We met Jennie & Scott at Market Street in DC Ranch. They choose this location because it has a lot of special meaning to them. The image at the top of the post is actually taken on the patio of the Armitage Bistro where they had dinner on their very first date AND, ironically enough,  the place where they went the night Scott proposed. So cute! We spent some time walking around the area which was full of great photo spots.

For some reason, a lot of my favorites this session were vertical images so there’s lots of side by side ones! Love the sweet interactions in these next two.

Jennie is a fellow “shoe girl” :-) I just adored these cute heels she wore! (Can’t wait to see what shoes she’ll be wearing for the big day!)

And her adorable curls? To die for!

Love this one! I think I’ll call it, “A look of far off wonderment” ;-)

And thanks to the Te’ Boutique for providing a fabulous pop of color for this next image. LOVE it!

One thing we learned about Jennie & Scott: these two can DANCE! They’ve got some serious moves and we got to experience them first hand. How fun is this next sequence? I love their expressions! Scott is all business and Jennie’s just got this calm blissful look like, “yes, I’m spinning around in circles. Is that unusual?” Ha ha!

As we were shooting it started to rain so we headed for a nearby covered bridge. At one point we suggested that Scott “dip” his lovely bride-to-be and they totally rocked it with the AMAZING move on the right! They tried to show Ryan and I how to do it too, but I think we’re going to need a few more lessons :-) It was seriously tough! Especially with cameras in both of our hands!

All kinds of sweetness :-)

After a quick change into some casual clothes, we headed to downtown Phoenix to soak up a little “urban grunge”. This scene was awesome!

We almost passed this awesome brick wall, but Ryan spotted it and it turned out to be one of my favorite backdrops! Both these shots make my heart smile :-)

Serious . . .

And some serious snuggling!

Jennie’s engagement ring is so unique and unusual. She was a music major in college so Scott picked out a setting that looks like a music note. The man knows his audience!

One last shot: the light was almost gone, but we just had to take advantage of the awesome city lights.

To Jennie & Scott: we’re so glad that you two found each other. You guys are a great match, like the perfect lyrics for a beautiful melody. We really enjoyed our time together and we’re so excited to be apart of your wedding day!

Make sure you click the slideshow button below for more photos from their session!

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Yesterday our friend Melissa Jill wrote a blog post about using back button focus to achieve the sharpest possible images. Because she shoots with Canon equipment, she posted a link to a thread on Open Source Photo that talked about back button focus for Nikon equipment. What’s kinda of funny about that thread is that it all started because we couldn’t figure out how to make this work on our Nikon cameras back in 2007! Wow, things have changed a lot since then! Denise and I have been using back button focus for years now and it has made a huge difference in the way we work.

By separating the act of focusing with taking the actual photo (shutter release), it allows you to choose your focus point, lock it in, and have the ability to recompose your image without refocusing. For all you Nikon users out there, here’s how you can set it up in camera because unfortunately it is not the default setting. These settings should be pretty much the same on the D300 & D700 and possibly the D3 model.

Separate Your Focus & Shutter:

Step 1: Go into your custom settings menu

Step 2: Select A (autofocus)

Step 3: Select A5 (AF Activation)

Step 4: Choose AF-ON only

Now, you can use your AF-ON button to set your focus and the shutter button will only release the shutter. Once your focus is set you can release the AF-ON button and reframe the shot. By separating those two functions, it allows you to be more creative and think outside the box when it comes to composing your images. It also, helps in getting the sharpest possible photos.

Lock Your Center Focus Point:

We also used to manage our focus location by moving the focus points all around with the dial. When your camera has 51 focus points, this method is slow and frustrating. Once we started shooting with back button focus, we locked the focus in the center by turning the lock focus dial to the L position and never touched it again. This part of the set up isn’t required to use back button focus but we have found that it works well for us and simplfies the process even more.

Now you can simply put the subject in the center, lock in the focus, release the button and have the freedom to recompose them in the frame. If any of our fellow “Nikonians” have any other questions about this, feel free to leave us a comment or send us an email. Hope this has been helpful!

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I recently learned that the word “slapdash” is a synonym for the word random.  After laughing about it for a while, the thought occurred to me that it would make a fabulous title for an ongoing blog series about completely random things.  One of the goals of our blog, along with sharing our work and giving our clients a way to share their photos with others, is to be able to document our personal lives and help our readers get to know us personally.  Well, up to this point, we’ve never been very good at the “personal” part :-(  Maybe it’s because we worry that people won’t really care?  (And maybe they really won’t – I don’t know.)  But if there’s one thing that Facebook and other forms of social networking have taught us, it’s that people just want to connect and sometimes that means finding common ground on the most mundane of topics.

So, in the interest of relationship building, personal disclosure, and overall slapdashery (yep, I think I just made up an awesome new word) – the first ever addition of Slapdash!

Movies are a big deal in the Gotcher house.  We have A LOT of them and watch A LOT of them.  No particular genre either – our taste is pretty much all over the board: comedy, drama, romance, action, classic black and white, even the occasional documentary.  In our house the true test of how much we liked a movie isn’t just based on our initial viewing.  The next day, one of us inevitably asks the other one, “So, did you think about [insert movie title here] today?”  (I tend to think about the previous night’s movie in the shower the next morning – not that you needed to know that.)

Recently, the movies that have been leaving the most lasting impression on us have been independent films.  There’s something so awesome about low-budget, film festival type movies that just blows the big name blockbusters out of the water.  It seems that when filmmakers don’t have the benefit of an actor who’s name can open a movie all by itself or the money for huge stunts and crazy special effects,  they have to get back to the heart of what makes movies so amazing – like story line and character development, making you actually FEEL something and THINK about something.

Here are two of our recent favorites you should totally check out:

Adam: An incredibly heartfelt love story of a man with Asperger’s Syndrome (a form of Autism), that falls in love with a woman who moves into his apartment building.  Not only is the story super charming and heart wrenching at the same time, the film does a great job of surrounding the central story line with supporting characters that have purpose and are thoughtfully written (a major drawback in a lot of movies.)

500 Days of Summer: If you’ve seen it already, SEE IT AGAIN.  Yes, it’s that awesome.  It’s a quirky, clever NON-love story that’s great on too many levels to describe.  And of course, Zooey Deschanel is in it – one of the few women Ryan would probably leave me for if given the chance and I would pretty much totally support his decision.

All kidding aside, check these movies out – they’re so great!  And you won’t walk away thinking, “Well that was two hours of my life I’ll never get back.”

A couple of shout outs to other random things that have made my life especially happy these last few weeks:

New Boots!: Ryan got me these AMAZING knee high boots for Christmas and I simply can NOT have a bad day when I’m wearing them!  (I couldn’t find a photo of my exact pair online, but this ought to give you an idea.  Mine have a slimmer heel and awesome detailing on the side and top – they’re way cuter actually!)

Apple TV: Ryan’s dad got us Apple TV for Christmas!  Yay!!!  Being the avid movie watchers that we are, it gives us access to tons of great movies without having to go to the video store (who does that anymore?) or wait for a Netflix movie to come in the mail.  We can just browse the selections and a great new movie is only a click away!  I also love that we can listen to all of our iTunes music and view photos on our big TV screen – so cool!

Twitter & TweetDeck: I have to admit, I’ve been a little lax in my Twitter duties for a few months, but with a little extra time in my schedule lately, I finally took the time to do a little Twitter clean up.  I’m now following a bunch of new awesome “tweeters” and I’ve unfollowed all the random people that I’ve unknowingly collected while I’ve had my account set to automatically follow everyone who follows me – big mistake!  Now that things are back in order, I’ve fallen in love with Twitter all over again :-)  TweetDeck, the ultimate desktop Twitter management tool has made this all much, much easier, although I have to admit that my productivity at the old day job has probably taken a bit of a hit with all those happy little notifications flying in all day.  If you want to follow me on twitter I’m @denisegotcher and Ryan is @ryangotcher.  We also have a Simply Knot Photos account @simplyknot, but we don’t update it quite as much as our personal ones.

Have a great week everybody!

For more information about bridal sessions, feel free to email us at studio@simplyknotphotos.com.

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