Jessica Riehl Photography Blog

{Liz and John}

Jessica — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 16:49:53 +0000

I photographed Liz and John back in December on honest to goodness the coldest day ever!!!! John is in the Navy, so this was a wonderful and special session. Photographs of my hubby have helped me cope so much when he is away. Liz is the manager at Bean There Cafe, my all time favorite coffee shop ever!!! Liz is is a wiz at latte art and can tell you all sorts of fabulous stuff about coffee.

Liz and John are the cutest married couple ever. Don’t you agree?

Cheers,
Jessica

{Thrift Store Fashion Show}

Jessica — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 20:34:53 +0000

I recently did a piece for Alt Daily called Thrift Store Fashion Show to promote the environmentally friendly shopping and using the area thrift stores. I was inspired to do this piece after seeing ie and Hannah’s post of their recent thrift store adventure on Alt Daily. My models were Jason and Lacy Kuller who own Signs By Tomorrow in Greenbrier and Jaime Krapf owner of JSK Interiors in Virginia Beach. Jason, Jaime and I are partners in art crime. We have shown our art together at aLoft and have donated pieces together to the Southwest Area Red Cross. We all also donated to Love For Haiti fundraiser at the Granby Theater. In April Jaime and I will be featured on the art wall at aLoft.

If you would like to read more about the clothes, check the story on Alt Daily.

So the rules:

#1: Top spending limit: $30
#2: Must shop at a thrift store
#3: Bring your own shoes, underthings, and bling-bling

Thrift Store Fashion Show will be a regular feature on Alt Daily, so stand by for our next great adventure. If you are interested in throwing your own banging Thrift Store Fashion Show, just let me know!

Cheers,

Jessica

{Catching Up…Happy Love Day}

Jessica — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 19:53:55 +0000

It’s been a while since I have posted! I’ve been super busy since the beginning of the year figuring out what I want to be when I grow up, reworking pricing, a new business venture, doing photography work for Alt Daily.com, a shoot for a national magazine and enjoying the refresh of a new year. I am just going to update everyone all at once! My February resolution is to blog at least once a week and keep you updated on my fabulous clients.

This Valentine’s Day I hit the concrete. Well, my concrete anyway. My hubby was out to sea, so I decided to entertain myself and explore some graffiti art. I even hit my next door neighbor’s sidewalk. I hope you enjoy it. The FedEx man gave me a big huge smile yesterday, must be all the love.

Have a Fabulous Year Of Love,

Jessica

For My Mom and Dad...

My self portrait, which I sent to my hubby.

{Jess and Hawley :: The Wedding}

Jessica — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 01:36:58 +0000

Jess and Hawley are hitched! I had a fabulous experience photographing their wedding in Williamsburg. The wedding was beautiful, but what I loved most was Jess and Hawley’s desire to share this special day with everyone who has made their lives special. From their 30 attendants (I know…they get the award) to their 4 ring bearers and 4 flower girls. It wasn’t about the details or the decorations or the flowers. It was about hugging, catching up, dancing and sharing. They were surrounded by the most wonderful people in their lives. In photographing everyone, I felt all there had a special connection to the bride and groom. It is overwhelming to be in a barn with 400 people who genuinely love and cherish their hosts.

I am little at a loss for words as how to tell you more about their wedding. I guess I will let the photographs do the talking for me. If you would like to take a look at the guest album I designed for them, visit this link. The words on the pages are from the journal that Hawley kept from the time he decided to marry Jess until he proposed.

I need to give a huge shout out to my assistant, Seth. Seth is a senior and photo editor at the JMU newspaper (James Madison University) and together I think we made an amazing team! It was truly a pleasure to work with him and I can’t wait to see what greatness he will get into!

Cheers,

Jessica

Jess's Dad and Grandfather waiting to escort her down the aisle.

Getting the stink eye from one of the ring bearers!

If you are curious about my weddings…I am by referral only at this time.

{Katy and Adam}

Jessica — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 22:03:42 +0000

I had a fabulous time photographing Adam and Katy! Katy and Adam called me because they wanted to celebrate their anniversary this year with photography. They haven’t been photographed professionally since their wedding and it was time for a little update! After much discussion and many weather cancellations, we met in Williamsburg at the Legacy of Williamsburg Tavern Inn (and B and B). This is where Katy and Adam honey mooned, when like my husband and I, circumstance prevented them from going too far. Every year on their anniversary, they have celebrated by going back to the Inn.

We had such a beautiful day to celebrate their love story and capture what is special about this wonderful couple. After doing much kissing and cuddling in front of the camera, we had dinner at the Green Leaf. They love good food, we love good food, they love photography, we love photography…a perfect ending! I feel like we are old friends now.

Cheers,

Jessica

P.S. My little plug? If you’ve been married for five years or more and the last time you were photographed was your wedding…it’s time to do a photography session. It doesn’t matter whether you have children or not. We all change every year, grow into our relationships and continually write our story.

{Addyson}

Jessica — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 18:53:09 +0000

I think baby Addyson has the most beautiful delicate hands I have ever seen on a newborn. She came to visit me in the studio, but wasn’t very happy that day, so we met at the Chesapeake Arboretum to enjoy the gorgeous fall weather. It was a pleasure to meet you Ms. Addyson and welcome our world!

Jessica

{Tidewater Fibre Corp}

Jessica — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:29:09 +0000

TFC is one of my favorite businesses. I love them, because they make it easy for me to get rid of all the packaging crap that comes with my stuff. They help me clean up my messes and use my trash to make new stuff. Well, they don’t make the new stuff themselves, but they make sure it gets to some one who will use it and not put it in the garbage. Last week, Pat Carroll, my new EDAC friend (Chesapeake Economic Development Advisory Council), gave me a tour of the facility. I am a big recycler and had a bunch of questions on the process and how it all works. I was also curious to know if there were better choices I could be making.

So, what did I learn? Recycling is a very hands on process, literally. From the time you place you recyclables into the right container until the time they get loaded onto a truck, someone is touching your trash. The trucks empty their loads into a big area at the warehouse and it gets shoveled onto a big conveyor belt, where the sorting process begins. TFC has a huge system of conveyor belts that take your single stream of trash and sorts it into individual components such as paper, cardboard, aluminum. Once it is sorted it gets bundled in order to ship off to companies who buy the material to make other products. That’s the really simple version. The sorting equipment is a combination of sophisticated technology and human hands. Single stream means you can put everything they can recycle into one can.

I am very passionate about recycling and my husband is very passionate about energy conservation. So, we make a good team. I know that if you live in Chesapeake, it is difficult to get everything recycled. I actually pay TFC for a large can that they pick up once a week. I can recycle cardboard, aluminum, glass, plastic bottles, junk mail, and magazines. By paying for a larger can, we have reduced our trash output dramatically. We now only put our trash can out every three weeks or so and then it is never, ever full. We usually end up with 2-3 small garbage bags. Pat said 2/3rds of our trash is recyclable. I 100% believe it.We also compost to further reduce our amount of trash.

If you would like to take a tour of the plant, you can sign up on their website at: Tidewater Fibre Corp.

Here are the specific questions I asked:

*Q: Can I recycle my Silk Soy Milk Containers? They are made out of cardboard.

A: No, you can’t. The wax coating prohibits us from recycling it. If you can purchase juice or milk in a plastic jug, then that is a better choice since we can recycle it. Otherwise we just have to throw it away.

*Q: I heard you that those manila yellow envelopes are bad. How so?

A: We do recycle the manila envelopes, but they do require a bit of extra processing in order to be used in recycled paper. The paper requires bleaching to remove the yellow color. So, if you choose white envelopes vice yellow envelopes you will reduce the amount of bleach that gets used and ultimately has to be disposed.

*Q: What do you do with all the stuff people throw in their bin that you can’t recycle?

A: Well, first, we have to remove the item and that gets done manually by our employees. Employees are stationed along the conveyor belts and hand pick the items out and throw them in a can. From there we responsibly dispose of trash through either the landfill or an incinerator. Some of it just hangs around the plant as decoration.

*Q: Why can’t you recycle plastic bags?

A: Recycling plastic bags requires a completely different type of equipment than we have. Plastic bags are actually very bad for our equipment since the bags get bound up in it. You know how your bits of string get caught on the rotating brush of your vacuum cleaner and in order to get it to run right you have to cut all the strings out? That’s exactly like our system. The recyclers who take the plastic bag bins from the grocery store have the right equipment to process them.

See how the plastic bags bind up the equipment? At the end of every shift a TFC employee goes in and cuts all of the plastic out.

Here are a few other photos from my tour:

The conveyor system.

This is the cardboard plant area...just think of all the people who throw this cardboard straight into the landfill. Imagine that much space being freed up, just through recycling. Think about all the boxes you get in the mail and the packaging surrounding your soda can boxes, your cereal boxes...

A few facts about aluminum cans from Earth911.org:

Making new aluminum cans from used cans takes 95 percent less energy and 20 recycled cans can be made with the energy needed to produce one can using virgin ore.

A used aluminum can is recycled and back on the grocery shelf as a new can, in as little as 60 days. That’s closed loop recycling at its finest!

Aluminum is a durable and sustainable metal: two-thirds of the aluminum ever produced is in use today.

This is a bale of paper bound for a plant that does the actual production of recycled paper.

Is your newspaper in this pile?

{Jess and Hawley}

Jessica — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:27:40 +0000

I am really excited to be photographing the wedding of Jess and Hawley. I flew to Snowmass, Co a month ago to photograph their engagement session! I know I am way behind. It was amazing, we drove all over Snowmass and Aspen, photographing any where and every where. There are so many photos to choose from since we spent 2 1/2 days together. Jess and Hawley were amazing to photograph, they were always ready for the next thing and didn’t get tired of being in front of the camera. A photographer’s dream.

These photographs will be extra special because I am designing a guest book with them for their wedding. The uber romantic part…I get to use the journals Hawley kept once he decided he loved Jess and wanted to marry her. Swoon! It is a rare gift to be able to photograph a love and then read about how it came to be. I will post the book design once we are done with it.

Enjoy,

Jess

{Xavier}

Jessica — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:58:58 +0000

Welcome to Baby Xavier…he was absolutely wonderful for his first photo shoot in the studio and his momma looked wonderful!

{The Bloom’n Arboretum}

Jessica — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 16:00:15 +0000

I recently visited the Chesapeake Arboretum and this is what I found in bloom: