The past, and the future!

Wow, it’s already a week into 2009! This last year has gone by so quickly, I can hardly believe it.
2008 was a big year for us, a year of huge changes, and awesome surprises.

This, finally, is the WG-blog intro of Rohen, Dallas’ little guy – he’s already 6 months old, and totally the cutest! It’s been so much fun watching him grow from teeny tiny into a real little person with his own cute laugh and sense of humour.

It’s surreal to think how we started off back in the good ol’ days of film cameras, using flash meters, and taking polaroids to get our lighting right, not having today’s convenience of the digital LCD screen on the back of our cameras to ensure our photos were working out. There was this implicit self-trust that that little roll of film would prove you right, would stay true to the artistic and technical vision you saw inside your head. A roll of 35mm film held 36 photos, a roll of medium format 120 film held only 12 photos. Today, the 16GB memory cards we use hold 1000 raw files. Crazy!

When we started off, we knew very little about the wedding industry in general. Our goal was to stay true to ourselves, to make unique and fun photos that stood out, photos we could be proud of. We made photos that brought the couples in them joy, photos that showed truth and honest beauty. Over 200 weddings later, that excitement still isn’t growing old!

We’ve been to almost every venue and church in town over that time, and are honored to have been commissioned to record the most important life step of so many kind and amazing people.

Dallas and I have obviously changed a lot too. When we started off, we were just kids. We moved from meeting couples at the neighborhood coffee shop, to a studio in a (ice cold) airport hangar, to a downtown penthouse with an incredible view. We were a team through good times and hard times, both personally and professionally. We stayed the best of friends, and had lots of fun while we worked. We are proud of ourselves, and proud and amazed by all of you, our current clients and past clients, for being so incredibly supportive of what we do.

Our business is growing in new and different directions. 2009 marks the last year for Dallas shooting weddings – his focus will move towards commercial, fashion and editorial photography. I will continue to shoot weddings into 2010 and beyond. So Whitley Goodman Photography is going to be changing drastically. The website as you know it will soon be forwarded to reflect my work, as 2010 bookings are now starting to come in, and Dallas will soon unveil a new website for his commercially focused work. So please stay tuned for big change!

Speaking of big change, I have something totally awesome to share with you today from one of our last shoots in 2008. We photographed Jari and Candice’s wedding in June 2006, and met with them in November, this time to photograph a new step in their lives together, the addition of their son Cameron to the family! This was Jari and Candice back then:

… and this is now!

What a cute family!

Look at those big blue eyes! What a little heartbreaker!

This one’s a favorite – little Cameron’s facial expression seems to say ‘Grown-ups are so weird! What are they all laughing about?!?”

Hope you are all looking forward to the changes to the site (and the blog too!!) as much as Dallas and I are! Thanks, and the very best to you and yours in 2009!

Cheers! Buffy and Dallas