Kevin Meyers Photography Blog

Ben & Anna Get Married

admin — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 17:23:50 +0000

Ben and Anna were married at St. Mary’s Cathedral and celebrated with friends and family at The Tiffany Center. Both of these locations have a common but very different trait…light! St. Mary’s Cathedral is bright and crisp. It’s a very clean look. On the other hand, The Tiffany Center is rich and dark, but has amazing window light that provides a moody glow.

Some of these photos were taken in front of Ben and Anna’s new home. I loved the way the classic Rolls Royce fit into the scene.

Finally, one of the best parts of a wedding is running into people you know. I grew up in Klamath Falls, a small town in Southern Oregon, where that sort of thing happens regularly. Considering Portland’s size, I figured those days were a thing of the past. But sure enough, as I walked into St. Mary’s Cathedral, I ran into my buddy Boone, the same photographer that helped at the last wedding I posted. Then at the reception, I saw the brother of a high school friend of mine.

Evan & Mandy Get Married

admin — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 21:16:24 +0000

Get comfy! There are lot of photos in this one! Mandy and Evan were married near Roche Harbor on San Juan Island, WA. It was an extended weekend loaded with fun and I was fortunate to be a part of the whole thing.

Thursday consisted of an early evening BBQ followed by a late night bonfire near the water on Westcott Bay. Friday started with a basketball tournament and some tennis. After the rehearsal, Mandy’s sister, Katie, kicked things up a notch for everyone with an all out Field Day. Now I know where they get the expression! Teams wearing costumes left it all on the fields before replenishing themselves with the world’s best BBQ chicken fired up by Evan’s Dad (seriously the world’s best…I went out and bought the spices as soon as I got home).

Then Saturday came. The apple orchard was transformed with bright summery colors and details put together by Mandy and her Mom with inspiration from the Style Me Pretty blog. The day went without a hitch! (I’ll spare you the puns one could make with that last statement) It was a blast as you can see…this was a fun group!

Special thanks to Boone Rodriguez for providing some fun help and great photos!

Click to enlarge…

Chuck & Sophany

admin — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 23:50:16 +0000

Well well well…here’s a really colorful engagement session for you all! Chuck, Sophany and I hit downtown Portland looking for some great colors and textures. I’d say we were successful and in fact didn’t make any black and white conversions. We also had great light before the morning clouds burned off. Yes, I said morning. This was just before our hot streak so we decided to get out before the sun could cook us. Have fun looking! And while you’re looking, look forward to their wedding images as they’ll be even more colorful.

Dave & Sarah Get Married

admin — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 19:15:09 +0000

Get comfortable…there are a ton of photos in this post! It’s hard to summarize a destination wedding like this in one post. But that’s what I love so much about this new blog. I can post as many photos as I like without giving you all more stuff to scroll through to find other recent posts. It’s got a great big picture overview and leaves you the ability to choose what you want to see. Anyway…back to Vienna!

Dave & Sarah approached me at another wedding and asked what I would think of shooting their wedding in Vienna. They had both spent a while there studying abroad and that’s where their relationship started. They figured why not go back to where it all began and share it all with their closest friends and family. What an awesome thing to do!

Dave & Sarah had planned a walking tour to show everyone what daily life was like for them as they studied there and got to know each other. That night we all headed to one of the bars they spent time in. After the bar, one of the absolutely necessary experiences was stopping at the Wiener Wurstelstand for a Kasekrainer. Did you get that? ….think “food cart” and “bread roll hollowed out and filled with a cheesy hot dog”…only better!

The next evening, we all headed to the outskirts of the city in a chartered bus for dinner and drinks at a garden style vineyard. The name escapes me at the moment, but it’s stamped on the glass stein that Dave & Sarah gave everyone as gifts, myself included. That was mighty handy in consuming the bottle of Vienna wine we were also given as a gift.

At this point, I’d already had such a great experience and the wedding still hadn’t happened yet. Saturday rolled around and the ladies started out with mimosas while getting ready in the Style Hotel which was very aptly named. The wedding ceremony was held in the Palais Daun-Kinsky and was very classy thanks to the work of Palais-Events and Elegant Events. If you’re looking for a job well done for your Vienna wedding, your first stop should be those two websites.

After the ceremony we drove around Vienna to a few locations for portrait shots. Sometimes it takes a while to get a feel for a certain area to know what would be best for photos, but this was more like…well…imagine playing “Slug Bug” in Germany at the height of VW Beetle production. Photo opportunities were everywhere!

Once back in the States, Dave & Sarah had a reception in wine country outside of Oakland for all those who weren’t able to witness the wedding. Casa Real at Ruby Hill Winery was a great choice in location! It was a lot of fun to catch up with those I’d met in Vienna as well as those I’d seen at the other wedding where I was originally asked to shoot all of this for Dave & Sarah.

One of my friends, Ray Santana, has coined the phrase ‘good times’ and this definitely qualifies. Dave & Sarah…thanks for having me along. Good times!!

Thanks also to Mark Galligan for shooting with me! Couldn’t have done it otherwise.

A little energy boost thanks to Coke and Red Bull. No, Dave didn't grow wings.

Famous Sacher cakes shipped fresh from Vienna! Talk about a special touch.

Unlike U2, I have found what I’m looking for!

admin — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 16:28:27 +0000

I’ve been up half the night due to the excitement. What could be so great?! I finally found personal finance software for Mac that helps me relate to my money the way I want to. Any Mac user will understand how awesome that is. After trying Quicken, iBank, Moneydance and others, MoneyWell has got me hooked! Here’s why I’m excited (both about the software and about my financial future).

Let’s start with a little commentary on personal finances for the future. One of my friends traveled to China for a tradeshow. Upon return he found that the bank had bumped up his payment due date without notice. After making his payments on time for several years thanks to auto-scheduled debits, he was late once. Guess who cut his credit line and started charging him higher interest? Never assume that debts to a bank won’t bite you as long as you make your payments. Right now, the banks own me and I HATE that thought. Who’s really in control?

With the current economic state, and the coming ripple effects of the government’s “spend even more using debt” approach, I’ve decided my best chance in the future is to take back control now and never play a part in this debt financing mentality again. My biggest goal this year is to become debt free. Yeah, I said “year.” You can surmise that’s going to take an aggressive payoff plan. And for someone with irregular income, that’s going to take very careful planning. It won’t be fun…I’ve already said no to an opportunity I’m not even permitted to tell you about yet. Ugh, it could very well have changed my professional future, but it required that I continue the spend first and pay debt later approach. It’s like asking a single person about their approach to dating, and after a nice long answer, asking them how it’s working for them! Believe me, I had to look in the mirror on that one too. hah

So why do I want MoneyWell on my team? Simple. It won’t allow you to spend money you don’t have yet. Step one, set up a reasonable spending plan. Two, schedule your income payments. When they come in, turn on the spigot (quite literally…you have to see it!) and the money flows out of the income bucket and into the spending buckets you’ve set up. Why is that so cool? Because that money is no longer counted in your “available balance.” Looking at a bank account or any other personal finance software, the available balance includes all money even if it’s been earmarked for certain bills and expenses.

Check this out…let’s say I budgeted $50 for catching up with friends over happy hour, but this month was slow so only $35 was spent. Normally, that just shows up in an over/under report and you move on to next month and budget $50 again. Well, with simple drag and drop, you can move that extra $15 to a different category! Maybe it’s one that was overspent, or better yet, maybe it’s your savings bucket. If you choose to do nothing with it, it gets added to next months budget so you’ll have $65 allocated to this category. This is especially cool when the categories we’re talking about are debt payoff, savings, or upcoming expenditures that are big and hairy that you need to start saving for today.

So take a look at MoneyWell, download the free trial. I was blown away that after an entire day of trying other software, in 45 minutes, I had my bank transactions downloaded, sorted and allocated to buckets. I also knew in that short time, what I could keep spending on and what I needed to cut back on. I’d also made all the drag and drop adjustments to make up for my mistakes in spending for the last month.

Perhaps best yet, Kevin Hoctor, the man behind it is an entrepreneur just like any of us. He has lived with all the same cash flow confusion that it brings to us. This is a small company with responsive customer service and a great user community helping everyone out. I try to reserve my endorsements for things I truly believe in, but I truly believe this will do for personal finance, what David Jay did for photographers getting their work online with Showit.

it’s engagement season!

admin — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 23:53:02 +0000

With the onset of great weather comes great engagement shoots! Cherry trees are in blossom, flowers are blooming…and for some reason the only other thing that comes to mind is the movie Bambi, so my last item for this list is that people are twitterpated. And for you youngins, that’s not a reference to a fondness toward a certain new technology.

Here are some photos from what is still one of my favorite engagement shoots. Ben & Adrianne wanted to go wine tasting in the Dundee Hills, which produce world renowned Pinot Noir’s. I was listening to a weekend wine show on the radio and learned that 20 years ago, Oregon had about 4 wineries. And today? Just over 400! They were discussing how great it was for the rural economies.

For the longest time, rural communities have been struggling as the logging industry slows and people gravitate toward communities along the freeway (hah! THE freeway, as if there is only one in Oregon…which now that I think about it is sadly true for all but the Portland area). Growing up in somewhat of a wood products town, I saw three of five lumber mills close. It was great to learn that when you consider all the jobs created by bed & breakfasts, restaurants, field hands, materials suppliers, equipment companies, etc. that this boom in the wine industry requires, a lot of those jobs, although different, have at least partly come back.

Back on topic! This was my first time wine tasting and it was an incredible way to spend a Saturday! If you head out around Dundee, check out Domaine Serene for great architecture and ambience. You’ll also enjoy one of the best views of the Willamette Valley atop the hills of White Rose Wines. Seriously, if you’ve done Napa and you’re looking for a new adventure in wines, you can’t beat a weekend in Oregon’s wine country.

Scenes of Vienna

admin — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 22:52:21 +0000

Ahhhh, Vienna. How does one package this up into a blog post? After watching my cursor blink for a few minutes, I realized you can’t. You just have to go see it!

I spent a week there last fall shooting a wedding that you may already have seen on my Facebook page. These, however, are some of the scenic shots I took as my friends and I roamed the city. This was my first time seeing buildings nearly a thousand years old.

St. Stephen’s Cathedral was built in 1147 and is one of those things you have to just stop and stand in front of for a while to even begin to grasp the history. I laugh when a nice home is built with…wait for it…moulding! Wow! Yeah, right. Try hand carved stone statues on for size.

Statues aren’t really my style, so when I build a home I’m going to stick to your more basic clock tower like the one seen here at the Rathaus, or City Hall. Modesty is key. I love chillin’ on my front porch too, so the arched hallway/porch with hanging lights is an absolute necessity. In case you aren’t picking up on it, I’m just having a little fun with dry humor (or ‘humour’ depending on where you live), but in all honesty, I was truely blown away by all the detail work and immensity of the architecture.

It was also interesting to pick up on all the different architectural influences. That’s about all I know on that topic, so I’ve included links to a few informational pages on each building thanks to wikipedia, which, as we all know, is highly accurate due to strict academic standards upheld for those posting the articles. (hey, you’re getting better at picking up my dry humor) The domed building is the Museum of Art History.

And if you’re looking for some ideas for your circular driveway fountain, look no further than the one at Schonbrunn Palace. In fact, you can look here for all your landscaping inspiration since they’ve…covered a lot of ground…in that area.

ben & kristi get married

admin — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 06:16:30 +0000

I remember scanning my junk email one day and seeing something about Paradisus Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic in one of the subject lines. I figured it was a financial scam of some sort so I quickly moved on. A few days later, I received a phone call asking if I’d had a chance to check my availability for the date mentioned in the email. Umm, what email? Cripes! The one that was sorted into my junk box. I’m SO happy Ben called to follow up. This was a wedding on referral from a couple whose wedding I had shot the previous summer, whose brother’s wedding I had shot the summer before the previous summer. Yes, another long chain of referrals.

As I thought about the DR and did some research online, I quickly discovered that my standard black dress shirt, charcoal wool dress pants and heavy black dress shoes would NOT work! I wasn’t too disappointed as I knew that meant another trip to Nordstrom was in my near future. I went to the guys at the men’s furnishings desk and said…I’m off to a beach wedding…set me up. I love walking in, getting fitted for dress slacks, finding a white dress shirt, a couple pairs of beachy footwear, and a tie to match. Ahh…I was all set and yes, my passport was current (and still is for any of you shopping for a wedding photographer abroad…hint hint).

The first day there, I roamed around a bit, checked the place out, got caught off guard as I realized the beaches were more…shall we say “liberated” than those in the States? And then it happened! I stumbled upon my former clients and got to finally meet Ben & Kristi over a beer on the deck. We then headed to a great dinner. They had invited about 20 of their closest friends and family, so to be one of a small number to take part in their trip was really a special thing for me.

The second day there, the guys headed out on the ocean for some fishing. All we caught were fumes from the boat though…and let’s just say “DEQ” is not in their vocabulary. hah Nonetheless, there’s nothing like heading out to sea on a nice sunny day and enjoying a few cold El Presidentes. That is, untill the sea sickness kicks in (fortunately, not for me).

That night we headed into the bay for nice evening cruise where we witnessed an incredible sunset! At one point I was talking to another friend of Ben and Kristi’s about wedding photography. They had Jessica Claire shoot their wedding, but didn’t mention her name figuring there’s no way I would know her. Far from the truth as it turns out! We had met each other at one of the first workshops I attended in LA. We had a good laugh over how small this world is.

That brings us to the wedding day…a very laid back day for sure. I still can’t get over how relaxed the whole group was. It’s experiences like this one, that when I think back on, I realize how lucky I am to get to see glimpes of who other people are and what their friends mean to them. Relationships are a powerful thing! You might think…”duh!”…but you have to remember I’m self employed and single, so although I still get out a fair amount, I fly solo quite a bit.

Okay, enough chatter for now…on to some photos!

sports modeling test shoot

admin — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 02:54:59 +0000

A while back, a friend of mine was in the hunt for a job in sports modeling. It was fun to get out and shoot something so different. We headed down to a few areas around the East Side Esplanade and the Willamette River. It turns out the weather was perfect and the sky was just right. Of course if you ask Amy, she might have another opinion about shooting on a cold and mostly cloudy day. hah

newsletters coming your way

admin — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 22:09:32 +0000

Ever wish you could just get news, images and other content directly in your email inbox? Well, I’ll be bringing it directly to you in the form of a quarterly newsletter! If the response is great, I’ll even make it a monthly way for you to get a break from work or whatever else it is you need a break from. hah Click the “Newsletter” tab at the top to subscribe! The photo below isn’t an exact sample…but enough to give you the idea.