Cherry Blossoms, Camas, and Japanese Wisteria…oh my!

Beautiful family portraits and preserving them for the future That special time of year has arrived again! The cherry blossoms are here and that means the camas and wisteria are not far behind. Each year these 3 beautiful flowers offer their blossoms up and families want to take advantage of their beauty for family photos like these: I always love this time of year because I know the kinds of amazing photos I can give my clients. But it is also a bittersweet time because…

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Everything You Need to Know About Hiring A Drone for Your Wedding

Drone wedding photo at Riverbell Farm

Guest blog from Dronethusiast.com Everyone wants their wedding to be a special occasion – a source of wonderful, happy memories that last a lifetime. And of course, you need a photographer (and/or videographer) to capture those memories so that you can revisit them again and again. Many couples are now choosing drone photography as a way to make their wedding videos more dynamic and instantly unique. But this technology – and its adoption by the consumer mainstream – is still fairly new, so it’s understandable…

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Orion Shooting Orion

If you didn’t know, my name is Orion. It makes sense for the business name, but as my wife is really the face of the business, I’m the name. So when I got contacted to shoot someone else with my name, I was immediately excited about the opportunity. I’ve known of a few other people in the area and in the world of Facebook with the name Orion, I’ve never met another in person in real life. When I finally met Orion, I was surprised…

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5 Tips to help you get the best portraits of your kids

Two children hugging

Here at Photos By Orion, we love working with children! They are so fun and spontaneous, and they can have such engaging smiles! But kids, like pets, have only a short amount of time and attention they are willing to give to a photographer, so here are a few tips for helping you get beautiful portraits of your child.   Have them well fed and rested  No one does well in photos if they are hungry or tired, so the best time to do a…

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5 of the best spots for senior and family portraits in the Salem area

The Willamette Valley is full of great outdoor locations for Fall family portraits or Senior shoots. Here are 5 of my favorite:   Minto-Brown Park Minto-Brown park is located minutes from downtown Salem, Oregon. It is the largest park in Salem. Numerous fields and paved paths abound in Minto-Brown Park, providing a variety of locations to choose from which makes it a favorite location for me because it has a good variety of location types. There are old stumps with vibrant green foliage, grass fields …

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Favorite Tree at Bush Park

Bush park is one of my favorite places to take clients for shooting. There’s a variety of reasons why I like this place, it’s close to my studio, there are tons of flowers of all sorts and there are different settings all within a short walking distance. But among all this variety, I have a very favorite tree there, a Japanese wisteria, which forms an integral part in Japanese history. It is often decorated in many japanese occasions, like a traditional shinto wedding. Bush park…

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Budgeting for your wedding

Weddings are expensive. Let’s face it. According to CNN, the wedding industry is a 53.4 billion dollar market and the average wedding costed about 28,000 in 2012. Those are some crazy numbers, and I’m certain they are only rising. That doesn’t mean that you have to take a second job just to be able to afford your special day. Plenty of brides are on a budget and their wedding days are magical. I believe that there are two main factors that need to come into…

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Beach Elopement story (Bree and Logan)

I had the good fortune to photograph a special wedding one day in Seaside, Oregon. It was a summer day on the Oregon coast. Kathryn and I drove from Salem to Seaside one afternoon. When we reached the location very near to the Promenade, we hopped out to find the weather pleasant and peaceful on the beach. When we arrived at the address provided by the couple, we discovered only 4 people, the bride and groom, the officiant and a witness. The easy-going couple had…

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3 Tips for Getting Better Photos

Capturing great images usually rests firmly in the hands of the photographer, but I have found that the people I photograph who come prepared often capture the best photos. Here are three tips you can do to improve photos of yourself: 1. The “turtle” Kathryn and I have nicknamed a method of removing double-chins in photos as the “turtle”. The “turtle” is a method of elongating your chin towards the camera. Think of it like pushing your face away from your neck then lowering your…

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Photo recreation, Richard Weddle story

Occasionally we get a client who wants to recreate a photo. I especially like the recreations that are funny because of the posing or styling of the original. Today’s post features the photo of two brothers as young children. They contacted us and told us about the photo, saying it was going to be funny to remake and indeed it was. Obviously the brothers were older and the younger wouldn’t even fit in the photo like the original, but we posed them. They brought a…

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