Besides wedding & portrait work, I have a ton of personal photos that I am just itching to share with the world. So I’m going to start posting new & old personal work at least once a week. I’m a huge advocate of shooting personal work & not just for clients all the time. Helps photographers find their voice! Hope you enjoy :)
Tongass National Forest, Alaska, July 2009
Hi everyone! Lots of fun & exciting things happening over here at Alex Bee Photo. Let’s get to the news!
1) THE ENGAGEMENT SESSION PACKAGE CONTEST
The winners of the contest are Tressie & Sterg! Congratulations on winning an engagement session package valued at $600. Lots of fun goodies in there like a custom guestbook & save the dates! Second place winners, Alyssa & Griffin, will receive a complimentary engagement session worth $250. Thank you all for your support! I was overwhelmed by the amount of entries & votes I received! Over 400 people voted.
2) BRIDAL SHOW PHOTOS ON ASHLEY’S BRIDE GUIDE
Ashley of Ashley’s Bride Guide invited me to attend Weddings the Bridal Show in Nashville to take photos. It was really fun checking out all the vendors & meeting people! See the posts with the photos HERE & another post HERE.
Maples Wedding Cakes at Weddings the Bridal Show in Nashville!
3) WOOOHOO I’M IN THE INCEPTION EXTRAS!!
I’m honored to have a piece of artwork in Dreams: Cinema of the Subconscious, a documentary in the extras of the blu-ray Inception set by Roko Belic. I’m sure you are wondering HOW in the heck this little photographer from Knoxville Tennessee had that opportunity! Well, I am a member of the HitRecord community, which is basically a collaborative production company full of artists headed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. It’s where I get to express by artsy fartsy side simply for artsy fartsy sake. Watch for my full name, Alex Blackwelder, in the credits! Here’s a preview on Youtube so you can get the gist!
4) VOTE FOR APRIL & CHRISTIAN!
One of my 2011 couples, April & Christian, have the chance to win a $20,000 for their wedding! Please, please go vote on Her Nashville! They rock, & their engagement story is super cute. Watch their video then GO VOTE! Voting ends February 14th! Thank you.
My awesome friend Erin invited me to Savannah to visit her family & of course I said yes. Savannah is a place I’ve been dying to visit & I was stoked to have the opportunity! Here’s a little bit of what I saw on our explorations of Savannah & the surrounding areas.
I especially enjoyed Wormsloe Plantation, the Sorrel Weed House, historic downtown Savannah houses, and a creepy ghost tour. Thanks Erin for the invite & graciously modeling for me !
We went on a nighttime ghost tour & our guide pointed out these fingerprints on a house. She said that the brick is the famed Savannah Gray, and was made my slaves in the 1800s. The fingerprints are thought to be from a slave.
Driving through the Smokey Mountains
Here’s one photo of my friend Erin at Wormsloe Plantation in Savannah, Georgia! I’ve completely fallen in love with this city & its beautiful live oak trees that are STILL green in January!
This year has been crazy. I finished up my year in China and said goodbye to everything and everyone I grew to love. I started a photography business, and was inspired by the love of each and every couple I photographed. As I was going through my 2010 photos, I realized this was going to be a really hard post to write. I’m so grateful for everyone who has supported me on this new journey of mine. I’m not the best with articulating my ideas. That’s why I take photos, so I’ll just say I have the best job in the world. I get to be surrounded by love and take photos of love. I go to work and I’m constantly smiling. How could it get better?
I am so thankful for everything I experienced in 2010, even the hard stuff. I remember how frustrated I was trying to design a logo, or get my first client. I have no clue how I survived October, the busiest month of my life. I appreciate all the growth that came from these struggles. I’ve got my resolutions written down (and tracked on goalforit.com), and I’m determined to beat the awesomeness of 2010. I’m coming for you, 2011!
It was a really strange experience for me to go through all my photos I took in 2010. It was an even stranger experience to edit them all down to a group of favorites. I decided to go with my gut on this one. The photos below are my favorite not because of technical photography mumbo jumbo, but because they have a special place in my heart. Whether it’s a time, place, moment, or person, they have touched me this year. I love some of these photos just because of the experiences they remind me of like the freedom of exploring a city by myself, or the humbling experience of hospitality in a foreign land.
Here’s to a great 2011.
1) Sunrise over the rice patties in Duoyishu village, Yuanyang, Yunnan Province, China
2) Sunset in Yuanyang, Yunnan Province, China
3) A farmer walking on the rice patties in Duoyishu village, Yuanyang, Yunnan Province, China. These rice patties completely changed color based on where the sun is in the sky. It’s a photographer’s dream
4) This Hani woman lived in the house beside the guesthouse I stayed in for a week while I was in Duoyishu. Every morning she would lead her 50+ ducks from her home to a rice paddy for them to spend the day. One day as I was walking home from photographing, the ducks started following me! I couldn’t get them to stop, and I ended up accidentally leading them all the way back to their home. I thought she would be mad, but she found it hilarious. I heard her laughing while she led the ducks back to their spot. A few days later, she posed for this photo for me.
5) Yuantong Temple, Kunming, Yunnan Province, China
6) A path on the Tiger Leaping Gorge trek in Yunnan Province China. This photo reminds me of how happy I was meeting new friends and wandering aimlessly around Yunnan province.
7) My friend started to feel sick while we were wandering around the Ganden Sumtseling Monastery in Shangrila, so we decided to find a place to escape the cold. I asked a Tibetan man if there was a place we can sit and drink tea. He lead us to his home, sat us down, and made us all salted yak butter tea, no questions asked. He was proud of his family and his home. This photo is of his son washing his face in their home. I’m constantly humbled by the hospitality and friendliness of people in China.
8) My friend invited me to spend Chinese New Years with her family in their village. Here we are in the countryside.
9) Our Chinese New Year’s feast. Mmm. Complete with homemade tofu.
10) My friend’s grandfather honors his mother’s grave on Chinese New Year.
11) Playing with kids in Qinghua, Wuyuan, Jiangxi province, China. One of my favorite things about China was running around and playing with kids.
12) A lazy day in Hongcun, Anhui province, China.
13) The famed Suzhou gardens.
14) Muhammad and his father in Turpan, Xinjiang province, China. Muhammad invited me for tea and gave me directions to get back to my hotel.
15) Freakin’ awesome door in Kashgar, Xinjiang province, China
16) Sweet Uyghur girls going to school in Kashgar, Xinjiang province, China.
17) A restaurant owner and his wife in Hotan, China. I had a good time talking with him, talking about life, and chowing down on all the delicious goodies he kept giving me.
18) A mazar in Hotan, China. Mazars are colorful, sufi shrines.
19) A medicine man in Hotan, Xinjiang province, China.
20) Sand dunes at sunset in Gansu, China
21) A gorgeous sunset on Norris Lake, TN
22) Rowan.
23) My sister and my cousin Crystal tubing on Norris Lake.
24) Carin & Chris engagement photos
25) Jessica & Josh in Walland, TN
26) Jessica
27) Carin’s dad walking her down the aisle.
28) Carin & Chris
29) Sweet Marleigh
3o) Cary & Becki’s first dance
31) New York in October
32) My sister Maddy in New York City.
33) Lakin & Zach
34) Alex & Cristie
35) Bryan & Cheryl
36) My sister Maddy in the snow.
37) Ashley
