today!! Check out the full feature HERE!

2012 Inspiration in New Orleans

I love the beginning of each new year, January and Febraury are the months I look back and the things we accomplished in the previous year, and areas of improvement and build our goals for the upcoming year.  I just got back from Imaging USA, which is a huge Professional Photographers of America of annual conference.  The classes, tradeshow, and people I met where amazing.  One of the best things about it was the location.  It was in New Orleans this year, which is my favorite city in the US.  I lived there for about 6 months, met my husband David there, and have some lifelong friends there as well.  One afternoon I walked around the Marigny area and just took some time to "see".  It was a totally overcast day with flat natural light which was ok because there were no shadows and you could see the detail in everything.  I could wander around there forever seeing just taking in the atmosphere.  Here's a little bit of the scene that I saw that day, and you'll be seeing lots of new things from us in 2012, I can't wait!   

Foto Friday: Looking back at New Orleans

I can't believe it's been 5 years since Katrina, I've been watching all the coverage on it's come back since then and it's amazing to see. New Orleans is my favorite city in the US, it really is filled with so much culture, architecture, and amazing people.  I lived there in 2003 and even met my husband while I was there:-)  By the time Katrina happened I was back in Chicago, and David had literally just moved up to Chicago about 4 months before it happened.  So many of our friends there lost everything and it was devastating to watch from afar.  We wanted to do something to help, so we rounded up about 20 people from our church to go down do some work.  The first picture is current state and the following ones are some from our trip the January right after it happened.  The second picture I think, sums up what happened.  We gutted a house in Lakeview and the only thing this woman had gotten to help was a box from the Red Cross with a broom, dustpan, and mop.  We also went to the coast of Mississippi where one the ladies who came with us, her parents had a home there that was destroyed down to the foundation.

It is awesome to see how far it has come, especially New Orleans.  There are more restaurants there than before Katrina, which I totally miss the amazing food there.  The most interesting thing I was watching is that it's the 3rd most popular city to film movies, it's becoming the "Hollywood of the South".  Plus who couldn't love the Saints and their first Superbowl win ever!!