Hi, this is Melanie Nashan with Nashan Photographers. My associates and I are based out of Montana, Florida and California and love taking wedding and portrait photographs for our clients. We have photographed weddings all over the world and customize our packages specifically for each client.
Please take some time and look at our ‘artists’ page to see some of our online portfolios and then our ‘your event’ page to look at some of the more recent work we have done. We specialize in capturing candid, artistic moments of you and your families during all stages of your lives including weddings, family gatherings, holiday photos, senior portraits, maternity shoots and baby portraits.
Feel free to call me with any questions that you might have or to set up a meeting. You can keep informed by receiving our blog entries by signing up for a RSS feed or subscribing for an email notification every time we make an entry.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Pregnancy Photos
I had photographed Hilary last week and did a quick post production process on them and posted some for the blog. (In reality it takes me forever to do post produciton on images and they NEVER turn out nearly as nice as when Cindy does them.) Cindy just posted some of the images on our new RedCart shopping cart and I wanted to show you them so you could see what wonderful work she does! She takes my photos and fine tunes them into pieces of art. These are some of my favorite belly photos!
Andy Jackson from Portal films cotacted us the other day to tell us that his Video of a wedding that he worked on with Cindy and Holly was going to be hosted on www.thebridescafe.com
Take a peak at the blog entry, Andy's movie and their photos!
Janie just posted his film and the photos that Cindy and Holly shot on her blog and it looks beautiful! Thank you Andy for including some of their photos in your submission! Thank you Janie for posting some of the photographs from the wedding! It is always so great to work with professional vendors who make everythign run smoothly and look beautiful!
Ceremony/Reception Site: The Ritz-Carlton Resort & Spa, Naples, FL Cinematography: Andy Jackson of Portal Films Consultant: Shannon Wilson, Table Six Productions, St. Petersburg, FL Florals and Decor/Production: Rambunktious Productions, Sarasota, FL Gown: Vera Wang Luxe, Ever After, Miami, FL Shoes: Yves Saint Laurent, Yves Saint Laurent Boutique, Miami, FL Save-the-Dates: Dauphine Press, Petaluma, CA Invitations: Ceci New York, Minted.com
Real Simple Weddings just hit the stands a few days ago. This is the second year that Real Simple has put out a weddings publication and it is a great resource if you are planning a wedding. This year they featured a wedding that I photographed in Athens, Tennessee.
Mariah Mayfield and Alex Woods decided to get married in a tiny Civil War era church that was so small that Mariah's dad had to make a few more pews in order to fit as many people as possible. They also put some straw hay bails outside of the church so kids could peer through the window. After the ceremony they had their reception and dance at Mariah's family's home.
There are several things I loved about their wedding. First off they are a sweet couple and their families are warm and welcoming. I felt as though I was part of the wedding and not just someone doing my job. They also did a lot of the 'stuff' themselves. Michael, Mariah's brother grew all of the pumpkins and gourds which were used for decorations and also some squash that was served at dinner.
We want you to take beautiful photos when we can’t do it for you! So on occasion the blog will feature PHOTO HINTS that will help you take prettier photos of your family and friends at home and on vacation. Simplicity is our topic for the day. When you decide you want to take a photo think for just one second what is it you want to photograph. If it is a NOUN, a person place or thing, make sure it is the dominant part of the composition. Look through your viewfinder and move to make sure you get rid of all of the ‘extra’ things in the foreground or background that are distracting. Keep the ‘things’ that make your photograph more interesting and beautiful in the photo and get rid of everything else. (Think of it as clutter in your home.) Move in closer, stand on something and look down at your subject or lay down on the ground and look up at it. Typically if you just move a foot or two in any direction you can isolate your NOUN and take a better photo. Take a lot of photos of the same thing and see what you like best afterwards when you look at the images on your computer. Here are a few photos that I just took of my daughter in the first one you can see a car in the background. I moved just a couple of feet and wan able to take the photo without any distractions.
If you have any photos that you would like to post please send them to me. I am thinking of hosting a free class on “PHOTO HINTS” one evening, if you might be interested please send me a note. The next topic will be about rules of composition. Know them and break them.
Many of you already do annual portrait sessions and some of you never have. If you book your portrait session by March 5, which happens to be Chieko’s birthday, we will send you a $100 reprint credit for you to use after we take your portraits. Over the last two years I have been photographing more of my clients AFTER their wedding, and I have to say I LOVE it. It really gives me great pleasure to create family histories for people to share with their family and friends. As each of us knows memory is fleeting, and what you know now so vividly will soon become a distant memory. Seven years ago I traveled with my son Cole who was just three months old to photograph Marian and Matt’s wedding. It was my first travel wedding and one of my first to be published in the Knot. Marian and Matt have had me photograph their family every year since then. I have taken photos of Marian pregnant and of their beautiful girls through their various stages of infancy, toddlerhood (I like to make up words.), and as young children. Every year I drive to Missoula and photograph their family as well as many of their friends. Marian is my best “PR” person in Missoula and because of her I photograph several families every time I drive over in the fall. Here are some of their photos that I have taken over the years.
From 2006:
2007: 2008:
If you would like to see the details of our portrait session please take a peak at our products page. http://nashan.com/products.htm#
And if you would like to see some of our work please open the following links http://nashan.com/portraits.htm When you open the following link scroll down the menu which is located in the lower right hand corner until you see the portraits option. http://nashanclients.com/RedCart/
You can choose to have me or one of the associates photograph you and your family.
Stella arrives! I recently took the photos of Meg and Jeff just three weeks before baby Stella was supposed to arrive and then some photos of baby Stella before she was too old! I LOVE taking photos of women when they are pregnant for many reasons, but primarily to document how beautiful their bodies are during this very unusual time of life. I took self portraits of myself the first time I was pregnant and then my daughter Keegan and husband Jeffrey took some of me when I was pregnant with Cole. They are some of my favorite photos. A lot of women tell me they really don’t feel like being photographed when they are so ‘huge’, I tell the the bigger the better! Megs aunt gave her their portrait session as a baby gift and I have to say I think it was so very thoughtful of her. Meg and Jeff have a very special relationship with each other, they share a connection and have a level of respect of each other that I love to be witness to. Here are some of my favorite photos of their new family!
Hilary is one of those women who you see on the street and you ‘kind of’ hate her. I am not the jealous type, but she is so beautiful you can’t help but feel just a teeny bit of jealousy run through your veins. She is one of the most inherently elegant women I know and one of the most gracious, smart and kind. Ryan, her husband had told me that she was pregnant but I just saw her for the first time yesterday and have to say she is still elegantly beautiful at 8 1/2 months pregnant! Here are some of my favorite photos that I just took with her out at their home.
And a couple of my favorite photos of Ryan and Hilary at their wedding in Montana.
This year Nashan Photographers is expanding our selection of albums to include several different digital options. We will be posting photos of some finished sample albums soon. In the mean time, here is a slide show of one that was recently designed for a couple whose wedding Melanie shot last August. Rachel and Eric were married at St Peter's church in Sheridan, Wyoming with the reception at the Powder Horn. The enitre event was coordinated beautifully by Michele Prevost of Juniper Events, based in Cody, Wyoming.
Andy, from Portal Films just sent over this romantically nostalgic film that he created at a wedding that he worked on with Cindy & Holly. The wedding is going to be featured in the Spring issue of the Knot and we will post some more photos of the wedding on the blog when the issue comes out.
Here is a link to the highlights film on Andy's website:
Devan and Jeff had their wedding ceremony and reception at Devan's parent home in Bozeman, Montana. Although the wedding was simple, it was beautifully held together with the green color scheme that started with Devan's sash and was carried throughout the wedding. This is the spot where Jeff proposed one year earlier.
Devan's sister was in charge of making all of the details of the wedding including the programs, umbrellas, and take home gifts. The cake mimicked Devan's sash even down to the brooch she wore and one that decorated the cake. I love the ribbon guarding the bed of flowers. They were fresh for the bride and her dad to enjoy their walk down the aisle.
Some huge sparklers to wish them well on their walk of fame.....
I always love seeing flowers in the containers that they are delivered in.
Here are some of the photos of the work the various vendors did on the Marshal/Kearney wedding. Maura and Andrew were very easy to work with, their joy of life and deep connection with their family and friends was very evident during the day. I hope you can see how much fun everyone had and how beautifully integrated the event was. I love the leather strapping that tied the flowers together. Maura worked with Cecilia so she really knew what her style was and Maura gave her complete creative freedom on the wedding. The various vessels on the dinner tables with the cowhide table clothes.
When guests arrived, cowboys on horses directed traffic to the lodge. Maura & Andrew had a wonderful engagement portrait session and they decided to have some large art prints of the session hung around the dining area.
The delicious cupcakes!
A couple of details.... If you worked on either of the weddings or have some comments please feel free to add a comment.....
We just completed a HUGE upgrade on our web site for our clients. Chieko and Cindy have spent a bit of time customizing and uploading our previous events and new events onto a shopping cart that is exponentially better than what we offered before.
With Redcart you can enlarge your images and see the details of each photograph, you can watch them in a slide show set to music, you can email a specific photo to friends, you can order digital albums, and you can see all of the products that we offer easily.
Please take some time and look at what we have done. Thank you to Tommy at Redcart for creating such a sophisticated program that is so useful!
I have been photographing weddings for over 18 years and have had the good fortune of shooting them all over the world. I love meeting new people and capturing moments that will help them remember how they were feeling at that time in their lives.
