Fall is my favorite season, but Christmas is my favorite time of the year!  I love the crisp air, the Christmas lights, the quiet, blanket of snow that covers everything (ok, well in the North the snow exists), the Christmas tunes that some stations start playing at Thanksgiving (woo hoo!) and there’s nothing like sitting on the couch bundled up in a blanket with no lights on except the twinkling lights of the Christmas tree lights, and no sound but the burning wood in the fireplace cracking and Christmas tunes playing from our iPod… ahhh…  Oh, not to mention it’s a time where we celebrate the One who came and gave us life in the first place!  :)

So sad that Christmas is over.  After our crazy months of traveling Zach and I were looking forward to finally being back home, doing some work, and then RELAXING together in TN, just the two of us!  We had a great Christmas just hanging out together and we are enjoying the time we have set aside to relax and chill before we shoot our first wedding of the year this Saturday.  Yay!!

In honor of Christmas day being over and everyone going through detox of all the hype, shopping, and presents, which can leave us feeling empty inside, I thought I would post this little diddy that I received from my sister’s mother-in-law, Linda!

Jesus is Better than Santa
Santa lives at the North Pole.
JESUS is everywhere.

Santa rides in a sleigh
JESUS rides on the wind and walks on the water.

Santa comes but once a year
JESUS is an ever present help.

Santa fills your stockings with goodies
JESUS supplies all your needs.

Santa comes down your chimney uninvited
JESUS stands at your door and knocks.. And then enters your heart.

You have to stand in line to see Santa
JESUS is as close as the mention of His name.

Santa lets you sit on his lap
JESUS lets you rest in His arms.

Santa doesn’t know your name, all he can say is “Hi little boy or girl, What’s your name?”
JESUS knew our name before we did.. Not only does He know our name, He knows our address too. He knows our history and future and He even knows how many hairs are on our heads.

Santa has a belly like a bowl full of jelly
JESUS has a heart full of love.

All Santa can offer is HO HO HO
JESUS offers health, help and hope.

Santa says “You better not cry”
JESUS says “Cast all your cares on me for I care for you.

Santa’s little helpers make toys
JESUS makes new life, mends wounded hearts, repairs broken homes and builds mansions.
Santa may make you chuckle but
JESUS gives you joy that is your strength.

While Santa puts gifts under your tree
JESUS became our gift and died on the tree.

Jesus is still the reason for the season.

Merry Christmas, everyone and happy new year!!  Thank-you, Lord for the gift of your son!

And now to leave you with a rockin’ Christmas lights video… It gets really good starting at 0:42 seconds so hold out!

We recently spent the  afternoon with the amazingly cool Josh VanValkenburg & Jenny Gill out at Jenny’s family farm in Franklin shooting their engagement images.  Jenny and Josh are a great couple, and even though it was a bit chilly that day day, you could hardly tell with these two!   They were troopers and rocked it out with many laughs and great moments!  We are really looking forward to shooting their wedding out at Jenny’s family home in Belle Meade this May and already feel like we have known these guys for much longer then just a month!  PS – Gentlemen, for those of you struggling with ideas on how to pop the question… Josh is the man to go to!  He has set the bar HIGH for all of his fellow man friends … :)

Check out some of our favorites from the shoot below!

Love the next two shots of these guys…

Josh bringing the heat!

Love this candid moment of the two of them twirling around. Ahh…..

These guys have such a natural presence in front of the camera it is almost too easy! :) Hottie!!

We grabbed a few shots in one of the old cabins on their property. Jenny and Josh have spent some time out here and this place means a lot to them.

You guys are awesome and we can’t wait to hang againg soon!! Movie night is calling our names! :)

To sign Josh & Jenny’s virtual guestbook and view all the images once available online, click here.

Here is a little Christmas message to all of our blog readers! From us, to you! Happy Holidays!!!!!!!!!

**Scroll below for latest post**

To view the message from Jody, click on the image below!

To view the message from Zach, click on the image below!

Now get off the blog and go spend time with your family!!

We have alluded to it. We have hinted at it. Shoot, it’s even been on our site for awhile.  But now it is time to come out with guns blazing and officially announce the latest development of our business that has been in the works for the last year – our associate photographers!

MEET KRISTINE -

We met Kristine almost three years ago when she and her husband booked us to shoot their own wedding!  We have loved Kristine (and her husband too :) from the very beginning, and are thrilled that she has joined our team.  With her natural eye and love for photography and people, Kristine is an undisputable fit for what we are doing here!

MEET JESSICA RAI -

We met Jessica Rai almost a year ago when we began our associate search. She was one of the two people we interviewed out of over 40 other applicants and we were impressed with her skill, and fun, personable spirit.  Jessica Rai recently got married herself and has eagerly joined the Gray Photography team.  Holla!

To view more information on Kristine & Jessica Rai, as well as portfolios, visit the Associates tab on our website.

If you are a wedding vendor and would like more information from us, please email us at Info@grayphotograph.com!

(PS. We are super sorry for those who thought that our big announcement was going to involve little Zach and Jodys being added to our family… alas, we are not pregnant… sorry to disappoint :)

Ah, and now it’s time to brag on my husband!!!!!!!!!

PPA Magazine (Professional Photographers of America) holds a cover image contest for one of its issues every year.  A few months ago we were contacted by them saying that an image Zach submitted of his made it to the top 100…which was really exciting because there were more than 4,600 entries entered of photographers vying for a spot in the magazine spread. Then we found out more recently Zach made it to the top 15 and was going to be published amongst the winners!!  We were (and are) pretty pumped and if you look through the November issue you’ll see his image among the other finalists and winner (who is also from Nashville!)!

Here is the magazine cover shot (by Mama Shan of Nashville, TN!).

Here is Zach’s image from the magazine spread (sorry for the low res!).

And here is the shot that Zach took way back in early 2008 of the amazingly awesome Casey and Carmen!

Way to go babe!!

Enjoy the goodness!

(Thanks to those who offered to send your copy of the magazine to us!  We appreciate it!)

We really love the lighting photography workshops that we are able to do and get so excited to share what we have learned with other shooters! The great thing about the lighting workshops is we keep the classes super small to maximize the learning time. When we launched the first class in the OC it filled up so fast we decided to open an additional class, hence our third day of IN-CAMERA photography workshops in Laguna Beach!

Our heart behind our workshops is that we really want you (our attendees!) to walk away with the tools to do the same thing yourself, not just get a couple of cool shots. So we really take the day slow and let each photographer set up the light rig themselves, meter the lights and compose their shot. That way, they will be able to walk away and re-create their own version of some awesome off-camera lighting.

Both days started off great and we had a fun time talking through some of the techniques that we use in order to quickly and efficiently set up our lighting shots.

Thanks to Chris Robertson for shooting these shots with our camera!

Then, after lunch we headed out to set up our first few shots!! All of the following images have no Photoshop enhancements and are pretty much straight out of the camera with some very minor adjustments done in Adobe Lightroom that took about two second to do.

Our model Jesiree workin it!

Here is a little behind the scenes shot of our next set up using our Westcott lighting rig.

And the resulting image.

Here is another behind-the-scenes image of our set up down at the beach. These were shot about 1.5 hours before sunset when the natural light was still pretty bright.

The resulting image ended up being one of my favorite that I took during the whole series of photo workshops here in California.

We also demonstrated a two light set-up to show everyone the effect of adding another kicker light to camera left.

Our other lighting workshop was awesome as well and we got some really cool shots out on the beach!

Our model Kahala was super cool too and rocked it out for us below!! Thanks also to Brooke for doing such an amazing job as well!

Day One Group!

Day Two Group!

It was super amazing coming out to So Cal and we can’t wait to come back! We keep getting requests for holding a business workshop out here, so let us know if you are interested in us coming back and we just might be there sooner than you think!

Watch this harrowing video of my dangerous self taming a wild beast in the jungle piers of Southern Cal. And we also drank some milkshakes.

Have you ever had a near death experience like this? If so, tell us about it! Foaming squirrel attacks, run ins with clowns and teletubby encounters all apply.

This week we have been in the great state of California conducting our IN-CAMERA photography workshops and we have been having a blast!!  We are meeting so many great photographers and pumping out a lot of golden nuggets of information.

A HUGE thanks goes out to the amazing and fabulous Mapuana who was our point person on the ground and made it happen for us to come to California!

A second thank-you goes to David of Tosti Studios who let us takeover his studio for 3 days.  His studio is at a killer spot, right on the North Coast Highway facing the beautiful Laguna Beach and was perfect for the teaching portions of our workshops!!

Here is a little visual highlight of our sold out Shooting & Post class (limited to 20 students)… winner of the farthest traveler goes to Josh who flew in all the way from Ohio!

In this shot you can really see how many photographers were there shooting. It was sooo fun!!

And of course we ended the shoot taking some silhouette shots as the sun began to set!

Here we are with David Tosti posing it up!

And the very last part of the workshop is taking class attendants through our post production process, and showing shortcuts and tricks on how we are able to post an entire wedding of approx 1200 images in approx 2.5 hours.

The Shooting & Post group!

Fun, fun time. Great weather. Great beach. Great models. Great photogs. LOVE IT!