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I know someone out there was wondering, right?

These photos are courtesy of my good friend Allyson from Sweet Pea Photography. I decided it was high time I had some good headshots done and a few shots with my beloved Nikon D200 and Shootsac. I also want you beautiful brides out there to know a little bit more about who I am!

I have to say that it was really weird being on the other side of the lens. Allyson had to keep reminding me to “real” smile instead of fake smile. Sadly, I think I like my fake or half-smile better. And I realized that my posing eye works better when I’m holding a camera. I was still pretty good at scoping out good spots at least.

I’ve just ordered a bunch of these from my lab to hand out at Thanksgiving to some of my family. I mean, really, I don’t think I’ve had a professional picture taken since my senior year of college. It felt kind of like ordering senior pictures again (I even got some wallets!), but I know my grandmas, mom and boyfriend will at least appreciate the gesture.

I like this one more and more all the time

Now I know what my clients see!


My new Facebook profile pic

I don’t normally shoot in RAW, but Allyson shot these that way, and I had LOADS of fun playing with Adobe Camera Raw. If I play with it a bit more, I think I could possibly become a convert. At least part-time.

My “serious” face

Do you like any of them? Which poses do you like especially? Which one should becoming my avatar on www.hollybirchphotography.com?

Julie contacted me last weekend about a small, private wedding she and Larry were having with just their children and grandchildren. We were only together about and hour, but I felt so honored to have been a part of their small gathering at the Idea Garden on the University of Illinois campus.

It had rained most of the day before and we were worried that it would be raining during the wedding, but it was just overcast. I was hoping for a nice romantic sunset to set the mood behind them, but it didn’t quite turn out that way. Still, I’m happy with the results. Let me know what you think!

Today I was thinking about how my internet presence had probably changed drastically over the past year, so I Googled (isn’t it funny how that’s a regular verb now?) my full name in quotation marks. I came up with 5 of the top 10 results! My business came up as the first result both with and without quotation marks.

So then, I Googled wedding photographers in Urbana in the business listings, and I am the top result!

There are more wedding photographers in Champaign, so I come up there as the 10th result, but still on the front page. Somehow though, Allyson over at Sweet Pea Photography beat me and she doesn’t even do weddings!

Edit: I just realized that there is a difference between Googling “wedding photography” and “wedding photographers.” Guess I need to update my content and keywords a little bit more!

I just had lunch with our little C-U area female photographer’s guild at El Toro 2 (yum!): Stacey, Linda, Melissa, Allyson and me. I was just thinking about how funny it is though that we don’t have any pictures from our lunches (we have gotten together several times the last year). Hey ladies… if you’re reading this, we should do that next time! I think I had my Fuji point-and-shoot with me!

Instead, I’m going to post a pic of me working for all of you. Ha! This is actually a photo that the mother-of-the-bride took of me photographing the image in the post below!