International Wedding Photographers in Paris, France – Sarah and Dennis

Written by Mel McLellan

I decided that it's about time we got back to posting more from our great sessions in Europe!  As it's 11:30pm and I have to be up at 7, we'll keep the jabber to a minimum but Sarah and Dennis, thank you so much!  You guys were wonderful! 

Slideshow time! – Melissa & Bill get hitched at El Arco de Cabo San Lucas, Mexico

Written by Sean McLellan

It's been a while since we posted a slideshow, don't you think? Traveling last month was great fun, but so incredibly hectic! We flew from Nashville to North Carolina to Cancun, drove to Playa del Carmen... shot Richard & Andrea's wedding on Saturday... and then early Sunday morning we drove to Cancun, flew to Mexico City, then to Los Cabos... drove to Cabo San Lucas Sunday night so we could shoot Melissa & Bill's wedding on Monday... then back to Mexico City, Cancun, and Playa del Carmen on Tuesday so that we could shoot Richard & Andrea again on Wednesday! This is the first wedding we've ever shot with someone else, and I'm happy to say we had a great time shooting with the fabulous Critsey Rowe, a fellow member of The Next Set!  Thanks for having us tag along Critsey!  It was such a relaxing change to shoot a wedding without being the one in charge and you did an excellent job! Melissa & Bill, thank you so much for being such a great couple! We hope you enjoy the montage! And anybody else thinking about getting married in Cabo San Lucas? Give us a call, we'd love to shoot you in Mexico.

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Protected: Liam and Max Book Ideas and Layout

Written by Mel McLellan

Hi Ricardo! My email is melaniemclellan@gmail.com . :)    Hello and welcome to our project! I look forward to collaborating with you to make this come to life! :) I'm still happy to go through Fiverr for the job, but they don't have a good way for me to send you a large amount of information at once. Their site is made for small jobs, not things like whole books of illustrations, so this seemed like the best way to go about this. I hope you don't mind. Below you will find the basic outline for the book and some inspiration for each page, taken from other books I love. This is my ideal version of the book with all of the illustrations I would ideally like to put into it. We will see if I can afford to make it all happen right now. :) We can take out some of the illustrations for now if we need to, but this will be our starting point. I have pasted the text onto sheets of paper with notes and sketches. Each one shows approximately where the text will go, so that you will have an idea of how they will work with the illustrations. We will be working toward an 8.5"x11" book format (17"x11" spreads when the book is open), so all of the full-bleed drawings will need to be at least that size. The larger the better - just make sure they are the same aspect ratio.  I have made notes on the pages for the types of expressions and placement I am looking for. If you can't read my writing, please let me know! Before we begin, I want to make note of one slight change I'd like to make to Liam. I don't feel like we quite got his eyes right when we did the sketch, but it was close enough that I didn't want to take up any more of your time in the preliminary phase. I've modified them slightly and I'd like them to look like this from here on out. Now for the book... Cover: I will be creating text with big bold letters that say "Liam and Max", with smaller font for "The Great Sandterra Adventure". I'd like a drawing of Liam and Max in some sort of motion for the cover. I think Max should be in non-toy form for this. The background should be on Sandterra - with sand dunes and multiple large colorful planets/moons in the sky. 1st Page (Introduction to Liam): I'd like this page to have a series of illustrations of Liam doing various things mentioned in the text. Two of the drawings should be in full color and the other two will be black and white line drawings with a simple color wash. I have made notes on the page for which should be in which medium. None of these will have backgrounds, but they can have some sort of supporting accessory if you think the drawing needs it. (Example: some loose cars sitting around Liam while he plays with one.) **Please note that I would like the drawing of Liam playing with Max on this page to have Max in toy form, but I'd like a thought bubble, or something like that, to show Max in non-toy form so that it's not confusing when he transforms on the next page. For the black and white color wash images, I'd like them to have a similar feel to this, but in your style: Pages 2-3, Introduction to Max: These will work the same as the introduction to Liam page. 2 of them will be in color (noted on pages) and 2 in black and white with a gray color wash. Again, no backgrounds, but maybe some supporting objects. Pages 4-5, Liam and Max together: I'd like a drawing (large on the right side, taking up whole page) of Liam and Max playing together (Max should be in non-toy form). No background for this one either, but I'd like there to be a ground line that runs over onto the left side of the spread, connecting the two pages. They can be doing anything together, except for playing in the sandbox since we'll be doing that later. Pages 6-7, Introduction to the story. I'd like this drawing to fill up the entire spread. The words will sit on top of the drawing. I'd like it to be of Liam, Max (toy form), and his two sisters playing in the sandbox in the back yard. Read text from the book to see what each should be doing. See below for how to model the sister characters. I've included photos of my girls and some drawings from other books to show their attitudes. Here is my backyard to loosely base the yard on: For Caroline: she should look roughly 3-5 years old. (We're aiming for the 5-7 range for Liam, and she should look younger than him.) She is based on my daughter Serai. You can see photos of her below. She has light brown/dark blonde hair that is slightly curly, and green-brown eyes. She is very sassy and almost always wearing a fancy dress. :) She's very dramatic and a lot like Fancy Nancy from the series with the same name. Here are some examples of Fancy Nancy so that you can get an feel for the type of character Caroline is: And this is Serai: Gabby is modeled after my youngest daughter, Ever. I'd like her to look like she's around 1.5-2 years old. My girls are very close in age, but Ever still looks quite a bit younger than Serai and the same should be true for Gabby. Ever's personality is very happy and cheerful. She's pretty much always smiling and laughing. She has straight, light blonde hair with bangs, which she almost always wears in pigtails. She likes skirts best and loves kitties. This is Ever (Gabby): To give you an idea of size comparison among them, here are all of my kids (we'll incorporate a baby in a future book :)) Pages 8-9, The adventure begins:  On this spread, I'd like to have everything in black and white with gray color wash, except for one small drawing of them sinking into the quicksand. You'll notice that one drawing is inside a box, and the others are free-floating on the page. For the left side, I want it to be something like the illustration below, only the image in the box will be a black and white line drawing with gray color wash. I'm not sure if we will need a full background here or not. What do you think? The small image outside the box will be in color, no background, and have them sinking into the sand looking very surprised. For the right side, I might play with the fonts like this: But either way, I want the illustrations of them swirling around in a dusty tornado and landing in Sandterra to work like this: Pages 10-11, landing in Sandterra: This will be a full color illustration with background, fit inside a rectangular box that takes up both spreads. You should be looking over Liam and Max's shoulders as they stare at each other in disbelief. All around them you will see the faces of the Sandterrans. Please read text for description of the Sandterrans. I'd like for you to be able to see lots of sand dunes off in the background. Pages 12-13, Dialogue and being taken away: I'm not exactly sure what I want the left side of the spread to look like. I know that I want it to be a series (4 going down the page) of close-ups on Liam and Max and the Sandterrans arguing back and forth. It will probably just be head and torso shots? They should be black and white line drawings and have a lot of expression to go along with the text. No backgrounds on these, or the background should be extremely simple, if you think it needs it. What are your thoughts on how we should do these? On the right side, I'd like a small close up of Liam and Max being tied up in black and white. Liam will look frustrated and Max will look annoyed. No background for this. The larger box on the right side will have the overall scene of the Sandterran desert with their small silhouetted figures marching over the horizon. I'm thinking sand dunes and multiple moons or colorful planets large in the sky. Remember that the Sandterrans are much, much smaller than Liam and Max. Pages 14-15, Entering the City: The left side should be a full-bleed drawing in full color of the city from a distance. Text will sit on top of the drawing. Read story for description. The right side will be a black and white line drawing with gray color wash. I want this one to be a circle that fades onto the page. It will be Sandterriopolis at street view. It should show the streets, buildings, and Sandterrans looking at Liam and Max in disgust. Pages 16-17, Confrontation with Council: See notes below for left page. For the right page, I want this to be two black and white line drawings with gray color wash. It will be closeups of Liam and Max on one side, and the Sandterran leader on the other side - head and torso only with no backgrounds. Liam and Max should look confused/shocked and the Council Leader should look angry and like he's freaking out. The top drawing on the left side will be black and white line. It will be a small, simple cameo of them being carried through a cross-section of a low, narrow tunnel. Something like this in its simplicity:   The bottom left drawing will be a full color image with background that shows Liam and Max in the council room with all the Sandterran leaders surrounding them. The Sandterrans should be sitting in something that resembles stadium seating and their leader will be standing at a podium talking down to them. Pages 18-19, Council Dialogue: This will be a full-spread black and white drawing of interaction between Liam and Max and the Sandterrans. The Sandterrans should look shocked. If there is any background, it should be very simple. The text and photo for this spread will interact together like the illustration below. I like how little elements of the drawing escape it's border. If that feels appropriate for the drawing, it would be fun to add that element: Pages 20-21, Finding Common Ground: The top left illustration will be a closeup of the Sandterran leader (head and torso) looking surprised and/or happy. The bottom left will be full length on Liam and Max - Liam looking excited and Max bowing with a flourish. Both of these will be black and white line drawings. No backgrounds. The right illustration will be a full color, full-length illustration of Liam and Max jumping for joy as their ropes are untied. No background for this one either. Should be in a square box. Pages 22-23, Sending them home: For the left page of this spread, we need a drawing of the Sandterrans actually catching a "sandnado" (which is basically a sandy brown tornado). I'm not sure what this should look like and am open to your suggestions. Full color, full-bleed drawing. The right page will work just like the page did of them swirling through the tornado before. All black and white line drawings. No backgrounds. The first should be them waving goodbye to the sandterrans in front of the tornado. The second drawing will be them swirling around inside it, and then the third drawing will be them landing with a thud.   Pages 24-25, Homecoming:  This spread will look similar to pages 4-5. It will be a full color drawing of Liam hugging Max in one arm and his two sisters in the other arm. Max will still be in non-toy form and he and Liam will look joyful. The sisters will look surprised and confused -- they don't know why they are being hugged right now because they didn't notice that Liam and Max had been gone. This will be full-length figures sitting in the sandbox and they will fill up the majority of the left page. You can carry them over onto part of the right page too if you need to. I would like a bit of the sandbox to carry over onto the right page, but there will be no background on this one. Page 26: The End I would like to do a color drawing here in a square box. It will be a silhouette of Liam running into the house with a toy Max in hand, with his sisters trailing behind him. The only color in the frame will be the sunset over the hillside and maybe lights in the windows. Everything else will be black. Here is my house for loose reference. Don't worry about duplicating it. Basically, just a single story home with trees and hillside in the background is what we're looking for. Garage probably isn't a necessary element unless you think so, and no cars please: Obviously, this is a lot to take in. :) It will be something to look at one page at a time as you work. However, hopefully this helps you get a good overall feel for the book and what I'm needing from you. Any questions?