My first styled shoot!

Photographer: MKT Photography 

Videographer: Michael Chancellor

Hair stylist: Ella Teets @styledby.ella

Professional makeup artist (Madison): AnnMarie Taylor @makeupbyvnnmarie_

Makeup artist (Sadye): Hannah Harman 

Floral crown: Full Pocket Farm @fullpocketfarm

Antique decor: Rocky’s Gold, Silver & Antiques 

Jewelry (Camille): Camille Earrings @camilleearrings 

Venue: VMFA, New Image Gallery (thanks to Kaylee English for helping us out with this), and Raven’s Roost. 

A very special thank you to my errand runner and helper Evan Carter, as well as my faux husband/model Andrew Moffett.

 October 26th and 27th, the two most stressful days so far of senior year but also the most rewarding. For my portfolio development project I did a series of styled shoots. The goal of this shoot was to have everyone participating benefit from having more exposure on other social media or for the couples getting free engagement images. I didn’t want to do a more fine art portfolio because I would not be putting that in my personal website, therefore, I decided to do more of a realistic photoshoot while I still got to determine all the little details about it.

The process before the photoshoot was stressful, there were so many moving parts. I had to decide all the details from the dresses to the location. I looked to social media to find a team to work with. Through that, I found a hairdresser looking to broaden her portfolio. She ended up sticking with the crew to do touch ups throughout the whole weekend. Finding the couples was the bigger issue. I wanted to find couples who actually were getting married or newly married so that it could mutually benefit them as well as me. I had a few helping hands that would do set ups to make the days go more smoothly and run errands for me. 

Day one I woke up incredibly excited to see l Madison and Aubrey joined me bright and early at AnnMarie’s studio to start makeup. AnnMarie perfected my vision of a natural look while also looking glamorous. During this time Ella also got started on hair. For this shoot the goal was to achieve a more traditional look and with this, together we decided on an updo and a braid was added to create more dimension. The guys present got to watch all the magic happen and were amazed by the studio and process involved in a photoshoot/wedding day, not only the guys but me, as well.

Once my team made Madison even more beautiful than she is we headed to my parents house to shoot on a staircase, get getting ready images and photos in a field, which matched Madison’s boots perfectly. The couple love to be outdoors with hunting, fishing and bonfires, this particular traditional wedding shoot matched their personalities perfectly. Madison has been a consistent client of mine, starting from when she was graduating from highschool. After that, I was able to shoot her and her sisters and her maternity images. Madison and Aubrey were recently blessed with a baby girl, Finley which I was also given the honor to photograph and now these images to mark her wedding. I love being able to follow her throughout her life journeys and now her family’s, as well. Madison texted me a few weeks before the shoot, saying that they had ordered their wedding rings and hopefully they would get them in time for the shoot. They ended up getting it the previous week and so by the time of the shoot they had gotten married. Their happiness was beautiful. I was honored to get pictures to mark the occasion. It has been incredible to mark all of her major life changes and I was especially happy with how her style shoot ended up. 

After leaving Madison and Aubrey, my team and I headed to Richmond to shoot at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. This shoot was comprised of models, Camille and Andrew. Side note: we didn’t have a male model to be the groom, when we got to Richmond we called a local friend, asking if he could be at the location in 30 minutes in a suit. 30 minutes later, there was Andrew… in a suit. It was incredible how helpful people were for this assignment, for me. But after Ella finished her traditional updo on Camille, we wanted to add a little something extra so she made a piece of tulle into a small veil, on the fly! Camille has her own earring company, Camille Earrings. She makes amazing, eccentric earrings. For this shoot she paired the lace dress with a beautiful gold accent earring. The two models, for not having ever met looked amazing together in pictures. I captured them goofing around the art museum and it was an overall amazing experience.  

The second day I met Sadye and Dom in Harrisonburg for Ella to do hair and Hannah to do makeup. In the hair I wanted to have a floral crown but was unable to find one within budget. However, the night before we reached out to the company Full Pocket Farm. They whipped up a gorgeous crown for Sadye to wear. I am so grateful for them because the crown completely made the pictures just how I had imagined. From there we went to New Image Gallery. My vision for this shoot was centered around the big window and exposed brick wall. I wanted to focus on silhouettes and shadows. 

Once I got the images I wanted for this shoot we went to Raven’s Roost for the most intensive and prepared shoot. For the setup, I had three specific sections of props. The first was a wicker chair which I covered in leaves and flowers for Sadye to get singles in. In preparation for the next I headed to Rocky’s Antiques, here I found an amazing persian carpet, vases and a loveseat. I had all of this set up on the top of the lookout with the mountains in the background. This is how I imagined the shoot theme being centered around. The last setup was in front of a polygon shaped altar, which was handmade for the shoot, in specific. The way all the images turned out looked spectacular. 

The weekend may have been incredibly stressful but I am so happy with how the pictures turned out and how it improved my portfolio. The images turned out just like my vision thanks to the help of my amazing team!

(vision board below)