In the flurry of posts below I know the post about the newsletter got buried, so I’d like to begin this post by letting people know they can sign up for the newsletter by entering their email in the red box on the left.  It will go out about twice a year and give people the summary of what’s new and hot in case you don’t want to check the blog daily (although you should!).

I’m pretty amped tonight as I finally gave in and bought a new monitor.  Alisha has a work station set up in my studio and the monitor was less than ideal since it was our 4th computer.  Monitors are pretty important to us as digital photographers though, so her station got my LaCie 19" CRT and the main work station scored a new 24" flatscreen LCD.  Man after working on it tonight my 17" laptop feels like a toy!   This thing is a monster, and I actually want to edit now with this :)  We also added 1 terabyte of storage as well, so hopefully that should help give us a little storage room to work with.

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I had been kicking ass with all of my blogging before the last couple days, so I apologize for disappearing.  The casing on my laptop cracked so it was shipped out to be fixed and on top of that I was away from internet for several days.  It felt so archaic to be away from internet, like I was waaaaay back in the 90s or something :) 

Anyway, I wanted to do an image of the month as well tonight since this picture has been saved on my desktop for a couple weeks now. 

I shot this image at Jenn and Paul’s wedding a couple weeks ago.  While I love detail shots, much of my work is about the emotion, smiles, and love between people.  My detail shots usually consist of tangible items surrounding the wedding day like the bouquet, the shoes, the cake, the dress, etc.  This detail shot summed up the entire day with Jenn and Paul for me though and I am happy to share it.   

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I’m just finishing up my favorites from Jason and Rachael’s engagement shoot this weekend, and I’m stoked to be posting them.  We did the shoot at one of my favorites Upstate wineries, Ventose Vineyards, late in the evening for some gorgeous light and backdrops (good timing on the post below about light I guess). 

I always try and connect with all of my couples, and generally it’s pretty easy to say the least.  After all if a couple hires me there has to be something they liked :)  Jason and Rachael were the exception though, it was almost like Jason was my long lost brother!  First we showed up to the shoot wearing very similar Diesel shoes, which we both love.  We got talking about casinos before we got started and pretty much finished each others sentences with our habits and philosophy about the casinos.  Then as we’re shooting I saw a tattoo on Jason’s leg and asked him about it…. he said he has a tattoo on his lower leg, back, and arm.  I, of course, have the same thing.  We were all laughing about the similarities all night.  Then comes the final straw though – I see one of his bracelets has the Lions logo on it so I say "no way YOU ARE A LIONS FAN?!"  Haha, I always swore I was the only Lions fan in the world outside of Detroit.  Then we got talking about how hardcore we both are for the Lions and found out we even visit some of the same online message boards.  Alisha wanted me to point out that the final thing we have in common is we both have hot girlfriends by the way.  Special props to Ali for coming out, she continues to force me to push to new levels with her amazing talent.

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I have been wanting to do this post for a while now, and with the weekend off I was finally able to put it together.  I’ve been wanting to do this to educate couples out there because I think the more they know the better they can help us photographers out. 

I encourage everyone out there, whether I am your photographer or not, to really think about the light when you think about photos.  The light we have to work with can make all the difference in the world.  I always tell my couples that I can work with any situation – you can stick me in a closet and I feel like I can deliver a beautiful job – but gorgeous light can make our jobs a whole lot easier.  Here are a couple examples of soft, warm, ideal light around sunset -

Those were all shot around the time of sunset when the light has that soft warm glow to it.  I always like to try and convince my couples to sneak outside with me around this time of the day, even if it doesn’t fit in the schedule.  Even if it’s only 10 minutes, it will be well worth sneaking out this time of day for a portrait or two. 

I know all too well that the schedule doesn’t always allow us to photograph in this light though, and often times the majority of the photos have to be done in less ideal light.  Again we have ways of making this work though and here are 2 examples -

I thought we were able to create some beautiful stuff at Jake and Regina’s wedding (some of it is even on my website), but I had to battle with the over-head sun throughout the day (I won the battle by the way).  I was able to capture this image by waiting for a cloud to finally come over us.  It lasted about all of 2 minutes, and I don’t want to make my couples wait, but I think the final image shows that waiting for that small cloud to even our mid-day light was well worth it.

This image of the model-worthy Jasmine Star and her equally hot husband JD was shot around mid-day in California sun.  By taking them to an area with a little bit of shade and equal lighting we were able to score an image that is magazine worthy.  The area had to have even light though (notice the background has the same light as our subjects), and we lucked out with this spot. 

Again we are pros and we can work in any conditions that may arise and deliver amazing images.  However the light we have to work in is extremely important to us and can make our jobs much, much easier. 

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The photo editor over at The Knot, Rebecca Crumley, was nice enough to send me an email this evening letting me know that one of my weddings has been chosen by The Knot for wedding of the week!  The Knot has obviously become a monster in the wedding world, but honestly even though they keep getting bigger and bigger the people over there could not be nicer.  It’s a pleasure working with them and I’m stoked to keep generating some more buzz :)

Click here for the real weddings main page and you will see the "real weddings wedding of the week" in the upper right corner. 

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I bought Alisha a present today and had to share it with all of you -

I saw this shirt when I was out and had to buy it.  For the new readers on the blog Alisha is my girlfriend.  While she’s transforming into a New Yorker, she’s from St. Louis and was totally a Midwest girl when we met.  One of the things Alisha has had to adjust too is the ethnocentric attitude of people in NY.  My favorite quote was when we were watching Sex and the City and one of the girls said "I don’t understand it when people move from NY, I mean, where do they go?"  I knew Ali would appreciate this shirt and feel more like a NYer with it on :)

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I’d like to thank the kind people over at The Weddingbee Blog for publishing an article written by me last night.  The Weddingbee is by far one of the most famous wedding related blogs out there, and also one of the coolest.  I’m excited to be featured on there (and also to get such a positive reaction in the comments), and also glad to be contributing to such a cool site.  They have a lot of opinions and ideas on the site from all the writers, and stay up on all the latest trends and fads.

For all of the bee readers out there – here is the LINK to all of the shots from the day after shoot with Nicole and Scott if you’d like to see more than just what appears on the Weddingbee.

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Every week I keep breaking new personal traffic records on the blog (and loving it by the way), so I thought it would be an ideal time to launch the newsetter!  This has been in the works for a while and I’m excited to present this option to people who want the occasional update on what’s new and exciting in our world. 

The newsletter will go out about twice a year just to give people the highlights of what’s hot.  I don’t want anyone to think they are going to get flooded or spammed so know that the max we will send out is 3 a year (in case we have something really big to announce) and people will have the option to unsubscribe at anytime by just clicking on the link at the bottom of any of the newsletters. 

You can sign up on the left hand side of this site by entering your email…. so go do it now! 

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I had the pleasure of photographing Jaime and Scott’s wedding this past weekend in Upstate NY.  I hate to jinx myself, but the weather has been insane this year so far for all of my weddings!  I had back to back events this weekend and both days were absolutely gorgeous. 

I had been looking forward to Jaime’s event for a while when she told me she had an old school trolley car and had rented out a slot for pictures in a beautiful historic building full of railings and marble. 

Thanks so much you two and enjoy!

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I finally officially started my summer for my personal life yesterday evening, which means I busted out the jetski!  It seems to happen later and later every year, but either way I was still stoked to get out on the lake.  Skaneateles Lake has always held a lot of sentimental value in my life, but it was cemented as forever spiritual when one of my last memories of my brother was him and I just chilling all afternoon on the old pontoon boat swimming and chatting away.  There is just something about that place that makes me feel refreshed and happy, as if it represents the start of summer for me.

I got some work done in the studio all morning and afternoon and my parents met me up there later in the evening.  It’s so cool to see how my relationship with them has changed from son/parent to friend/friend over the years.  We jammed out on the SeaDoo for a bit, swam for a while and then sat on the shore skipping rocks for 30 minutes before we parted ways and called it a night.

I hope you all are getting out there and enjoying this freakin gorgeous summer we are having so far! 

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