I realize it doesn't look like it here on the website (a few of our contracts have had non-disclosure clauses in them), but it's been a very busy fall here at Lozada Visuals.  We've been running around with the video equipment a lot on some commercial projects, and done some red carpet work for a Romanian news agency (don't ask), and October was pretty much all weddings and bar mitzvahs.

So it's nice to have something I can finally put on here.

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I've known Suke for about a decade now.  Well, "known" is a grey area, I suppose, since I only actually met him for the first time in person yesterday.  We both had been regulars on a message board for soccer fans throughout the world (He supports Liverpool, I support Arsenal), and we have similar senses of humor, so we've talked lots over the years on BigSoccer and on Facebook.  Our kids are all in the same basic age bracket, too.

This weekend, I got a note from him:  I need some family photos done quick, we had a bit of a disaster going to the mall photo people.  No problem, we set up a time to get together, and away we go.  When I arrived, Suke and his little guy Kieran were still waiting for his wife Maureen and daughter Josie to emerge from the playground, but Kieran turned it on right away, and by the time big sister joined him, it was clear why they'd had problems with mall portraits:  The kids wanted to love the camera, but they needed to be themselves and move, not sit still for perfect poses.

We spent about 90 minutes letting the kids show their personalities, letting them interact with Mom and Dad, letting them be free to be themselves.  If that meant Kieran would brandish a stick every chance he got, that was OK, because this is the way his parents will this stage of his development-- his favorite toys really are sticks.  And Josie, she's a performer.  She loves the attention, but she also loves to sit and debate silly things with Daddy, and there's great stuff in that interaction, too.

More pictures after the jump...

As I'm going through the photos, I'm trying to bang out individual portraits of each family member, as well as both kids with each parent, both singly and with their sibling, and I asked Maureen and Suke to get in a portrait of just the two of them.

Maureen told me in the midst of this, that they'd never really had a chance to do pictures like that, just the two of them.  They'd had a courthouse wedding and hadn't had pictures done.  So, while the usual family portraits are great, I'd like to think that by having these last few images, I was able to give them something special they hadn't anticipated… a few images to tell the love story still going on amidst the parenting.

Here's a look at our coverage of Rashadema Bridal's recent grand opening. They've done a great job of bringing the uncluttered, personal feel of New York City bridal boutiques to Nassau County, Long Island. Adrianne Harris will do a great job of helping you find the right gown from the beginning, and also has the ability to guide your wedding planning the rest of the way.

In addition to wedding photography and cinema, we're also happy to create sharp, inviting sizzle reel videos like this one that you can embed on your website in order to present your message in a concise way that puts a face on your business. Feel free to give us a call at 888.577.6355 to schedule an appointment to talk about upgrading your website's look today!

Recently, I did a little bit of a different type of photo shoot for our longtime friends at M&M Pest Control, New York City's leading pest control firm. The photos were of some funny t-shirts proclaiming to the world it was safe to "Date Me… I'm Bed Bug Free!" I have no idea if they're moving many of the shirts, but they did their real job, which is to get lots of coverage in the local media. As a result, my work has recently appeared on Fashionista, Racked NY, Bikini Buys, The Lo-Down, and NearSay, and the shirts have also been mentioned in Coco Perez, the NY Times' T Magazine blog, amNew York, and New York Magazine's daily fashion update.

The funny thing is that at the time of the shoot, I was sporting quite a few bed bug bites, courtesy of a Lexington, Kentucky hotel that could have used M&M's services! But if, unlike me back in May, you are bed bug free, you can pickup your t-shirts at Funnybedbugtshirts.com.

Shot a great wedding at Talon Winery in Lexington, Kentucky this weekend, and while we've got a long way to go as far as getting the photojournalistic shots ready, I wanted to highlight some of Jerie and Chris' details.  Not only were they super cute and personal, they were also a lot of things you can easily reproduce with just a little effort.

Naturally, they had one of our engagement guestbooks:

Tremendous job on the flowers by John Kittinger of The Best of Flowers (Happy birthday John!)

More florals, more everything after the jump...

They had a charming sweets and favors table...

And lovely tablescapes...

My associate Max reports that the cake from Caramanda's tasted as good as it looked:

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Many more details in the gallery, so be sure to take a look.  Many thanks to Sheena Gabbard of The Wedding Couturier for coordinating all the details of the day!

5 minutes after I finished this shot today, a thunderstorm rolled through.  More to come from this session next week, but I've got two weddings this weekend, so have to get some rest!

We were doing formals today with Leslie and her bridesmaids before her wedding, when all of the sudden, the sprinklers from Griffin Gate Marriott kicked on without warning.  Fortunately, no brides were soaked in the making of this wedding.  But we all had a really good laugh about it.