The Commishes of VA-ABC

Meet the mighty triumvirate at the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control. The three commissioners were appointed by Governor Tim Kaine.

I got to photograph them for a beverage industry trade journal that focuses on the "control" states, as they call them in the biz. This image is the cover of the July/Aug issue of the magazine.


This was a fun shoot, and we set it up in the Carytown ABC store. The staff was terrific, and super helpful. The manager was so careful about making sure every bottle was perfectly placed.

One really cool thing about the VA ABC, is that stores will be open on July 4th. And just last week, stores in the Richmond area are now open on Sundays! I'm revving the blender now for the Independence Day 'smoothie with a kick.'


Image and text Copyright 2008, Elaine Odell, Church Hill Photography, LLC.

So in love.

This couple just surprised the hell out of me. Susan and Adam...married at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden last month.

So they show up at the studio last Fall, and are super casual, laid back...no preacher, no plans, thinking about wearing flip-flops to the wedding. Just wanting to get hitched in a beautiful setting.

True to their laid back form, the bride didn't even find her dress till 2 weeks before the wedding! But what a dress it was. Her mom said it came from Franco's...who'd have thought? She looked like a goddess.

But what a treat they were to work with. And who could ask for a more beautiful location for photography? We shot their engagement session in the garden in early March and had lots of fun getting to know each other.

By the time we got to the wedding day, they were steaming up the lens. So passionate, so in love, so beautiful.

See their entire wedding day by clicking here, or go to the proofs/events link on our website and type in "adam" for the password.


All images and text Copyright 2008 Elaine Odell for Church Hill Photography, LLC.

Crazy Cool House

Last week, we photographed an unusual home (unusual for Richmond, that is). My assistant called it a "Brady Bunch house, just way cooler". But the owners, Andy and Greg, call the home "Riversong".

This is the living room looking out toward the Newfound Falls River in Hanover County.

What I liked about the home is that it had this mod-Los Angeles/Miami look, yet it's in the Virginia countryside. We heard the rushing sound of the water falls whenever we stepped outside, and in the early morning, we heard cows mooing in the distance.

The current owners really made the most of the floor to ceiling windows. Each room is oriented toward the view. And they embraced the modern architecture with goovy interior decorating choices.

As we set up each shot, I imagined the first floor full of beautiful people in chic attire sipping martinis--this seemed like the perfect house for a glamorous event.

But my favorite room was the master bedroom. I just wanted to lie down and take a nap...open the glass doors and fall asleep to the sound of birds singing and water rushing.

What's amazing about the house is the consistency of interior design and decorating throughout. Also, the level of comfort in the furnishings impressed me. I'm a latecomer to the discovery that modern design and furnishings don't have to be hard-edged or rigid. Even the kitchen table chairs were soft and inviting. And no matter where you were in the house, there was always a good view out the window into the soft spring-green trees.

Carter Ritchie has the listing on this home, which is going on the market soon. You can reach him via http://www.carterritchie.com

XDL Intellectual Property Law

XDL is one of the coolest clients I've had the pleasure to work with. The XDL firm is comprised of attorneys with various specialties in my favorite area of law: intellectual property ;-).

When they first called me for a shoot, we focused on full length high-key portraits of each attorney, for the "who we are" page on their website. That was a lot of fun, and I got to know each of the attorneys personally during those sessions.

But the images I like the most are the black and white environmental, available light images you see here.

The attorneys live all over the US, from Seattle to Minneapolis to Richmond, which doesn't poses any apparent obstacles to the ability to litigate effectively on behalf of their clients. When they do get together in one room, it's amazing.


All that brainpower in one location...all focused on protecting intellectual property rights...it's enough to make any creator swoon. Talk of copyright protection, patent and trademark litigation...ooooh, ahhh.

So my client, Amy Smith Pike, Marketing Director for the XDL group, says, "lets get some action shots of these guys all together hashing things out". So I got my trusty monopod, locked in the long lens, and stabilized the camera for some high ISO/low light/no flash/low shutter speed images of the group in one of their bull sessions.


Normally, when I'm asked to shoot meetings, I like to place off-camera strobes in the room to bring up the light level. This enables us to get low ISO, and thus low noise color images.

But something about this meeting was different...perhaps it was the intimacy of the room and the time pressure these folks were under to keep the agenda rolling (half of them had to catch flights home in the afternoon.) I felt it would be too much of a distraction to have strobes popping, plus, the room had so much stuff in it (flip charts, coffee pots, laptops, luggage sodas and snacks) I don't know where I would have found the room for light stands.

When converted to gray-scale, the low light/high noise images looked like good old fashioned grainy T-Max film. Didn't hurt that my client, Amy, used to work in media herself...she's an old news-hound and "gets it" on the photo-journalistic concept for her firm.

In the end, I was surprised at how much I liked the images, and I love how the design firm, Prototype Advertising, used them on the XDL website. Nice to know I have clients in high places, should I ever need to go to court to defend a copyright infringement.
All images Copyright 2007, Elaine Odell, Church Hill Photography, LLC.

Lovers in the garden

This is Adam and Susan...to be wed May 10, 2008, at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden here in Richmond, VA. They both live and work in Northern Virginia now, but the bride hails from nearby Mechanicsville.

Last week, we went over to the Asian Garden (their reception will be in the Tea House) and walked around with a camera to get a feel for the site. I've photographed several weddings at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden, but this will be my first using the Asian Garden as a reception/photography area.

An engagement portrait session with the bride & groom is a great warm up for the wedding day. The couple gets comfy smooching in front of a camera and we usually get lots of romantic images of 'young luv'.
















The couple probably won't choose this image of her kissing his nose ...but I absolutely love it! It's the only frame like it, and shows how playful they are. I can't wait for the wedding day.

All images and content Copyright Elaine Odell/Church Hill Photography, LLC, 2008.

Pardon Our Dust...

If you've made it to this location on the World Wide Web...forgive us as we overhaul our website this weekend and republish our blog. If you've ever been through this process, you'll understand that things never work the way you anticipate...just gotta keep moving things around on the server till we get it right. Everything should be in order by Monday, March 31, 2008.

My Hero: Sandra Day O'Connor

One of the institutions I have the pleasure of working with is the College of William & Mary, in Williamsburg, VA.

These days, former Supreme Court Associate Justice, Sandra Day O'Connor is the serving as Chancellor for W&M.

She attended the annual Charter Day festivities this year, and I was asked to cover the celebratory, black-tie dinner at the end of the day. This was the second time I'd had the opportunity to photograph her on the college campus. And this time, just like before, I was totally star-struck.

The image above is my favorite picture of her from that night. We have lots of shots of her delivering a speech and doing the formal things on the agenda...but those look as you would expect. At this point, former W&M President, Gene Nichol was at the lectern, and he must have made some jovial remark which made her laugh. Lovely.

She really was the classiest dame in the room...and fell for her. When the event was over, I saw her talking with Harriet Mayor Fulbright (president of the J. William & Harriett Fulbright Center).

Seeing these two amazing women together was really powerful; the Supreme Court Judge and the world peace advocate. I just had to document what appeared to be a warm friendship. With my photojournalist hat on, I followed O'Connor and Fulbright out of the banquet hall, got ahead of them, turned around and walked backwards hoping I wouldn't knock down one of the other guests as I made pictures.

Just after I got this shot, O'Connor said "That's quite enough now." Her words were like a laser beam: delivered with a smile and complete seriousness. It was a little taste of what it might have been like to argue a case before her.

Instantly, I stopped shooting, and scooted back into the ballroom to photograph the other guests.