After much experimentation, planning and effort it is finally here: the Radiance Image Quilt by Glow Imagery!

Imagine having a quilt built with your wedding vows, the hanky you wept into when your mother first saw you in your dress, an image of the marriage license, the fabric from your veil and the wonderful images Glow Imagery created throughout your wedding day! How much would you adore that?

Now couples can have a completely custom designed image quilt featuring their favorite, most cherished images from their wedding day, designed into a handmade quilt. We can use all kinds of wonderful keepsakes from your wedding day to build a quilt that will make your heart sing every time you see it!

Here’s how it works: After your wedding day, you will sit down with Chris and his wife Genevieve Cummins, the quilt expert, and we will discuss some of your ideas and ours. As you discovered the first time you talked with Glow Imagery, we love to listen to your ideas and learn about the things that matter most to you! This is never more important than designing your Radiance Image Quilt because there are so many amazing things we can do to create a quilt that will be a priceless emotional statement about you, your friendships and family — all those wonderful things that are so important to your wedding day experience!

Want to learn more? Give us a call at 816-550-8830!

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Jon and Diane - like a lot of our clients - live in a another part of the country. Chicago is their home, to be exact. Diane grew up in Olathe and has most of her family in the area hence their plans to marry in mid April. (Goodness that’s coming fast!)

These two are wonderful and so freaking in love. Diane has a glowing smile and a wonderful sense of humor, not too many people are willing to laugh at all my jokes (I’m funny, but my wife will testify, I’m not that funny so it takes a very good natured person to laugh at those jokes.)

Jon and I have quite a lot in common: We’re big into Seth Godin, web analytics, spreadsheets and for all our geekosity we probably should be wearing pocket protectors. I even suggested a unique wardrobe option for Diane to wear for their engagement session.

There’s so much spark between these two. The pair carried on like teenagers in love. When a couple shows such an unchecked affection for one another the photography is easy. Three cheers for working the wintry cold you two! I figured a Chicago couple could take it and I wasn’t wrong!

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We first met Brandy and Randy during the summer of ‘06. They were a newly engaged couple who were completely smitten with one another. We photographed their joyous wedding in 2007. During the entire period of being their wedding photographer I came to know an incredibly sweet. loyal and passionate couple who were absolutely adoring of our photography. Soon after seeing her wedding images for the first time Brandy told me I was going to be their family’s personal photographer from here on out. Wow… and boy did she meant it.

Fast forward to 2010, amid my planning for doing her sister’s photography in September the word spreads Brandy and Randy will be expecting their first child almost exactly the same time as Brandi’s sister’s wedding.

Now I know some sisters would be stressed that their sister would “steal their thunder” from their wedding but these sisters were not fazed at all. What an amazing time! What an amazing family too!

We did maternity portraits over the summer that turned out exceptional. If I haven’t posted those here I will soon. Baby Lyra was born days before her sister’s wedding and I think Lyra was spoiled rotten before the ink was dry on the birth certificate!

It’s a joy to be a part of our patron’s lives and create such emotionally priceless images to help them enjoy the tears of joy from these moments forever!

-Chris Cummins/chief photographer

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So I’ve decided to begin tinkering with soups this month. When it is so cold outside it’s nice to curl up with anything warm and liquidy, besides, soups just have never been my “thing” in the kitchen and it’s time to learn!

I did a quick search for broccoli and cheese soup recipes and landed on Emril Lagasse’s recipe for it on Food Network’s website. Emril is one of those personalities that doesn’t always set well with me. You know the kind. They’re big on the celebrity chef stylings, signature phrases (i.e. “Bam”) and their priority seems to be on the celebrity rather than the chef.

Anthony Bourdain featured him on one of his shows and was really impressed with Emil’s credentials as a chef, food devotee and restraunteur. So I figured what the heck.

As Genevieve (my sous chef wife) explained to me nearly all soups begin with a roux. Which is basically butter and flour used as a thickening agent. The same is true with this one.

Anyway, here’s the recipe. I don’t want to reprint it here for risk of violating some copyright somewhere. When you’re a photographer posting all manner of your work online you know there’s such a thing as karma.

Broccoli and Cheese soup

Emril Lagasse’s Broccoli and Cheese soup

Here’s my experience with the recipe and some of the adjustments I made:

Out of a desire for simplicity we chose not to bother with the croutons.

The recipe calls for heavy cream. Cream is awesome. No arguments here but I just can’t do it. The holidays put six pounds on me and I need to get back to where I was so I decided to use skim milk instead of whole cream. I know, I know… if you’re concerned about weight loss what the heck are you doing eating cheese anything? True, but it’s o.k. to eat what we want if we can find some satisfactory tradeoffs in terms of the recipe and volume we eat. Nothing will kill a diet quicker than eating food you hate.

I digress, I have no doubt skim substituted for the heavy cream negatively affects the recipe in terms of flavor, consistency and texture. What resulted was a less favorable consistency to the soup with less thickness and the appearance of very small unincorporated bits of either roux or cheese in the recipe. Maybe some other issue in my preparation created this but my guess is the skim milk was to blame. Considering the still superb flavor I am o.k. with that tradeoff though.

Let me know what you think!

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You can find this only here at Glow Imagery! We are very excited to announce a major addition to our catalog of wonderful and emotional ways to enjoy your photography - the Signature Image Quilt by Glow Imagery!

Now you can forever enjoy the warm love of your friends and family and your amazing Glow Imagery engagement session together with a quilt they can sign on your wedding day! Imagine your guests reaction when they discover the same old guestbook has been replaced by this! They will be humming about it all night!

No other photography studio we know of is doing this so you can only get it from Glow Imagery!

Let your wedding day memories keep you warm forever! Use your favorite engagement session image from Glow Imagery as part of a handmade quilt that you can lay out at your wedding ceremony or reception for your guests to sign. The quilts are handmade by Genevieve Cummins, the wife of Glow Imagery's chief photographer Chris Cummins.

Not only is the quilt so cuddle worthy, they can be hung just like a wall portrait as home decor!

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Recently, we received a pretty swell thank you card from a wedding patron from this past summer.

I have always had two core passions in my life: photography and people. Weddings and portraits are a perfect blend of these two passions. It feels great to create something really beautiful for my patrons and create a friendship. Thanks Sarah and Brandon!

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In the spirit of the season I wanted to share with you one of my favorite Christmas memories in the hope that you will share some of your favorite memories too.

I remember one summer, I may have been about 11 or 12 years old, I was digging through a bunch of boxes of stuff in our closet and came across a mysterious cassette tape. This is before digicams, mp3s and compact discs… back when cassette tapes were the standard of peak audio enjoyment.

Curious what the contents of the tape were I placed the cassette into one of our stereos to listen to it. After rewinding and quickly pressing the play button out came the sounds of a room of children making a terrific fuss. It was still a mystery several seconds in as to what was going on. Then the familiar sound of my dad’s voice emanated from the speakers. Instantly I knew what the cassette tape was, it was my family’s Christmas morning from years earlier.

A little background is in order here. The first few years of my life we enjoyed our Christmases with our grandmother in Baxter Springs, Kansas. It’s a tiny town located in the southeast corner of Kansas very close to Oklahoma and Missouri. In my family, the Christmas memories from my grandmother’s home in that forgotten little mining town are the very dearest for my siblings and I.

Even as an adolescent just about seven or eight years removed from the original recording the sound was fascinating. The background noises of a door shutting or the sound of creaking steps can uncover past memories through other senses. Listening to the cassette tape I could smell and feel my grandmother’s house, that slightly musty, old house smell, the pine needles from the Christmas tree, the swinging door from the kitchen that was the sort they use for high traffic galleys in fancy restaurants. If love had a sound it would be what I heard on that tape.

The recording is a cacophony of holiday cheer. There are screams of joy on the recording, there are many, many laughs and throughout there is my dad yelling “Hot dog!” when he sees his children’s reaction to their newly unwrapped gifts. That saying is a Jim Cummins trademark. “Hot dog” was it’s own exclamation point. No other words were necessary to convey his joy.

I hope we haven’t lost that recording. My guess is it went back into hiding to once again somewhere in the deep recesses of my parents home, waiting to reappear with additional mystery and unleash the same delight to whoever should place it in the nearest tape player. It just wouldn’t be as fun to know to where it is and not be able to say “hot dog” when we hear it for the first time.

What’s your favorite holiday memory? Tell us about it…

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Our dog, Opal, did not make the list this year. We figure there's already enough turkeys involved in Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving should celebrate two things:

- The people we love who provide such amazing support and help us make a difference for others.

- The opportunity to improve ourselves and make something bigger than ourselves that betters the lives of others.

For Glow Imagery, 2010 has become the year of education. Like a lot of folks, 2009 was a challenging year for us. While our wedding and portrait brands did well, a lot of longtime clients (newspaper, publications, corporate clients ) disappeared. This was something of a blessing because it forced us to concentrate the energies of this studio in 2010 on the specialties that we really enjoy: weddings and portraits. Midway through the year the long lost clients came calling again, we simply said no to most of them. Even in the best of times these were not clients we knew figured into our long-term plan.

Here seven other things I am thankful for this 2010:

1. My wife - she provides strength and support in so many ways to help me make a difference for others. Love you sweetie!

2. Our Cliens - none of our dreams are possible without the opportunity to serve you. Telling the stories of the people you love and how you feel about one another through images is such an honor.

3. Chuck Lewis - I began 2010 dissatisfied with the status quo and took it upon myself to relearn what it means to be a successful wedding and portrait photographer in this day and age. That search brought me to Chuck Lewis, a Michigan-based photographer who has been in the industry for nearly 40 years. In an industry flooded with flashy “rockstar photographers” teaching professional seminars and clinics who in truth have no extended track record of experience or success in photography, Chuck Lewis was a welcome change of pace. His teachings have helped revamp much of my approach to my work and my clients in such a way I don’t think I’ll ever be able to communicate my gratitude to the man!

4. Projection sessions - This is a Chuck Lewis addition to Glow Imagery that has been so much fun. We’ve outfitted our client space to do “movie nights” with our weddings and portrait sessions. This has allowed are clients to receive a first impression of their photography that was not possible doing online proofs. It has helped our clients enjoy their photography as home decor rather than just “pictures.”

5. Napoleon Hill - We’ve read several of this author’s books this year and have found his advice for personal and business growth indispensable. Particularly his advice about creating master minds, transforming desire into its monetary equivalent and being very careful who you allow to influence you.

6. Refinancing through once-in-a-lifetime interest rates - don’t let the door it you in the rear end, Bank of America.

7. PPA - The Professional Photographers of America has been a terrific resource to learn and gather more knowledge

8. The Great Recession - it has been said out of great necessity arises great virtue. The difficult economy has forced bad businesses out of business and good businesses to get better. We feel the adversity so many have faced the past couple of years has forced us to not rely on our comfortable assumptions which were doing more to hold us back. Instead of whining and crying about the difficult marketplace and pointing fingers, we took responsibility for our future. We have aggressively worked to improve every aspect of our business. Thanks to these efforts 2010 may end up being our best year yet!

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Jessica Clark of Overland Park had some wonderful things to share about her experience working with Glow Imagery. We covered Jessica and her husband Aaron’s wedding on September 26, 2010. Here’s what she had to say:

“Chris went above and beyond in so many ways to contribute to our wedding. Due to unexpected family emergencies at the beginning of our engagement, we had to cancel on several appointments, some with very short notice. Not only was Chris courteous, he was empathetic and sensitive. When we were able to meet, he further invested by getting to know us, our goals/dreams for the day, our family dynamics, etc. He was very personable and the time spent in preparation is evident in our pictures - both due to their personalization and the level of comfort my husband and I felt.” Jessica Clark, married 09/26/2010

Read more here.

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