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April 26

This past weekend I shot my first wedding of 2008! Kati and Justin were married at Lakewood Evangelical Free Church in Baxter and then we made the trek up to Crosslake to the Whitefish Lodge for their reception. Kati and Justin have an awesome little boy, Brady, who is almost 3 years old. He is about the same age and personality as my son, so maybe that is why I took a liking to the little guy. Anyway Brady was at the church early for photos and he went strong into the night. In fact, he was still awake when I left the reception at 11:30 pm! That is a long day for a little kid! It goes with saying, but Brady is a huge part of Kati and Justin's life, so much so that I included a photo of the cake topper in this post because it is a replica of the bride and groom and Brady (and it looked cool), and I think I heard somebody say that either Justin's sister or one of Kati's sisters made it for them. Thank you Kati and Justin for an awesome start to my wedding season.

Also below are a few photos that I have taken since my last photo post (almost 2 months ago). Enjoy!

...and last but not least, my daughter, Sofie turned 1 a few weeks ago! Only about a week until my son, Zakkry turns 3!

If you have gotten this far into my website, you have most likely saw that things are a bit different unless you have never been here before and you are sort of confused. Let me explain. I have changed the name of the business from Arenz Photography to BlackLine Photo. To make a long story short the reason is because Arenz Photography was never meant to be what it has become and for about 2-3 years and I finally decided on a name that I (as well as my wife) liked. The origination of Arenz Photography was for my online jounalism portfolio when I was in college. As time went on it spawned into a portrait and wedding business. The name Arenz Photography won't be disappearing anytime real soon either because alot of my advertising is done a year in advance, so I will still be listed as Arenz Photography in the phone books until next year. Anyway check out the FAQs for more info on this change as well as answers to some of your other burning questions. Enjoy the new site and if you feel like it let me know what you think! (Click here to email me)

As you may have noticed, I have one of the photos I took for one of the senior promo sessions posted on the main page as the "photo of the week". The "photo of the week" is something new that I promise I will try to keep up with. This first one is probably going to be there for a week and a half because it was posted midweek. These are not always going to be photos that I took that week, but photos that I really like and decide to post individually. Due to the fact that I have literally been working on this website for the last 2 days I don't feel like posting more photos here right now and I want to watch Alvin and the Chipmunks with my kids and I am looking forward to that. You will just have to wait until next time to see photos (or you can check out the "new" sample pages as they have been changed too. Until then, I have a movie to watch and then I have to prepare for my daughter's first birthday which is on Sunday the 13th.

It has been a long time coming, but as always, my excuse is that I have been busy. Unseasonably busy that is. Wintertime in central MN usually has brought my business to almost a standstill, at least in previous years, but I have been so blessed that this year has been fairly steady throughout the winter, I even shot a couple class of 2008 seniors last week! Thank you to all my clients who keep coming back for more and thank you also to all the new ones that I have met in the past few months. I cannot explain how much I appreciate all the business and I pray that it continues. Anyway I have been working on updating my photos on the site for about 6 months or so and I am happy to say that they are all finally updated! (click to check them out) Well kind of outdated now since I do not have my most current stuff on there yet, but it is up to date with stuff that I have done up to mid February, so that isn't too bad.

Every spring I do a promotional model shoot with a few soon to be seniors. The requirements for this are 1) the model must be female, this is because as a guy I know that guys do not go and show all their friends their photos, especially if they are of themselves and girls typically will show off their photos 2) the model must like having her picture taken and 3)the model must have some friends that she would be willing to show her photos to in an effort to advertise my work. The perks to this program are numerous, including a free session during the summer, fall, or winter as well as the promotional session. If you or somebody that you know would be interested in this please Contact Me immediately. The cutoff for contacting me regarding this offer is April 7th. The session must be done before May 1st. Below are the open spots I am looking to fill. I may be willing to add more spots depending on the response and the school, so do not hesitate to ask...

Yep it has been over 2 months since I last posted here and that is with good reason. The Christmas season was pretty good for Arenz Photography with a ton of work and orders coming in. Well things have started slowing down so I figured that I better get some sort of update up for those people who care, hahaha. No really it amazes me when I go somewhere and talk to somebody who reads this blog and they tell me how much they love the blog and I then ask if they are just reading the same posts over and over or what because I haven't been too updating lately. Actually it seems that besides getting updates along the lines of photography most people like to read the non photo business related stuff and why not because in reality the only people that get excited about photography stuff are typically photo people. I am a real person and believe it or not I have a life outside of photography. Most of that life is consumed by my kids (which really is a great way to consume time don't you think?). Other than my kids, I love music, sports (mainly baseball and football) and movies. My wife and I watch movies all the time at home, I think we rent like 4-5 a week, especially this time of year when going outside is fairly unbearable.

Anyway about a week and a half ago, I was in the Brainerd Bridal Show. It is fun to get out and meet a ton of new people from Brides-to-be to other vendors. It is also cool to see other vendors that I already have a good relationship with such as, Petals and Beans (great florist) and PartyTime Rental (awesome party favor and rental place). Check out their websites for more info.

Also the other big news that is still in the works so no official announcement has been made yet is that Arenz Photography will be changing our business name to better suit our style and differenciate ourselves from everybody else around and and let me say what we are coming up with is in my opinion pretty cool. We are going through a bunch of paperwork stuff currently and there will be a one year transition period for the name to completely take over because all the phone book listing stuff was done months ago before we decided for sure on a name change. Later...

This is an ad that was made from a photo that I took for Codex, below is a random sampling of some of the other things that I did this past couple months. As with most photographers, we are entering the slow season which means that I will hopefully be updating a bunch of stuff soon which the top item on the list is the wedding and portraits pages. As of now, however, this blog has my most recent work. Stay tuned....

Wow two posts in two days! Actually, I forgot to guide my past customers to another page on my site where they can fill out a survey on their experience with Arenz Photography. That link is here. So if you have had your pictures taken by us or you have purchased photos of somebody else and you have interest in what I do go to the survey and fill (or I should say click) it out. It is only a few questions and only a couple of those are required to fill out, but I feel that they are vital questions when it comes to running my business. It will only take a couple minutes max. You do not have to fill in your name, but you do have to give a valid email address (it's a rule to send forms through, I guess). Other than an auto responder thanking you for filling it out that the form system sends, I will not contact you back unless you tell me to. Thank you.