Nickel City Studios: The Blog

THIS IS THE LAST POST HERE!!!!!

2009-02-09T08:23:00.010-05:00

We are so, so happy to be writing that this is our last post at this blog address. About 100 posts after we started blogging here (prior to 2008's wedding season), we're ready to move on to greener pastures at the main site for our wedding photography. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO SEE THE NEW SITE!!! (If you've come here from a google search for wedding photography in Buffalo, etc - PLEASE CLICK HERE :), too)

If it doesn't show up right away, it's because your internet service provider will need to update to the new site sometime today...

We'll still be blogging weddings, engagements and portraits (yes, and Dear Murphy, too), we'll just be doing it with larger photos and in a cooler way to share them with you.

This blogger.com blog, along with its contents, will stay active at this address (http://www.nickelcitystudios.com/blog.html) for a while longer, but eventually we'll pull it off line and will just be blogging on our main site....which, thanks to the inspiration of everyone who has read and commented here over the last year, is now a blog, too :)

If you subscribe to our posts using an RSS reader, please update your program to pull from http://www.nickelcitystudios.com/rss.

THANK YOU, again and again and again for supporting us and our photography.

- Alyssa and Rich Mattingly (and Murphy)

Nate and Ben

2009-02-06T11:13:00.002-05:00

Since it's our off-season from weddings, we've been able to spend more time taking pictures of families and kids in and around Buffalo. Today's blog post is chock full'o'kids courtesy of really, really cute fraternal twins Nate and Ben (their mom is a fabulous blogger, who writes about all sorts of mommery at "What a Card". So go check it out!

Ben has that killer/mischevious little boy smile that you just know lets him get away with a few things...

Super appropriate reading material (do you remember these!?!):

I love this shot Alyssa took of Nate - the light is just perfect coming in the window.

Grandpa's are the greatest :) The next few shots we got of the boys smiling are all thanks to him.

Being upside down never hurts a photo shoot either...especially not when you're three.

Thanks, Nate and Ben! We hope to see you both again very soon!!

Top 50 posed couple's shots of 2008

2009-02-02T21:13:00.006-05:00

When we shoot weddings, we're really excited to spend the whole day capturing amazing documentary images.

However, we love getting to shoot our couples session, too. Usually right after the family and bridal party portraits, we take our couples for 15 minutes or so, and capture some great casual, super-relaxed portraits. A lot of times this is the only fully "alone" time our couples get on a whirlwind wedding day :).

These are some of our favorites from 2008!

Top 50 ceremony shots of 2008

2009-01-30T09:32:00.002-05:00

It's time for another favorite's post! This time it's our favorite 50 ceremony shots from the season. Enjoy!

Dear Murphy: Mackenzie's Visit

2009-01-28T08:22:00.000-05:00

Hey there, little buddy. Well, our winter adventures are going strong, and your cousin Mackenzie came up north for a quick visit to enjoy some snowy fun with us. She was visiting for "Christmas 2," and while she was here, we couldn't help but snap some pictures of the two of you.

We started with a little portrait session of Mackenzie, who was clearly bribed with candy to participate. She's four now, so she really doesn't sit still for much, but chasing her around the house was worth it because she's gorgeous and photographs so well.

You both had a great time riding this pony -- she looks like she was being still and cooperating, but I assure you, she would look at your mom for one second, then jump off and run to another room and hide from me. I love her, but she had me tired at the end of the shoot!

Since she's no dummy, and the minute the candy bribery stopped, so did her interest in getting her photo taken, we resorted to the old hang-your-kid-upside-down-and-tickle-them approach. She was still for a minute, before she was off again.

So, the candy bribery started again... I think she had more sugar in that hour than she did all week!

Then she decided to do some stickering with her dad...

Then, she decided the portrait shoot was over.

So, she's a Florida baby. When you were born, she was in town waiting to meet you, and there's this classic video of her then 2 1/2 self saying, "Mommy, I want to go home. I miss the sun!" She has more pigment in her sking than your mother and father combined, but she really took to the snow. If she wasn't building a snowman or throwing snowballs or making snow angles, she was asking when she'd get the opportunity to again. So, her dad took her out for a snowball fight. She absolutely loved throwing her snowballs, and she had quite the aim. Her first ball hit your mom right in the face! She was having a blast...

then your uncle's aim went all to hell...

and ruined all the fun...

but she came right back with her killer aim.

Meanwhile, your non-appreciative-of-the-snow behind was inside.

When your cousin came back in, the two of you got down to some serious playing. I think you like each other.

And then you decided blinding me would be a good time. Not so much for Mommy, but you two were adorable, so no grudge.

It was great to see your cousin -- I wish we could see her all the time, but we'll see her again soon enough. And we'll write you again soon, little man. We've got some more great favorites posts from our weddings this year, and another great kid's shoot coming up. Talk to you soon!

Top 50 preparation photos of 2008

2009-01-26T09:26:00.012-05:00

It's time for another post of our favorites from 2008! This one is our favorite preparation shots. Actually, I should state that not all of them fell on both of our favorite lists -- who knew picking out some favorite photos would lead to marital dispute?!

Seriously, it was really rough trying to pick out favorites, and there were some that one or the other of us felt strongly about that got culled. Trying to get it down to our favorite 50 was pretty rough, but here they are 50 to 1:

Clare and Hailey

2009-01-24T09:00:00.011-05:00

I got a really nice email from a local mom who wanted us to capture a snapshot in time of little Clare and Hailey, which is one of my favorite things to do as a photographer. Being able to go to someone's home and capture their little kids running around is incredibly challenging and rewarding. As a dad, I know how life can get away from you fast if you don't stop to appreciate how amazing kids are and how much joy they bring into the world. I always hope that I can capture some of that with my camera.

So, what do you get when you have a 3-month-old and an 18-month old in the same house? Well, debilitatingly cute kids, for starters, but also a handful as you'll see.

One of the things I miss the most about our son getting older is little things you just can't do with a 30-pound toddler...like the sink bath!

Meet Clare:

and meet Hailey:

Cuteness achieved...

Hailey is really into playing the piano...so we did that in two outfits :)

Clare's bow-slip was too cute not to include:

And just like our wedding posts - how could I not include, "The Kiss?" :)

Thanks for having me out!!

Top 50 engagement photos of 2008

2009-01-22T14:25:00.003-05:00

We just sat down and went through all of our engagement shoots from 2008. It brought back some awesome memories and it get us really excited to shoot a bunch of weddings this year!

Over the next few days, as we catch up with our posts, we'll be mixing in some favorites from our weddings, too. With the nearly 50 completely amazing weddings we shot last year, that may take a little longer :). We nearly strangled each other over which ones we'd inclue here...

After some serious thought, these were our favorite shots of '08, many of which we've never blogged before (from 50 to 1):

Thank you for letting us share these photos with you, and another huge THANK YOU to all of our couples who made these great shots with us.

Sneak Peek Post

2009-01-21T19:22:00.005-05:00

So, you know what's lamer than posting a post about how you are sorry that you haven't posted a new post (that's a lot of posts)? Posting a "sneak peek" post because you've been running ragged on shoots for a week and are behind and the LOST premiere is on tonight!

The past week we've had several kids/baby/family shoots, and here's a preview of the adorableness, in no particular adorable order:

The full posts will be up over the next couple of days.

Seriously, we'll be back on top of things shortly because it's nearly the end of January and we still haven't hit your eyeballs with our giant "BEST OF WEDDINGS 2008" post!!! We can't wait...

Dear Murphy: Snowman!

2009-01-13T18:26:00.005-05:00

Hello little buddy, and hello 2009 - now with more promises of "Dear Murphy" posts. You mom and I have been getting an earful that we've been done with wedding season for, like, a whole week and there has been no sign of you on the blog. Well, we promised each other that we'd fix that today after our meetings were over.

We've had some beautiful snow the past couple of days, so we bundled up and hit the backyard for serious business: snowman building.

Please note that in the next two shots you are being adorable and catching snowflakes on your tongue...and our idiot dog, Ansel, is barking...at what you ask? The frickin' snow. That's what happens when you move a dog born on Oahu to Buffalo, NY.

You mom, being a little more used to the principles of snow-engineering, took the lead on project snowman.

You helped a ton, actually...

...and your dad couldn't make a snowball for crap. This is what happens when you grow up in Tennessee and get like two snow days a year, and one of those is just because it's icy outside and people can't drive.

You've just discovered this week how delicious snowflakes are - just try and keep a two-year-old from eating fresh snow...not gonna happen.

And the snowman's nose wasn't going to last either...any way you eat vegetables is cool with us.

Snow angels!!!

And then, after the two of us basically watched your mom finish building the murphy-sized snowman, we added the final touches...

After a few more minutes we headed back inside for some hot cocoa. I made about a gallon by using too much cocoa and sugar and needing to dilute...which is comical because of the tiny, tiny mug you insist we use for your cocoa.

I'm so excited you're old enough now to play outside in the snow - and love it. I think we'll do it all over again tomorrow :).

Ash

2009-01-09T13:55:00.003-05:00

Ash's mom called us because she was interested in getting some shots done of him in our natural "nickel city" style. As a parent, it feels especially cool to be able to make some photographs that I know are going to always represent a moment in a family's life together. Hey - from weddings to maternity to infants to kids and seniors, etc - we're all about family. It's why we love doing what we do.

So anyway, my rambling aside, I got the chance to meet Ash and his parents on Wednesday and we had a great little shoot. Basically, if you're going to take photographs of kids in our style - you have to get on their turf and their level. Luckily, I spent a great deal of my youth fixating on galaxies far, far away if you catch my drift...so I think Ash thought I was cool - but I'm probably kidding myself ;).

I started out shooting without him knowing - I love the giant Klimt on the wall, by the way, guys!

With kids, once they hit a certain age, you can't just trick them into looking at the camera or smiling if they're not into it - I did find out later that Ash totally got bribed for his participation, but the best way to go about getting these kind of shots is to have no expectations or preconceived notions about what's going to happen visually - you just react and work with what you're given, and if you're relaxed and trust your skills, then you'll get a relaxed kid. The first thing we did was play some SpongeBob Operation.

Next we had some hang-out time with Ash's best buddy...what a gorgeous cat. I was never a cat kind of dude until I met Alyssa who already owned a sweet old cat named Wilma (you may have met her if you've been by our studio). Here's some shots I really liked for the couple of minutes we got the cat to play ball, photographically-speaking.

And then we played with some Star Wars stuff - I can't wait until Murphy is old enough for me to indoctrinate him. First was the Star Wars memory game, and then Ash showed me his nearly life-size R2D2. It responds to voice commands and has a drink holder built in...Alyssa, honey - my birthday is in July...I'm just sayin...

After some more playing we went outside to use Ash's rad, new snowball makers.

And then we took a requested shot with Ash's aviators...he wasn't really feeling the sun-glasses, but I like the shot - total thug mug. I couldn't decide on color or black and white, so here's both...

Ash, thanks for letting the dorky guy with the cameras hang out for a little while. I really enjoyed it and you are one rad little dude.

Introducing the Little Black Book Session

2009-01-07T20:57:00.002-05:00

I'm really excited to announce that we have a new portrait session to offer that's perfect for those of you not quite certain what to get your man for this Valentine's Day! It's our Little Black Book session -- a boudoir portrait shoot and 5X7, 20-side, black leather album. It would even make a spectacular wedding present for your new spouse! It's $175, and please give me (Alyssa) a holler for more info or to schedule your session!

Kaitlin and Mark

2009-01-05T17:52:00.005-05:00

Alyssa and I met up with Mark and Kaitlin down at the Arena yesterday afternoon for a cold, cold, cold engagement shoot. Luckily, we had a really cool couple ( hey, a horrible pun, my bad!) to work with and as soon as the shutters started flying we were good to go :).

The only request they had for their shoot was that we somehow incorporate the love of their sports lives, the Buffalo Sabres. Not a problem - the little area right next to the HSBC Arena is suprisingly rad for photography.

Besides - it is ALWAYS easy to take awesome photos of couples in love with smiles like Mark and Kaitlin's.

This is definitely one of my favorite shots we took when we headed out front for a few minutes. We were bummed we couldn't get inside, but the Arena is locked down tight on non-game Sundays.

Since we were so close, we decided to explore the Naval Park and some of the surrounding urban stuff. We're always looking for rock, brick or anykind of cool wall texture to use in our photos...

Alyssa and I sometimes just drive around looking for cool places we'd like to shoot - and we saw this random little place a while back...so we filed it away in our "visual notebook". I still have NO idea what this structure is for, but a cool, round opening in a brick wall is just about right for some fun pics.

Aaahh - and Alyssa apparently caught me wearing my ridiculous neon-green biking gloves. Thankfully you can't see them all that well here, but they're the only thing I have that's thin enough to use on my camera's controls AND keep my hands functioning. You see, one night in Afghanistan we got stuck in this village during a snowstorm and a bunch of us got minor cases of frostbite (we had a thermometer that stopped working at -20, so it was frickin cold). Ever since my hands stop working in the cold....hence my ridiculous gloves. Maybe I could play receiver for the Seahawks...

I think Kaitlin is a straight up classic beauty with an easy smile - you're a lucky dude, Mark!

Really cute couple - they held hands the entire shoot whenever they could.

So - to wrap up our frigid shoot, we were so close to the light rail that we had to go shoot a little at the station...I'm a sucker for a good piggy-back ride shot.

And then we wanted to do the "blur the train car in the background" shot, which we've never done with a couple here in Buffalo...so we waited, and waited, and waited...and we thought the stupid thing was NEVER going to come...and then it came out of nowhere! Apparently the gap between trains is a little long on Sundays...

Great couple, fun shoot! Thanks Mark and Kaitlin. Alyssa and I hope everybody has a great week if you're heading back to work after the holiday. If anybody is going to be at the Sabres game tomorrow night (Tuesday), stop down and see me - I'll be crouching down by the ice somewhere with a lens stuck through the glass for at least some of the action :).

Genevieve and Jonathan - Happy New Year!

2009-01-01T18:43:00.005-05:00

Over the course of eight years, Genevieve and Jonathan had never done anything particular for New Year's Eve. So, this year, they decided to ring in the new year with a new marriage. We met up with Gen over at her house and were looking for a cool spot to take some dress shots when we peered in her bathroom and spotted the sweetest shower curtain ever (old CBGB's handbills). It's the first time I've shot a dress hanging from the shower, but it worked pretty well.

Even though it was a bit of a snowstorm yesterday morning, everyone was really relaxed and excited at Gen's house.

Sooo...if you're in Buffalo on your wedding day and there's some serious snow on the ground, you're definitely not going to hike to the church in your good shoes...a bride in boots is our kind of bride. :)

Here's Gen's gorgeous bouquet as she waited in the narthex at St. Joe's.

Rich was waiting outside for the ceremony to start and got this cute "peeking" shot of Gen and her bridesmaids just a few minutes before the ceremony began.

Look at St Joe's!! The church is beautifully decorated every year for Christmas, and they left the decorations up. The church just looked stunning.

Sometimes rings are a little snug, which is really important so that years later you don't put it on your watchband, hand the watch to a toddler in the supermarket and then proceed to lose an irreplacable band that your wife's father made for you. (Rich: I have no comment about what may or may not have happened to my wedding band when Murphy got a hold of it.) Luckily, Jon has nothing to worry about with his!

The kiss.

Right after the ceremony -- Rich and I have mentioned before that this is often our favorite moment of the day, and Gen and Jon didn't disappoint.

Gen and Jon really wanted to get a shot outside of St. Joe's right after the ceremony - so we worked VERY quickly seeing as how it felt like 2 degrees (though I think it was actually 12).

Right after the ceremony we all drove down to Babeville for the reception - one of our favorite places!

The next few shots are from the first dances. Once of the reasons we love the Church is the balcony that wraps around the former worship space. We can do a bunch of funky things with our lighting thanks to the layout.

This one is Rich's favorite shot from the evening...

And he also rocked this one of Gen and her dad!

So, we've been dying to have a couple rent a photo booth for their wedding - and on our last wedding of the year, we got our wish! The photo booth is a lot of fun for guests AND photographers.

Then it was on to some more dancing as the guests celebrated the coming new year.

"It's Raining Men" -- of course!

Usually, we try to take our couple right after the family formals to do some casual portraits -- most of the time, it just makes the most sense to do them at that break right before the evening begins (and that's often about when our favorite outdoor lighting is occuring too!), but since Gen and Jon were just enjoying their night without any formal traditions, we were able to sneak off for a few minutes and wander Babeville for a few photos.

Gen and Jon were both film majors and were really excited about doing more modern portraits. We played around with some film grain and textures, and I was pretty stoked about this shot I took in a hall full of concert posters.

Then Gen, Jon and their guests danced for the rest of the year (sorry -- I had to throw it in there at least once!). It was an amazing night, and we were really so happy to ring it in with their amazing friends and family. Congratulations you guys (and just so you know, we proofread this darn post about five times because we know you'll see our grammatical errors immediately!).

We want to send a big, giant, extra-appreciative THANK YOU to all of our brides, grooms and families who made 2008 such an amazingly successful year for us. So much changed in our worlds, from Rich leaving active duty in the Marines, to getting our studio running as a full-time business, to Murphy growing up WAY too fast, that our heads are still spinning...but we can't wait to jump into 2009 with both feet! We'll have a brand new blog-site (it'll make sense - you'll see) within the next month and we just can't wait to keep on shooting for the people who work with us to make the great photographs we love.

Happy New Year!!!

Andrea and Erik

2008-12-28T12:38:00.002-05:00

Andrea was really excited about marrying Erik -- but in case you couldn't tell by looking at her radiant face, she had a shirt made, too!

The most photogenic flower girl ever! Seriously, how cute is she??

And before too long, we were off to the church...

Rich was over with Erik while he was putting on his finishing touches.

So, Andrea was pretty stoked about having a winter wedding -- she had a snowflake theme going from her invitations and programs to her reception decorations and favors. Needless to say, when it was 59 yesterday, and all the snow she was hoping for in her formals had melted, she was a little disappointed. But we got some great outdoor (really, who would've seen that coming?) portraits, and we tried to give some of her shots a winter feel, like this cute ring shot of Rich's.

Then Erik headed off to the church as well, and it was time to get married!

Andrea was pretty happy as her dad started their walk down the aisle...

but things got a little emotional for her when she laid eyes on Erik.

Here's a few of our favorite ceremony shots...

Then, since it was as gorgeous as you can get in late December, we headed down to the waterfront and did some portraits at the marina.

There is nothing I love more than a groom who carries his brides dress. Seriously -- I get giddy every time I see it!

So, it rained the whole morning of the wedding, and everyone in the bridal party kept looking outside and saying the helpful, "It's good luck if it rains on your wedding day," and the "I think it's stopping. Really, I think it might be stopping!" I don't know if any of that made Andrea feel better, but the truly great thing about it raining hard the morning of your wedding is that you can have a phenomenal sunset with those stormy clouds.

Why is that a giant red Christmas ornament? Yes, it is. Can I explain it? No, but it's fantastic for photos! I went for a vintage post-processing feel on this one because otherwise the giant ball of red was a bit overwhelming.

And then we headed over to the Pearl Street Grill & Brewery. It is a really fantastic location for a reception -- but before they headed into the reception, we shot a few more photos on the balcony, overlooking the city.

Their cake was gorgeous -- with sweet snowflakes all over it to go with the winter theme.

And we'll end this post with some adorable first dance photos -- thanks for having us with you, guys. You were perfect and had a spectacular wedding. (And we're totally jealous that you're honeymooning at our favorite place on Earth!) Thanks, again!

This is so random...

2008-12-26T12:59:00.008-05:00

Merry day-after-Christmas, everybody! I'm going to amend this post later with some Murphy pics from yesterday's awesome present-palooza, but I got a really strange email today that I had to share.

So, an artist I recently met saw a detail from a photo I took in Afghanistan on the cover book...written by Tom Clancy...in Finland. He scanned the book and emailed me - craziness. So much of my work from when I was in the Marines is un-licensed and freely released I occasionally see it turn up in odd places...like this:

This is the original photo the detail is taken from. It's some of the boys from Kilo Company 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marines patrolling with Afghan National Army soldiers through what we were told was a graveyard (notice the upright stone slabs) located near a hostile village along the Afghan-Paskistan border:

That photo was taken 12.20.2004 - Alyssa and I spent our first Christmas apart while I was overseas, and it was pretty tough. I feel very, very lucky to have had my beautiful wife and son with me all day yesterday as we celebrated.

We have a gorgeous winter wedding this weekend, so check back on Sunday for a new post! Happy Holidays, and if you're with your family - enjoy them.

Kale

2008-12-21T20:39:00.003-05:00

We headed into the wilds of North Tonawanda today, right before the storm picked back up, to shoot some photos of Kale. He's two weeks old, which is absolutely the perfect age for newborn photos, and he's absolutely gorgeous -- he even has a dimple! Seriously, I can't think of anything quite as adorable as a newborn with dimples.

Normally, I can talk a bit about Rich's photos, but I'm not too sure what to say here -- maybe that I'm not sure why newborns always feel the need to turn the exact opposite direction I'd planned on shooting them from?

And the shot I was taking!

I love baby feet -- there's nothing as cute as tiny footwear. For the longest time, we'd see other people's children and remark about how giant their kids' feet were. Seriously, it seemed like every kid on Earth had noticeably large feet, until we realize Murph's were just super tiny. Murphy (at 2) is just growing out of the 9-18 month socks, and Kale's newborn socks wouldn't stay on at all! But that leads well into shooting some cute baby feet shots!

Kale with his daddy...

And a couple "staged studio" shots of Kale.

Slightly different perspectives from Rich (above) and I (below).

Kale was so awake the whole time we were there -- and really into eye contact which really surprised me -- he seemed more like a three month old than a two week old!

The we brought in his awesome brother Kai (who might be the best big brother ever -- seriously, he sings Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star to him when he's upset!) for a couple quick shots.

Kai is also gorgeous!

And then some portraits with just Mom and Dad...

And we'll head out on this photo -- it's me showing Kelly the first shot on this blog post, where you can see Kale's dimples. It was around this time it started blizzarding, again, so we headed out -- I hope everyone had a safe and uneventful day today. Thanks for having us over, guys. You really do have two of the best boys I know, and I wish I could've stayed all day and held Kale! This taking pictures of babies thing never gets old! Keep warm!

Baby Siena

2008-12-18T20:13:00.011-05:00

I believe the things that inspire us creatively are often passing things, little snipets of our lives that don't necessarily settle in the front rooms of our memory. I took photos of Siena, a beautiful three-month-old yesterday and it brought back a wonderful memory of the drawings of hands and feet that hung in my parents' hallway when I was growing up. You see, my grandparents' neighbor ("Mr. Bob," we always called him) made drawings of the most amazing details of hands and feet and he'd given one of his works to my mother. When mister Bob was growing up in pre-war Germany, his father forbid him from pursuing a career in art, so he became a machinist. He had amazingly precise hands and was very successful - but his passion for art never died. His drawings could look like photographs - but the only ones I ever saw were of hands and feet, studies in the anatomy of appendages. For whatever reason, those images stowed away in my gray matter for a very long time.

I got to thinking some more about it after those childhood memories were evoked, and I honestly think that's why I'm so drawn to taking photographs of hands and feet - those intricate sketches I stared at as a child. A photo editor I worked for at one newspaper once told me that you were never done with a personality feature shoot until you'd photographed a detail of someone's body, as close as you could get, to reveal something about that person the reader could not otherwise ascertain. After all, you can tell a lot about a person by looking at their hands and feet, the things they use to navigate the world...even if those feet have never seen shoes or found an unwanted stone in their path.

When I arrived, little Siena was in a good mood, and pretty interested in the camera. It's really amazing to see a little one so aware of their surroundings! Here she is grabbing the lens hood on one of my cameras.

That is one beautiful, happy baby. This next shot is my favorite, because it takes me back to when Murphy was that small - there's nothing better than holding a giggling baby up in the air...nothing!

Now that wedding season has pretty much wound down for us (two more in December, then we're on to 2009!), we're doing lots of family and "baby" work. We love being able to visit our clients and work with them to capture the moments they see every day with their loved ones. Seriously, we really do think we have the best job in the world. I think Mr. Bob would be proud.

On a side note: Blogging our weddings and portrait photography sessions has been AWESOME for us this year. When we started doing it, we weren't so sure about it - but it rocks, it's been a lot of fun for us and our clients and we're addicted to blogging. So much so, in fact, that we'll soon by doing away with our website entirely to have a custom-built blog that reflects our personality and style......stay tuned, because hopefully we'll have some sneek peaks as our killer web designers work their talented butts off over the next couple of months.

Thanks for reading, and check back in couple days for our shoot with baby Kale!

Kevin and Kristine

2008-12-14T13:23:00.003-05:00

Alyssa and I shot Kevin and Kristine's Vegas-inspired wedding at Marygold Manor last night, and we couldn't wait to get some of the photos up on the blog today.

We met up with Kristine as she was putting on her finishing touches -- a homemade veil that perfectly completed her 40's look.

Here's an Alyssa shot of her looking absolutely flawless:

The whole look...

Kristine incorporates a lot bead work in her art, and we were blown away by her bouquet - totally hand made! She also did her bridesmaid's bouquets and the groom and his party's boutonniere's.

While Alyssa was with Kristine and her girls getting ready, I met up with Kevin and his crew at the manor to shoot some details before the ceremony. I couldn't resist getting some fun ring shots incorporating their theme. Wait until you see the cake!

This is one of my favorites Alyssa took during the day - if Kevin was stressed out, he sure didn't show it on camera. He was totally cool, calm and collected with a Joker card stuck in his fedora.

Kristine has an absolutely beautiful smile...Kevin is one lucky dude.

And our two favorite shots of "the moment."

We "borrowed" the happy couple for a few moments after the group formals, and Alyssa made some phenomenal relaxed portraits with them. I'm always amazed when I watch her work and then see her photos...of course, having a happy couple, totally in love and smiling helps a lot :).

Sailor Jerry Chucks get our seal of photographic approval every time!

And here's the cake I was talking about - complete with the mongrammed chip and little sugar dice:

And then it was time to dance...Thank you Kristine and Kevin! We had a wonderful time working with you on your wedding day, and we can't wait to show you guys the rest.

Dear Murphy: Building a delicious house

2008-12-12T13:05:00.004-05:00

Dear Murphy,

Believe it or not, this is your third crack at Christmas in your just-over-two-years on the planet. For the first yule, you weren't doing a whole heck of a lot except adorably staring at lights and making gurgling noises - mostly because you were three months old, but probably also partly because you share my DNA. Let's take a look at that shall we? This is your life, Murphy.

Last year was a little more exciting for you (and us) because you seemed to understand that the mountain of colorfully-wrapped boxes under the tree was full of toys for you. And I think you vaguely understood the concept of Santa.

This year we KNOW you know who Santa is, and you expect him to show up any day now. We're using an advent calendar to try and teach you about the concept of days, while counting down till Christmas...but mostly it's just about the candy.

Your mom, being a Christmas lunatic (I use the word lovingly), has made about six dozen different cookie recipes already this month and if you know anything, it's that your mom+food+fire=delicious. So, in addition to the annual cookie-a-thon, we decided we'd take a crack at having you make a gingerbread house with us...but you saw bags of candy and things went south for a few minutes until we could restore order.

I love these looks you give us - like, "No, for real, somebody better open these damned sprinkles."

Your mom did the heavy lifting for the build, but you made sure you let us know that the house needed a doorbell....immediately.

The best thing about having a kid is seeing them get excited about the little things in life. "Childlike wonder" is a special thing, even for little stuff. Seriously, Murph, you applaud when candy gets opened. That's awesome. If I could get back to a place in my life where I felt sugar-coated gum drops deserved oratorical acclaim, I'd probably be the happiest, wisest man alive.

Doorbell: check.

Of course you tried out some of your building materials...I love the next two shots together.

We probably decorated for a good hour until the directions caught up with us. Apparently, the royal icing needs to set overnight for the house to be structurally sound...but the gingerbread house was more about the fun of the activity than having one of the dogs eat it while we weren't looking anyway.

I'll write again soon little buddy...

Helena

2008-12-10T00:56:00.003-05:00

We've been super busy this week with the holidays and our mini-portrait shoots, but I really wanted to share a few shots from a newborn shoot we also did this week. This is Helena, and she's gorgeous!

She's a month old now, and though her mom would probably argue otherwise, she's so tiny! (She came out nearly nine pounds!)

She's totally a rocker! She's got her punk hair -- too cute!!

A family portrait...

And just being gorgeous... (sorry I'm not all that chatty today... it's a little after 1 a.m.!)

I don't know if you can read this shirt, but it's adorable -- "best gift ever." Spot on! Thanks again, guys, for having us over. She's absolutely perfect!

New Guest Books!

2008-12-02T15:56:00.003-05:00

We just got a new sample guest book in, and I'm totally excited about it. It's GORGEOUS! We used some photos from Lisa and Jim's engagement shoot. The cover shot was a really cool texture post-processing job Rich did to make it look old and funky. So, the covers of these albums are a serious photo cover. Not a dust jacket, but a fully-custom photo cover. Super sweet.

Here are a couple sample layouts inside... tons of space for guests to sign!

And the pages lay nice and flat, which is super handy for your guests.

These 20-page, fully customizable guest books are 10"X10" and run $250. Order yours today!

Tori and Brian's Engagement shoot

2008-11-29T18:13:00.008-05:00

Alyssa and I had no intention of the doing the Black Friday two-step yesterday. As much as I would love to help our floundering economy out by buying a sale-priced kitchenaid stand mixer (Alyssa and I have an unnatural love for kitchen appliances, and were close to pulling the trigger...I mean, who doesn't want a mixer that has a pasta-making attachment?!?), there is just no way we're trying to pull off early morning shopping with the boy. A few years ago I went to Best Buy and bought this MP3 player at, like, 4 in the morning. After standing in line for about two hours to get this crappy little gizmo, I promptly lost the receipt that would have let me fulfill the mail in rebate offer that would have made the thing an actual good deal in the first place. I gave up early-morning shopping after that.

Besides, Alyssa and I (and Murphy at 5 - thanks, pal) woke up from our tryptophan-fueled comas to stare out at the bleary landscape of Buffalo in late November...and wait a damn minute. There's no snow on the ground...the sun is shining like crazy...and we have a great-looking couple to shoot in the morning!?!? This, of course, brings us to Brian and Tori.

We started at this random, funky bridge on the UB North campus and kicked it from there. Alyssa spotted the bridge earlier this summer, so I knew we'd be back to it. Frankly, though, we could have shot Brian and Tori in a closet and been fine - they were like old pros posing for us...

Right off the footprint of the bridge, well - I don't know what kid of plant this is - but it looks awesome when the sunlight is just right and everybody's smiling :). I think it was the last engagement photo shoot we posted that Alyssa talked about how a lot of times we'll pull similar stuff for the blog because our thought process is so similar...the same thing totally happened here. The next four are me, Alyssa, Alyssa then me again...

Photography is pretty simple stuff at its core - light, compostion and an interesting subject. When you have a couple like Tori and Brian, I have a hard time considering what we do a job. These guys were awesome to shoot, just awesome.

We wrapped things up at UB and decided we'd celebrate the city-loving part of Tori and Brian's relationship by shooting for a while in Allentown.

Thanks for the "what in the hell is the photographer doing down there?" look, Brian...I have been known to lay down on the job.

This photo is easily my favorite of the day. I had exactly one frame left on the card I was using and Alyssa was working on the set-up...so I popped in, shot this and immediately knew I had the exact feeling we'd been working to capture.

Thank you, so much Tori and Brian!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2008-11-27T15:05:00.004-05:00

Happy turkey day, everybody. Alyssa is absolutely rocking the kitchen right now - we are going to eat very well tonight! I'll probably take some pictures, too, because it is going to be epic.

So, in light of it being Thanksgiving, I think it's best to post some photos of the thing that I know we're both most thankful for: our son Murphy. The past two years have been an absolute blur with moving here to Buffalo from Hawaii, having the boy and starting the business as our full-time gig. We never could have done it without a lot of luck, all of our great clients and a ton of love - which is were Murphy comes in.

Having a kid makes you work harder, care more and laugh longer about every part of your life. It's been a blessing, and we're incredibly thankful parents.

So, we just got a hold of Alyssa's father's old camera collection and there's this one little Kodak Brownie that Murphy immediately took to...

I hope some day we'll have him in the darkroom with us, pushing 1600-rated tri-x and tweaking the neg carrier enlarger...you know, if film even still exists! Case in point: Murphy was definitely wondering where the LCD screen is on this particular model:

Alyssa and I (and Murphy) hope everyone reading this is having or had a wonderful day with their families and friends. Happy Thanksgiving!

Alyssa edit: I just also wanted to share a pretty rad Thanksgiving story -- something I'm also greatly thankful for. My dad died a few years back, and his camera collection has been at my sister's house since. I was in the Navy, and when you're living on a boat, it makes life difficult to have a camera collection. So, we're unpacking the cameras, and Rich comes across a binder that was tucked away with the cameras. As it turns out, it was my dad's negatives. I thought they were lost, but here we found his most precious shots. We immediately pulled out our lightbox and lupe and went to town seeing some of my dad's shots that we'd never seen before -- all circa 1970. I'm so greatful to have these negatives, and it's kind of amazing when you open an old banana box, and find your dad's life in pictures, sitting there, unnoticed. It was an absolutely amazing Thanksgiving surprise and something I'm truly grateful to have today -- just a little slice of my dad back with us.

Dennis and Julia

2008-11-23T13:21:00.004-05:00

We headed down to Pittsburgh yesterday to shoot Dennis and Julia's engagement photos. I'd never been to Pittsburgh before, and Rich has only driven through, so we were pretty excited to explore the city. I have to say, I came away very impressed with the city, but there was actually more snow on the ground down there than there was in Buffalo! So, I just wanted to point that out because my entire life, when people find out where I'm from, the immediate reaction is, "Oh! You get a lot of snow!" So, at least for now, Pittsburgh is snowier.

We had some excitement when we first got into town, too. I heard this weird :snap: sound and looked over as this GIANT light pole nearly fell on a car about 50 feet away from us. Luckily, that was not a sign of things to come at all. We had a totally awesome time planning our shoot over lunch.

First, we headed down to a waterfront park, right across from Heinz Field. Julia and Dennis first met in college, but lost touch. Years later, they ran into each other at a Steelers game, and then, again, the next week at church - and they eventually started dating (Dennis admits he totally stalked Julia for a while until they started dating...but that's okay, though, Rich totally stalked me too :) ) . We hung out and took some portraits with our very brave, shivering couple. Ummm, notice the snow piled by the stairs -- they didn't wear jackets the majority of the day!

My point-of-view above, Rich's below. We love shooting together because it allows us the flexibility of taking one event and seeing it in multiple ways. We have a few versions of that going on from this shoot that we'll show you in a minute...

The one tree with leaves in the park. I think we officially can't pretend we're shooting in the fall anymore. You see how Rich "warmed" the shot up in Photoshop?

Here's the second instance of us shooting the exact same thing, completely differently. Rich went with the silhouette using a telephoto lens, and I went for the architectural point-of-view. Best part - we were standing directly next to each other :).

We wandered around downtown a bit and headed into this mini-park above the restaurant where Julia and Dennis had their second date. Rich and my first date (no joke) was to watch the Passion of the Christ. So, not really first-date material, and we were laughing about that with Julia and Dennis, and as it turned out, that was the first movie they watched together, as well! What an really strange coincidence! Anyway, at the site of their second date was this park with this really cool tree.

And fun vines...

And, for one very brief moment, the sun made an appearance!

And across the street was this random giant orange public art piece. Rich says it looked like a wacky 70s-era piece, so he went with that feel for the processing.

Then we took a coffee break -- since it varied between 31 and 33 all day (every time we passed a time/temperature sign, the masochist in me couldn't help but look!), it was very needed. Then we headed into Dennis' neighborhood. We stopped in this garden by the coffeehouse, and Rich and I both took almost identical shots for the blog... including which ones were black and white! I thought it was funny that sometimes we see things so differently, and then sometimes, we're seeing it exactly the same!

Rich up, me down.

Rich up, me down! (Rich's note: I love processing photos to make them JUUUST right - but you always hope for a shot like the one right above this sentence. I saw it, shot it, and that's exactly how it looked coming out of the camera, no cropping or touching up - they just looked that good!)

So, Dennis and Julia, being big Pittsburgh fans, really wanted a shot with the city skyline in the background. We headed over to this park, and I saw this fantastic bridge I wanted them to walk across... of course, I probably should've thought about the decline of the bridge and the layer of ice covering it! Sorry, again, Dennis!!

A crazy, awesome relief/mural on the side of a building!

And that does it from our time in Pittsburgh! Thanks, again, Julia and Dennis, for having us come down and for showing us around. We had a blast and can't wait to see you guys again. You really do have a great little city, and you are a spectacular couple. We'll talk to you soon!