KATE NOELLE PHOTOGRAPHY » MY LIFE

Walnuts and Rice

knoelle — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 00:35:08 +0000

I remember in sunday school… way back when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade, my sunday school teacher brought glass jars, whole walnuts, and rice into the classroom for our lesson. I remember her teaching us how to prioritize our lives (as best as a 2nd or 3rd grader can understand, mind you…) putting important things like spending time with God, doing our homework, and loving our families first. She put a few whole walnuts in the jar, almost so it looked like there wouldn’t be any more room for anything else. I remember feeling anxious about there not being anymore room in the jar for things like playing with friends, soccer games, and art classes… things that I loved, but that my teacher categorized “not as important”. But then, the teacher added grains of rice to the jar… a great many little grains filled in the gaps between the “important things”, and I was amazed to find that all those “little things” I wanted to do found room in the already very crowded jar of life. ”Decide what your walnuts should be first,” my teacher said. “Then fill in the rest of your time with all those small things you wish to do and need to be done.”

Well, I just turned another year older last week, and surprisingly enough, this lesson still replays in the back of my mind every so often when life seems a little too crowded for my taste. While I don’t have that jar anymore, I do have that memory to serve as the rudder to redirect my priorities. When I allow “all the small things” to get filled in first, the important things don’t end up fitting in my calendar… important things like spending time with Christopher, spending time reading His word, journaling, and reading that book I’ve been meaning to read for months.

So this lull in blogging… this has been a time of re-adjusting my “priorities rudder”…. a time for figuring out what the important things are and making time for them amidst the many little things that need to get done. I have a stack of AMAZING shoots to share with you in the coming weeks, but for now, I wanted to share snapshots from my life in the past month…

Home away from Home

knoelle — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 20:24:25 +0000

Today, I’m missing Herrnhut…. my home away from home. I’m missing the endless green fields, the tall skinny trees, the red roofs, and the stillness of the small town. This last trip to Germany, I had the chance to take Christopher to this place that’s so near and dear to my heart. We got to walk from the castle to town through the silent forest, listening to nothing but the wind rustling the leaves high in the tree tops. We got to explore through this quiet town, grab some Turkish Doener to snack on, and we got to enjoy the lack of impending to-do lists. The quiet that surrounded this place inspired quiet hearts and quiet minds, and as we walked in silence, we felt His peace.

Where, in your life, do you find your home away from home? Today, I pray you find peace and quiet away from the craziness… even, if only for a moment.

Nuremberg Adventures

knoelle — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 18:20:51 +0000

One of my favorite things to do is explore. It’s exciting getting myself lost (just as long as I can find my way afterwards), experiencing the culture around me, and feeling free to be inspired. This morning, as Christopher and I walked out into the crisp morning cold, I told him I was excited to photograph and not feel the pressure of “getting the shots”. I could take photos of post-its if I wanted to… and I did. We had a late breakfast, then headed out toward the old town of Nuremberg.

Fun Fact: The old city of Nuremberg is embedded in the center of the greater Nuremberg area and is surrounded by the old wall that originally acted as the city gate. Within the old city is a bunch of historical landmarks that include two giant churches and a castle…. all built in the 1500s. We visited all of them!

It’s amazing how deep the european culture runs. I love it. Here are a few pictures from today’s adventures…..

Funny story about this pic…. Chris was quite confused reading the title of this book. He thought it was some sort of anti-fitness book. But in fact, it’s not…. Mike and Jasmin were quite amused by that…

Shoot for Fun

knoelle — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 07:56:19 +0000

Some people have the gift of learning by hearing instructions, or even by looking at a step by step manual. I, unfortunately, don’t really have either of those gifts… I learn by doing. A lot people ask me how I started with photography, wondering if I went to college to get a degree in it. The answer to that is… I almost did. For a long time, I bought into the normal societal assumption that to be anybody, to make a decent living, you NEED a degree. So naturally, when deciding I wanted to be a wedding photographer, I assumed that I had to go to school and graduate with a degree. Well, after a lot of conversations with numerous people, through lots of prayer and deep thinking, I decided against going to school… and instead, go and do photography. I watched tutorials, I went to photographer shootouts, I read books and manuals. I did take a few college courses on business and photoshop, but all my knowledge and experience in photography comes from doing as much of it as I possibly can.

So, at WPPI, that conference I talked about in my last post, my friends and I decided to further what we were learning and actually put our learning to the test. For these photos, since I didn’t bring my own camera (Nikon), I used Alexandra’s camera (Canon) to shoot. Now, before you Nikon lovers shun and banish me to the edge of town, just know I’m even more in love with my Nikon than I was before. But for the record, it really truly is what you do with the camera that matters…. not what brand you use.

Here are some of my favorites from the evening of shooting for fun….

(Photo Credit: Betsy Lackey)

These three images were taken with one table light to her left….

These were taken with the desk lamp on to her left, and a floor lamp held up to her face to her right…. kinda looks like studio lighting, no? Loved these photos!

Alexandra holding the lamp for the above shots…

Then I shot a few of Alexandra with just the desk light on her left… Love the soft and seductive feel of this one!

Then they both stole the cameras back and shot me, but they made me laugh too much…

So then we got dressed to attend a photographer social function and ended up being REALLY late because we were doing this….

All in all, it was rejuvenating and SO MUCH FUN to shoot just for the fun of it. I highly encourage you to have fun, experiment, and put your book learning to action…. however that looks in your own life.

Laugh Till Your Insides Fall Out

knoelle — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 00:39:01 +0000

Every year there’s a gigantic conference for wedding photographers called WPPI at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, NV. It’s not just any conference… it’s the mother of all conferences and photographers from all over the world fly in to learn, hone their craft, see the latest in technology and products, and to brush shoulders with the best in the industry. You know when you’re watching the news and they’re covering some event that is swarming with paparazzi? Yeah… it’s kinda like that…. times 10,000. Photographers EVERYWHERE, impromptu photo shoots happening every 10 yards, and the typical elevator chit-chat includes photographer jargon like “…ISO capabilities…”, “… so we shot everyone in the church…”, and “…do you prefer auto white balance, or manual Kelvin?”

I love it.

Anyhoo…. the beauty of this conference is that it’s soooo packed with information, people to meet, things to see, and ideas to consider, that the growth happening during those few days is like forced osmosis. At the end of each day, it feels like your brain is exploding…. in a good way.

But I think my favorite part of this conference is what happens in between all of the learning, seeing, and people meeting. My favorite is the conversations and the time spent with those who sharpen me. Iron sharpens Iron, and I crave relationships like that. Although business and technical improvement are really important, they can’t be everything we talk about. And while I AM a photographer, I’m also a person who craves deep relationship, and I can’t live a healthy and balanced life by just nurturing one part of me. So in between the business and photographic learning at WPPI, I get to spend my time delving deep into issues regarding real life, purpose, and love with people whom I have the privilege of calling friends. We get to pray together, study His word together, cry together, and laugh until our insides fall out. The holistic growth the happens when friends, who happen to share the same passions as you, come together to build each other up…. it’s vital to my growth… as both a photographer and a person.

Here’s a few shots Betsy took of me while a few of us were in a fit of hysterical laughter…. love them!

On the Go Bride

knoelle — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 23:43:46 +0000

Every year, I set goals for myself, and for my business. The goals range from simply spending more time journaling (it’s a lot harder than it sounds) and revamping my website, to bigger things like increasing the number of weddings, engagements, and portraits I shoot per year. I like to set goals because I never want to be a person who stops growing and learning. It’s a good exercise to write these goals down because then I feel responsible to fulfill them…. kind of like keeping myself accountable to the person I wish to be. Well, one of my big business goals last year was to try to get 2 weddings published in magazines or wedding style blogs. I started smaller and submitted a few engagement shoots, then drew up the courage to submit some weddings. I was floored when wedding blogs and even a magazine wanted to publish my work! And I’m SO EXCITED to report that 3 Engagement shoots, 1 portrrait, and 3 weddings were published last year. Woohoo! The latest wedding to be published is Joe and Rachel’s Sacramento Area wedding from last fall! To view their full post at “On the Go Bride” Blog, click here.

So here’s to setting goals… dreaming bigger… and achieving those goals. Here’s to becoming to person we wish to be!

Dallas

knoelle — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 17:59:50 +0000

After almost 10 months of going at 200%, I took a little mini adventure vacation for 3 days in October. My bestie Betsy Lackey invited me to meet her in Dallas for the Needtobreath & Taylor Swift concert…. on a whim. Usually, I don’t jump on whims that require lots of traveling and uncertainty, but this time, I did, and a few weeks later I found myself on plane to Dallas without knowing the “where’s”, the “how’s”, or the “when’s” that one might want to know BEFORE traveling. Sometimes in life, to prevent spontaneous combustion, a little unplanned meandering is required. Here is my photographic journal of sorts, documenting this unplanned and simply refreshing trip to Dallas….

“The years go by like stones under rushing water. We only know, we only know when it’s gone.” -Needtobreathe

New Year… New Look

knoelle — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 05:21:20 +0000

Hello! And Happy New Year! It’s 2012, which means lots and lots of NEW is happening. January is such a fun time…. it’s a time for reviewing the highs and lows of the previous year, taking notes on how to make the new year better than the last, and my favorite… dreaming. It’s an exciting thing to witness evolution of thought, being, and goals. Where I was, I am no longer.

I’ve been listening to Elevation Worship’s “All Things New” a lot lately…. and I’ve adopted it as my mantra for 2012. Last year was intense in both amazing… and not so amazing ways. But looking forward at the open road ahead, I can’t help but have hope and peace that whatever comes, He is near and deeply involved in the world around me. Hope is an exciting thing.

And with that, I’d like to share my ALL NEW website!! This has been a work in progress for quite some time… involving lots of soul searching and self-realization. It’s been almost 4 years now that Kate Noelle Photography has been in existence. Whoa…. (having a moment)

So, while my dream and vision have remained the same, my website’s look and feel has changed to reflect the changes I’ve undergone in the past couple of years. I’m excited at the unending spectrum of possibility this year holds, and I hope you’ll continue to journey with me on this crazy adventure of living life to the fullest.

Here’s a shot Christopher took of me at a shoot recently…

And here’s the all new look of Kate Noelle Photography’s Website! Head on over to www.katenoelle.com to check it out!

There are all new galleries featuring some oldies, but mostly new images…

There’s a new “Connect” page where you can find every possible way to connect with me via social media…. I hope you’ll find me so we can be friends!

And I’m also excited about an all new “Word on the Street” section where past clients have laid out their experiences with me as their photographer…. I love my clients!!

Creating Traditions

knoelle — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 18:21:41 +0000

Last week, I photographed Century High School’s Holiday choir concert. I’ve been present at most concerts with my camera ready for the past 3 years or so…. to help document the evolution of Century’s choir program and to show support for my dad. It’s really cool watching the students grow up and gain confidence with their voices as they move through the program.

This past year, my dad had the opportunity to write the Alma Mater for the high school…. and it’s been exciting for him to hear it sung at football games and pep rallies. How cool is that?! He wrote the song that will tie all alumni to each other throughout their lives…. the song that promotes unity and pride for a school. What an amazing tradition to be a part of…

I thought these few shots were really amazing from the concert… shots of my dad leading the choirs and the audience in the alma mater…. and students actually getting into the spirit of it…. I’m proud of you, Dad!

The End of “Movember”

knoelle — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 01:18:41 +0000

Last year, November marked the time of year when Christopher decided to sport a mustache. (You can view last year’s mustache here.) I thought maybe it had gotten out of his system, but one morning early in the month, I walked into the kitchen to find a mustached man eating Christopher’s breakfast. “Wonderful,” I thought. “Here we go again.”

Well, I’ll have you know that he was encouraged by our friends Jeff and Trevor, who spent the month of November “mustache-edly” clad in support of our dear friend John Riedl as he continues to battle cancer. “It’s for a good cause,” I told myself. And it was. These three endured many awkward stares, pesky leftover food crumbs, and repulsed wives…. and to celebrate the end, they decided to take some “gross mustache photos.” And they were indeed gross…. here’s the results of the shoot …. (Please Note: This is not normal attire for any of these men. They’re usually very respectable…..)

Once we were done with the gross mustache shots, we moved onto a more serious and pretty family photo of the Clinard Clan.

And then we got crazy again….

I’m sorry to see November already far past, but I’m glad to have a mustache-less husband for another year. Way to go boys… you did good.