In 2017, I decided I wanted to be able to photograph a wedding.
Capturing quiet moments after a wedding ceremony
So, I established Caroline Price Photography back in 2017, complete with a proper foundation because I wasn’t willing to photograph a single wedding without a legitimate business structure.
Sparkler exits are a magical way to end a wedding day and make for excellent memories captured forever
48 weddings and 11 five-star reviews between Google and my public Facebook business page later, I closed Caroline Price Photography last May for personal reasons that are now resolved.
Candid moments before the wedding are so important to document in pictures
I’ve deeply missed weddings.
Family moments like this during bridal portraits are so fun do photograph
And more: I’ve particularly missed the ability to provide quality wedding photography at a budget price.
Capturing the beauty of the bride on her big day is a true honor to document in photographs
So, here I am a year later, and I’ve simplified my business structure quite a lot. I’ve pared my gear down to a professional Fuji setup that still delivers the same beautiful colors as before, but is much more sustainable weight-wise for my back on long wedding days. I’ve still got the actual LLC (now as Caroline Price, LLC), and I still have the business license and insurance. I still have the ability to deliver gorgeous galleries, and I’ve refined an even better post-processing style. I’ve updated my process to be more sustainable for me and very easy for you. I’ve also got gorgeous new USB-C photo drives available for clients, as shown below.
The linen box pictured here is available to the first four couples who book in this new season; the rose gold and crystal USB-C drive will be a continued offering
And, I’m ready to open up the calendar to a very limited number of wedding dates.
West Georgia weddings can be beautiful even on cloudy and rainy days
I’m offering a single package: eight hours of coverage for $500 (Includes fully edited photos delivered in an online digital gallery and via keepsake crystal and rose gold color USB-C drive. Please note: to ensure the highest quality without the burnout, my delivery timeline is a relaxed six to eight weeks. Available in the West Georgia and Greater Atlanta areas– A small, flat-rate travel fee applies for weddings located inside the Atlanta perimeter to cover gas and parking depending on select venues). I’m offering my eight years of wedding industry experience, my authentic self, and my very best for your wedding day.
Couples portraits between the wedding ceremony and the reception are a special time. Some couples opt for a first look but I have found that most prefer to have the magic of the first look being while the bride walks down the aisle
The first four to book will receive their keepsake USB-C drive in a beautiful cream linen box as shown above.
Bridal portraits can be beautiful inside as well as outside
I am quite aware that this is an extreme budget level pricing for the wedding industry. But I also know from experience that offering this level of accessibility is exactly where I find the most joy and professional satisfaction in my photography practice.
Window light makes for beautiful bridal portraits. Sometimes the most beautiful settings are the simplest in decor
So, reach out via hello@carolineprice.com or my contact page. Tell me your story. Let’s tell your wedding day story together.
I posted the following on Facebook and Instagram last night:
“It’s time.
I set the groundwork for a new portrait photography business last December, and I’ve sat on it since then for a variety of reasons.
I’ve missed being out with my camera.
So, it’s time.
Sessions with me will be slow. I’m working in monochrome for now. I’ll be limiting the number of sessions I accept, and I promise you’ll love the results.
Just me, my camera, a single lens, lots of fun, and beautiful portraits as the result.
Custom sessions beginning at $50. Reach out today to schedule your session.
Hi World. This is Caroline Price Luxe.”
I’m looking forward to being out with clients again.
For Christmas, Jared gave me some spending money, with the only condition that I buy things that would bring me joy.
One of the thing I bought was the Schneider-Kreuznach Min/Mag pictured here. I bought it thinking it would adapt to either my Cinelux 85mm or my Cinelux 37.5mm, both ways, making it a useful tool.
And when it arrived, I was crestfallen to realize that the 85mm filter threads were dented.
But, not to be deterred, I ordered a Neewer lens vise. So when the lens vise arrived, I went at it, determined to be able to screw on the Min/Mag.
And, I got the lens filters successfully re-shaped, and went at screwing on the Min/Mag on the Mag side.
There were tears. I was soooooo upset. There were more tears. There was anger, because then I saw that Jared had the 85mm lens itself taken apart.
Turns out, the dented part was a lens hood for the 85mm, with the logo on it. a lens hood that is every bit the material of the rest of the structure of the lens barrel, meaning there is no cutting it off the Min/Mag.
And then, Christmas faded, and the Min/Mag with its problems, resigned, went into the dehumidifier cabinet.
And then comes this past week, with the job falling through, and I resorted to what I always want to do when these things happen: I started daydreaming about camera and lens gear.
But today, I had a renewed resolve. The Min/Mag went into the freezer for 30 minute with a dehumidifier pack, in two baggies.
No dice– that lens hood is not coming off.
But then, I remembered the screw. And I wondered: what would it look like if I used the glass from the Min side on the lenses?
The Min side has its own version of a lens hood, since the glass is on the lens side of the barrel.
The Super Cinelux 37.5mm is a no-go. Doesn’t work– has enough vignetting from the barrel that it isn’t worth the wide angle.
The 85mm though? I gasped when I saw what it could do:
The Min on the 85mm acts as a focal reducer and slight wide-angle teleconverter, giving me absolutely 99% of what the 85mm could do on the GFX 50sII. It gives me back the 60-70mm perspective that the 85mm had on the GFX.
Would I like the Min/Mag to be completely functional? Of course. I was convinced that it was the Mag side that I would want the most.
But I am thrilled to have stumbled on this serendipitous turn of gear events.
It feels like Christmas all over again today, and literally all it cost me was going out to the garage to get one of Jared’s electronics screwdrivers.
The setup looks ridiculous, admittedly, for a 60-70mm equivalent setup on the X-S20, but I care not. one. bit:
So super excited. I’d given up working with the Cinelux line since Christmas in the fallout of all this, along with the sale of the GFX itself, but now I am thrilled I can have 99% of the GFX look with not spending another single dime on gear.
Last week I got the M65 to FX adapter I needed to be able to adapt the Cinelux lenses to my Fujifilm X-S20. And the 37.5mm focuses like a dream now that I have the proper adapter.
And, I played around some more with my Minolta lenses.
And I got to thinking that I really missed that beautiful XF 50mm f1 lens I sold a little over 4 years ago to be able to afford the GFX 50S II camera to begin with.
And common sense began to really get the better of me in knowing that really it’s going to be quite some time before I can really afford to buy the XF 70-300mm lens that I really wanted to be able to do bird and other wildlife photography with the X-S20.
And since I could still make yummy portraits with the Cinelux lenses (that arguably have a better look), and since I could do 99% of the things I wanted with the X-S20, I started to question the wisdom of hanging onto the GFX camera knowing it had served faithfully for 4 years but was a heavy camera.
And, I did some heavy comparison shots with both the Cinelux and the Minolta lenses.
Turns out, if I up the denoise tool and the clarity and the sharpness and the shadows in Lightroom, there’s an awful lot of questions about which lens shot what with what camera.
And so, the GFX went to KEH yesterday, and I came home with the XF 50mm f1, the 70-300mm that I wanted, and a little extra grocery money for the month.
The cat in the photo above is not our cat. This is a cat that belongs to some random unknown neighbor, a cat that has claimed our yard as its own when our dogs are not out in the yard to terrorize it. It’s outside in our yard a lot when I go out there or when I’m backing the car out of the driveway. Today it got to be a test subject since I couldn’t quickly spot any birds before the rain started.
And, I won’t lie: I will miss the medium format camera. And I won’t lie even more because it’s true that I will miss the self-imposed “status” that came along with shooting medium format even if it was a status that only I recognized. APS-C just doesn’t have the same ring.
But when 99% of the look I love is achievable with the camera that is more fun to shoot with…..there’s an awful lot to be said about that. Especially when it is far easier to achieve focus, especially when the focus is faster on the autofocus lenses, especially when the whole setup is smaller and lighter, and especially since I can dictate the direction of whatever business I may or may not have.
And probably most importantly, especially when the itch to upgrade happens and it won’t cost another $4,000 or more to do so next time.
So, that’s been much of the labor of this week. Reining in is not easy, but sometimes it is necessary. I have been in a realism and a “buy it once” sort of mindset since Christmas, and it was time to realize that the tools I had in my photography arsenal were not exactly serving me as best they could.
Besides, that yummy jute purse I made and carry around is an awful lot lighter when it’s carrying around X Series gear than it was with the GFX stuff. And it’s a heavy purse to begin with.
So this post is going to have a tad bit of an indignant tone.
Tonight, I took these frames to get new progressive, Transitions lenses:
And you know what? I bought these frames from Zeelool on July 31, 2021.
At the time, I just thought they looked cool. These are Zeelool’s Menin frames and they have since been discontinued. I don’t know why they were discontinued, and I don’t know when.
What I do know is that when I bought them, my kids thought they looked crazy. At the time, I was bald by choice, which didn’t help the “crazy” look.
But I had no idea at the time that by late 2025 and early 2026, asymmetrical and geometric frames would be trendsetting.
In 2021, I just knew they looked cool.
Same thing with mirrorless cameras.
In 2011, I wanted an interchangeable lens camera to be able to take nice pictures for a blog. I wanted to be a “Mommy Blogger.” Jared told me if I’d wait till Christmas, he’d buy me a DSLR for Christmas.
I was in Best Buy by myself one night, and I saw this display with a new kind of camera, and it was a Sony Alpha NEX 5N— a new kind of camera they were calling “mirrorless….” I hardly even knew that mirrors at the time were an integral part of the build of a DSLR.
I came home with the Sony Alpha NEX 5N. That was November of 2011. I didn’t wait for Christmas.
And that first year with that camera: I remember camping with church and there was someone who was really into photography at the time on that camping trip in 2012. And I remember the sort of side-eye-rolls my little powerhouse got. Surely it couldn’t be a serious tool for serious work.
To her credit, the documentary photography instructor at Emory in summer 2012 was actually one of the first affirming folks that said I’d made a good choice: all she cared about was that I could control my camera manually, which she helped me figure out that indeed, I very well could.
By 2013, I was standing in the kitchen at Carrollton Presbyterian Church while my friend was getting Wednesday night dinner ready, and I vividly remember feeling sheepish and very meek about it, but I told her, “I’m pretty sure mirrorless cameras are the future,” and she looked at me like I was crazy.
And by 2013, I was regularly adapting vintage lenses to that Sony Alpha NEX 5N camera. I could sometimes find adapters, but they were not good. Often, they arrived with loose lens mounts. Good adapters were so hard to find that I more than once took apart a Miranda camera or a Minolta camera so that I could have a sturdier lens mount for a cheap adapter, taking apart the adapter, too.
Because by 2013 I knew that the yumminess that comes with vintage lenses was worth something.
In 2025, vintage filters are a ubiquitous part of cell phone culture.
And now, in 2026, I walked into Costco tonight with 2 French pins holding my hair, pins that arrived not from a glitzy Ulta display but in a plain box as they are sold in Europe and elsewhere, and I was literally the only person I saw with my hair up that way. I saw people with elastics and clips, but not a single other French pin in the store. Apparently they are reserved for special occasion up-do’s in the United States.
And I have zero idea why because they are so dang practical: They do not leave crimps in your hair when you take it back down again, and it literally takes the time it takes me to put my hair in an elastic messy bun to do the same with 2 French pins. And you don’t have to buy a million of them. The ones I bought will last the rest of my life probably.
And in being without a dedicated job for so long, I’m suddenly realized that I’ve developed my own sacred ritual over the years, in a million different ways that I don’t even think to write about because it’s so ordinary to me probably: Wearing hair hardware that would have been familiar to my great-grandmother in 1916 and yet getting ready to wear glasses that won’t be out of place in 2027, carrying around camera gear from the 1970s that performs fantastically on my 2023-model GFX and X Series Fujifilm cameras….. I’m finally figuring out that my brain just works in a way that the conventional workplace simply is not ready for.
In 2011, the serious photographers of their day were not ready to hear that that they would be changing out the entirety of their gear systems in a decade or less.
And I know that I wrote about “buy it once” culture a few days ago and I am very well aware that I found the website “buymeonce.com” probably over 3 years ago at least; it’s been a bookmark on my Safari home screen for that long anyway. And I am very well aware that it is a growing movement now that I am only jumping on the bandwagon for as people are growing weary of fast fashion.
And in early 2026 even, there are plenty of people who are still not ready to hear either that it is indeed possible to self-engineer ethical parameters for AI life coaching from readily available platforms. And yet, I’m doing it daily with Gemini.
And yet, here we are. I’ve been on SSDI since 2011 because my brain needs more to do than the conventional workplace can find me to do in retail or admin assistant type jobs.
Anybody want to find me a job in trends forecasting?
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