{FEATURED VENDOR} Ink & Iron

It's been a minute since I posted a Featured Vendor and I've been wanting to add the wonderful woman of Ink & Iron for awhile now. I try to buy local as much as I can and while I was in school, we had to have business cards for our final portfolio. From the moment our teacher showed us a letterpressed wedding invite, I KNEW that, that's what I was going to do for my business cards. They were elegant, caught everyone's attention, and were just downright stunning. What's letterpress you ask? It's a type of press printing. Plates are made and pressed into the paper, then another plate goes over with the ink. It's not like a photo, so there aren't very many colors that you get printed at once. Most letterpress projects are one to two colors because the process is really expensive. So on my search I went to find a local and affordable letterpress.

I actually came across Ink & Iron on Etsy where she had letterpressed cards for sale. I saw that she was out of Port Huron, MI and her cards were reasonably priced, so I e-mailed her for a quote. She was very fast to respond and WELL below the other quotes I was receiving of $400+ for 50 business cards. I already had my card designed out so all I had to do was e-mail over the design and the specific colors. She had them plated, printed, and shipped to me within a week! Talk about excellent service! Her cards would be great for any occasion, I highly recommend checking out her store and if you don't see what you're looking for, shoot her an e-mail.

Ink & Iron's Etsy Store

My Children | Jackson, MI Pet Photographer

I'm completely in love with big wall art and always encourage my clients to go big, for those that have, not one has been disappointed yet! When you hear 20x30, you think that's huge, but hang it up on your wall and it fits right in! So I've decided that I wanted some new wall art to hang above my bed kind of like a mock headboard. I'm always taking photos of my fur kids (Piglet and Niko), but didn't have anything recent that I just loved. What a conundrum! Of course we went to the dog park and I took each one for a mini-session in the field across the street. I couldn't be more happy with the way these turned out, both boys behaved just like gentlemen and posed perfectly. They know the minute the camera comes out what they have to do!! I love the way the field looks in the background and how it contrasts/compliments their fur. Soon, these two images will be on order, I'm thinking 30x40 for them :) The top image is Piglet and the bottom is Niko.

Taking the Leap | Jackson, MI Wedding Photographer

I absolutely adore couples that allow ample time for photos because we can do the important "must-have" images and then I have time to play around. I get some time to experiment with some new poses or angles that I normally wouldn't do. So we had two hours to walk around downtown Jackson and take some really fun images. I love that J + M didn't do things completely traditional, but their wedding fit their style so well. M baked German Chocolate Brownies instead of doing a cake and I designed the labels. They put one in a box for each guest to take home since the meal was going to be so big. Seriously, what a great idea!

The last image on here was one of those that I wanted to try out, but they were convinced that traffic would be too bad to get it. It took some coaching and eventually I convinced them I wasn't going to let them get run over, and I was able to get the shot. The best part about the whole thing is they said that's their favorite image of the night. Just goes to show, sometimes photographers have some crazy ideas, but if you go along with them you could get some pretty amazing photos.

Local Love | Jackson, MI Photographer

Every Friday night, the Jackson Coffee Co.'s downtown location has free live music from 7-10p upstairs. I love it because you can go relax on a Friday night after work, get some coffee from a local company and listen to a local artist/band play. 

Well last May I had the honor of photographing Alejandra O'Leary in Ann Arbor for some promotional material (here's the blog post from that session), so it was really cool that she came and played a venue here in Jackson. Her voice is really unique and the Broken Mirror Baby album is great to get work done to. I love to throw it on while I'm editing or cleaning. Not to mention, I absolutely adore the cover art to her CD's! She's definitely one to check out!

Website

Facebook

Buy/Download Her Music

Blossoming Love J+M | Jackson, MI Engagement Photographer

Absolutely LOVED photographing J + M!! I'm sure it helps that M is one of my really good friends, but I was just so excited that she found the love of her life and they're getting married! We had a blast with these and I think we might have laughed more than we took photos, regardless I think we got some great images.

Long Overdue Update

I know I've been MIA for awhile now, but all my focus was on school. I put my business and everything else on hold to make sure my portfolio was the best that it could be. However, tomorrow is my last day and I am so excited that I'll be able to relax and take a breathe for a minute before jumping right back into the game. May is going to be a big month for me, my website will finally be done and launched (that project took way longer than I expected!!), I'll be working on some new things for the business, and I've got some new (really adorable) props for newborns that I still haven't got to try out yet.

All the while, I'm looking for a slight career change (full time employment as a graphic designer while still doing photography) and am applying for jobs all over the US, so I might even be moving!! But I will give everyone forewarning before that happens.

So last week was the Washtenaw Community College Digital Media Arts Student Gala. All the hard work that I've been doing since January was all for this day. I had to comp up all the packaging and layout my portfolio for judges to review, then after the judges were done the show was open to the public. The turn out was awesome! There were loads of students families, then there were various professionals in the area scoping out the new talent, and then there were people that just appreciate art. It was pretty amazing to see the support that the students have.

What to Wear Wednesday | BOHO

This outfit would be great and super versatile for the spring. You could dress it up with some heeled boots or have it be a little more casual with some cute flats. Now, I'm not saying rush out and buy everything I just posted, just consider the styling, color combination of the pieces and how a little goes a long way.

Cute Casual by nattyjphotography featuring elastic waist pants