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Milla C. Photography Blog bio picture

Welcome to the Milla C. Photography blog!

We are Milla and Brad Chappell, a husband-wife photography team with a natural, fresh style.  Take your time looking around, and feel free to fill out our contact page for more information!

A little about us... we live in Pittsburgh.  We have been in love for 8 years.  We're crazy about our two dogs.  We love this city.  We believe in the power of prayer.  We are morning people.  We love adventure.  We eat Thai at least once a week... if Brad gives in. :)  We prefer to be outside.  We are southerners at heart.  We are master french-toast makers.  We live in the greatest neighborhood ever.  We enjoy all types of Art.  And we love to capture life through photography.    

Photo by the wonderful Caryn Azure.

Far from Pittsburgh!

So… as you can tell, we are a long, long way from Pittsburgh!

I am having fun out in Las Vegas with Mary Schwarz and Caryn Azure! We’re here for a national photography conference (WPPI), so we’ve been attending classes, talking about our businesses, and doing a little shooting as well! Here are a few photos from yesterday morning when we headed into the canyons and ran into some very friendly burros.

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They would pose nicely for us! Until Caryn’s clicking boots spooked them that is… ;)
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Singing donkey? No… just a yawning one.
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The beautiful Mary!
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Caryn, workin’ it.
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More fun photos to come when I get home!

March 9, 2010 - 7:37 pm Amanda - Those burros are hilarious! I love these pictures. Looks like you have been having a blast. I can't wait to see you in April!!!

Photography Conference! and a big smile…

Woohoo! I just landed in Vegas for a photography workshop/conference with some of the best in the business! I’m out here with some other wonderful Pittsburgh photographers, and seriously… I’m grinning just like Akamai.

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See ya when I get back!!

Inspiration Everwhere! The Civil Wars

I find creative inspiration everywhere: in conversations, in movies, in music, in books, in the photography of others. And, today’s inspiration is the video “poison and wine” by The Civil Wars.

Their voices are heavenly, the song is thoughtful, and the LIGHT! That subtle, beautiful light just makes me want to pick up my camera!

Tell us: what’s something that inspires you?

p.s. if you like these two, they are offering a live album as a free download on their myspace page here!

Parent Wedding Albums

Okay, folks! As promised… more albums!

Today I want to show you an example of our parent albums. Parent albums are 8×8 inch leather-bound albums with beautiful hinged digital pages.

You can choose the color of the binding (all of which can be seen here). And, there are 20 sides of photos in your album.

Here are a few photos of our studio sample from Caitlin and Rolf’s beautiful Phipps Conservatory/William Penn Omni wedding last year!

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And as I said before, we have samples of all these color options in our office downtown. So, come feel and smell the leathery goodness! :)

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snowy wedding photos: a preview.

I live in PA, but I am Florida girl at heart. And fresh, falling snow still makes my heart pound like a little kid.

It’s because of this that yesterday I sent out a call for couples to put on their wedding clothes and head outside in the freezing snow for some beautiful white photos. And, I had two WONDERFUL couples take me up on the offer: Betsey & Matt and Leeann & Brad.

I just got back from the shoots and downloaded the pictures, and I wanted to post two “teaser” photos. I am so excited to show the rest soon – thanks so much all 4 of you for being so amazing and coming out in the snow and cold!

If anyone else would like to take snowy photos in your wedding dress, I will extend this offer to two more couples. Contact me if you are interested.

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February 27, 2010 - 5:24 pm ChrissieK - so excited!! CAN'T wait to see the pictures!

February 27, 2010 - 8:00 pm Amanda - Love the one with the yellow daffodils! Wish I could come up and take some pictures in my dress. You are so creative Milla!

March 1, 2010 - 9:58 am Emily - The flowers are so beautiful, and such a contrast to the white and cold of the snow!

March 2, 2010 - 9:40 pm Christy - I love the knitted gloves against the satin look of her dress and the bright flowers with the whites & greys. I'm starting to get excited to meet with a florist!

March 2, 2010 - 9:42 pm Christy - I'd love to take some snowy pictures, but putting on the wedding dress may be premature...but maybe we should talk?!

Inspiration Everywhere! The Killers

I find creative inspiration everywhere: in conversations, in movies, in music, in books, in the photography of others. And, I’d love to just start posting some of that inspiration here. So, now for a new post series… inspiration everywhere!

Since I am headed to Las Vegas this week, I’ll post one of my favorite music videos ever: Human by the Killers.

What I love about this: backlighting, feathers, dance, sunglasses, landscape, tiger, bird, vest, big hair, great framing, bowtie, backlighting, backlighting, backlighting!! Do you see it all?

And in response to this, let us know: what inspires you?

Custom Save the Dates by Milla C. Photography

Happy Monday everyone!

I am really excited to show you something I have been thinking about and working on for a long time now: our new line of save-the-date cards!

We offer an engagement session with every level of wedding coverage, and one use for these engagement photos besides our beautiful guest sign-in album is our save-the-date cards.

Previously, clients who ordered save-the-date cards would work with me to design the card from scratch. I would create 2 or 3 design choices, they would choose the one they liked most, and then about 10 revisions later, we’d finally have the finished product! :)

Well, in order to simplify this process AND to give each client more design choices, I made a custom line of cards that can be completely customized in color, photo, and text.

Here are the details:

1. Each card is 5×7 inches and is printed on both the front and the back.

2. Each card may be customized to match the colors of your wedding

3. You may choose the engagement photo(s) to be used on your card

4. Cards are ordered in sets of 25 and come with either white or natural envelopes (specified below)

5. The basic design and font used on your card will remain the same (that is unless you send me brownies and tell me you’ll love me forever).

Here are the 8 designs that are available for save-the-date cards.

I am also designing a custom line of thank-you cards. Those will be folded cards with room for a note inside, and I will be posting these sometime over the next few weeks!

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March 1, 2010 - 9:41 am Krisan - These are awesome!! I love the polaroid one. I wish you would have started this up in time to do MY wedding! Love you.

March 1, 2010 - 9:55 am Emily - The polaroid one is my favorite, as well. :) They are all great, though! You make me want to get married again (to Caleb, of course) just so you can be my photographer!

March 1, 2010 - 3:26 pm Christy - I like the "Ornate Save the Date" with Jerrod & Stephanie and it is not just because I know they are beautiful people in every way. I think that I mostly like it because if someone wanted to slip in inside of a frame they easily could because one side has no text on it.

Pittsburgh Child Photography: Meet Claire!

Claire Poppert is a precious 3-month old that I had the pleasure of photographing while visiting Washington D.C. last weekend. Her mom and dad, Kate and Dave, are related to Eva and John, whose wedding we photographed last December. And, we were thrilled when they asked us to come out to photograph their little one.

This session was such a pleasure for me. Not only was Claire sweet and pleasant the whole time. Okay, okay… almost the whole time. We did have a few small fits! :) But also, her sweet mama made all sorts of delicious cookies and cake bars for us to take home. I mean, amazing!

Here are a few favorites from their session. Thanks again, guys. Enjoy!

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February 24, 2010 - 12:16 pm Heather - Milla!!!!! I LOVE these!!!! They are all so beautiful! Sooooo sweet!!

February 24, 2010 - 3:27 pm Eva - Milla- You've done it again! Love every one of them!

February 24, 2010 - 8:23 pm Milla - Thanks guys!!

Wedding Guest Sign-in Album

Happy Friday everyone!

I want to show you a few photos of our guest sign-in albums for wedding receptions. These albums have become really popular since we started offering an engagement shoot with every level of wedding coverage, and it is one of my personal favorite wedding add-ons!

The sign-in album is 10×10 inches with thick, hinged pages like our 12×12 wedding albums (and, they would look awesome sitting together on your coffee table!). It includes your favorite engagement photos and also offers room for guest signatures on every page. The color options are modern and fun, and the album color can also coordinate with your wedding album color and/or wedding reception colors. And on a personal note, I always love to see guests enjoying your engagement photos at the wedding reception!

Here are a few photos from our studio sample of Adriel and Neal’s engagement session. We have many more of these books coming in the next few months from last year’s engagement shoots. So, I will post more photos as they come in.

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There are lots of color choices for this album (which you can see here). And, we have samples of every cover material in our office. So, feel free to come feel and smell the amazing choices anytime! :)

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February 28, 2010 - 10:10 pm Elyse - are these the same choices for regular wedding albums??

March 1, 2010 - 4:27 pm Milla - There are actually more choices for wedding album colors. All the choices are on my main site under "album colors"! Can't wait to see what YOU pick! :)

Washington D.C. – night photos

Hi everyone! I am back today with more D.C. photos! These were a few photos we took Saturday night before dinner. It was very, very dark, and we were very, very hungry. But, we had time for a few photos, and the wonderful 50mm 1.2 barely pulled it off without a tripod!

Here are some favorites from our nation’s capitol!

The white house.

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the Lincoln Memorial in the distance:

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Lincoln Memorial:

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The WW2 Memorial:

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snow, snow everwhere:

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Pittsburgh Wedding Photography: The Milla C. Photography Proof Box!

Recently, Brad and I have started including a full set of professional printed proofs with every wedding and portrait package. And, we just received the new Milla C. Photography proof boxes for delivering these proofs to our clients!

Aren’t they awesome? I absolutely love them and can’t wait to start sending them out.

Why do we include proofs with our wedding and portrait packages?

Good question! :)

First, we love having photos in-hand and we want our clients to hold actual physical photos instead of only viewing them on a computer screen. It’s hard to see the big picture of your wedding day when you’re viewing photos one-by-one on a small screen, and because of issues with monitor calibration, the photos will look slightly different on every computer screen! You can read my posts about monitor calibration here!

Also, we want you to ENJOY your photos by putting them in frames, passing them out to family and friends, sticking them in thank-you cards, etc.

Finally, we include professional proofs with every package because we want our clients to see the difference between professional prints and consumer prints. Seriously, folks, there is NO comparison! Our professional prints are completed with a lustre coating that protects them over time. And, the colors are bright and vibrant without being over-saturated, as they often are when ordered from consumer labs. We have rave reviews about the quality of our professional prints, and I want everyone to have some in-hand!

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February 17, 2010 - 2:20 pm Jennifer Brindle - Love it!! Such a great idea!

February 17, 2010 - 5:00 pm pamela marie photography - beautiful! they look remarkably like the ones i use, too... got 'em from a company called DNL that i found last year at wppi. do you use the same company?? anyway it was great meeting you yesterday and thanks for stopping by my blog! i actually emailed you, too, but i have no idea if it made it through because a lot of email filters think i'm spam. haha! pamela

February 17, 2010 - 6:16 pm Mary - These are just darling! Do tell where you had them made!

February 18, 2010 - 8:03 am Milla - Hi everyone! These boxes come from DNL photo packaging. It's a wonderful company, and their boxes are very affordable and are great quality.

I heart faces: hands!

This week’s challenge at I heart faces is HANDS, and though this isn’t a close-up photo of hands, I chose this photo of the Caruso family because I love how they are using their hands to show love and affection.  Very, very sweet.

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February 23, 2010 - 9:04 am Jen - I love the minimalism of this one! allows you to focus on the theme and simplistic beauty! great job! :)

February 23, 2010 - 9:52 am Mary - Very cool, Milla!

February 23, 2010 - 9:53 am Milla - Thanks guys! I appreciate it!

February 23, 2010 - 9:55 am Rachel - I like the unique approach you took. The silhouettes of this family's hand-in-hand photo is fresh!

February 23, 2010 - 8:50 pm pamela marie photography - love it!!

Pittsburgh Child Photography: Claire Poppert (a preview!)

This weekend while we were in Washington D.C., I had the privilege of photographing 3-month old Claire Poppert. I was just going through the photos from the shoot and just had to post a little preview of this sweet little girl working on her thumb. And, one little smile to go with it. :)

Adorable.

More to come soon of this precious little girl!

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February 23, 2010 - 7:59 am Eva - These pictures are great! I can't wait to see the rest.

February 23, 2010 - 8:42 am Katie McCracken - Milla C takes incredible photos! I love the ones from Eva and Johns breathtaking winter wedding... and can't wait to see the rest of baby Claire!!! Too Cute!

Washington D.C.

This weekend Brad and I (and the dogs, of course!) had the wonderful chance to get away to Washington D.C. for fun and for work! I hadn’t been to D.C. since high school, so it was very fun to visit all the monuments and enjoy the city together.

When we are on vacation, I really try not to spend all our time taking pictures. However, the sun was shining, and I just couldn’t resist playing with that sun flare a little! :) So, here are a few daytime photos of D.C. A few night photos and lots of baby photos to come soon!

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My boys headed to the Washington Monument.  Were we the only tourists there?  Almost, yes!  February is a wonderful time to visit D.C.!  :)

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Love the flags and all that SUUUN!

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The reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln memorial wasn’t very reflect-y.  Yes, that’s solid ice.

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People were actually brave (stupid?) enough to walk around on the ice.  No, no thanks.  I walk around on enough ice just getting to my car in the mornings!

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February 22, 2010 - 4:03 pm Mary - Brr...and yet so pretty! Love the sun flare and flags shots...I didn't know your pooches went with you. Fun!

February 22, 2010 - 9:24 pm pamela marie photography - absolutely love that second pic! looks like a beautiful weekend! :)

Pittsburgh Family Photography: The Sawyers!

I want to warn you ahead of time.

For readers who like me are currently stuck under 2 feet of snow, you should view this post with great caution, as the following things could cause the tears to start flowing:

1. SUN sun sun and more sun
2. Adorable sling-back flats with bare toes
3. a warm park complete with a river and throwing rocks

But, for those of you who are brave enough to keep reading, I want to show you another session from our photography workshop that I described here.

This wonderful family is the Sawyers, some friends of ours who kindly volunteered to bring their kids out to play in the dirt a little so we could practice shooting energetic children in a bright lighting situation!

Here are a few favorites from their session:

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February 16, 2010 - 12:14 pm Heather - LOVE these Milla!! The light is gorgeous and the moments you caught are so beautiful!

February 16, 2010 - 12:23 pm Emily - Loved looking at these again-- I have so many displayed all over the house, but some of these I don't-- you caught so many great facial expressions! LOVE YOU!