Here is the proofbook cover from the wedding I shot last weekend outside of Washington DC. The location was Whitehall Manor, a very cool old farm house in what seemed to me like the middle of nowhere in Northern Virginia. The entire trip was so great, the wedding was fantastic and the light was perfect. A tiny little shaft of sunlight through the trees spotlighting the bride and groom the entire ceremony. I had a great time. The wedding was on Sunday and on Monday before coming home Jenn and I had a laundry list of places to go visit, the first being the USA Today offices, which were right on the way back to DC from where we were staying. I met with a couple of editors I work with, always nice to put a name with a face, and got a nice tour of the offices and met a few people I have not worked with yet, so that’s always a good thing. After that went to Arlington National Cemetary and walked around there for a bit. Very surreal. I would post some photos, but I only shot a few with my iPhone. Didn’t want to lug a camera around all day. Next we went to the White House and then the Capital building, but, my favorite stop of all was Newseum. I wish we would have had 5 more hours to hang out there, but we had a flight to catch and had to cut it short. The Pulitzer gallery (every Pulitzer photograph and the story behind it) was amazing as was the 9/11 gallery, which had the front page of every single newspaper in the world the from 9/11 as well as many other galleries and artifacts. I want to go back there soon. If you are in the area check it out for sure, well worth the admission. After that we went to the airport and that was that. A great trip. Click on the cover to view a larger image.

My brother in law got married on Friday and Jordyn was the flower girl. I was the photographer. She was perfect. So cute.

Last week my little brother calls and says, “Hey bro, going to Vegas next week.” So of course I clear my schedule and book a flight! Jenn and I met him and his girlfriend down there Tuesday and came back Wednesday, but not before visiting my favorite place to eat…….the Rum Jungle at Mandalay Bay. The place is a hopping night club with go-go dancers swinging from the ceiling on a trapeze after 11pm at night, waaaaay too cool for me, but before 11 its a restaurant and it is so good. Go there. Order the Fire Pit. It’s basically one of everything brought to you on a sword one by one, sample by sample, then you decide what you like and they bring you more until you can no longer eat. It’s pretty much awesome. Tiffany Brown met up with us for dinner and when all the girls got up to go to the bathroom together (why do they do that anyway?) I stole her 5D and did my best Tom Boyd impression while shooting this photo of the bar. I’m impressed with the 5D for sure, this is a 1600iso file shot at a 20th of a second (click the photo for a larger version). The Rum Jungle has something like 200 different types of Rum. We found a sweet deal at the Hard Rock for $89 and after dinner went back to the hotel and hit the blackjack tables, where Jenn and I quickly cleaned house and took the casino for $700! Then on Wednesday we rented a poolside cabana (the Hard Rock has the coolest pool in Vegas) and played some more Blackjack, only this time at the in pool Blackjack tables, so fun. Kevin leaves for Iraq on Saturday so it was good to hang out and party with him before he leaves. See you in 8 months Kev, stay safe!

Damn this kid is getting cuter everyday, but he has got some huge ears!

We played our final game of the season last night. Following tradition, here is our team photo. Last night was aplayoff game for 2nd place in the league. We lost by 1 run 16-15. Sucked because we gave up like 5 runs on stupid errors in the 3rd and we didn’t have our fastest outfielder/base runner Joel who had some lame excuse for skipping the game….something about having a baby two days earlier…..otherwise we would have won. Oh well. We finished the season 7-4 and in third place. Click on the photo for a larger captioned image.

Sorry for the lack of blog posts lately. My web host is shutting down and I had to move everything over to a new host and get it all setup all over again and move all the data, etc. Basically a huge pain in my ass. But with that I did do some blog upgrades and now you will see if you click on an image it will bring up a larger version….I’ll be tweaking that a bit over the next few days as I figure out the best way to use it. I am shooting a wedding in Newport today, so I brought the fam out to the beach this week. We’ve been here since Tuesday and its been awesome. Nice and relaxing. Here are a few pics.

Jordyn and I took a little trip down to San Diego today to go the Mariners/Padres game at Petco Park with my little brother Kevin. She had a blast. I never thought I would have to come to SoCal to beat the heat, but while it was 97 and muggy in Portland, it was a nice 78 with a light breeze here in San Diego. Perfect baseball weather. Here is baby J enjoying the centerfield sandbox.

Was doing a shoot the other day and looked up in the sky and thought this was halfway interesting. I mostly shot it for Jordyn, who loves the moon and airplanes.

The people over at PocketWizard liked my Beavers ring light photos and mentioned me on their blog yesterday (here). I thought that was pretty cool.

Jordyn had her big dance recital last night. So cute.

Last week’s softball game was rained out, so this week we played a double header. The first game we were getting crushed. We did not have a base runner until the fifth inning! Going into the sixth inning we were down 9-0. But we rallied for 2 runs and in the bottom of the seventh had one of the best comebacks we’ve ever had, scoring 8 runs, 4 with two outs, to win the game 10-9. In the rubber match we came out swinging and went up 10-6 by the fourth inning. Then the defense took over. We had a play at the plate and I had the web gem of the game when I made a diving stop to my left (playing third base) and threw the runner out from my knees. It was awesome. The next inning my Pops made a nice diving stop while playing shortstop and threw a guy out at second from his knees. Barce also had a diving catch in the outfield and we won the game 12-6. Still undefeated, now at 5-0, we are playing a non league double header against the Portland Tribune/Community Newspapers team on Monday. They are going down.

…..are pretty much the cutest kids in the whole world.

Mister Man was looking sharp today so I decided I needed to shoot some photos of him. Not sure where he gets the blonde hair and blue eyes…..hmmmm…..

Are these two adorable or what?

Jordyn has been wanting to go to a baseball game for a while, so today the Beavers had a day game and 7,000 kids came to the ballpark on a field trip for “Science of Baseball Day” presented by OMSI and I figured that would be a good one. She also loves to ride the MAX, so we made a little trip out of it, I parked in Old Town and we rode the train to PGE Park. One of the things I have to do for the Beavs when shooting for them is to give them a photo in the second or third inning that shows what has happened thus far for a website update. Well, they wanted a kid photo so I gave them a crowd shot and this shot of Jordyn enjoying her hot dog. They ran this one on the site from the 4th inning until after the game was over. So cute. She loves her baseball and loves hot dogs too. How many three year olds do you know that will stay the whole game and be totally into it the whole time? Afterwards, she ran the bases and then we got back on the train. By the time we got home it was time for me to go play a softball game, which we won 24-3, making us 3-0 on the season. Big baseball day for little baby J.

Carter playing around on the floor this morning.

Won our second game of the season 10-7 last night. Our bats started off really cold and we finally woke up in the 5th, scoring 7 runs in the inning, including a double and a run scored by me.

Our softball season was supposed to get kicked off 3 weeks ago, but our pre season tourney…..rained out. Then, we were supposed to open the regular season last week…..rained out. Finally, today we get our first game in. We played awesome. Won 4-2. Our outfield is lights out. ‘Lil DaMetz and Tony can catch anything anywhere. 1-0. Next game next week.

For my wife and mom and so in 2 years I can search the blog and see what little man looked like when he was still little.

This post is for my mother. Yes mom, I take photos of Carter too. Here is one from today. He thinks I’m pretty dang funny (or funny looking, one of the two).

Jenn is back to work, so I am back to being Mr. Mom from 7-12 everyday (unless I have a shoot, then my mother in law takes em). I was pretty proud of myself this morning with the fancy hairdo I gave Jordyn (straight parts and pigtails are harder than they look!) and she was looking cute in her new shoes and jeans and it had been a while since I shot her photo, so I tried my best to talk her into it. Typical Jordyn, she wants nothing to do with me taking her photo unless its on her terms, so after denying me all day, finally she says “take my picture on the train tracks”. So, I grab a camera, we run across the street she gives me this for 4 frames and were done. Not that she runs the show around here, but she pretty much runs the show around here.

My niece Baylee went to a Blazer Dancer camp and danced a little hip-hop routine at halftime of tonight’s game. I was there shooting an unrelated feature for the Portland Tribune so I made sure I got some good shots.