valerie schooling – Rich Bell Photography

Maggie & Zeb: Summerall Chapel and The Citadel Beach House

February 27, 2009/in weddings/by admin

This past Saturday, I had the honor and privilege of photographing the wedding of two very dear friends, Maggie & Zeb. We have all known each other since my family and I moved to Charleston when I was only 13 years old!!! Maggie and Zeb had an incredibly beautiful and fun wedding. I can’t say enough about how perfectly everything came together, so thank you to everyone who put so much hard work into making such a special day happen. 🙂

I had a hard time picking out “just” a few for this blog…so stay tuned for their album design to see all the rest!

I highly recommend the band Soul Fish, by the way! They were just amazing and everyone had SO much fun! They can really keep the party going!
(If you’ve never heard them play, you should…they play often at several different Wild Wings as well as Rooftop at Vendue and others!)

Also…Joyce and Chris attended Maggie’s wedding…aren’t they cute?
They’re getting married VERY soon and guess who will be their photographer? 🙂

And Mell got a cute one of the three of us at the very end!

Vegas or Bust!

February 14, 2009/in personal, Uncategorized/by admin

It is time for me (Valerie), Nathan, and Mell to say GOODBYE to Charleston for a week and say HELLO to Las Vegas for the annual WPPI conference!

wppi_logo

WPPI is the largest professional photographers’ event in the country, and it is held in Vegas every year.

After yeeeeeeears of attending WPPI being only a *sigh* “maybe one day” kind of dream….this year it will be REALITY! Words cannot express how excited I am (we all are!!!!)

So tonight, while we wish you all a very Happy Valentine’s Day….we are packing our bags and counting down the minutes.

Here are a three pics I took while touring Vegas about this time last year:

Southern Bridal Expo….

If you are going to be attending the wedding show tomorrow at the Charleston Convention Center….come by our booth and say hi! We will all be there with bells on!

Nathan, Mell and I will be leaving directly from the show to the airport for Vegas. 🙂

And if you call or visit our studio this week, be sure to send all your extra kudos to Steve for holding down the fort for us!!!!

Everyone sing Happy Birthday to Damien…

January 29, 2009/in family portraits, personal, Uncategorized/by admin

Ladies, meet Damien. He’s 5′ 11” and enjoys long walks on the beach and good Italian food………just kidding. (But only sort of!)

Aaaaaaanyway, Sunday was my good friend Damien’s birthday, and of all things, I was able to talk him into letting me take his goodlookin self out for a photo shoot!

We had lots of fun and took pictures all over the downtown area! We had WAY too many good ones to choose from by the end of the evening, but I guess that’s nothing to complain about! Damien was so much fun to photograph…he’s easygoing and relaxed…and c’mon girls you gotta admit he’s also easy on the eyes! 😉

So now I need your help picking the overall favorite! (There is a poll at the end of this post so go vote!)

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.
I can’t decide if I like it better in color or black & white!
What do you think?

[polldaddy poll=1323215]

If you are viewing this post on Facebook, you can click on the poll here: http://richardbellphotography.wordpress.com/2009/01/29/everyone-sing-happy-birthday-to-damien/

January 2009 Updates

January 25, 2009/in contests, weddings/by admin

Check out the studio’s first wedding album design of 2009:

Click here to view:

Photographed by Valerie Schooling in Greenville, SC

Also, it’s the last week of the caption contest, so please keep ’em coming!

You can submit your caption by commenting on the below image on our studio Facebook page. (We know it’s in profile pics as well as the “staff” photo album and either place is fine!)

Here’s the photo to refresh your creative juices:

Winner to be announced February 2nd!

There will be prizes, people!

:0)

{a sneak peek of Emily & Eric’s e-session!}

January 20, 2009/in Engagement/by admin

Earlier today, I (Valerie) had the sheer joy of doing an afternoon engagement session with Emily and Eric.

I had SO much fun that I had to put up a “sneak peak” for you all to see….and yes, a sneak peak is just a teaser…so hold your horses, people….you will see more in a later blog post! (I promise!)

Being a former newswriter, I could attempt to describe to you in words just how sickeningly cute and head-over-heels-in-LOVE this couple is….

…or I could just show you a picture or three…

They were also game for all my fun and creative, artsy ideas….

And for every serious moment, there were LOTS of fun and silly ones!
(This couple could teach the class on “how to have fun on a photo shoot” – haha!)

Hey now…..calm down, there are LOTS more to share!

So stay tuned! 🙂

Leah and Justin’s Waterfront Park engagement session!

January 15, 2009/in Engagement/by admin

I (Valerie) had a really fun engagement photo session downtown with Leah and Justin! Their wedding isn’t until July 18th, but since neither of them live in Charleston, we were lucky to squeeze in their session!

We met up in Waterfront Park, but the majority of our session was spent walking around downtown! We walked over to the train tracks, then to the steps of the Customs House, up East Bay Street a bit (where we shot in one of my favorite alleyways!) and ended back in Waterfront Park. 🙂

Here are a few favorites from their session:

Julie & Blake = one hot couple!

December 17, 2008/in Engagement, family portraits/by admin

One Sunday evening back in April, I (Valerie) had the pleasure of meeting Julie and her husband Blake downtown for a fun lifestyle portrait shoot! They’ve been married for a few years now, and decided it was time to have new pictures made.

Per special request, I am reaching back into our archives (8 months of shoots ago is a “long time” for us, haha!!!) – and posting a few. Here ya go, Julie!

A few of my favorites from their shoot:

Last Wedding Album Design of 2008

December 15, 2008/in bridals, weddings/by admin

(post by Valerie)

That’s right, folks. The 2008 calendar year is coming to a close, and wow what a year it’s been! Can you believe that (Nathan & my weddings combined) our studio has shot 63 weddings this year!!!! And of course we’ve also shot countless sessions of engagements, bridals, family portraits, babies and children.

We LOVE what we do, but boy oh boy have we been busy!

April & Justin’s wedding album!

A couple weeks ago, I posted a few of April & Justin’s wedding pictures. I am proud to share their album design (don’t miss it!) www.charlestonwedding.com/weddings/garris

Also, as promised, I am now posting some of my favorites from April’s bridal session….she seriously had one of my favorite bridal sessions of all of 2008, no doubt!

garrisbridalsave-002-single1

garrisbridalsave-004-single

garrisbridalsave-005-single

garrisbridalsave-001-single

garrisbridalsave-003-single

Leah + Rob, downtown Charleston

December 12, 2008/in Engagement/by admin

Talk about a cute couple! 🙂 Leah and Rob are getting married this coming April on a family plantation in a little town outside of Greenwood, SC. It’s going to be so neat and unique!

We had a great engagement portrait session! We started in Waterfront Park, and wandered around the Customs House, and a few alleyways on East Bay St.

Here are a few of my favorites:

Jay Clifford concert at the Music Farm!

December 11, 2008/in personal/by admin

Last Saturday night, I (Valerie) attended the last show of Jay Clifford’s recent tour, here in Charleston at the good ol’ Music Farm!

The only thing was…the concert didn’t allow ANYONE in with cameras (and my giant Canon 5D isn’t exactly easily hidden in a pocket!) But no worries, Jay knows me and made a special request that I be made an exception to do photography for the band!

Jay’s voice is still as awesome as ever!
http://www.myspace.com/jaycliffordmusic

jayclifford-007-single

Owen Beverly opened the show…and was fabulous, as always. I’ve been following Owen’s career since, eeh, about 2001 I think? He’s just got an amazing voice! (Owen Beverly’s myspace here: http://www.myspace.com/owenbeverly – you can check out his music on his myspace. I own his recent CD “Shooting the Bull” and I highly recommend it!)

Owen:
jayclifford-001-single

The 2nd opening band was Crowfield. Crowfield is seriously one of this area’s newest up and coming bands. They rock it out up there and are really talented! This was my 2nd time seeing them perform. (I saw them back in June when they opened for Will Hoge at the Windjammer.) They were great then too, so I was super excited to get to hear them rock again! Crowfield’s myspace: http://www.myspace.com/crowfieldmusic

Crowfield:
jayclifford-002-single

The Music Farm is definitely Charleston’s best venue.
It’s like none other! Here are my 2 fav’s that show off the venue:

jayclifford-005-single

And from up above, here’s the back part of the venue, including the bar and the merch area. (Also, Kip’s booth in the back! —Karson Photography— It’s always fun running into other Charleston photographers, and Kip is way cool so I had a good time hanging out with him in the back for a bit before the show started!)

jayclifford-003-single

Ok, so without further adieu, here are more of my favorite shots from JAY CLIFFORD!

jayclifford-004-single

From “upstairs”…

jayclifford-006-single

At the very end, Jay did something really amazing…he came into the audience and sang Cathedrals! There were a lot of tears in the audience. It really was special.

Jay rocks, even without a microphone! 🙂 I felt really honored to be the one to get to capture this moment!

jayclifford-008-single

Tag Archive for: valerie schooling

Also, it’s the last week of the caption contest, so please keep ’em coming!