Monthly Archives: February 2010

Chateau Bellevie • Fuquay-Varina, NC • Venue Photography

02.10.10

During the food-tasting event, we also took a bunch of pictures at the Chateau Bellevie, which is a bed & breakfast next door to the High Grove Estate. Owned and run by Maria & Roxana, who also run the High Grove together with Vicki, many brides and/or their guests spend one or more nights at this luxurious ornate French-decorated mansion. And since I have a slight pretty huge obsession with everything French, I walked in and fell in love. Every single square inch of this home was perfectly planned and executed with excellence. Maria showed us about the mansion and as I listened to her talk about this home, I could tell that she just loves it and takes great pride in all the work she put into it. Not only does the Chateau Bellevie sleep its guests, it also hosts its own wedding ceremonies on its beautiful outdoor grounds. If you are interested in visiting the Chateau Bellevie, whether it’s to stay a few nights or hold your wedding ceremony there, visit their website HERE or call 919.622.6128.

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by Caroline

5 comments

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February 10, 2010 - 5:59 pm

Damaris Mia - Wow. What an gorgeous place! LOVE the pictures! Great job!

February 10, 2010 - 11:20 pm

Roxana Costiuc - These picture are amazing! Love love love the head shot of the house, we would be so honored to feature some of these pictures on our website. I can’t wait to get my hands on those cds!!

February 17, 2010 - 5:17 pm

WannaB - This place is beyond exquisite! WOW!

March 5, 2010 - 12:55 pm

Brittany Coulter - I can’t wait til you shoot Dave and I’ wedding at the Chateau in September! These shots are amazing!

March 24, 2010 - 11:27 pm

Marie - Caroline, thank you so much for taking great pictures of our Chateau. It feels like you love it as much as we do…
I’m especially impressed with the last picture you posted, the one that says:” Come to see us at the Chateau, and expect great things
and great food. Come in, I’m waiting for you…”
Best regards to Caroline & family, you’re the sweetest bunch!

High Grove Estate • Fuquay-Varina, NC • Venue Photography

02.09.10

A couple of months ago, Alin and I were invited to a food-tasting event at High Grove Estate in Fuquay-Varina, North Carolina just 20 minutes away from Raleigh. It sits right next to Laurel Lake and is one of the most beautiful venues serving some of the tastiest foods I’ve ever had. What I love most are the people that run the place. We have Vicki, Maria, & Roxana. These women have some serious passion for what they do and take tremendous pride in their venue appearance and the service they provide to their clients. So when they had asked Alin and I to come setup our photography work for their brides to see, I was flattered & humbled that they would think I was good enough to show there. Here are some pictures I took of their venue, food-tasting and setups. If you are a bride and are interested in setting up an appointment with them, visit their website HERE or call 919.552.6154.

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by Caroline

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February 9, 2010 - 2:12 pm

Andrea - Stunning Venue! Great shots Caroline! Wish we could have our wedding there :)

February 9, 2010 - 2:47 pm

Marianna Player - Caroline- this is a beautiful venue and your images showcase it wonderfully. Your work is always stunning and I love looking at it. I’m so excited that we will get to work at this venue in May!!

Recipe Mondays No. 10 { Totally Rad Actions }

02.08.10

So I’ve got kind of a special treat today (if you would call it that). I’ve been spending a lot of January and February working on some behind the scenes & business stuff, with no weddings and sessions at a minimum. I just really need to prepare for what’s happening starting March, where I will pretty much be hitting the ground running until the end of the year. So anyway, with all that said, I didn’t have any new sessions to use for a before & after Recipe Mondays post. And then I thought, wouldn’t it be interesting to go back to some of my very first weddings and see how I would have edited them if I had my Totally Rad Actions? So that’s what I did. From my archives, I pulled out the very first wedding I had ever shot on my own in October 2005. I was miserably sick at 4 months pregnant with my second, and I also shot in Portland, Oregon, raining all day of course, and charged around $900 for the job. It was for a sister of my friend’s husbands, in case you were wondering. And a VERY sweet family at that :) Back then I was shooting in “Auto” mode with my trusty Nikon D70 and some kit lens. With VERY little knowledge of Photoshop, I edited & touched up most of these images with Photoshop’s “diffuse glow”. I didn’t know what else to do. Actions didn’t really exist back then. I thought I’d show you an original photo from the wedding, the way I edited back then, and how I would have edited it now -almost 5 years later.

The first image below is the original untouched image. The second one was edited with what looks like Photoshop’s “diffused glow” effect.
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The original untouched image.
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I lightened up the faces and some of the trees and slightly darkened his suit using TRA’s “Yin/Yang” tool.
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“Green with Envy” on the trees and gray/green stone.
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“Boutwell Magic Glasses” at 50 percent.
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“Select-o-Pop” on the stonework.
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I used the noise reduction (skin) tool from Nik Software’s “Dfine 2.0 on their skin.
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I rotated the image to straighten it, cropped and used the healing brush to rid of any distractions.
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“Warm it up, Kris!” at 60% opacity.
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“Antique Tone” at 70%.
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And there you have it!
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What do you guys think?

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by Caroline

11 comments

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February 8, 2010 - 11:01 am

Damaris Mia - What did you do to lighten her skin?
Great job, btw :]

February 8, 2010 - 11:04 am

Caroline - Hi Damaris! Yes, I used TRA’s “Yin/Yang” tool to lighten their skin. It’s a few pictures down from the top, and I wrote it there in case you wanted to see which picture was associated with that :)

February 8, 2010 - 11:06 am

Damaris Mia - I must’ve missed it. Thanks

February 8, 2010 - 11:16 am

Karla - Thank you! I have “mental noted” to myself several times that I would LOVE to go back and edit a few images from my first couple of weddings! I might just have to do that now! The only thing that confuses me when you are editing, is how do you add an action to only part of the image. Like the skin, or the floor??? Thanks! ~Karla

February 8, 2010 - 11:24 am

Caroline - Hi Karla! With Rad Actions, when you select “Green with Envy, for example, it automatically chooses the paintbrush tool in Photoshop for you. So you use this paint brush tool and paint in the image where you wish to apply “Green with Envy”. Same think when I selected the noise reduction tool for skin in Nik Software’s Color Efx Pro. It gives you the option to fill in the entire image with the effect or to paint it in areas you want to. There are other actions in the TRA set that automatically apply the effect/action to the entire image. You can select the eraser tool and erase that effect/action from parts of the image. Or sometimes you can select the paintbrush tool and then hit “x” on your keyboard to change the background from white to black (watch the 2 little boxes in the bottom part of the Photoshop tools menu box), and then paint the picture where you wish to remove a certain effect/action. Make sure to hit “x” again to bring the background back to white.

February 8, 2010 - 12:26 pm

Lilly Stancu - WOW it takes that much work for ONE pic? Final product looks amazing. Great job girl!

February 8, 2010 - 1:24 pm

Caroline Ghetes - LOL, Lilly. Believe it or not, that’s usually the minimum I process on EACH and EVERY image I provide to my clients. I want to make sure all is perfect and consistent with exposure & color when the photos are presented to them. And then there’s at least double to even triple the work spent on some of the more creative shots to really add drama. That’s why pro photographers charge what they do. It isn’t just the 8 hours they show up on the one day ; )

February 8, 2010 - 1:49 pm

Daniel Elgan - THANK you for recipe Monday!! I just recently purchased the TRA1, and I am having a great time learning new editing methods. Your recipes and description of your editing workflow are so helpful!!

February 8, 2010 - 3:01 pm

helga - I think you are amazing and I love your honesty!!!!! I love it!!!

February 8, 2010 - 10:57 pm

audra bender - really beautiful, for a new photographer it is great to hear someone who is so accomplished talk your first experiences, gives me so much hope for the future. :-) love all your photos.

February 8, 2010 - 11:45 pm

Caroline - Thank you Daniel & Audra, I am so happy to know that these are helpful in any small way! Helga, thank you!

My heart hurts…

02.07.10

I was at Central Church tonight and as usual the choir blows me away. As I sing along with them, for some reason, I am getting flashbacks of Living Waters Church where our family used to attend when we lived in Phoenix before May 2008. I used to sing in the worship group with my brother Genaro. As I sang tonight along with the choir, my heart ached and my eyes stung with tears as I realized how much I missed singing with my brother. I still sing at home & definitely in the car. But it just isn’t the same when you are up there on the stage, and you are blessed with this gift to bless others. I miss it. I really do. I miss the routine of going to practice Thursday nights before church. I miss Andrew messin’ around on drums and pretending that he’s this rock star or something. I miss Paul playing piano like he’s from another planet. I miss Mikey playing the guitar, and having that permanent smirk on his face when he plays. I miss Laura and her strange humor -that I totally get. I miss Genaro belting out his vocals and me wondering how it is he hasn’t been discovered. I miss Alin being the soundboard guy and being directly in front of me when I was up there singing. I miss walking over the volleyball sand court to get into the church building. I miss Youth Nights on Thursday nights. I miss Pastor Doru’s preaching. I miss my brother Francois’ preaching. I miss how close every one of the members were to each other. I miss how everyone came together to help my family when we were in need and at the lowest of lows in our lives. I miss hearing about everyone’s mission trips to Romania & Moldova. I miss being around people who were non-judgmental and loved you no matter what. I miss how everyone came to my ugly Christmas sweater parties wearing ugly Christmas sweaters. I miss everything and everyone in that church.

I’ve been asked many times why I live in Charlotte away from EVERYONE I know and love. I love everything about Charlotte except that those people are not here. And as much as I say I love it here, and I truly do, I hurt because I wish I could pick up everyone from Phoenix and move them here. Then life would be perfect. But life isn’t supposed to be perfect. I know that. I’ll have to accept that. I toy with the idea every now and then of “what if we moved back?” But I know that if we did, I’d be miserable again. I hate the desert. I just could not spend the rest of my life living in the desert.

Anyway, if anyone from Living Waters is reading this (you know who you are), know that I love you all, I miss you terribly, and I will NEVER forget you and what you’ve done in my family’s lives. But especially mine. Thank you.

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by Caroline

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February 7, 2010 - 11:43 pm

Damaris Mia - Why not move to Southern California? :)

February 8, 2010 - 12:03 am

jessie - thanks for opening up like that! our family, our church truly misses you guys as well. God has a plan for everything, everything is made perfect in His timing. See you soon!

February 8, 2010 - 12:21 am

Lavi - Caroline!! I totally know how you feel!! It’s crazy being away from people that mean so much to you in life!! Sometimes God sends us in directions that we aren’t sure about, but in looking over the last few years, you realize how truly blessed you are!! Know that you are loved and missed I’m sure from everyone!! You never know where the road ahead leads you!! God bless you all!! WE miss you guys and know how your feeling!!

February 8, 2010 - 12:44 am

Simo - I know I don’t attend LW BUT I do miss the Ugly sweater Christmas parties. Christmas just isn’t the same anymore. Not just that but the fun we had on poker-turns into just funny talking-night.

February 8, 2010 - 10:35 am

Caroline - Damaris, I mean this in the best and nicest way possible -I would never. LOL. I like visiting but to me it’s just like AZ. Desert landscaping with an ocean next to it. I REALLY like East Coast beaches more. They’re very romantic. Thank you, Jess, and thank you Lavi, it means a lot girlies : ) Simona, man do I miss those parties! I would have thought that you would take over for me ; ) LOL. And the poker nights were somethin’ else. Definitely funny how we never really played the actual game much since we were always distracted by each other’s cool factor. We’ll be in AZ for 2 weeks in June, so we are having at least acouple of Poker/talk nights while we’re there, k? ; ) Love you!

February 8, 2010 - 11:03 am

Damaris Mia - Not really… haha. There is no way you can compare it to AZ. No way. However, I don’t doubt the east coast is beautiful. Hope to visit one day.

February 9, 2010 - 2:52 am

Lora Husu - Thanks Caroline =) That’s very sweet of you! I can imagine that it’s hard to find that balance. Where we choose to live definitely affects us and so does the people there…But God does have a reason for everything! I truly believe that. Just in His timing…I’m praying and thinking of you all. Be blessed!

February 9, 2010 - 3:59 am

Doru - I know we didn’t get to know each other, guys, but I can truly say you are missed… we could do with some BIG help both at singing and sound! I was just talking with Marta… what if we could grow a forest here… would you move back then? Just a thought … :)

February 9, 2010 - 12:02 pm

Caroline Ghetes - Doru, LOL! I never thought of it. Maybe? ; )

February 10, 2010 - 12:12 am

Francois - you will come back…

February 10, 2010 - 1:45 am

Caroline - Francois! You are so creepy!

February 10, 2010 - 1:45 am

Caroline - LOL!

February 22, 2010 - 3:57 am

Otilia - Ok so I know this post a bit late, but whatever. I miss you guys. Agreeing with Simo and you, not just the weekly poker nights, but also the Sunday brunches at my mom’s, the cute kids and their funky church outfits, your smell of fresh laundry… just move back already. Just do it. Who cares about the desert. We’ve been getting rain lately. The grass being “greener on the other side” doesn’t count when all the people/family/church is on the “right” side. Miss you.

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2006-2010 All images copyright of Caroline Ghetes Photography. Please do not copy, screen-cap, or alter any images without my permission. If you do, I will hunt you down & find you. | ProPhoto Photo Blog by NetRivet, Inc

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