What to Wear Wednesday | Army Chic

I am completely in love with this look, but it might just be because green is my favorite color. 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.

Army Chic by nattyjphotography featuring leather handbags

Unique Memories | Jackson, MI Senior Photographer

I started doing these videos in the fall of last year, but I've decided to step it up this year and make them even better! Check this one out that I did for the D Family.

Also, I want to showcase the guestbook below, if you remember from the fall when I posted about photographing my little sister's senior photos (still is weird to me lol)...well here's her guest book for her open house. I am SO pleased with the book, it's a lay-flat book making it easier for guests to write in it. Plus, it doesn't look weird having a photo going across both pages because you don't have a part of it stuck in the gutter of the book!

{FEATURED VENDOR} Ella's Lead

Usually my Featured Vendor has something to do with weddings, but I want to switch it up and give you pet lovers something awesome. But wait! This month has a twist, you can use them for your wedding too!

For the longest time I have been an enormous fan of Ella's Lead! Their collars are absolutely stunning and are all handmade by the owners Ben and Rebecca. They make custom collars AND leads ranging from simple to extravagant, plus they have a set of collars that are specifically made for various charities and a portion of each sale goes towards that charity. How sweet is that?! Did I mention they're parents to two rescued bullies, Ophie and Luke? Look at those sweet faces!!!

So you're probably thinking, "What the heck does Ella's Lead have to do with weddings?" Well, if you plan on including your fur children in your wedding, they're going to need something stylin' to wear. Ella's Lead is a high class alternative to those silly bow tie collars, plus they have a variety of stone colors to adorn the collar with and can match them to your wedding colors!

Before photography I worked in a retail setting for 10+ years, so customer service is really high on my list of musts if I'm going to deal with any business. Ella's Lead has AMAZING customer service! I wanted some flashy collars with the boys names on it to make them stand out when we go for walks, but also wanted something for them to lounge around the house in. So we just ordered two sets!! When I placed my order I kind of had an idea of what I wanted, but wasn't too sure on how to explain it or if it would look good on my dogs, but Rebecca walked me through it and gave me some great recommendations. Both sets of collars look absolutely incredible on the boys and go SO well with their fur color. I couldn't be happier :D

Personally my favorite part (besides getting the collars of course) is Ella's Lead usually posts a picture of the collar on their Facebook page or at least that days work! The set below is their "lounging" collars, but don't let that fool you because these are amazing! I love the leather Ella's Lead uses, it's so soft and perfect, and smells SO good. Rebecca recommended the black leather for Niko, and I have to say that I am ecstatic that I went with it because it looks stunning on him, very sophisticated!! Piglet's been strutting around all day like he's the coolest thing since sliced bread hahaha.

The embroidered collars take a little longer to make, so I don't have pictures of those yet, but I will for sure post some when I get them.

CHECK OUT THEIR:
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Ella's Lead gave me permission to use their images in this post. 

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UPDATE: The embroidered collars arrived a couple of days ago and I could not be happier!!! Ella's Lead has tons of pictures of their collars on their pages, but seriously pictures do not do them justice (the copper looks like the first image, when I uploaded the rest the color got desaturated). I was in love with the pics, but now that I've held the collars in my hand, I'm even more impressed. I ordered 2in wide collars, because I think wider collars look better on big dogs, plus Pig can be pretty strong so I wanted it to be able to hold up. They're perfect! The collars are nice and thick for my strong boys, the embroidery is spot on, and the hardware is perfect for big dogs. I've never seen a collar as gorgeous as these two.

And look, I have shoes that match Pig's collar so when we go for a walk we will match!

Look how thick they are!!

 

 

Piglet loves his so much he's smiling!

Spring is Here!! | Jackson, MI Family Photographer

I was SO excited to photograph Alicia and her family! I've known her mother for a couple years now and she's like my third mom and I've always heard about her kids, but never met them for more than a couple of seconds, so I was pumped when she contacted me. Originally we were just going to shoot outdoors, but last minute changed to both outdoors and studio and I'm so glad we did! We had a blast coming up with fun shots like the Charlie's Angels and the "thug" shots below. Then we headed outside and went for a short walk, which turned out to be way longer than I had remembered from previous years...oops...but everything was good and turned out great.

Behind the Scenes: Cascades Humane Society Pet Portrait Contest & Graphic Design

A Facebook group I'm in suggested doing a "behind the scenes" post. I thought the idea was awesome, but I didn't know what I wanted to show especially since I don't own a studio, so you'd pretty much be getting a photo of me sitting on my bed with the dogs working on my computer lol. But then I figured I'd share a little bit of what I'm doing at the moment instead.

The Cascades Humane Society is hosing a pet portrait contest. You sign up for a time slot and bring at least one 10lbs bag of dog/cat food, then Carrie from Freeland Photography does a mini session for your pet, and voting will open on March 10th. I'm going to enter Piglet because he's such a cutie and an awesome model. I'm really excited to have someone else photograph Piglet, he's only worked with two other photographers besides me and Carrie's work is beautiful. It'll be cool to see Pig through someone else's eyes. If you're interested in entering your pet here's the Facebook Event page with all the information.

School has also been a big consumption of my time currently. We started off the semester with two big projects: a company identity redesign & personal identity. For the company redesign we had to draw names out of a bag, at first I drew Roto Rooter!! We were able to put it back once and draw again, so I did and got ACE Hardware. I wasn't too excited about it to begin with, but like everything else there are things we don't want to do, but have to. And I figure I can't pick my clients when I get a graphic design job so I got to work. At first I didn't want to do anything that was too "hardware store," so I went the playing card route. I used the different suits, but just wasn't satisfied. Then I tried mixing the diamonds to make it look like a screw head and that didn't work either, so I drew a hammer and came up with the solution below. 

The personal identity one was much harder because I'm so indecisive about colors and how I want things to look. I mean, I look back at my photography logo and it's changed SO much. I just like too many things lol, which obviously isn't good for branding. You recognize Target and places like that because their branding is so strong and repeated in everything they do. I'm really happy with this logo, so I'm going to stick with it for awhile (*fingers crossed*). 

What to Wear Wednesday | Jackson, MI Photographer

Time to throw one out there for the guys! This would be perfect for a senior session.  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.

FEATURED VENDOR {Tough Love MPD}

Tough Love MPD: Hair & make-up artistry.

Promoting vanity one face at a time.

I met Taryn when in 2005 while I was going to college at Eastern Michigan University. We ended up being housemates in a house near campus that more resembled MTV's Real World than what I had anticipated. The lease ended and everyone went their separate ways and through the magic world of the internet we ended up being reconnected. She was just starting to develop her business Tough Love MPD and I was just starting to take photography seriously. Ever since we lived together I was in love with her gorgeous red hair (seriously you need to see it, I don't think there's such thing as a bad hair day in her life), so I messaged her and asked if she minded modeling for me. Of course she agreed, so the rest is history.

Taryn, owner of ToughLove MPD

Weddings & Makeovers

Halloween/Costume

 Seniors

I've been lucky enough to watch her business grow leaps and bounds in the years since I've known her. Taryn's skills astonish me, I wish I could do my own make-up half as good as she does. Her work is very versatile too! She can do weddings, costume, everyday, airbrush...practically anything. Her work has been seen in Fashioned in Hell, the Ypsi Style Fashion Show, the catalog at Fantasy Attic Costumes, MakeupGeek.com, The Ann, and many more places across Michigan.

She's the first person I recommend to anyone looking to get hair/makeup services!

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Taryn_mx@yahoo.com