A couple weeks ago she posted a quick behind the scene’s post followed by a preview of the covers she selected for the next issue of the magazine. Here they are…

I can’t wait to show off the images we published as well as many more from the shoot and from behind the scenes over the next few weeks.

Today she posted a sneak peak from my friends Danny and David over at Optimum Productions, a quick behind the scenes video teaser… I can’t wait to see the entire behind the scene’s video!

I was excited to shoot the cover for the May issue of Date Night Magazine featuring 24 year old Corrie Adamson, one of the women on the most recent season of The Bachelor on ABC. We shot the cover in the swank bar of the fabulous new Loews Hotel in Atlanta which had just opened a couple weeks earlier. You can read the interview with Corrie on the online magazine’s website.

Here’s the cover:

Here are two more of my favorite images… this one was used in the article:

After meeting and getting to know Corrie just a little bit, I have to conclude that Jake isn’t so bright. Corrie (twitter) owns her own wardrobe consulting and personal shopper business called Dandy, and became known as the only contestant on Bachelor that wanted to save herself for marriage, which is always a commendable endeavor in face of an increasingly incredulous society. Props for that!

I’ve started to get in the habit of capturing (or having my assistants capture) behind the scenes imagery, not just for myself, but we often get some really great images. Here’s the rather small crew of folks onsite to make the shoot happen. Getting ready to roll…

Here is Corrie hamming it up as our two stylists, Kelli Cunningham and Meghan “Riley” Baumann from Bob Steele Salon, put some final touches on her while we were shooting at the bar.

The illustrious me pretending to know what I’m doing as I explain the “look” we are going after…

I just HAD to include this image of Jaime Luckey, the Editor of Date Night Magazine (follow on twitter). Given the subject of our shoot, and that she was recently in the running for Jezebel Magazine’s Most Eligible Atlantans for 2010, I thought this image was particularly appropriate. Hope she doesn’t kill me.

The whole gang:

(L-R) Meghan “Riley” Baumann and Kelli Cunningham from Bob Steele Salon, me, Corrie Adamson, Kelly Ducray, Jaime Luckey, Matthew Thomas our “Bachelor”.

Last summer Atlanta Occasions approached me about shooting the cover of their second issue. PWP Studio shot the beautiful cover image for the first issue so I had a lot to live up to. As Heather and I were scouting locations for the cover shoot I happened to learn about Ventanas, a beautiful rooftop venue to in the midst of downtown overlooking the Luckie Marietta District and Centennial Olympic Park. The best part was it was brand new event facility that hadn’t even opened yet.

In addition to the amazing patio view (the image on the cover) they also have a helipad on the rooftop for when you want to arrive in style. Once the team had our first meeting there, we were all hooked… here’s an image I took point-n-shoot style during our first walk-thru. I mean, WOW!

Inspiraton Station: Sherbet Chic

There was a dedicated team of professionals to make the shoot happen.

Location: Ventanas Atlanta
Coordination: ellyB Events
Florals & Decor: Amy Osaba
Linens: I Do Linens
Cake/cupcakes: Sugarplum Visions
Tableware: Owen Lawrence / Bloomingdales
Hair & Makeup: Scoobie West, H.S. West Hair & Makeup
Invitations: Sandi Spells Designs
Wedding Dress(es): Priscilla of Boston
Rentals: Event Rentals Unlimited
Venue lighting: Active Production & Design
Photo assistant: John Ellis

Rooftop Venues: Bird’s Eye View

In addition to the cover shoot I photographed the Ventanas Grand Opening for the feature story on Atlanta rooftop venues.

We went back to Ventanas a few times to get the right weather (mother nature wasn’t cooperating!) to shoot the cover image. Between the photo shoot, the Grand Opening, the cover shoot and all our meetings, I felt like I was living at Ventanas for half of November. Of course, I never complained about the view…

** CLICK HERE to view the entire issue online.

My good friend and amazing commercial and wedding photographer David Christensen happened to be busy and was kind enough to refer Grace Manor to me. Grace Manor is a beautiful new property managed by Lease Luxury Properties and they were looking for some imagery to kick off their media campaign.

So this is what you get when you combine a beautiful setting, a dress from the incomparable Anne Barge, gorgeous light and a stunning model…

This is the image they are using for the ad in The Atlantan Brides magazine. You can view the ad on page 21 of the online digital edition.

I included this last one because she has such a bubbly personality and fantastic smile that I wanted you to see it.

Atlanta Occasions Magazine Cover Release & Venue Showcase Party

Let’s just say that if you want Ben Vigil Photographers to cover your wedding, you will definitely want what’s in the swag bag! Here are a few more reasons to come…

• I haven’t been this excited about an event in a long time, so that’s reason enough!
• It’s FREE!
• You get to see the cover location in person, shot by yours truly.
• You get to see which of my brides made the back cover. Maybe she’ll autograph it for you!
• There’s a helipad!
• SWAG Bag for every bride and giveaways.
• You get to meet the TOP wedding pros in the industry.
• Every bride who attends gets a free ticket to The Not Wedding ($25 value).

** CLICK HERE TO REGISTER **

Brought to you by Atlanta Occasions Magazine and ellyB Events.

PAUL PHILLIP

We started off 2009 very different than it ended. At this time last year Maria had been in and out of the hospital more than once in her struggle to carry our 3rd son to full term. But the new year started with a bang. On January 6, we welcomed Paul Phillip Vigil into the world…

Paul came about a month early and he spent a couple weeks in NICU, but it marked the end of months of bed rest for Maria. It was truly a welcome time for us as a family. And he’s grown into quite an adorable little kid. Much better than the first two

Here he is back in October in our foyer…

…and just a few weeks ago trying to stay awake with my wife Maria at a family wedding…

FIRSTS

2009 was a BIG year of firsts. In the past year I’ve had my first $20,000+ bride, my first book cover was published (even if it was in German), I was invited to shoot my first magazine cover (more on that in a minute), and I shot my first military wedding and first high school sweetheart wedding that was 50 years in the making.

In 2009 I also took my first and second “serious” forays into commercial advertising work with Blanqi and 4Laces, both of which launch in Q1 of 2010 as women-owned and -driven apparel businesses. I’m super excited for both of these companies and where they are going. Commercial work (headshots, architecture, advertising) has never been a large part of my business and I’ve never targeted that market segment but if the fit is right and I’m confident that I can serve my client well, I’ll take the business.

WEDDING INDUSTRY

2009 saw a big shake up in the bridal magazine industry. A whole spate of bridal magazines have closed and a few more have popped up. January saw the first anniversary issue of The Atlantan Brides, a sister publication to the Atlantan. The Atlantan Brides was a key part of my marketing efforts in 2008 and 2009 and I still think they represent the pinnacle of luxury bridal magazines in Atlanta.

I was fortunate to be able to work with Celeste, the [now former], Publisher of the Atlantan Brides. She continues to be one of the most impressive and talented people I’ve ever met in this industry. I credit her with starting my “vendor headshot side gig” when she asked me to shoot her headshots when she became associate publisher, and then, publisher. Alas, she was married and we were all sad to see her go as she followed her new husband on a great new adventure across the big pond in England.

Meanwhile, as The Atlanta Brides prepared for their 4th issue to go to print, there was a celebration taking place down in Hampton, GA as Heather Vreeland was preparing to launch the first issue of Atlanta Occasions Magazine. She flattered me by asking me to cover the launch party which took place in July.

Heather has since become a good friend and I’ve had the opportunity to work with Atlanta Occasions, including a photoshoot and event imagery for the Winter 2010 issue and shooting the cover for it too. The new issue officially launches today and in a day or two I’ll have a full post on all our work for this issue.

In addition to shooting Heather in a magnificent Anne Barge dress in October, during the magazine cover photoshoot we managed to squeeze in a moment and shoot her headshot for the new issue of the magazine…

I’m already looking forward to the incredible work Ben Vigil Photographers and Atlanta Occasions will do in 2010!

WEDDINGS GOING STRONG

2009 brought a number of really amazing weddings but one of them sticks out for a personal reason. My good friend of many years now, Skotti Ray Frese (I love her new name! It sounds like a super hero character, doesn’t it), married the man of her dreams in June. I actually spent 3 full blog entries on it — Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.

To this day, I still credit Skotti with almost single-handedly launching my photography career. She’s been a constant cheerleader and personal inspiration to me. I can’t thank her enough and I wish her all the best in 2010.

BEN v2.2

Today, January 1, 2010, also marks the beginning of a new stage for Ben Vigil Photographers. We’ve rolled out a slightly tweaked branding, an entirely new pricing structure and we’ve laid all the ground work for a new stage of our business, the upcoming Ben v3.0

Here’s evidence that I’m still a total geek at heart: as a holdover from my days in software and web development, I’ve started giving version numbers to each stage of my business. You may or may not have noticed that for the better part of the last 6 months we’ve been sitting at Ben v2.0. Today marks the upgrade to Ben v2.2.

Thanks for coming along for the ride and I look forward to sharing a fantastic 2010 with you!

One of my commercial clients just put up their teaser site using some of the imagery that I shot earlier this year. They aren’t giving away much on the site, so I’m not going to say anything else except that I can’t wait to show you more! Here’s a screen grab from their web site. Go check it out!

ASIDE: Oh, and you may have noticed that my site has changed just a bit…everything is bigger, everything better… but I’ll get to that later.

Wow… what a launch! Heather asked us to cover the magazine launch and of course I was excited to help out. Atlanta Occasions took over the Foundry at Puritan Mill, Tony Brewer and Company provided the decor and Doc from Full Circle Lighting provided the lighting. Everything was all wrapped up in a package by Eliana Baucicault at By Your Side Events.

Check out these amazing treats from Mindy over at M Cupcakes!

These bottom-lit tables provided some fantastic ambiance.

The official welcome from Heather.

For event pros who are always behind the scenes, they sure didn’t have any problems on the dance floor!

Joel Rabe from Lethal Rhythms was on hand to keep the music pumping and everybody on the dance floor.

Here’s a plug for my new photographer buddy, Patrick Williams, his wife and his designer. We commiserated a bit after I dropped and broke my precious $1800 Nikon 14-24 lens.

Somebody’s having some fun…

Congratulations Heather!!!

Check out the slideshow below. If you’re looking for ALL the red carpet images CLICK HERE after you watch the slideshow.

Enjoy the show!

The other is the cover of a book. My first actually. I just got a few of them in the mail and I told Vicky when I saw her the other day that I’d send her a copy. She’ll get a kick out of it and I’m sure her friends will harass her about it.

And I can’t even read it… It’s a german translation of a book by Christopher West, “The Love That Satisfies.” They contacted me last year after seeing Vicky and Jason’s engagement images on my blog. I mean, they are both stunning, passionate, and madly in love so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that someone would want to use them on the cover of a book about… uhm… “marital love”.

, destination Germany

I have a few images and quotes splashed throughout the issue but here’s my ad this time around:

I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: this is the best magazine in Atlanta for the modern bride. It’s classy, it’s elegant, it’s modern, it’s haute, and it’s chic. I’m proud to be associated with Modern Luxury and Celeste and Elizabeth have done a stellar job putting this one together.

Speaking of Celeste, I was happy to shoot her headshot for the latest issue. This is the one they choose to run:

Congratulations on a stellar first year!

Ben Vigil, Atlantan Brides/Modern Luxury headshots