If you missed my television premier last week, I was on the KVIA noon news broadcast to talk about the upcoming OpLove event, which is taking place on Ft. Bliss on 4-5 April. We’re looking for local businesses and individuals who will sponsor the photos for a Soldier with the 4-1AD – a single family sponsorship is only $10! You can donate at the OpLove website; your donation will provide an album of family photos to one of the deploying members of the 4-1AD Highlander brigade, heading to Iraq this spring for a year-long tour of duty. We’re organizing this event to make sure each Soldier is able to keep his family close to his heart during the separation. All photography is being donated by local photographers and members of Operation: Love ReUnited, who are traveling from across the country just to be a part of this weekend. For more event information, or if you’d like to volunteer to come out and help, visit our OpLove page.

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Jason

As usual, silence on the blog is only because we’re prepping big things behind the scenes; keep your eyes and ears open!

Jason

Roz and I (with some help from Samantha, Abigail, and Caden) put up our set for the bridal show in the El Paso Convention Center on Saturday afternoon. I was worried about getting the flats into the space, but we were able to pull the loaded truck and trailer right up to our booth. We had the whole thing up in about an hour.

Marie joined us yesterday, Sunday, for the show. Am I ever glad she did. The doors opened at 11, and by 11:15 it was standing-room-only in and around our booth.

    

We spent almost 6 hours solid talking to brides and quineneras; we also took the opportunity to meet some of the other local vendors. Liz from BRE Wedding Planner and James from Wedding Celebrate! were especially fun, and both do incredible work. I’ve added their info to our links.

  

The expo also included a couple of fashion shows, a demonstration by the dance studio that was there, and a ton of givaways. We donated a free bridal shoot to the prizes, but have yet to hear from the lucky winner. The crowd around the booth died down during the second fashion show, so I took a camera and got some shots of the models.

    

Thanks again to everyone who stopped by. We’re already planning for the January show!

Jason

We spent most of this weekend putting on the final touches. We brought each panel in from the workshop, and actually assembled it indoors, inside the studio, to get a sense of scale, and because well, it’s rainy season here, and the driveway didn’t seem like a good option. We still have one very minor thing to finish on the whole set, but we will accomplish the nit-picky finishing stuff over the course of this week. We decided to document this final part of the process, so here are a few images of us from today, pulling the whole thing together. Of course, our cat Edward was worn out from watching us work, and couldn’t be moved for the final shot.

Probably the most annoying part of putting this entire booth together was the crown molding at the top of the walls. I have a new healthy respect for people who build homes and do the finish work. That stuff was impossible to get right up in the corners.

From the pictures, I know it looks like I got off easy, but I really did help build the walls, and I even used the power drill a few times! And I painted a lot. But I do have to hand it to Jason, he really put a lot of time into this, and it paid off in the end.

And now, it’s time to relax with some ice cream. We’ll see you at the show!

-Roz

I’d also been wanting a wood floor for the studio to shoot on, just for regular portraits. A friend of mine has one, and everything she does on it just looks like a million bucks. We were initially worried about the weight of the flooring, since it has to be removable. But we figured out a good work-around, and now I have my wood floor! We also plan to use it in our wedding booth.

Of course, I couldn’t resist the chance to put the set together in front of a backdrop, and take some photos! Here’s what we got!

We’ll be sure to take more photos of the finished booth once we get it done. If you get a chance, come visit us down at the wedding show on July 20th in El Paso, TX! We’ll be showcasing exactly why we’re the only choice for wedding photography in Las Cruces, New Mexico!

Roz