Today has been such a productive and fantastic day! For one, my fellow photo-friend, Marlayna, and I have been working tirelessly on a really amazing styled shoot. Also, an article I wrote for the Rising Tide Society went live this morning! A few weeks ago I wrote my first technical blog post about finding the best time to post on Instagram, which included a short paragraph on three different analytic providers. After I wrote  the blog, I realized that I wanted to expand on the idea and reach a broader audience, since the information I gathered could be used by pretty much anyone. So I started digging deeper into my numbers investigation and honed in on what it was I wanted to provide people with: affordable resources that could be use to gain insight into your Instagram. I submitted a brief (although brief for me is 3 paragraphs, haha) synopsis of my goal and then I crossed my fingers that they would agree my ideas would be beneficial to the community. When I got word that my topic was something that RTS wanted to read more about, I did a short little happy dance and promptly started pacing back and forth thinking of the right words to include in the article. I was ecstatic, and it showed in my 2000+ word write up. Poor Shawn had to go through and edit my ridiculous word count down about four times (thanks, Shawny :P). I have never felt as confident as...

No, this post isn't covering every single off-season weekend in the Squire household. If I went over the entire winter we've had that would be an incredibly long post and mostly just talking about how staying up to play the video game The Witness messed up our sleep cycle after a few late nights working the different puzzles. I have to thank my friend, Marlayna, for the game recommendation and subsequent obsession that Shawn and I now have :P. When we weren't busy drawing puzzle solutions, we spent a good portion of our Saturday and Sunday outside running around with our Pony pup. Thank goodness for the amazing weather, because we had been wanting to take Pony hiking since we first started the process of adopting him. We chose to stay close to home for this first adventure and went to Patapsco Valley's Cascade Falls Trail. Since Sunday was basically a preview of Spring, the hike to the waterfall was fun, easy, and I was able to take photos! (Something that wasn't fun, though, was figuring out that our little angel needs leash training.) We also got to take Pony to his very first dog park for his BFF, Benny's, first birthday party. Happy belated birthday to that adorable little furbaby :D! While these relaxing weekends are nice to recharges our batteries, Shawn and I are looking forward to the 2016 weddings and engagement shoots. I've been reading up and attending a lot of educational webinars that I know...

Hi everyone, this is Shawn with another update on what has been happening on my side. You can check out my other post for more information and the introduction. Off-season for weddings means that while Britney is busy handling all the incoming queries and a few other photography surprises, I've been hard at work adding some wonderful features to the site for all of our couples in addition to my other work. The improvements to the website are coming along nicely. There's a lot of things on my task list for improvements, such as a means to download all the images from your session which is more reliable and convenient. More importantly, we have an exciting new feature for all our past, present, and future couples: a client lounge! Britney mentioned one of the features briefly in a previous post, but there is a lot more exciting capabilities in store. The client lounge provides a central point of reference for all of Britney Clause Photography's couples. New clients will find inspiration on planning a wedding, from information regarding our services to helpful advice to making the most out of your engagement session and wedding. There will also be a neatly organized section for digital copies of contracts, paying your invoice, and - of course - seeing all the wonderful pictures from your photography. The full site is still getting completed, but we are both very excited to offer this integrated and complete experience as a bonus to everyone. Meanwhile, a...

At some point during the planning for an engagement session, most of my couples will come to me and ask about outfits. Whether they are asking for advice on what would look good together, or just telling me their ideas, I love being involved in this process. When Shawn and I were planning our engagement session, the part that was most fun was choosing what we were going to wear. I've mentioned before how I had clothes picked out prior to knowing the location of our session, and I think it's safe to reveal that before our photographer was even booked I was scoping out color swatches that went well together :P. All of that to say, anytime I get to assist in putting some super cute outfits together is a good time for me, haha! I've been working on a client lounge for my couples for the last couples of months, and in the lounge I have a space dedicated to engagement clothing and showing what works well together for couples. I find that section to be such a huge help that I wanted to share a few of the look-book type items I've put together. The outfits that I came up with for all of these were built from clothes at either H&M, Modcloth, or Charlotte Russe, so they are all easy to find and should be affordable. These are also ideas for you to see what goes together, and to really start mapping out how...

One of the biggest questions I get from clients: where should we do our engagement session? I can seriously pick locations for days. There are a ton of parks all around Maryland, and urban locations like Baltimore, Annapolis, and Washington DC are all within 30-40 minutes. The thing I can't search for in a location, though, is a place that you will click with and love. That's the reason I always suggest that you and your other half find a spot that you can envision yourself being in together. Imagine the session you want -- not one that you found on Pinterest or Facebook -- but one that you truly think will capture you two as a couple. Think of the environment that you enjoy and pick out certain aspects from it. Is there a lot of green? Water? Maybe there are some different unique elements like stone buildings? (If I just described everything that you are seeing, then I can suggest your session being at Savage Mill or Ellicott City.) Figuring out certain details that you want in a location can help immensely with searching for that perfect spot. A great example of picking out a location is how Shawn and I narrowed down our own ideas for our engagement session. For starters, I had outfits picked out months prior: a lace salmon color dress for me and a maroon button down with khaki's for Shawn; then an outfit change into more casual jeans and sweaters for later...