When it came time to brainstorm ideas for our annual Exum family Christmas card, we were tired. We were wrapped up in Bella and Sawyer's busy schedules, school and work and longed for more "down time" with our family. We wanted to create a photo that would capture this seemingly elusive dream--a simple, beautiful family experience. Of course, Steve and his team managed to execute this flawlessly, but creating the photo wasn't so simple. On our "quest for simplicity," we dug up a tree in the dark on a mountain (don't ask) and then two weeks later drove it to the beach and "planted" it in the sand where we wrapped it in hundreds of lights and lit it up with a generator which roared in the dunes as we ran up and down the beach barefoot with frozen toes. You may ask, "was it worth it?" Absolutely, we were together. May we all cherish the simple, beautiful moments shared with those we love. Merry Christmas - The Exums of Elon

My good friend and financial advisor Rick Fisher knows the value of his network of family, friends, and clients. Rick is a successful family man, businessman and community leader. He works tirelessly at all three and has been an inspiration to me. I was honored when he asked if I would create a memorable Fisher Wealth Management Birthday card. The fact that Rick has always sent a personalized birthday card shows how much he cares about his network. The fact that he and his staff were willing to go to great lengths to help my team pull off the card "HOPE YOU HAVE A BLAST!" illustrates just how special is Rick's team at Fisher Wealth Management. FYI - No Armani or Gucci suits were hurt during the execution of our photo shoot. All participant's brought second hand clothing that could be sacrificed for the cause.

Special thanks goes to Rick and his associates, Dick, Wllly, Johnathon, Tina, Patsy, Vicki and Emily for their enthusiastic cooperation. A big thanks to Rick's daughter Candace pictured helping us with our mayhem during our cake and icing backyard sling fest. Thank you to my associate Griffin Davis for his help setting up the shoot and his stellar retouching of the final images. His work breathed life into the imagery. Many, Many thanks to my mother-in-law and super-creative set design coordinator Elizabeth Hensley (aka - Squeaky). Thank you to Terry Christian for her "explosive" make-up application. Thanks to our amenable baker Jorge from Compare Foods who made a beautiful AND delicious cake. A HUGE thanks goes to my graphic designer Rob Edwards of Prairie Dog Illustrations who helped conceive the exploding cake idea, the card verbiage AND who worked on multiple drafts until I was happy. I think I drove him a bit crazy with all my requests. For some very sound and grounded financial advise please contact the team at Fisher Wealth Management. Tel: (336) 532-4396 Website: http://www.fisher-wealthmanagement.com/

Kim & Greg Oliver celebrated an intimate wedding with friends and family on the island of Nevis at the Four Season's Resort this spring. This caribbean celebration could not have been more stunning, nor the weather more perfect. Kim and Greg are two of the most giving and gracious people I have ever met. It was an honor to be their photographer. Thank you Kim & Greg for the red carpet treatment and the fun. Your final wedding album will be priceless! Your Photographer - Steve Exum

When approached by Kidde's Art Director Paige Burris to shoot a kitchen fire with an extinguisher in the hands of a panicked house wife for a magazine ad, everyone assumed we would shoot an empty frying pan and then Photoshop the flames in later. However, because fire is essentially a light source, I felt we would not get a realistic scene with an empty pan. The yellow cast that fire light gives off would be lost with a Photoshop montage. Our challenge was to create a "controlled" fire we could shoot over and over again giving our model Crystal Robinson enough opportunities to give us an expression with out too much panic and just enough confidence to appear in control. We also needed a bit of motion. The answer was in our favorite combustible, Coleman's camp fuel. It burned with a decent size flame and was easily extinguished by my associate Griffin Davis holding a large glass pan cover. I think we lit and put at least 30 or 40 small pan fires to get just the right scenario. And, OK, we did use a little Photoshop magic to beef of the flame a bit. Later that day we we got to empty a half dozen extinguishers to shoot and compare how they vented their contents. You really can't beat a days work that involved playing with fire and shooting off extinguishers. I love my job. Special thanks to Suzanne Turner of Kidde for allowing us to shoot in our newly remodeled kitchen. For more info check out http://www.kidde.com

For 10 years running I have photographed the Legal Elite issue for Business NC magazine. This issue recognizes 13 top attorneys chosen by their peers for their outstanding work in different fields of law. Every year we come up with a theme based on a biographical question asked of each attorney. This year the question was , "If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be? While their answers varied widely and some on the side of exotic, the option of photographing each attorney at their chosen location was unfortunately never on the table. Our solution came with a picture frame, actually many frames.

Here is the list of the attorneys, their field of law and chosen location: Stephen Lynch, Business Law, North Dakota - David Rudolf, Criminal Defense, Barcelona Spain - Mac McBryde Jr., Young Gun, Virginia - Mona O'Bryant, Environment, West Virginia - Meredith Stone, Corporate Counsel, Caribbean - Catharine Arrowood, Antitrust, San Antonio, Texas - Jeb Jeutter, Bankruptcy, Haiti - Peter Marino, Construction, New York