Nashville Special!

The free sessions have all filled up but I would love to offer a limited "new in town" special for those interested! Contact me by September 30th and $50 will be taken off the session fee meaning a session will only be $75. Regular price is $125. Sessions must be held before December 1st so that I can make sure to have all prints to you in time for Christmas.

And please be sure to let me know who, if anyone, referred you to me so that you both may be aptly rewarded. I look forward to hearing from you!!

Birthday time

I had my first shoot since moving to Nashville today and boy was it fun. It was a birthday party for 10 year-old Josh. His family had just recently moved here too and friends from school and their parents all came for the celebration.

All the food, inflatable slides, decorations and food machines (snow cones, popcorn and pucker powder) were coordinated by Dean of Fun Services in Nashville. Let me tell you, they went above and beyond! (As you'll see from the pictures) The cake was created by Chip Clark (I'll be getting his info soon) and was absolutely delicious! The volcano was chocolate cake with a chocolate ganache frosting. One word: AMAZING. Great job to everyone who helped put this together, especially their assistant Cheryl who obviously worked tirelessly to get everything and everyone coordinated. Thanks Cheryl!

The amazing cake

Palm trees from balloons decorating the area leading into where the food was

The cake was on a table surrounded by cupcakes. Yum!

Tiki hut which had tiki drinks

The outside of the house with the inflatable water slide, treats and music

I loved these as a kid. I would buy them with a little dip stick that you licked and then dipped in the powder. These days they fill up clear straw-like plastics with a variety of colors

Mmmm... snow kones... snow cones? :)

Entrance to the house

Josh's younger sister Hayley waiting for friends to come

The room was filled with balloons, each containing $1. When the time came, the balloons were popped and there was a scramble to grab all the money you could. Awesome idea. Loved it!

Josh the birthday boy enjoying all the great things there were to eat.

Lighting the cake

And blowing out the candles

Josh (a friend) and Hayley on the slide

Going down head first

Enjoying the time with friends.

Thanks again for a wonderful party! I'm exhausted. :)

Free photo sessions!! Yay for free!!

**UPDATE: The free session offer has filled up! Thanks to all who contacted me. If you are still interested in a photo shoot, I am going to be offering an "opening in Nashville" special. Please click HERE for more info.**

If you have been directed here either because of a Facebook ad or a friend welcome!! Please read below to understand a bit more about what will be going into the free session and what I am looking for.

I decided to do five free sessions in order to get my name out here in Nashville. My family and I just moved to Tennessee three weeks ago and I'm looking into building up my business and my portfolio to fit my style . Hopefully we can help each other out: you get something free and I get my name out there! Win-win! If you're here it's because you're at least interested in seeing what all this entails so thanks for stopping by and here we go!


A free session will be given to the first five people who inquire and book a session. They must fit the following criteria:

• FOR FAMILIES: Have at least one child , family of 5 members or less.
• FOR COUPLES: Happily in love and ready to show it. :)
  
• Will wear bold, rich colored clothing. Please, no identical outfits (ie: khakis and white tops) I want the images to represent how your family actually is and let's face it, most of us don't go around in matching outfits. :)
• Will allow for up to 2 hours of shooting.
  
• Is willing to allow me to help shape the photo shoot so that it has a lifestyle feel. This means we will visit one or two locations that are special to you. You will interact as a family/couple/friends and I will follow you around (kind of like the paparazzi), capturing the moment. We’ll make sure there are shots of you looking and smiling at the camera too but I’m looking to capture you and your loved one(s) as you really are! Need ideas? Email me and we'll come up with some!
  
• Is a member of Facebook and will allow images from the shoot to be uploaded to the social networking site and tagged.
• Will spend a minimum of $150 on prints (remember, your session is FREE!! Yay!)
  

In return you will receive:

• A free photo session!!
• 5-10 business cards to give to family and friends
• For every $50 spent on prints you will receive 1 (one) digital image which you will hopefully post on a family/personal blog. Acknowledgment of the photographer is imperative.
• For every person you refer to me, both you and the person you refer will receive one 8x10 image OR 1 digital image.

Sessions must take place in the Nashville Metro area. Digital images are available to purchase but are not included in the session.

You made it! Now all you need to do is send me an email and we'll get started planning. When you contact me, please let me know that you would like the free session and tell me how you found out about me. You can contact me via phone at:

615.829.6376

Or via email at:

abbie@abbierufener.com

I look forward to hearing from you. We're going to have a blast!

PS. My web address is: http://abbierufener.com

#3-Buy a Nikon D90

I did it! About a month ago. Bought myself a pretty new camera body. And it's been well worth the upgrade. Some have been surprised (others possibly even scoffed) when they found out I was shooting with a D40 before. I am a firm believer though that it's the artist first and then the tool... not that I'm calling myself an artist but you know the saying.

The upgrades with the D90 have been beyond wonderful... now I secretly pine for the D700. Obviously the D3 would be most amazing but it's slightly (cough cough) out of our student/side business budget. So I am happily content with what I have and what I am able to do. I feel as though a new world has been opened up to me!

Now I just need to get some business... hmm... :)

On a completely different note, I am on the lookout for amazing sweet potato fries. I have some expectations though, well, just one and here it is: I want a crunchy/crispy sweet potato fry. I tried two places already which I had found on the web. Everyone had raved about how good the sweet potato fries were. I didn't like either one. The first batch at a "diner" was too greasy and soggy. The second batch was baked in the oven and kind of like eating mush. The taste was good but the texture... not so much. So Nashville people, if you are reading this and know of some awesome sweet potato fries please share the info. :)

Question published! :)

Have you ever asked someone you admired a question... someone whom you knew was probably pretty busy and you didn't even know if you would hear back from them? As a newbie photographer I've asked lots of questions of other photographers and I've been pretty lucky b/c I've gotten some great answers back which have helped me improve and understand how this whole photography business works.

Well last weekend I asked DrewB of Momtog blog a question and completely forgot I had asked it. How fun to open up google reader this morning, see that Momtog had a new blog to read and then see my question answered. And not just a short answer but a long, explanatory answer! I was elated. Head on over and check out what Drew has to say about getting people to "get dirty" while they're doing a shoot.

#6- Buy the Nikon 50 mm 1.8d or 1.4g

For those confused about the goals I'm listing, please click on my 101 in 1001 post and you'll understand.

I did it! I bought a new lens and let me tell you, I could not be happier!! I decided on the 50 mm 1.8d as it was/is more in my price range at the moment. I've also heard fantastic things about it. I'm getting use to using a prime lens. I'll be honest, it's a bit hard. I'm so used to my zoom and I find myself always too close to my subject with this lens but I'm getting the hang of it.

And... here are some shots I took using it last night while little Booboo was in the tub. She was being such a ham and so I grabbed my camera quickly and got these:

#101-Visit a state I have not yet visited

Oh let me tell you! I have already smacked down a few of these goals already!! I'm stoked. The first one I'm posting about is #101- Visit a state I have not yet visited. And yes, I'm going to count a Canadian province as a state since that is their equivalent. On my family cruise we were able to visit the Yukon of all places. I even have the stamp in my passport to prove it. As if the sign weren't big enough right? :) Yukon was pretty desolate (but beautiful) to say the least. When people talk about being in the middle of nowhere, it is quite possible they are thinking about a place like the Yukon. There are only 33,000 inhabitants and all food, equipment, clothing, or other needs one might have must be shipped in to. The area has a rich (no pun intended) and sad history linked to the Alaskan gold rush which made the tour we took through the area very intriguing.

Though we were only there a few hours I'm counting the Yukon as my visit to a state I've never before visited.

Alaska- Nashville Photographer

Wow, I haven't blogged in forever! Hopefully you are still there my faithful blog readers. It's been an absolutely crazy past few weeks. We left for an Alaskan cruise with my family the last week of July and had to have all of our belongings packed up and out of our apartment before we left for the vacation. Once we returned we then packed it up in a rental truck and I drove down to Nashville, where I sit at my laptop typing this post.

This was my third trip to Alaska and like the other two trips, was full of fun times and wonderful memories. I can't thank my parents enough for this trip. They decided a cruise would make a much better reunion than any other place since we could enjoy all the food, games, relaxing, hot tubbing, reading, etc. that we wanted... all included in one steal of a deal price that my Dad found online.

Enjoy these few images! If you are a reader of my personal blog you'll notice there are a few different ones here and definitely not the 40 or so on our family blog. :)

For those of you who don't know my darling daughter, this is Ella

Beautiful Vancouver skyline

My brother, the gangsta

First port of call: Ketchikan

Fishing vessels in Ketchikan

The view on one of our hikes.

Cruising Tracy Fjord, near Sawyer glacier. Absolutely breathtaking.

Tracy Fjord

Rounding the bend to Sawyer glacier

Unbelievable...

Siamo in quattro

Family love... what goes around comes around

Our floating city

Ella using my lens cap as her cell phone

Ironically enough, this area is called Desolation Valley

Can I just say, this trip was amazing! I really can't thank my parents enough. It's sad that it's over but there is so much to come here in Nashville. Can't wait to post more about what I'm going to be trying to do! Stay tuned!