A Quick Note about some difference in 2015’s Year in Review:

In the past, we’ve done a contest here on the blog for the “Best of 2015”. But honestly, we’re over it. I don’t like the competition! There are favorite photos from EVERY wedding, and the scramble to get votes… while it might drive traffic to our blog… essentially enforces the idea that there has to be one that’s better than all the rest.

That’s not how we like to work.

We like to show up to every single wedding and pour our hearts into it, and make beautiful images for our clients that feel like their wedding day felt. While obviously we have a few shots a year that we’re extra-special proud of because of light or surroundings or something else outside the “norm”… we’re PROUD of the fact that we can show up to any wedding and, if given the chance, we can capture something that feels unique & real for our clients.

So, this year, we’re doing it differently.

This week, we’re going to be posting blogs that are full of our FAVORITE images from 2015… images that we feel say very distinctly “this is McGowan Images”. We want people to be able to look at these choices and see the kind of art we can create, and the images we get extra-excited to produce.

And, selfishly, the process of choosing images for this series every year is really beneficial to us. It reminds us of everything we did new last year, and gets us inspired to push ourselves even further in the coming year.

We are really excited to share these with you…

…with blogstalkers who’ve been around for years

… with new folks who just happened to see a link on Facebook or Instagram

… and of course, with new brides and grooms who are looking for the photographer that will perfectly capture their upcoming wedding day.

We’d love to hear from you, too! You can also follow along or chat with us throughout the week on Instagram (@mcgowanimages) or Facebook. Hearing about people’s favorites is the one thing we’re really going to miss about the blog contest, so we’re hoping you’ll holler about it (well, via the internet) if you have any particular favorites.

Happy 2016, folks! Here’s to crushing goals in a whole new year!

Today, we’re sharing some of our favorite images of couples we photographed in 2015… except for on their wedding day. We just couldn’t narrow it down far enough, so wedding portraits will be on Wednesday.

But today’s post isn’t lacking any love just because there are no white dresses or suits. Real life romance is kind of our jam. And this year, we got to shoot it in several states, in dozens of cities… uptown and downtown and abandoned town and fields and lakes.

Let’s look at some pretty!

See you tomorrow!