Gems of Experience

Another beautiful wedding and opportunity to share my love with photography with Jenna and Austin as they celebrated their love for each other. Destination weddings are gems in my experience as a photographer and I am grateful for every opportunity that I get to shoot a destination wedding. As my first time to the Bahamas, it was spectacular. While my focus was on capturing this beautiful and intimate weekend for Jenna and Austin, the atmosphere and excitement about being in the Bahamas allowed me to forget about any stress involved with working this wedding by myself. The small group of friends that surrounded them as they began their life-long commitment to one another complemented their completely genuine and heartfelt love for one another. It was a complete joy and blessing to be a part of such a tightly-knit group of friends and family. Thank you again, Jenna and Austin for bringing me into this circle and sharing a glimpse of your life together with me.

I have had some great opportunities in my short career as a photographer and continue to see opportunities for great growth. Photography is going through some exciting changes and it is exciting to watch things progress and move with greater strides as both technology and accessibility to photography accelerate. With so many great photographers sharing content through the web and interacting with each other it is hard not to be inspired. I love seeing other photographer's sharing their work and young photographers so eager to learn and become better. Part of this growth is increased competition, and I am strong believer in the value that competition has in any market.

Competition is saturated these days with accessibility of equipment and the economic pressures of a recession. I particularly like competition and the spur of creativity and quality that can become of a competitive market. Although the economic scenario has created pressures on the market that have pushed the quality spectrums in the other direction, even in a highly competitive market driven by downward economic pressures there are plenty of opportunities to stand out. I enjoy both aspects of the nature of things in photography today as they both lend themselves to adding value to good work.

Weddings are a great deal of work for any photographer, and a wedding photographer's work should not be taken for granted. I particularly enjoy weddings for the hard work required and the specific skill of shooting under pressure and moment constraints. I have done many weddings and have grown tremendously as a photographer by working in a wedding environment. I respect wedding photographers who have made a career of wedding photography and continue to grow and improve their artform. It has been inspirational to watch and follow great wedding photographers produce great work over and over again. Thanks for checking out my blog, and I hope that whatever your interest in photography may be that you would find value, inspiration, and quality in my photography.

This and the next post contain more images than I usually post, but the images made the cut and I believe they complete the stories of my expereiences. I recently made a trip to Gainesville, visiting the Paynes Prairie and the Ichetucknee river; I am excited to share the images from that trip, and I hope you don't mind the longer posts.

There are only a few things more spectacular than watching a full moon rise from the ocean. It is truly awesome and breath-taking. Having your wedding reception right at the center of this occurence could not have been more perfect.

Another Long Break

It's been too long. That is two in a row, looking back at the last post. I started it the same way! I hope to get the next few posts out in quick succession, just images. The truth is photography work has slowed down for me this half of the year, but it's beginning to pick up again. Thank you for all of you who continue to support and enjoy my work, sorry for the long delay between posts. Don't hesitate to ask about any interests you may have working with me or even purchasing any of my works that may be your favorite. I am still working on my online-store, and I would like to start making some long-term photography relationships with families interested in periodic portrait work for their growing families. Please contact me with interest, inquiries, and if you would like to come with me on some of my local shooting experiences, fall - winter time is prime time shooting here in South Florida. Enjoy the next few quick posts!

I like to take a little more time on photos that I define as simple pieces and apply some subtle painterly affects to further communicate the peace and tranquility of a fleeting scene. I hope you can enjoy the subtle transformations.

With the change of season, this last photo doesn't match the time taken of the previous set of images, but I took this photo last winter in South Carolina, and it reminds me of Fall with its red lit tree lines. This fall, I will be going to Tennesse and North Carolina, and I hope to capture some great Fall images!

Cherry Blossom Festival, Finally!

It's been a while since my last blog, and I remember when I said I would post these pictures a while back, so here are my pictures from the Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, D.C. I know they are late, but I have been working on some cool projects with my photography while continuing to pick up work on the side. Although I have neglected my blog, I have had some wonderful photography opportunities and I am working on an online store to sell my work.

To recap this trip, when I arrived in Washington, D.C. on a Thursday evening, the cherry blossoms had just reached full bloom in the prior weekend, but the weather was not very cooperative with cold rains. The forecasts for my stay were hopeful in that they expected the weather to clear for the weekend festivities. My plan was to walk around early Friday at a minimum to scout some good spots for the festival activities, but what I found was that the weather forecast changed to heavy rain for Friday afternoon. Fearful that the cherry blossoms would not make it through these last rains before the weather cleared, my scouting walk turned into my last chance to get the best photos of cherry blossoms for the weekend.

Although the sky was overcast and the blossoms were not completely full, the experience was still fantastic. Walkers and cyclist passing by were telling me that I missed the bloom, but to my virgin eyes that had never before witnessed this event, the scenes were that much more impressive.

The rain started just after noon and continued to get heavier through the early to late evening. By the next day, the scene was much different, while the blossoms were still evident and cheerful, the fullness was gone. I was grateful that I had brought my gear that Friday morning to scout the scene. Saturday it remained overcast, and I didn't take many photos after that morning, but I got to enjoy the company of friends the whole weekend. Sunday, the weather finally cleared for the kite festival and looked like it was there to stay. My flight home was in the afternoon on Monday, so I planned to get up before the sunrise. The friend that I stayed with has been doing his medical rotations for Med School and is very familiar with leaving his appartment at 4:30 in the morning. He suggested I start at the Iwo Jima Memorial and move towards the Mall as the sun began to rise. The advice was perfect and it was well worth the early morning. Although the friends whom I visited and the experiences outside of photography really made this trip awesome, the photo opportunities and the beauty of this majestic city really puts this weekend in the top of my list of recommended things to see.

Thank you for being patient with my work and continuing to follow in spite of the lapses in blogs. I hope you will soon enjoy the opening of my new online store. My goal is to make my work affordable yet meaningful to all fans of my photography. I plan to offer fine art limited edition prints at affordable prices and keep things simple to start. I will be slowly building it up to offer more of my work in a variety of formats while also inviting my friends who are artist or photographers a convenient affordable way to start selling their work through my online store with very little overhead.

I hope you enjoy these photos and can understand the wait between blog posting! I will be working to make my online store public soon, and I hope you can find something you would like from my collection of work.