Hi there!

welcome to the new nrp blog.  It’s really the old nrp blog.  All of our old posts are here.  We just moved everything over here.  Thanks for making the leap with us!

There are a few things missing from this new blog, including tags, and the much-loved Facebook like button, along with a bunch of other stuff you probably won’t miss.  We decided to build this new blog from the ground up, and to simplify it a lot.  We’re simple people.  We like simple. Some of the things we’re working to bring back to this blog as quickly as we can.  Things like social media buttons we hope to have back soon.  In the meantime, We love the new look.  We hope you do too.

Welcome!

nathan

If you love pretty things, there’rs a good chance you remember jessie + mark’s gorgeous wedding that we shot back in june. I’m happy to report that it was published today by Rock n’ Roll Bride.

Rock n, Roll Bride is one of our personal favorite wedding blogs.  I love the philosophy that kat is putting out in the world:  Do your wedding your own way.  It’s how amy and I did our wedding, and it’s how we think weddings should be done.  Be as traditional or non-traditional as you want, as long as you’re doing exactly what you want to do, and not something you feel like you have to do.  Not to mention her blog is stuffed full of amazing photography from all over the world.

So we’re deeply honored that she featured a wedding we photographed.  Deeply honored and maybe a little giddy.  We’ll be having champagne with our editing today.

Head on over to Rock n, Roll Bride and check it out!  Then have a glass of champagne with us.

happy wednesday, indeed.

Some of you guys might remember a few months back when we took part in Austin Bakes for Japan a fund raiser by the Austin food blogging community that ended up raising over $11,000 dollars for Japan earthquake relief efforts.  We were so thrilled to be a part of that event.

Recently tragedy has struck much closer to home.  If you live in Austin, I don’t need to tell you about the devastation left in the wake of the Bastrop fires this month.  The amazing community of food bloggers have organized another city-wide bakesale this weekend to help raise money for the people in our community who have been so deeply affected by the fires, and once again, we’re going to be there.  I can’t think of a better cause for all of us to rally around.  And if you got out to the Japan bakesale, you know that there are some serious bakers out there making amazing stuff.  this isn’t your average bake sale.

There are a whopping 7 locations for the bakesale this saturday, and they’ll all be going full force from 10am to 2pm.  Please, come out and get yourself some delicious treats and help out your neighbors. 100% of the proceeds are going to Austin Community Foundation’s Central Texas Wildfire Fund. Austin Community Foundation is a top-rated non-profit that’s providing support to agencies working on the ground in Bastrop, Steiner Ranch, Spicewood and other parts of Central Texas affected by wildfire.

Find a list of all the locations on the Austin Bakes for Bastrop website.  Come on out, support your sweet tooth and help make a huge difference in Austin.  Hopefully we’ll see you there!

Anna + Chane’s amazing wedding in April was featured today on The Wedding Party Studio, a gorgeous Texas wedding blog.  Check it out!

We’re incredibly proud to announce that we’ve partnered with Austin Bakes for Japan, to help raise money for the earthquake relief efforts. Austin Bakes for Japan is the brainchild of our client and good friend, and food blogger extraordinaire Kathryn Hutchsion. When she heard about the national movement, she thought it was a perfect way to help the ongoing relief efforts.

The project has totally exploded. At last count, they have over 50 food bloggers from Austin and Houston baking up pure deliciousness to be sold at four locations in Austin. This project really speaks to me personally, because I’m a huge believer in a better world through cupcakes. If you’re in the Austin area, I really hope you guys will make it out to one of the locations. What could be better than buying some scrumptious, home-baked treats? The answer is buying scrumptious, home-baked treats that offer help to people who badly need it.

The bake sales are taking place April 2, from 10 to 2 all around the austin area. To get exact details and read about the local efforts, visit their blog. to read more about the national effort, visit BakeSaleForJapan.com. If you’re not in Austin, maybe there’s one going on near you. If there isn’t, maybe you could organize one.

And if you can’t get out to a bakesale, you can always donate directly online. 100% of bakesale and online proceeds are going directly to AmeriCares for their relief fund.

Come by, and get some goodies. We’ll be hanging around at Foreign & Domestic, and the Shops at Mira Vista throughout the day, so come up and say hi. We’ll be the ones with giant cameras. We’ll buy you a cupcake. You can buy us one back.

We’re proud to officially announce that Nathan Russell Photography is a platinum sponsor of the 2011 Texas Style Council Conference, coming up here in Austin during SXSW! The Texas Style Council is the brainchild of two of our most amazingly creative friends, Indiana and Grechen. If you haven’t already heard about the Texas Style Council Conference, you’ve got to see everything they have up their pretty sleeves. They’ve got tons of events for style bloggers, and aspiring style bloggers who want to connect with their bloggy community. In addition to an all-day symposium featuring talks by a number of fab fashion bloggers (including a couple of our besties Kendi and Bryan), some of the events planned for the weekend include a clothing swap, a boutique crawl, a fashion brunch, and a fashion show/party. And (ahem) there’s a cowboys & ballerina dance party planned for Saturday night, where Nathan and I will be hanging out all night with a facebooth in close proximity. Some of the events require registration to attend (like drinks at Plain Ivey Jane), and many of them, including the dance party, are open to the public. So throw on your ballet slippers or boots, and come dance the night away. Stop by the facebooth and say howdy, and get your photo taken for the low price of $0.00.

Check out the official Texas Style Council Conference website for more info on all of the amazing speakers (which probably include your very favorite bloggers), the complete schedule for the weekend, and the lowdown on registration. Can’t wait to see you there!

Hi everyone. I’ve been meaning to post this for weeks, but I finally broke down and posted Diana and Steven first. I couldn’t keep those to myself a second longer. I know, I’ve been a very bad blogger the past couple of months. We’ve been super busy getting ready for 2011 and an all new nrp, we just haven’t had time to catch our breath. 2010 was a really exciting and landmark year for us and there were lots of changes under the hood that we felt like we need to make official.

If you read regularly, I’m sure you noticed a change in focus during 2010 from portrait photography toward wedding photography. We love shooting portraits, but we love love love shooting weddings. So with a new year ahead of us, we thought it was time to make it official, and re-focus our web presence to concentrate on our love of weddings. This doesn’t mean we aren’t still going to shoot portraits. We are. We love portraits and we love shooing kids, and families, and honestly we hope to do lots of that kind of photography for the future families of our brides and grooms. So there will be portraits and we’ll definitely be sharing that work here on the blog. But weddings are where we plan to spend most of our time.

We also felt like we’ve really focused our style in the past couple of years, and we wanted the look of our business to better reflect the look of our photography, so you’ve probably noticed a more stylized portfolio and some flashy new colors around the blog. It’s the new us. We hope you like.

And finally, and most importantly–

I got this silly idea in my head about getting a lot more serious about my love for photography in 2008 and tepidly asked my wife Amy what she would think if I embarked on a FOURTH career. She was behind me immediately, She’s been nothing but supportive since day one, but over the past year she’s become much more than just a cheerleader, she’s become an active and vital part of my work. She is incredibly passionate about photography and incredibly passionate about the people we work with, and she’s incredibly passionate about cute things, and stylish things, and she’s incredibly creative. I have come to rely on her very heavily for inspiration, for ideas, for styling shoots, for assistance with posing. She comes up with ideas in her sleep, she scouts locations pretty much any time she’s breathing. She reminds me to eat before your shoot so I don’t pass out on you. She does much more than support me, she’s become my equal partner in this little venture. And in 2010, she got sick of wrestling with me to get the photos she wants, so she’s picked up her own camera and she’s completely addicted to the thing. I’m already looking forward to 2012 when she can take over the whole thing on her own and I can finally achieve my dream of being a full-time house husband.

So I’m officially welcoming Amy on board. We’re affectionately calling her Creative Director and Stylist (don’t worry, I’ve already let her know there is no pay raise involved, just the admiration of her fellow co-worker). She’s official. She’ll be involved in all aspects of planning for our future work, right out front, not just behind the scenes. You’ll be meeting her at consultations, and working with her very closely through the preparation for your shoots. She’ll also be hanging out here on the blog more, contributing posts of her own. She’s smarter and funnier than me, so this is very good news for you.

So welcome to the new nathan russell photography. We want to thank all of you who have supported us over the past couple of years, and here’s to an amazing 2011 for all of us.

We’re so excited to introduce the facebooth. It’s our take on the live photobooth craze that is sweeping the nation. We love these things. They bring a whole party inside a party to your reception. Your guests will go crazy for it, and it’s a great way to get images of all the people who attended your wedding. All kinds of images, ranging from sweet, to silly, to just plain nuts. You’ve got to have one of these at your wedding reception.

A few days after your wedding we post a gallery where your friends and family can view and buy prints of anything they want, and you get the images to add into your wedding album as a stylish way to remember who was at your wedding. Way cooler than table shots! We’re offering the facebooth as a $500.00 all-inclusive add-on. You get a background in your choice of color, a live photographer, a ton of props (or just a few, if you’re a minimalist) and you’re free to customize any of it to your heart’s content. And there’s no limit to the number of photos you and your guests can take.

here’s a few from the facebooth we did at Vicki + David’s wedding a few weeks ago.

One of the interesting things about photography these days, is that there are so many options for what you can do with your photos, but despite that, most people’s photos live on hard drives and digital photo frames. Maybe an 8×10 or two, and a bunch of 4x6s that get stuck in a box under the bed.

This phenomenon amazes me, because there are so many beautiful things you can do with your photos. Photos, even digital ones, aren’t designed to only be looked at in electronic form. There’s nothing quite like getting a beautiful custom-printed album with your images in them, telling your story in book form, or a really big gorgeous print for your walls. That’s where photos become really breathtaking.

Or in this case, some really clever custom invites.

The image bliss that is Kathryn and Rami’s wedding, believe it or not, has not yet come to a close. After their small destination wedding on a family farm in Iowa, which was attended primarily by family, the two are planning a reception in August, here in Austin so they can celebrate with all of their friends.

When it came time to send out invitations to the reception, Kathryn asked me about possibilities of using images from her wedding. I was so excited about the idea, and we talked over all the options I could offer her, and we worked together to design these. And I just absolutely adore them. They have so much more personality than some generic invites printed from a template.

We used wedding photos for these, of course, but you can do the same kind of thing with engagements, or baby announcements, or senior announcements. There are so many wonderful things to do with your images. Don’t confine them to that digital photo frame.

I’m absolutely giddy to announce today that we are now offering Premium Slideshows to all of our clients. These puppies are not your average slideshows, which is why they’re Premium Slideshows (clever how we do that, right?). We custom create these slideshows for you by putting the photos from your session together with professionally designed transitions and animations. Then we throw in video clips from your session and set it all to music. The slideshows are delivered on DVD at full DVD resolution. If you’re one of those people who has a hard time choosing which photos you want to purchase, this is a great way to get all of your images at a really affordable price. And they come packaged in an elegant brushed aluminum tin, so they make perfect gifts for Mother’s Day or Father’s Day, or for grandparents. We can also offer you smaller streaming versions you can post to your Facebook, YouTube channel, or personal site.

Slideshows are available beginning right now from the nathanrussellphoto.com store. You can get one copy, or buy multiple copies for family and save a ton. They also come standard in any of our 2010 packages. And if you had a session in 2009 and now you’re having slideshow envy, never fear! We can create DVDs for you too. Just shoot us an email and let us know you’re interested in purchasing a slideshow from your proof set. We can email you an invoice, and your DVD will appear in the mail a few days later, just like magic.

There’s really no way to describe to you how awesome these videos look, so I thought I’d just let you see for yourself (and this is just the streaming version, imagine how great it looks at full-res).