Hey look, it’s US!!!  This is the final look at our New Orleans trip.  We learned so much and made some great friendships in NOLA.  In this post however, we will show the tourist side in us both.

This is the breathtaking Mississippi River at night.  The moon looked incredible that night.

New Orleans was perfect for music lovers like us.  These guys were all over the place everyday entertaining the city.

Denise snapped this shot of a bird shaking himself off after a nice dip in the cathedral fountain.

Inside St. Louis Cathedral.  That might be a fun place to shoot a wedding : )

Denise was rockin’ the long lens and the purple flats.

The Break In:

On one of our last days there, we ran into our new friend Jennifer Kiem in the lobby of our hotel.  She asked us if we wanted to meet up later to go explore one of the “above ground” graveyards.  We decided to meet up around 4pm to head down to the dark and dreary cemetery.  By the time we got there, all the gates were closed and locked with a sign that said no visitors after 3pm.  If you know me, you know that I like to ask forgiveness rather than permission.  So in my typical fashion, I decided to climb the wall and sneak myself in the cemetery after hours.

After I got in, I found a smaller gate that I was able to push open enough to let the ladies in too.  It was nice having the whole place to ourselves.  And a little creepy.

The reason why all the tombstones and caskets are above ground is because of the low sea level in New Orleans.  If they were buried, they would be soaking wet.

While walking around the city, I wanted to try something new with my camera, shooting from my hip.  I set my exposure then dropped my camera down to my side and took some of these candid shots without looking through my lens.

We also got a quick two minute impromptu photo session taken of us in our hotel lobby from our friend Julie that we met that night.  Thanks Julie!  She also took the first photo of us from this post : )

Our last day there was probably our most touristy day of the whole trip.  We found this Market just past Jackson Square.

Picture on right: Denise was playing with this silver painted street mime.  I kept giving him more money to keep playing with Denise so I could take some pictures.

I was waiting for Denise to set up the camera on a bench to take a timed shot of us.  I look a little bored.

Here’s the timed shot . . .

Smile!

We frequented this local French hot spot, Cafe du Monde.  They are famous for making Beignets.  I’m not a dessert person, but even I found these tasty treats extremely delectable.

We got pretty good at propping the camera up on something and setting the timer.

Hehehe, she had to try on a Mardi Gras mask at a local shop.  My cute and funny little wife.

We had so much fun on our trip!  Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed our photos.  Finally, we’ll leave you with this fun little shot of me being awsome!

They’re here!!!  The photos from our Shooting Workshop in the streets of New Orleans!

We were lucky enough to be part of this awesome workshop led by two of the sweetest and most gifted photographers we know, Jeff and Erin Youngren from San Diego, California.  We also had a wonderful opportunity to sit down and have lunch with them in between speaking sessions during the conference.  They are such amazing photographers and people.  We learned so much from just spending a couple hours with them!

It was a little tough to drag ourselves out of bed the morning of the shoot at 6:00 am (4:00 am our time) but we knew how much fun we were going to have with all these guys.  There were a total of 30 photographer’s shooting away at two amazing models.  While it could be a little intimidating to most people, Zack and Jody, were total rockstars the whole time.  They are from Nashville, Tennessee and are another awesome husband and wife photography team known as Gray Photography.

We knew it was going to be fabulous shoot when these were some of the first few shots we got.  They’re kinda similar, but we just couldn’t decide with one we liked better  – so you get to see them both :-)

If you could be ridiculously good looking for a living, they would be pros.

We loved that you can see the two guys behind the truck in the background smiling at Zack and Jody with all their paparazzi.

I’ll try not to comment on every single photo, I promise.  This is the super sweet and talented Erin :-)

New Orleans is truly a photographer’s dream . . . and it doesn’t hurt to have two good looking people to help show it off!

Zack and Jody just got iPhones a couple weeks before PartnerCon and I think they were tweeting about how many people were taking their pictures at the moment.

This is one of my favorites form the whole shoot.  She could seriously pose for for any fashion magazine.  Elegant yet edgy.

By looking at these shots, you’d never know there were 30 of us out there shooting the same couple.

And of course, we had to throw in a shot of Jeff.  He is also incredibly nice, hilarious, talented, and he’s a bio chemist so, yeah, he’s a genius too.  I love Zack and Jody in the background as Jeff tried to get a little camera time of his own.

Their personalities really show through in this next series.  They are a lot of fun!  I loved how they could switch so quickly from serious to hillarious!

I love how Jody is looking at Zack in this shot.  You can just see how much she loves him.  She’s  so proud of her man.

I would love to know what product Zack uses in his hair.  I looks pretty rad, I wish I could get my hair to look like that.

Jeff and Erin had some volunteers in the group set up shots too.  This one was set up by my favorite photographer in the world . . . DENISE!

Another favorite.  Such a great connection between them.

Here’s a shot Denise grabbed of the whole group.   Jeff and Erin are up front giving some instructions to our models.  And who’s that handsome guy in the white shirt over by the pole?  I bet that guy’s awesome.

One of the locals saw us shooting in the corridor and invited us into her private courtyard to take some shots there.  Such nice people in NOLA!  Really loved the exposed brick wall.

A huge thanks to the Youngren’s, the Gray’s and to Pictage for putting together this awesome event.  We had such a blast, met tons of awesome people and learned so much!  This workshop was definitely one of the highlights of our week and we feel so blessed to have had a chance to be apart of it.  We’ll be posting one more set of shots from our trip in the next couple days so stay tuned!

View Portfolio | Become a Fan | Contact: info@simplyknotphotography.com

Last week we got the chance to go to New Orleans for an amazing photography conference, Pictage ParterCon, and a nice vacation to celebrate Denise’s birthday.  It was so much fun!  We met tons of great photographers from all over the country, and that “strange country” above us.  We took way too many photos to show in just one blog post, so lucky for you, we will spread this out over the next few days.

Part one begins on Sunday morning.  We arrived in New Orleans two days before the conference started.  Our plan was to enjoy the sights of the city before everyone else got there.  However, If you know us at all, you know that we are not morning people.  The alarm clock sounded that morning in Phoenix at 4:30 am for our early flights.  Needless to say, the bed that you see in the background of our hotel room at the Astor Crown Plaza was soon occupied.

When we awoke from our nap, we looked out our window and saw this beautiful view of the city and the Mississippi River peeking out from behind the Hotel Monteleone.

Our hotel was on the corner of Canal and Bourbon St.  Downstairs, there was this sweet little balcony overlooking Bourbon St.  We wanted to take a quick peek at the action before braving the crowds.

After a good nights sleep, day two was off to a great start!  Denise is showing off her new colorful flats that she bought for the trip.

For lunch we headed up to Jackson Square where the locals were all over the place.  Mostly trying to get us tourists to spend money and give them tips, which we did of course.  It was pretty awesome to always have N’awleans style music playing as we walked around.

I love the framing of this next shot of the Saint Louis Cathedral.

New Orleans had tons of great details to shoot.  Kind of a photographer’s dream : )

Great culture and architecture around every corner!

We did get the chance to shoot some portraits of each other too.  More of those to come in later posts.

That’s my new pea coat that I got for the trip thinking it would be cold . . . which it wasn’t . . . but I wore it anyway.

I think that guy on the horse was probably Saint Louis.  Not sure though.

Later that night, we met up with our friend Melissa and some other awesome photogs to eat at a great restaurant called NOLA.  The head chef at NOLA, is none other than the world famous Emeril Lagasse.  Unfortunately, we left our camera’s in the hotel so we don’t have any proof, but the food there was truly amazing!

This was our first chance to get to meet some of the way cool and super fun photographers that were in town for the confrence.  We all hit it off immediately and started sharing our facebook and twitter names before dinner had even been served.  It was such a fun night!  A shout out to: Ben, Jennifer, Rhonda, Melissa, Cassie aka Canada, Laura, and Lauren.  Great restaurant choice Cassie!  We miss all of you guys already!

After dinner most of the crew headed in for the night.  We’re total night owls so we decided to head back out for another adventure.  Ben had told me about this awesome jazz club that is very popular with the locals called Preservation Hall.  So we decided to check it out.  It was so frickin’ cool!  REAL New Orlean’s people and musicians.  It was standing room only.  We had so much fun in there.  Thanks for the recomendation Ben!

This is a shot of Bourbon street from our room at the Crown Plaza.  It was during the New Orleans Saints Monday Night Football Game so the streets were pretty empty.  Everyone was inside watching the game.  We later went down on Bourbon St. to watch the fourth quarter at a bar.  Things did get a little crazy though.  A fight broke out one table away from us.  They are pretty crazy about their football in NO.  BTW Go Cardinals!

I love all the colors down the street from the clubs and bars in this next one.

So much more to come . . . stay tuned for Zack & Jody’s awesome bridal session, courtesy of the amazing workshop led by Jeff and Erin Youngren.  Did I mention that the ridiculously good looking Zack & Jody are ridiculously HOT and totally amazing photographers out of Nashville?  Also, Denise and I break into an above ground cemetery; some more locals; touristy stuff; and some really fun shots of us livin’ it up, New Orleans style.

View Portfolio | Become a Fan | Contact: info@simplyknotphotography.com