The White Mt. Cupcakery | Vendor Love

There are no words to describe the love affair that I have with the White Mt. Cupcakery.  Marc and Kathy are two of the best people on the face of this planet.  They are funny, sweet, kind and super talented when it comes to making my mouth water for delicious sweet treats.  When I was first thinking about finding a studio space outside of my home the first place I fell in love with was in the same building as the Cupcakery.  I couldn't fight the fact that not only did I love the building for it's pretty hard wood floors, big beautiful windows but the fact that The Cupcakery was across the hall? BONUS!!! These to have become my family.  To have someone right across the hall that I can talk to about weddings, life, running your own business and of course the local village gossip has been so valuable.  I've already told you all these reasons I love them and I haven't even talked about their CUPCAKES yet!!!! Their cupcakes are TO DIE FOR.  They are soft, moist, beyond delicious and they have the coolest flavors ever!  Let's start with Maple Bacon.  Ok you might be thinking, really bacon on a cupcake... Don't knock it till you try it.  It's like french toast and bacon heaven!!  And if you are not that adventurous try the Lemon, the Boston Cream or the classic Red Velvet.   Now don't be fooled and think they only make cupcakes because even though the name says cupcake they also do lots of specialty cakes.  Wedding cakes, birthday cakes, cake pops and whoopee pies.  These guys have everything you need to expand your waistline!

Recently I started offering all my wedding consultations cupcakes as something to munch on while we chat about their wedding and I've never had anyone complain.  Often times they end up walking across the hall on their way out the door to chat with Kathy about what she might be able to do for their wedding.  I even have clients for this year who loved the cupcakes so much that I'm bringing some down for their wedding in Mass because they couldn't find good cupcakes down there.  These guys are just that good.

So be it for your wedding, for your birthday, bridal or baby shower or just because you have a sweet-tooth like me come stop by the cupcakery and hang out with Marc, Kathy and I.  Oh and if you already have the Cupcakery love like I do- please help them defend their title for Best Cupcake of NH!!!

XOXO Spring

I want to win!!!

I'm competitive.  I'm not the girl who was on the winning team.  I don't have a varsity letter, I don't have any trophies the best I've got is a few ribbons from my summer camp horse shows.  But that doesn't change my desire to win.  I try not to be a sore looser but to be honest I have my very sore moments when I'm not on the winning side of things.  You could say that I don't win because I don't ever think I will, but for me it's not about not believing in myself.  I think so often winning is about luck.  Most of the time you win because your name was drawn from a hat or because the random number generator pulled up your #.  Those winnings are all luck and I think my brother got all of this kind of luck in my family.  But, I got the luck that means something.  I'm lucky to know what I want to do, to love what I do and to be passionate about my job.  The things that get my blood pumping and my head spinning with ideas are often about work.  Crazy right??! Miss Katelyn James is a very smart and talented lady.  She is successful at a young age and is also passionate about what she does.  This girl lives and breaths passion.  Be it her love for photography, her husband and family, her church or her new puppy.  Well today Miss Katelyn is running a contest and I want to win.

When I first read about her contest for a free seat at her upcoming workshop I admit I thought "nahh I wont win"  Then I read all the info and realized it's not about a random # being pulled, it's about passion.  It's about our love for our industry and our vision for our business.  Now that I think I can win.

I want to win this seat at her workshop.  I want to spend some time with some amazing people in this industry and re-charge my brain.  I'm saving up for my own wedding this year and so I'm pinching pennies and am not making the trip out to Vegas for WPPI that I had really wanted to make this year.  I picked one local seminar and am passing on the rest.  To be able to have the opportunity to attend this workshop and ask questions, work one on one with someone so full of life, ideas and talent would be pretty much mind blowing.

My business is doing well so I'm not looking at this as an opportunity to start over or even to jump start my business I'm look at it as an opportunity to push myself, challenge myself and really hone in on the important things to me in life and in business.  I really need organizational help!!!  There is no question that my organizing skills are lacking and who better to teach this then the girl with the blog post about organizing her closet?  Katelyn is real, genuine and so easy to talk to.  I met her a WPPI in 2010 while sitting in a large room waiting for Jasmine Star to speak.  She was a bubbly ball of laughter and smiles and after noticing that we had the same pair of amazing Bass boots, I was knew we must have many more things in common.

When I started taking photos it was all about me.  It was looking at things I liked, capturing them so that I could enjoy them forever.  I was in 8th grade and had no idea that I could be this passionate about something for the long haul.  I never wanted to be a wedding photographer.  I went to college for photography and thought wedding photographers were all stuffy old men.  When I started working for a small studio in TX with three other fabulous women I realized that wedding photography isn't about stuffy old men, it's about love.  It's about using talents and passions that I have to immortalize someones love.  Thats a really big task to take on.  It is not easy and learning from other photographers is what keeps me going.  I have this passion for photography and for love.  I know I can do this but having the help and encouragement of my friends and mentors over the years has fuled that fire inside of me that wants to do more, do better and take on the impossible.

Maybe I wont win this contest, maybe my story and my ounce of luck isn't enough but either way, thank you Katelyn for giving me a reason to do this reflection.  For giving me a reason to sit down and remind myself why I love what I do and why I'm passionate about it.

XOXO Spring

P.S.  One huge, totally non photography related, perk about the possibility of this win is to visit my 91 year old grandfather.  He live just a few hours north of Richmond in Leesburg, VA and any excuse I can find to spend time with him I'll take!!!!

Amanda & Mike | Winter Wedding

Mike & Amanda hadn't always dreamed of a winter wedding but after visiting Whitney's Inn they couldn't help but see the winter possibilities.  With Black Mt. and ski lifts just behind the inn how can you not start to think of a sparkling, snowy, cozy New England wedding day?  The way this winter started there were worries of no snow and a muddy wedding day. But Mother Nature came to the rescue dumping 6 inches of fluffy white stuff just days before the wedding. On Saturday Mother Nature gave Mike & Amanda another gift.  The light snow started to fall just a few hours before the ceremony and continued to fall throughout most of the day creating the perfect winter scene.  Amanda described it best "The magical, gentle snowfall during the ceremony was definitely a bonus, as if someone had shaken our outdoor ceremony snow globe".  Thank you guys so much for being two of the sweetest people and for braving the five degree temperatures for some romantic snowy portraits!

I was so lucky to have Kat Hanafin second shooting with me for the day and these first two images are some examples of her amazing talent.

XOXO Spring

Venue:  Whitney's Inn Florist: Dutch Bloemen Winkel Dress: Madeleine's Daughter Cake: Annie-Laurie Miller Groom's Attire: Classic Tuxedo  Brides Shoes: Nordstrom Boots: Bass Hair Comb and Earrings: Etsy Photography: Spring Smith Studios 

Learning Photography

*This post is inspired, and almost verbatim, by an email I wrote to J2 (Julia) after reading her post today about wanting to learn more.  Wanting to become a student of photography and not just of weddings and her camera.  Thanks Julia for getting me, and the rest of us thinking outside our own business again*

My favorite class was never history.  I do love history but studying the boring part of it out of a text book was never inspirational.  My parents, also lovers of history, would take my brother and I to historical sites all over the country.  Every family vacation would include at least one stop at a civil war battle field, a presidents birth place or some other National Park.  I even had one of those really cool Passports to the National Parks that my brother and I would run into the visitors center to get stamped at every stop.  When it came to college art history was the class i dreaded.  I hated looking at slide for 2 hours listening to a lecture about some guy i'd never heard of before.  Did I appreciate the art work? yes and no.  I appreciated its beauty but only as much as one can when seeing it projected in a dark room rather then seeing it in real life in a museum.  The best part about going to Northeastern Univ. was that one of our three weekly art history classes we met at The MFA (which is across the street from the NU campus).  So once a week I was excited for class because rather then sitting looking at slides or reading out of a text book we were actually walking around looking at REAL art not images of art.  That made all the difference for me.

If you want to learn more then aperture, f-stops and the wedding and portrait photography world I recommend taking some time and visiting some galleries and museums.  Even if the people who's work you see are total unknowns in most circles.  Looking at printed images rather then screens or books is so much more fun.  You'd be surprised how much you loose in reproductions of the images.  Especially black and white images... you loose so much tonality.  I went to the Portland Museum of Art a year or two ago and saw a Rock and Roll Photography show that was mind blowing.  So many images of famous rock starts over the years.  Some were things you've seen published some were back stage images some were personal images taken by friends.  The collection was incredibly diverse and the level of photography talent in that collection was outstanding.  I've also seen an Ansel Adams exhibit at the MFA and who doesn't love that?  Of course you could spend hours looking at his images.  Knowing that he took an 8x10 camera up into Yosemite alone amazes me.  Those things are heavy!!!   But I really thing seeing images for the first time that you've not seen in print before, who were created by someone who to you is an unknown really gives you a chance to have no pre-conceived notions and allows you to form your own opinion.  Who is going to say "ehh I don't love that" to an Ansel Adams?

Knowing some of the basic history of where photography started is worth the time learning.  I think my History of Photography class was one of my all time favorite classes in college. The teacher awesome.  The best part was she was a photographer not a historian.  Knowing when the first images were taken, how they did it, leaning about daguerreotypes, tin types, platinum prints etc was really interesting and makes you appreciate how far this art medium has come.  Photography took a long time to be considered art.  For so long photographers had to fight to be known as artists and part of me is starting to worry that might happen again.  With digital everyone is a photographer but is everyone an artist?  I think being able to know the history of the medium and appreciating where and how it began creates a level of respect that all artists should have.

My recommendations for anyone wanting to learn are go to any and every museum and gallery and take in as much as you can.  I also highly recommend A World History of Photography by Naomi Rosenblum (that was our history of photo textbook and I often find myself flipping through it just for inspiration).  Some of my favorite photographers that I have books of their work and look at quite regularly are: Robert Frank, Cindy Sherman, Weege, Ed Ruscha and Lewis Hines.  I also personally recommend Neal Rantoul (he does lots of landscapes and one crazy project where he photographed babies and body parts in jars... little strange but very cool if that stuff doesn't bother you) he was my photo professor at NU so I might be a little bias there but trust me he's one talented man.

Kudos to you if you are taking an interest in more then the immediate industry we are all in.  I think wanting to learn the history and learn more then just what is practical on the wedding day really elevates the people who love photography for the art that is is and what they can do with it.

XOXO Spring

An Industry of Friends

There are people that you want to tell your whole life story to the first time you meet therm.  People who make it so easy to open up and spill your guts. People who you can tell your hopes, dreams, fears and the inner workings of my brain to openly and without fear of ridicule or rejection.  I feel really lucky to have a lot of these people in my life.  I have them in my personal life with my friends and family as well as my professional life with my clients and colleagues. This past Saturday was a day full of my awesome colleagues.  I had the most awesome photo friend day.  I started by meeting up with Meg Simone, a local videographer; Anne Skidmore, a local photographer and Stacy Hedman a photographer from the cape who was up in the area visiting with her husband for the weekend.  We spent a few hours devouring huge plates of breakfast full of pancakes, eggs, bacon and of course a few cups of coffee.  It was great to spend some time with great friends and not feel pressure to talk about work.  Sometimes I need to talk with an industry friend about work.  I need someone who gets how stressful it can be, how frustrating it is when Photoshop quits just before you go to hit save and someone who can laugh at crazy reception stories.  But sometimes it's nice to have time to talk to people who might be able to relate to all that but talk about food, local events and traveling.  To take business out of the picture and know that you still connect with these people mean they are so much more then colleagues that you get along with, they truly are friends.

That afternoon I drove down to Portland, ME to meet up with Meredith Perdue, a Portland based photographer who I've had a long standing facebook, blog and email friendship with but who I've managed to never been in the same place at the same time allowing us to chat in person.  We met in the old port and wondered around talking about our dogs, home decor and the great gelato wars of Four Street.  It was so great to really put a face to a name and realize that we have more then our photography in common.

After spending a wonderful afternoon with Meredith I met up with Justin & Mary at one of my favorite restaurants in Portland, Grace.  It's actually an old church that they turned into a restaurant.  They also rent it out for weddings and I'd LOVE to shoot there - so any brides out there looking for a Portland venue- check out Grace... then call me ;)  It was awesome as always to spend three plus hours drinking Haute Affairs and Holier Than Thous (both signature coctails), eat some delicious food and talk with my friends.

J&M had just gotten back from a conference in Mexico and were up in ME to speak at the MPPA meeting the following day.  We talked about business, pushing ourselves, asking "what if" and of course talking about my wedding (which they are shooting) and life in general.  It was the perfect top off to a wonderful day full of friends who just so happen to be in the same crazy wedding industry.

*photo credits left to right:  Spring Smith, Mary Marantz and Justin Marantz.

As I drove home that night and thought about the fact that I had just spent one day with 6 awesome industry people and felt like I had just spent the day with some of my closest friends it made me so grateful for this industry.  So many people in so many jobs are cut throat with their competition.  It's so nice to know that there are people in my industry who truly are my friends and camera or no camera are people that I care about and can spend hours talking with.  So thank you photography friends, thank you wedding industry friends, thank you to all my friends and family.  I am truly blessed.

XOXO Spring