Close Memorial Park Engagement Portraits

Q: What has three heads, eight legs, and a whole lotta love?

A: Jami and Brad's engagement portraits!

Here are some of the final images we delivered to this awesome couple who brought their dog Nero along for a Sunday afternoon engagement portrait shoot at Nathanael Greene Close Memorial Park in Springfield.

As you can tell from Jami and Brad's pictures, Close Memorial Park is one of the best (and most popular) locations for engagement portrait photography in Springfield, MO.

The park offers everything from a tranquil lake lined with beautiful weeping willow trees and benches, to several barns and bridges.  And if that doesn't suit your tastes, the adjacent Botanical Gardens are filled with plants, flowers, and scenery for that perfect backdrop.

To avoid conflicts with wedding photography commitments, I typically schedule engagement portrait sessions at Close Memorial Park, and other locations around Springfield, MO on Sunday afternoons. 

While many couples prefer the natural surroundings of the park, I can also suggest several more urban locations around the city for your engagement portraits, too.

Regardless of the location, I always encourage couples to bring along at least one change of clothes, as well as any "props" to help make their engagement portraits special and unique--including dogs and other pets!

If you'd like to see pictures from other engagement portrait sessions I've shot in and around Springfield, please visit our Springfield Missouri wedding and engagement portrait photography website anytime. 

The sessions normally last from 60 to 90 minutes, and our fee is $250.  Afterwards, you'll receive all of your finished and retouched images on a high resolution disc with a copyright release.  You can then take the disc to the photo counter or lab of your choice to order prints, enlargements, photobooks and more!

As always, thanks very much for reading, and please join me in wishing Jami, Brad, and Nero all the best!!

Nick

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Springfield MO Wedding Photography: Make your own Photobooks and Wedding Albums

Like many other wedding photographers in Springfield and Branson, MO we include CD's containing high-resolution images (and an accompanying copyright release) in each of our wedding photography packages. It gives you the freedom to take your CD to the photo counter or lab of your choice to order prints and enlargements; upload your wedding pictures to social networking sites like Facebook; and even make your own DIY (do it yourself) photobooks or albums.

While I always recommend ordering professional-quality prints of the photos you wish to frame or display through us, I'm constantly amazed at the quality of the books and albums our clients have made, using the pictures on their CD's and the simple, online software that's readily available on the internet.

If you're thinking of making your own photobook or album with your wedding photos, here are some sites to check out:

Shutterfly

Shutterfly offers the option to make photobooks or wedding albums in a variety of sizes, designs, and finishes at some very affordable prices.  Using the site's online tools, you can make your own professionally bound, leather or fabric covered wedding album in a standard 12x12 size for about $50.  Smaller albums and photobooks are even more affordable.

Shutterfly's "Storyboard" tool is particularly useful; you pick the order of your photos, and the tool provides layout and page sugestions.

Lulu

Popular with brides and grooms, as well as photographers and planners, Lulu offers both simple and more advanced options for book and album design.  It's a bit more complicated and expensive than Shutterfly, but well worth the effort and expenditure if you're interested in a more "custom" and professional look for your book or album.

Snapfish

Owned by computer giant Hewlett-Packard, Snapfish is a great choice for those who prefer to design and publish more casual photobooks, as opposed to a traditional wedding album.  The software is extremely simple to use, allowing you to design and order a very nice photobook in less than 30 minutes.

Picaboo

My favorite site on the list is Picaboo, a relatively new site that offers something for everyone.  Picaboo's photobook and album options range from simple Classic designs for as little as $10, to beautiful handcrafted Flush Mount albums starting at $349.  Like Lulu, the software is a little more advanced and takes some getting used to... but for the money, you simply can't create a better photobook or wedding album yourself.

It starts with the pictures

No matter what software and/or site you choose, your photobook or album will only be as good as the pictures inside, so make sure your photographer offers retouch services as an option for your finished photos. 

While many Springfield and Branson, MO wedding photographers charge extra for retouch and color enhancement services, we include them in each of our prices and packages at Cool Change Photography.

Of course, we also offer the option to purchase professionally designed wedding albums from a variety of manufacturers... but given the quality of the various online design sites that are now available, I always encourage our clients to do a little exploring on their own.  Not only can it save you some money, but it also gives you the opportunity to customize your book or album with some nice, personal touches!