Thank you

Thank you to all of our friends, family and clients for your patience in our communication. We are still in Thailand working with the tsunami victims and we return to the states on Wednesday. Email has been a challenge, but we are trying our best to keep everyone up to speed. If you have issues with our phones, please try our skype line: 404.418.6586. I posted a picture of us on our Recapture blog and thought I would post it here as well. We look forward to being back next week to see all of you!

Katie

Chris & Katie - Thailand!

We have left the states yesterday and are now in the city of Bangkok, Thailand. For those that have been keeping up to date with us, you know that we are here for our non-profit, Recapture. For those of you that do not, no worries, just go on over to our Recapture blog, to get all the information on this exciting adventure! In the meantime, for all of our readers, we are going to be posting as often as possible. We'll be putting up pictures and videos from this trip on the blog while we are away. Thank you for all of your support and we hope you enjoy being along on this adventure with us!

Bob and Vicki

All I can say is, it was an honor. There is a lot of history to this amazing couple. Both of them lost their spouses in the last couple of years. Bob was part of the team that had the vision for WinShape Retreat. He has had a large impact on that dream and since my mother works there, we've seen him and his family go through many changes. It's been an emotional ride and it was simply a joy to see him and Vicki come together in this union. The wedding was at Bubba and Cindy's home. It was full of sweet intimacy of family. What a joy it was for Chris and I to be able to capture it. Vicki absolutely glowed all day long. I just loved how light just bounced off of her which constantly created gorgeous imagery. Enjoy these two becoming one.



The House, filled with light and life creating a gorgeous stage for the ceremony.



The ring on an anxious bride!



Tricia helping her father get ready.




I loved this little moment of a granddaughter looking up to her grandfather.




I absolutely love this exit image!



The happy couple.





This image just shows how happy Vicki was all day. Here she is, surrounded by her parents and her new groom, gazing out and her bright future.



Vicki's father prayed over them as they left. Here is Vicki looking on at her parents with respect.



Bob and Vicki, it was an honor and pleasure to be there to capture this emotional day. Thank you for the privilege.

Packing

You can also see this post on, our non-profit's, Recapture blog.

I thought I might update you guys to what we are up to here at the studio. We are packing and working around the clock to get things ready for our clients and prepare for our trip. I officially made a the “Thai Table.” I have everything placed out that we will be needing. As I think of more items I add it to the table.

This is working really well and on Sunday we’ll put it all into bags. Note: all of our photography equipment is not on the table and will be transported in the great ThinkTank international bag.

The Table

Hats to protect from the harsh sun.

Our Flip Video Ultra to document our work.

This item is a little overwhelming to me. I am not good at journaling, even if I love it. I want to document this trip and here is a brand new empty journal to fill up. I picked this beautiful journal from Paper Skyscraper in Charlotte, NC when we were visiting family. Wish me luck!

Kevin in town

We were excited to receive an unexpected call the other day for dinner with a friend from Portland. Kevin was shooting a destination wedding and was coming back through Atlanta with an overnight lay over. We finally made it to a late dinner around 9pm, and had a great time catching up. He's such a good guy! Thanks Kevin for asking us out!

Baby Cole

I was able to capture the adorable stage of Cole's life last week. He is two months old and could not be more adorable. I had a wonderful time with his parents and older brother and sister (big sis is in the second picture standing guard :) ) Enjoy this precious new life and all of his newness. Congrats to a wonderful family!

Katie's Favorites

You didn't think I would forget did you??? : )

Today I bring you a great site I saw on my friend J's Blog: Photovert

If you want to have a green, eco-friendly wedding then you need to check out this site. It is full of awesome ideas. I wish I had known about this when we were married. I really admire how they are wanting to incorporate the awareness of going green to your wedding. Have fun enjoying the site and looking through all the options for your wedding.





Don't you just love these ideas for centerpieces?

We introduce to you:

This has been a long time coming and we are extremely happy to announce this to you. We have been working for several months on forming this non-profit organization. Please read below to learn more about our efforts.



Since a two-month trip to Venezuela in 2001, I have had a passion for documenting history. Being from a strong family with legacy and warmth, I have had a deep desire to use my talent to capture the lives of those who have lost this their family history. Our plan is to use photography to create a sense of self worth, pride and value in an otherwise unnoticed person. We desire that these people will be able to hold a tangible documentation of who they are.

Recapture is an organization with documenting lost history as it’s focus. Seeing a world torn by disaster and lost; this non-profit will seek those less privileged, they will document their lives through portraits of their families. The images will then be edited, toned, printed and delivered back into their hands.

Recapture has plans to travel internationally as well as nationally visiting areas of disaster and loss. Some have never held a photograph of themselves, their children or their parents. Through Recapture, legacy will have a chance to be documented. Pride in seeing a self photograph for the first time will bring a smile to their face. People unknown will hold a treasure to keep forever…….an image of their life.

Our first trip will be on February 18th (exactly one week from today) to Thailand. We'll be visiting Tsunami victims to document their lives. Some for the first time and some to simply restore a lost family history.



Recapture is a dream coming into fruition. We are combining their talents and passions to give people of impoverished, disaster stricken areas a capturing of life, family, traditions and culture through the lens of their camera.

We are also extremely happy to announce our board of directors: Andrew Niesen and Rachel LaCour Niesen from LaCour and ShootQ, Garrett and Joy Nudd from Garrett Nudd Photography and Ben Vigil from Ben Vigil Photography. We are honored to have this strong group of photographers and friends to help guide us and be a driving force behind this endeavor.




"When I decided to take a hiatus from photojournalism to form a wedding photography studio and now a fledgling software company, I picked up Michael Gerber's book The E-Myth. One of Gerber's tenets made its way onto the wall of quotes beside my desk: "The purpose of your life is not to serve your business – but the purpose of your business is to serve your life."

After reading the E-Myth, I mulled over this particular quote for a few days and kept asking myself, "But then what?" Achieving freedom is great. But...freedom to do what?

That deeply-rooted question haunts me daily; it challenges me more than any financial or artistic question ever could. Purpose and ambition, in my experience, do not bring fulfillment and meaning if the goal is personal and singular. Passion without purpose can quickly lead to self-serving hubris.

If the purpose of your business is to serve your life, then I believe the purpose of your life is to serve others.

Our world is broken; human suffering is frighteningly overlooked. The Biblical adage, "To whom much is given, of him much shall be required," is not just a nice observation. It's an imperative.

Chris and Katie Torres have taken this imperative to heart and created a non-profit organization that seeks to recapture lost history; restoring family legacy.

I am proud to support their efforts!"

- Rachel LaCour Niesen from LaCour, Recapture Board Member

The Good Old Hockey Game!

One thing that you may not know is that I, (Chris) enjoy a good hockey game. In the past I would don my hockey jersey with full Thrasher's pride. This year had been so busy for us that I have not had a moment to think about going to the game. So, folded, nice and neat in the closet was my jersey. Yesterday, we met with a potential client that happened to be going to her first game. She also happened to have extra tickets! Needless to say Katie and I excited and grateful to her for giving us those tickets. Thank you!!

Atlanta Thrashers played the Vancouver Canucks. The game started off a little slow, but once the Thrashers scored in the second period the energy and excitement rose. Unfortunately, Thrashers ended up losing 1-2, but it felt good to finally throw on that 'ol jersey and enjoy the game. The picture below were taken on our point and shoot, because we were not sure if we could bring our good cameras in the game. So please excuse it.

Chinese New Year

We've been hinting as to what we have to announce...the full announcement is coming in just a few days! We are focused on Thailand for what we are up to. We've noticed that some people from China have moved to Thailand and still celebrate the Chinese New Year. So I thought in the spirit of the exciting news that we have we would post about the Chinese New Year.





photo courtesy of google images.

Katie's Favorites

Today I wanted to highlight one of my favorite indulgence items. I absolutely love Chocolove bars. Some of my favorite include crystalized ginger or dried raspberries. You must go out and get one. Try Whole Foods to insure that you will fine it. They can be hard to find sometimes.

Enjoy!



(images from the chocolove website)

Super bowl Sunday

OK, I"ll admit, I barely knew what was going on with the game or as far as who was playing. We went for friends though. : ) We headed up to Chattanooga last night and enjoyed the game at the Nudds with the Rammels and McLellans. We had such a great time and enjoyed talking and some tasty food! Thank you Garrett and Joy for hosting. Now we'll go get some lunch then we head back home to work hard this week!




And for those of you who care, this was taken on a D3. : )

Good things to come!

Chris and I have some very exciting things in the works right now. It has been a dream of ours for quite some time now. We are still in the process of getting it all ready to show to the world. For now I leave you with a little clip of a map. A hint as to where we are going later this month. Stay tuned!

Thank You

When we were in Charlotte with my cousin and her family we received the following piece of paper from Katherine. As you could tell from our post, Katherine loves to draw, read and write. She gave us this "thank you" for us taking her picture. I just loved it and wanted to share. : ) Thanks Katherine!