Spent some more time on the road last weekend shooting a couple of fun weddings. The first (above) was in Junction City. It was hot. 103 with no wind hot. Groom getting dressed in a freezer hot (lower left photo). 90 at 10:30 at night hot. So hot, I think I was sweating just editing the photos. even though the heat sucked, the place was really nice and the sunset was amazing. every time I looked at the sky it was a new bright color, purple, orange, red it was really cool. I wanted to just do nothing but shoot that!

After the wedding Friday I hopped in the car and was never so happy to have A/C. I drove straight to the Oregon Coast and checked into a hotel around 1am in Neskowin. Saturday morning I woke up to a foggy beach and a cool 60 degrees, much more my style! Knowing it was 95 again back home I was so glad to be on the cool foggy beach all day! They had a great band and great friends and family that danced into the late night, and as with any wedding on a beach with a hot band, even had a few wedding crashers, which they welcomed with pen arms! Went back to the hotel around 11pm and woke up the next day very tired from walking in the sand all day long, but at least the heat wave was over when I got back home!

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.

I am currently in the Washington DC area, just shot a really fantastic wedding about 45 minutes away in Virginia. Here is a portrait from today. The wedding was in a great location, everyone was a little worried when there were severe thunderstorm warnings all day and it poured about an hour before the ceremony, but everything worked out and the sun even came out for a bit. Good thing about lingering thunderstorms is that they make for cool looking skies. I will have more for you later. Tomorrow Jenn and I are going to hit up all the touristy stuff in DC before coming home, should be fun.

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

Proofbook cover from last Saturday. Click on the image for a larger version. I love shooting at Willamette Valley Vineyards, they have the best light. indoors or outside the light is always great.

At every wedding I shoot I tend to keep a close eye on the sky so I can grab the bride and groom should some cool sunset take place. Saturday at Willamette Valley Vineyards down in Salem, the smoke and haze that fill the valley from forest fires around the region made for a very cool looking sky. I saw this developing and knew it would not last long, so I grabbed a couple of Canon speedlights and the couple and we walked into the field. 1 light high 1 light low a couple of stops under the key light. I like it. Next time though, I’m going to add a third light for a rim light. i would have done that here, but this light was only around for about 5 minutes. Click on the image for a larger version.

Trying a new way of posting wedding’s on the blog. Click on a thumbnail to see a larger version. You can also scroll through the large versions once you bring one up. let me know if you like the new layout or if you just posting the covers better. I shot this wedding a couple of weeks ago and have not had a chance to blog about it with all the host changes and what not, but better late than never.  Ceremony was at the First Unitarian Church downtown and then everyone walked over to the reception at the Tiffany Center.

Spent last weekend in the Roseburg area, covering an awesome wedding on a private ranch in Roseburg on Saturday night and another at the Milo Academy in Days Creek on Sunday. Driving back to my hotel Saturday night down a one lane dirt road in the dark I almost nailed one cow and two deer. I didn’t even see the cow until I looked out my driver’s side window and he was about 12 inches from it, I about wet myself! Here are the proofbook covers, click on them to see a larger version.

Shot a couple of good ones Friday and Saturday last week. First on Friday I shot for the first time at the Aerie at Eagle Landing, which I thought was a very cool spot and less than 5 minutes from my house, so that’s a bonus too! Jake and Lindsay hold the record for seeing their photos the fastest. The reception ended at 11:30 Friday night and I had to catch a 6am flight Saturday to Denver for that day’s shoot. Well, turned out that Jake and Lindsay were flying to Cancun, via the 6:00am Denver flight that I was on and sat two rows in front of me! So I threw a quick edit together for them on my laptop so they could enjoy a little slideshow from 40,000 feet up.

After landing in Denver at 9am, Jenn and I picked up a rental car and headed into the Rocky Mountains. The wedding site was about an hour/hour and half from the airport and the drive up was breathtaking. And the wedding was awesome too. I had a great time, thanks for having me out Jeff and Kari! Click on either cover to see a larger version.

More from Colorado, I want to go back.

Coming to you live from Denver, CO. I shot a wedding about an hour away in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, this was a cool looking church for sure. I will upload more photos soon.

A fun one at Lewis River Golf Course in Woodland, WA. Click the image to see a larger version.

Click on the image to see a larger version.

Here are some photos from the wedding I shot last weekend down in San Diego. The ceremony was in a little park in Escondido, very large and loud and fun families. I felt like I was at my own large loud family Thanksgiving and was laughing all day long. Thanks for having me down guys.

I’ve known Ricky since high school, we played baseball together and he play’s on my old man softball team now, it’s fun shooting wedding’s when you know half the guests.

I bought Apple’s Aperture software and made Tom Boyd come over and show me how to use it. It’s pretty slick. This wedding was the first shoot that was shot RAW and processed completely in Aperture. Works pretty good, helps I had a good wedding to work with. Matt and Rebecca provided me with some good moments. Click on the image to see a larger version.

I’ve been a bad blogger lately, sorry about that. I’ll try to update some stuff soon. In the meantime, here are some photos from the wedding I shot last Friday. I felt so bad for Courtney, she was horribly sick all day long and I (and everyone else in the church) thought she might pass out during mass, she spent most the night sitting down sipping Gatorade from a Champaign glass. But she is a trooper and managed to fight through the sickness and enjoy the day. Courtney I hope you are feeling better!

Cover from a fun wedding I shot on Leap Day. Lucky Drew, he only has an anniversary every 4 years! Click on the image for a larger version.

The WPJA announced the winners of the last contest of 2007 yesterday. This image placed 19th in the ceremony category. I’m not much of a contest guy, these quarterly contests are all I ever enter and I barely do that. Personally, I think it is really, really dumb to award 20 places. Top 10 maybe, but 20? Give me a break. Oh well, at least I “placed”. I guess it’s a good thing, I’ve talked to a friend of mine who has judged this contest, which is for photographers all over the world, and he says there are just a ridiculous amount of entries, so I’ll take it. Go check out the site and look at all the winners, some really nice images in there. This is from a really sweet wedding last August and yes, that is me in the upper left on the beach. Gotta love remotes.

A little late posting this, but last Saturday I shot the state wrestling finals for various newspapers around the state, here are a few frames I like. The photo above is of Miguel Baltazar of Culver, who won his fourth straight title. I have shot all 4 of them, he’s always good for nice jube (here is a blog post from his second title in 2005).

Before shooting the wrestling finals, I shot a wedding downtown. The timing and location was perfect, wedding over at 6:30, 2 minutes from the Coliseum, finals start at 6:30, I didn’t miss a single match and shot some decent photos at the wedding as well, made for a long fun day. Here is the cover. Click on it to see a bigger version.

Lori used to work for the Daily Astorian, its always cool when another photographer likes your work enough to hire you for something like their wedding.