Natural light + soft sheepskin + sleeping baby = newborn photos. It’s a simple recipe but one that works. I photographed Gabriella when she was just one week old, and she was the sweetest baby that slept so well during the session. I will add it took a little while to get her to sleep which is totally normal and all part of newborn photography – I do have some tips and tricks of course to help. I’m sure she’s grown already since the session but it was my pleasure to photograph her when she was so new and tiny.

See the full set of images in Gabriella’s gallery here which you can view and order from for two weeks. While you’re at it, visit my facebook page and join in on the coversation.

Hot summer days are good for two things: swimming in lakes and getting married. Andrew and Abby chose the latter, and they were surrounded by family and friends from all over the states  – and I think it would be safe to say the globe – as they tied the knot. Spending a portion of their lives growing up overseas in missionary families, they were soon drawn to each other through their shared experiences and love for the people of Burkina Faso.

Their wedding was a true celebration and a laid-back affair at Delta Lake Bible Camp. Abby grew up vacationing and visiting with her grandparents and family at the camp so they enjoyed their reception at a place full of memories. I joined them to document the day and here are some of the highlights:

the church had a huge world map conveniently located outside of the sanctuary – I thought it fitting for for world travelers like Andrew + Abby.

every bridal party has a different personality… and at this wedding everyone was up for having fun and trying something new. We did some different motion shots and I love the life they bring to the images.

Doesn’t Abby look gorgeous? Shooting in between the trees created texture and depth, and it was probably my favorite space at the camp to work with. I hope you enjoyed the highlights. For the full set of images head over to Andrew and Abby’s gallery, create a profile, and then log in with the couple’s last name as the password. Also, don’t forget to leave a note in a comment so that you can help Andrew and Abby earn a free enlargement. Enjoy and thanks again to Andrew and Abby for letting me document your wedding day!

For the third time I was able to photograph Henri and he’s just over one year old – it’s been fun to see him grow up so much from past sessions.
Michelle + Ben’s before the baby session was fabulous and so fun to spend some time with them in Rochester (thanks for coming down!) They are excited to become parents and I’m so happy for them.

There’s full posts from these sessions to come so look for them soon! I just had a great weekend in the Adirondacks and even though it was just a long weekend of vacation it felt like vacation (almost) every minute. We were able to go out for a long paddle – for me – since I’m new to the whole canoeing for distance thing; get up early and watch Ironman Lake Placid, ride 50 miles along the bike course to see the race in action and cheer in finishers after seeing the pro’s come across the line; and enjoy some fabulous food none of which we had to cook ourselves! Oh and the bad food choice I was speaking of on twitter? That was “Josh’s Fire Fish” which is basically fish+chips but with buffalo wing sauce on the fish. I know, sounds crazy but after my long bike ride I was starving and I went for it… and it was pretty good.

Of course, while I’m waiting, they are working. I checked in with Mike and Nikki and asked them to share their progress and experience as they prepare for the wedding. I know how much work they are putting in and I thought you would all enjoy seeing how they pull everything together. They left their Manhattan home to visit over the 4th of July and Mike wrote about their trip and plans for the wedding:

July 3, 2010 – 113 days and counting.

It’s 10am on Saturday morning and I can already feel the beads of sweat forming on my back. Looking out on the rolling Virginia hills in front of me I can see the heat coming off the corn fields. It’s hot now, and it’s only going to get worse. Eighteen hours and one short plane ride ago we were on an air conditioned trading floor in Manhattan, and I was part of a group frantically trying to wrap up the mid year performance estimate to send to our anxious investors. But that was our real lives back at the hedge fund in New York. For this long Fourth of July weekend, and many more to come for the next several months, we’ll be down here on the Jebson’s farm sweating it out and putting in a lot of elbow grease to make their cute farm into our ideal wedding location.

This is the farm Nikki grew up in; it’s a beef farm with nearly 100 head of cattle and sits on about 150+ acres of land in Culpeper, VA, which is about 1.5 hours southwest of Washington DC. For her, this is home. For me, it’s a world away from my suburban New Jersey upbringing, and even further from my stuffy New York City studio. The Jebsons’ seem to think of this as work, for me it’s like I’m in a giant sandbox, with all my trucks, only the box is much bigger and the trucks are real. If they think that I think digging things up with backhoes is work they’re sorely mistaken.

It’s not the first time we’ve been here to work; back in June we came down for a weekend to start knocking out fences and plant a garden. This weekend we will finish the demolition, start some cleaning, and focus on painting. Every wedding guest is going to receive a homemade jar of pickled green beans and cucumbers, Mrs. Jebson’s specialty. We wanted to incorporate as many aspects of the farm as possible and this being a beef farm, the reception’s main course was an easy call.

For the ceremony we’ll be getting married on top of a hill just behind the house. It’s the highest point on the farm and in October the sun will be setting just off our shoulders but far enough to the left not to make our guests squint. We’ll face the mountains to the west, with vast cornfields down the hill to our right and cow pastures down the other side of the hill to the left. Mr. Jebson will use the tractor and planting equipment to smooth out the hill, so the land will be flattened and our guests will sit comfortably on rows of square hay bales.

Behind the ceremony, closer to the house, there is a cluster of four barns, three of them are rectangular and line up parallel to each other. One barn closer to the house is the cattle barn, where one or a few cows are kept when they’re not in the fields. It’s the biggest and most suitable for the reception with big sliding doors, a couple open sides, and it’s made of really old oak. Unfortunately it’s also full of 100 year old hay, old doors, broken tools, and just about anything else you can imagine saying “eh, just throw it in the barn” to. My main job this weekend was to continue ripping down one of the older and more beat up sides. Additionally we started cleaning it out, which means getting all the hay out and identifying what can be thrown out and what can be salvaged elsewhere. After we finish cleaning it out Mr. Jebson is going to lay a new floor of concrete.

The forth barn near the house, and closest to the ceremony is named the calf barn because that’s where they often put the babies to nurse them after birth. Nikki, armed with an electrical paint gun contraption made this white cinderblock structure a classic barn red. We also painted the windowsills white for good measure. This is the most completed thing we’ve done so far and it looks great.

There is a square fenced in area between the calf barn and the reception barn and this is where we’ll have outdoor seating around a bon fire complete with whiskey and cigars. The fence, which has been ripped down, was old and not in very good shape. Later this summer we will be building a new one and painting it white. Right now it’s hard to imagine but in three months these buildings which are more suited for barn cats and tractors are going to host an elegant dinner for nearly 200 people!

Thanks for sharing your progress and I can’t wait to document the wedding and see the hard work you’ve put in!

While this was classified as a maternity session, I think it is more aptly named a “before the baby” session. I think I like the sound of that better, and it opens up the doors for the creative freedom that took place. Taking these photos was a great way to document the unique time in Ryan and Christie’s lives as they prepare for their son to join them. Some call it the calm before the storm.

Having photographed Ryan and Christie before(and been friends with them for a while) they trusted me to do something new and different especially for a before the baby session. We set out to capture bright summer images early one morning and end the session in the nearby creek. 

They are going to be great parents… but I can’t help but love the surprise face on Ryan below

Did I mention that the session took place on Ryan and Christie’s 3 year anniversary? It’s hard to believe three years has gone by already but it’s awesome to see what time brings. Oh yeah and the lensbaby shots I talked about yesterday – here’s more of them. I love the bokeh + blurred background!

Part II of the session was planned around a refreshing walk through the creek, which gave Christie the opportunity to show off her belly! Now I know pregnancy and bathing suits aren’t for everyone, but they are for me – and Christie who looks amazing with only a month to go! In fact, the water wasn’t at all deep enough for swimming, but I think it would be awesome to do something even more in the water – any takers? It was refreshing to be at the creek as the sun came out and the day started to heat up.

Christie posed for a few while Ryan caught some crayfish… and makes pregnancy look easy. Didn’t I say the session was the start of her modeling career? I love the drama and range of tones in the black and white images.

to end the day, a kiss. It was a successful before the baby session if you ask me, and a great way to add to the celebration of their anniversary. Now it’s just time to wait for Griffin to arrive!

Before I do a full post on Ryan + Christie’s session I wanted to share this image in particular, taken with my lensbaby. If you’re not familiar with cameras you are probably wondering what in the world a lensbaby is… and to find out more you should follow the link. The basics are that the lens moves and allows you to have one point in focus with everything else being dramatically out of focus (I guess you could say it’s like a trick lens…  like when you listen to the song and start to hear robotic voices… that’s what I’ll compare a lensbaby to). Anyways, when I bought my lensbaby I was excited but it took me a while to use it. Since it can create such dramatic images at first I think I didn’t use it because I wasn’t sure it would meld with my style and the other images I captured. I didn’t want robotic voices in the song for the heck of it (and we’ve all heard those songs + seen those images), but after seeing what I captured (from the ones that are in focus – it’s super tricky manual focus) I love how it looks. Now you can expect a few robotic voices, just enough to keep things interesting.

When you’re married you have to share things, and in my case that includes our favorite coffee mug. I know it sounds like a stupid thing – and really I don’t have any rights to the mug since I gave it to Matt – but being the indian giver that I am I consider it equally mine. I picked it up in Fort Collins almost three years ago and once I brought it home and gave it to Matt I realized how perfect it was. Not too thick, like the Navy mugs my dad has at home – or the waffle house mugs – but more substantial than the typical mugs populating your cabinets plastered with logos from things past.

Each morning we get up and after making coffee we decide who gets to use it. Usually someone offers it up for the other person, and the small gesture is both sacrificial and thoughtful. This morning I let Matt use the mug.

I’ve been MIA from photography as last week I helped with the cross country and track camp at Houghton College. We had a great time but the days were non stop and included: getting up early (for me, I know- 6:30), morning runs, sessions, more workouts, stretching, meals, lots of games, and more. While following the regular schedule of camp I’m hoping to carry over some of the habits (keep up the morning runs?) and looking forward to getting back into a routine with work. Now that we are approximately 90% moved in to our new place my office is coming together and that will make things even easier. Doesn’t it seem hard to work when things are unsettled or out of place?

At the end of the week, which would only be yesterday, I met up with Alphonse and Samantha for their engagement session at Ontario Beach Park in Rochester, New York. It was fun to hang out and spend time with them and the image above is one that stood out as I browsed through their photos. It was just before sunset so the light was warm and soft and lovely! I’ll be back up in Rochester on Tuesday for several sessions and available for meetings – let me know if you want to get together and talk weddings!

We were determined to make the session happen. After meeting up after the wedding I shot in Rome, NY we drove to our planned location and it immediately started to downpour. We waited it out for around 15 minutes until the rain died down, although it was still a challenge to find the right spot for pictures. After a few tries we found our way to a quite overlook where we could avoid the glances and stares of passerby’s – no one wants a crowd. So finally with no rain, no crowd, and a nice setting this is what I captured, starting with some classic boy + dog images…

this just looks so classic to me! their dog is hilarious and obviously very good with kids.
the Stevensons obviously already have one very cute son, so I can’t wait to see what their daughter looks like!

Diane looks fabulous! Even though it took me a little longer to finish these photos… they weren’t taken that long ago. I want to look this good 4 weeks before having a baby!

I’m glad we were able to meet for this session and I wonder what my chances are at photographing their newborn… too bad I don’t live closer! Either way next time I’ll plan better weather :)

Today I have a tale of epic proportion. I just heard this story over the phone and I asked to share it since it was so unbelievable. Hopefully you can commiserate and if you have ever had a honeymoon misadventure perhaps it wasn’t as bad. You’ve seen their engagement photos, the celebration of their wedding, and now I bring you Joy and Andrew’s honeymoon, as written by Joy:

We set out on our honeymoon to Italy the day after the wedding, crazy excited and ready to have a great time. I am sure you heard about the volcanic ash in Europe that was causing such a fuss for the airlines and yep it caused a fuss for us too. We almost didn’t make it out of our lay over in Philadelphia but luckily we were only delayed a couple hours and then they said we were ok to fly. Once we got to Rome we were so excited to finally be there… until we realized my luggage was somehow left behind in London. The airline assured us each day that my luggage was on the way and there was no need for concern, however it continued to be a step behind us with each move we made to a new city. After wearing Andrew’s clothes for the first few days the airline reimbursed me for clothing and I was able to wear something that fit, with my luggage finally making it us the day before we left. Not only that but I had a small personal laptop inside which of course was not in it when it was returned to me. But I got to do plenty of shopping so I wasn’t too upset = ) So..now headed home, we have my luggage, and the trip was otherwise amazing so everything should be great right? Wrong. We made it out of Italy and landed in London where we were told that because the cabin crew for our airline was on strike our flight home had been canceled. Yes…volcanic ash and now a strike.. Now, mind you we were on a pretty strict time table to get home because we were moving into out new house and we had landscapers planned to come out the day we returned. So we ended up spending a night in London and flying out a day late.