HayMckenna Photography: April 2012

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Allie & Scott - Engagement at Great Falls

Our good wishes and special thanks to Allie and Scott for being so amazing, so beautiful and so much fun.

On Sunday morning when the alarm goes off at 5Am the first thought is to hit the snooze button and go out for donuts in a couple of hours. It is hard to imagine why anyone would go to Great Falls at dawn .... until you get there.

When we arrived there were only a few loan kayakers. There is absolutely nothing like having Great Falls all to yourself at sunrise.

Our thanks to Allie and Scott for being so much fun. A piggy back ride, looked a bit like a mugging through the lens. We were cracking up. They were spinning around and it looked like they were about to pitch into the canal. We climbed across the canal on a rickety old lock plank to get a fresh look at a waterfall and a view of the historic lock house. Everyone should have the experience of Great Falls at dawn. It was absolutely wonderful.

Good luck Allie and Scott!!!!

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

The Year in Albums

In 2011 we made the transition to designing our own albums. Oh what a year it was!

I wanted to thank everyone for all of your patience, support and feedback. Demand for these albums suddenly doubled during winter. For the first time in my career we experienced a winter album backlog. Initially I designed my albums in Photoshop and realized very quickly that InDesign is infinitely more powerful. The design options are limitless with InDesign. We don't use templates. Every album is custom.

I have totally fallen in love with album design!!!!!

2011 Deadlines :) During the remainder of April we will complete all outstanding albums. We bind and ship all in April to prepare for the May bridal season. All prints will be completed too.

If you have additional revision requests please submit them ASAP :)

Thank you! Everyone has been so terrific.

2012 album planning :)

Each album is given 6 hours of design and 3 hours of revisions, give or take a couple of hours :).

Each design draft is placed online for your review and comment.

The standard for this year will be to complete the first draft in a day and revisions in a week.

Album Satisfaction Survey - Please give us your feedback :)

To my favorite 2011 album dawdlers :) If you have not submitted your 2011 album favorites for design yet please note May is our heaviest wedding month of the year and I will be concentrating on putting every wedding online in one week. I know you all remember how excited couples are to see their images.

Half of you called during the honeymoon this year!

As a special note our albums won 3 design awards this year including "best print", "best layout" and "best in show". Thank you all for your ideas, and patience. This far exceeded our expectations. I am now convinced that custom design is sooooo worth the time, patience and care it takes to really tell a wedding story.

Some day you will sit in rocking chairs on the porch and remember back on just how beautiful you were and how amazing your day was. I am so grateful to have been part of it and so fiercely proud of these albums.

Thank you for your help through the transition. We are so proud of the result.

xox Elaine