The thrill of the Hunt!

As we mentioned in the last post, we recently participated in a photo scavenger hunt with several other wedding photographers and vendors. Our friend Marc Wheeler, who puts on the fabulous Wedding Festival bridal shows with his wife Colleen, organized the hunt. He came up with some pretty interesting and challenging things to look for. For instance, nobody got a shot of a Delorean!

From the looks of it, we may have actually accumulated the most points and might be the winners. We say might because we haven't counted everyone else's points but we are somewhere in the lead. The winners will be announced March 4th and the anticipation is killing us. Win or lose it was just fun to get out and photograph something different.

Here are some of our favorites that we found:



"Bee on a flower"
Nothing too challenging right? Well, understand we did this hunt in November so you would think the bees would be hibernating or something. Thanks to global warming though, we found tons of them swarming flowers at Falls Park.



"Campfire"
This one comes complete with Union soldier sleeping in the background.



"Moving house"
We saw this "house on wheels" on the interstate while driving to an engagement shoot at USC.



"Two-headed anything"
Yeah right! Where are we going to find an animal with two heads? So we got the bright idea of finding a dragon with multiple heads (or a hydra for fellow word nerds).



"Rowboat"
One of our favorites because it looks reminiscent of something you'd see in a quaint fishing village. You would never guess this was in the middle of Greenville.



Here are some shots from our vacation in the Smokey Mountains. We stayed in the Pigeon Forge area which we are convinced is the biggest tourist trap in the world (and we've been to Orlando, FL many times). We've never seen so many "Pancake Houses" in our lives. They must think tourists crave pancakes 24-7. Needless to say we spent most of our time hiking the national forest and seeing waterfalls. We saw otters, turkey, deer and even a bear! If you are ever in the area, you have to drive the Cades Cove loop. We have never seen so many deer in one place before and the scenery is magnificent.








The animals are so used to the cars and people, they just walk right in front of you.


One of the more adventurous things we did was go on an ATV excursion up the side of a mountain.



Here we are looking especially chic in our enormous helmets and goggles.


More fun posts to come!



Curtis & Emily
Kismet Photography

Check out our shiny new website!

How sad it is that our last post was all the way back in 2007! For good reason though because we have been so busy since then and so much has happened that now it's time for a super-sized blog post to catch up.

Aside from the belly-expanding holidays, here is a sampling of some of the things that we've done in the last month or so:


1) Took a couple trips to Florida to see Emily's brand new nephew.

2) Booked a couple of weddings in Clearwater Beach while we were there!

3) Managed to squeeze in a much needed vacation in the Great Smokey Mountains. We'll post some of our favorite photos from the trip here soon. (and yes we took lots)

4) Had a few engagement shoots with some really fun couples. (Posts with images coming soon!)

5)Participated in a photo scavenger hunt in which we won...we think. The winners won't be announced officially until March 4th, but keep your fingers crossed for us!

6) Participated in two Wedding Festival bridal shows and met lots of wonderful brides and grooms and subsequently...

7) Booked more than half of 2008 and a couple for 2009. (Needless to say, more vacations will be necessary)

8) Joined a gym. To shed those holiday pounds and to have a place to jog when it's 40 degrees outside.

9) Ordered some amazing new cameras that will open up lots of creative possibilities. We are practically salivating waiting for them to come. And yes we are dorks that get this excited about new equipment.

10) Attended a photography workshop and got totally inspired for this wedding season, and our personal photography as well. Which made us want our new cameras even more!


All that was a blast and we've had a lot of fun and met a lot of wonderful people in the last month or so. But perhaps one of the biggest announcements is that we designed and created a brand-spankin' new website from scratch! It was a lot of work and a couple late nights spent reading lines and lines of code but it was totally worth it and we think you'll agree. Though it may be a little extra work designing the website ourselves, we love the freedom it allows us to change things up whenever we want and to make it look unique and not like a hundred other photographer's websites. That's what we're all about: being different.

So if you haven't already, go check it out at www.kismetphotography.net. And please feel free to tell us what you think either by sending us an email or leaving a comment to this post. We would love to hear your thoughts and if there is anything we can do to make it an even better viewing experience for you.

With all that said, there will be even more cool things for us to post about in the near future so stay tuned. For now though, we're calling it a night.


Pleasant Dreams,

Curtis & Emily
Kismet Photography