After we photographed that perfect little munchkin, Trey, we got back into our couples work with two of our kick-ass 2011 wedding clients. We hadn't done an engagement (or couples or whatever we call these photo-shoots these days) at Delaware Park in a while so we decided, with it being so beautiful and green now, it'd work perfectly. And it did - and we had a really rad time hanging out with Alana and Mike.

Not only was it beautiful and green, but the light was just stunning for us. I had a blast. Plus, these two = gorgeous!

So, it's funny - a lot of these photos are very golden, and today wasn't super hot, and it's September, so I feel like it's fall, but it was really about 90 while we were shooting these. Luckily, I have the best husband of all who carried my gear for me. Not that it helped; we both had totally gross sweat lines where our camera straps were by the time we were done, but I'm so, so glad we shot when we did. Seriously, look at that light! It's killer!!

Do you think we hint enough at what times we like to schedule shoots on the blog? Maybe a little.

Anyway - we are, as always, working until 9 at night writing this post and watching television and prepping gear for tomorrow's wedding - and this dude on the history channel is about to jump from about 40 feet up into a pool of cold water - 12 inches deep. Now, I've done some pretty dumb stuff in my day, but I've never thought to myself, "Hey, you know what - I should figure out how to survive a belly-flop from three stories up."

Also, I love that some genius at the Olmstead Parks Conservancy was like, "Hey, we'll stop mowing down certain areas and call it a 'natural regeneration area.'" I kid, I'm sure it's all good and a great idea for the park - and it gives us some great spaces to play, visually.

Also, back to this great couple - I freaking love this one, hon.

Thanks - that might be my fav, too. So, yeah, the belly flop - I don't know how much beer he had to figure that one out, but there it was. A 30-foot belly flop into a pool 12 inches deep. Kinda weird. Not that this whole show isn't - Stan Lee's super humans... a bunch of people doing crazy, crazy stuff, like a guy using his body to run electricity. Huh...

We are so apropos it hurts. Maybe we should try blogging in the mornings.

So, there's this one awesome willow tree you can walk entirely inside of. Someday, if that whole lottery-winning thing works out, I want a big yard with a willow tree I can hang out inside of all day. I definitely won't look as good as Alana and Mike do in the willow tree, but I'll definitely have a smile on my face!

Yeah - we're only one of about everyone I know who's banking on that lotto thing. It probably would help if we bought a ticket every now and then though... but yeah, definitely a willow tree. :) Maybe we can even do that without winning the lottery. I hear you can get trees for under a mil.

How ridiculous is it that Alana's eyes are literally the same shade of ridiculously awesome blue as that shirt. Love it.

I think this is my favorite fo yours, babe...

Oop! No, I lied. :) This one definitely is :)

Thank you - but I know you're just buttering me up because of how happy I know you are about this next one ;).

Alana, Mike - thank you so much hanging with us and making just some great photos :) You guys re awesome and we love that we got to work with you now - but we're gonna hate having to wait till next year to photograph your wedding! Have a great, long (if you get it off) weekend and we'll be out there, shootin away as much as we can. Thanks for reading!

Aaaaaand, we're back. It's late as all get out on a Friday evening before a wedding and here we are posting photos on our blog. We're kind of wild and crazy like that. Our nuts wedding shooting schedule is making our summer fly by. We had so many plans and places we wanted to go and things we wanted to do - and now it's almost September and we're down to something like ten weddings left this year and we haven't done a tenth of the things we wanted to do and said we were going to do. I swear we were shooting brides in the snow like two days ago, too. We're taking pretty much all of November and December off this year, though, and we can't wait. That's going to be our summer and our time to woodshed and rebuild and get better.

So, we had a pretty bad-ass shoot with Kristen and Brandon earlier this week, hi-lighted not just by some new places to shoot but a really amazing surprise courtesy of our awesome bride-to-be....you'll see here in a second.

But first off, my favorite frame, Alyssa. I saw you playing with this one as we were trying out some new processing techniques and I still just freaking love it...great stuff :)

Thanks - I was pretty stoked with that one, too :) Kristen was just about as adorable as I could've asked for.

So, Kristen pulled some massive strings and got us on to the Buffalo Fire Department ship, the Edward M. Cotter. She's 110 years old and awesome. We always say that the location doesn't really matter, but man is it fun to get new places, especially when they're as rad as this!

Heck yes :) It's no secret I'm kindof a huge fan of any sort of boat or watercraft, and I don't recall we've ever gotten to shoot on one before (our old jobs, excluding, of course). I think this was my favorite of the whole shoot. I absolutely love how Kristen laughs with Brandon.

We also wandered around the surrounding neighborhood as the sun was getting just about perfect. And we were totally right by the General Mills plant. Weirdest thing ever - I have never, ever, ever smelled anything aside from Cheerios being made, and while we were wandering around, some sort of cinnamon delishesness was floating in the air (Cinnamon Toast Crunch, perhaps?), and my stomach just about ate itself. I know everyone is proud of the city smelling like Cheerios and all, but if it could smell like that cinnamon all the time, I would be a much more pleasant person. It was just about amazing.

Alyssa just said, as I stared at the tv instead of typing on the laptop, "I gave you an opening to talk about cereal..." Sooooooo, I like cereal? What the hell, Alyssa?

Anyway - we do need to hurry this up because I just promised Kristen on our facebook page we would have this posted by 11 at the latest. Let's get on with it!

There's nothing quite like laying on this crazy steel bridge and your wife sortof nonchalantly mentioning there's a giant truck about to run you over. It's cool though, got the shot. And HOLD THE PHONE - Alyssa, did you just flip the channel from the roast of David Hasselhoff to a show called "Left at the Altar"?? What the hell is wrong with television??

It was a commercial break! Clearly, I'm not going to not come back to David Hasselhoff's roast - I love these stupid things.

Oh look! A overgrown, grassy... um, field... :) But it looks gorgeous, huh :)

Like.

Thank you - that one really worked out, huh? I might get that one printed - we need some new stuff on the studio walls :).

For real, though - why is Hulk Hogan wearing a boa?

hah! I don't know - because, as a child of the 80s and 90s, he's still completely awesome??

I think this little section of Buffalo might quickly become my favorite, random place to shoot....

...but the boat was really kick-ass. Thank you so much for hooking that up, Kristen! We have some really cool stuff to show you for the sesh :).

Yeah, it was a really, really fun area to shoot - you guys were awesome. Thank you so much for being so rad - we had a blast, and hope you guys are having a blast on your vacation!

So, here we are - and if you haven't checked recently or your RSS 'sploded when we posted like 6 shoots in three days, we had a really good week. Good because our clients are completely, undeniably kick-ass and good because we feel we've hit a nice groove as the summer wedding season heads into our final 15 or so weddings.

When we started shooting weddings full-time, about four years ago while getting ready to transition back to civilian life, we took every job we possibly could. I had a couple people tell me they thought a wedding photographer should shoot 50+ weddings a year in their first few years. Ironically, now that I think about it, that advice came from people who definitely were no longer shooting weddings (a web design guy) and another couple folks who were "old heads" in our industry who were big on advice giving, small on actually working anymore.

Anyway, we're grinders and always have been. We once figured out we completed about 200 total shoots in our first year. That's not a great idea if you want to preserve your sanity, but it will get you to your ten thousand hours a little faster, and coming from a pure (to a rigid fault) photojournalism background, we probably needed it. It's hard for me to give advice because I only know what's worked for us and we're not everybody, that's for sure. We hope to calm that down over the next couple of years and take about 30 weddings total for next year try to do more family photography work, as well.

So, meet Amberle and Andy, a couple we've been waiting to shoot for a LONG time (their wedding is actually coming up this summer, but Andy's been out of town getting his theological learn on). Andy told us as we showed up that he's going to realize his dream of becoming a US Army chaplain! So he's been busy getting ripped and getting ready to tackle one of the hardest job in the military...and Amberle? She's adorable and fun and hilarious and when you get these two together, they're perfect. We enjoyed this shoot immensely.

Yeah - we'd each shot our first frame when we looked at each other and were like, we're going to love this shoot. They were both immediately comfortable in front of the camera (possibly a theater background/possibly because she has a photographer as a best friend), and they had a blast. They were comfortable being affectionate, they were comfortable joking around, and as photographers, we couldn't ask for more. I hadn't even realized we'd been shooting for so long when we found ourselves watching the sunset. It was definitely the perfect way to cap off our crazy week (and crazy month!).

Also, babe, that photo above might be my favorite you've ever shot. Just sayin.

I told you I was loving that new perspective! (just FYI, I got a new piece of glass and while a lens is just a lens until you do something with it - getting new gear can certainly force you to look at things a different way - quite literally). Amberle is freaking adorable. Just freaking adorable.

Oh, look! An important bridge :)

Hah! (inside joke) - but I think it is pretty important :P.

These two have had WAY too long a long-distance relationship, but they're officially done with that (well, at least until the military thing). The wedding is in two weeks, and then they'll get to be together, finally. At the end of the shoot, Rich went to me, did you hear that? I asked what, and he said, she just said to him, "I can't wait to spend the rest of my life with you." Too cute!

I always get jealous of people who shoot in California where it's sunny and beachy and carefree all the time. For a city that has more sunny days than Atlanta (supposedly), I find myself being encouraged, way too often, to tell brides that rainy and overcast is better for photos, but the truth is, while I love the skies you only get when it's about to downpour, man do I love the feel of some sun. For me, this is what I want to see when I look back on photos of my life. Warm, happy and loving. Of course, both photoshoots we've ever had done of our family were completely overcast/downpouring, so we're still working on getting those photos for ourselves :)

I think it's less about light and location and more about getting the people you're shooting comfortable, personally. I like shooting in all light - I think we're thinking about it because we got a bunch of shoots in a row where the light was fun to play with. Overcast isn't bad - you can put people ANYWHERE if it's overcast and I think that's what people are referring to. If you're not all that experienced or you have a less-than-stellar image capturing device, the shade is about all you can do. Cell phone cameras and basic point-n-shoots have taught us all that.

We don't generate our own light too much when we're out shooting like this. Trying to set up a lit shot, for us, is usually a classic recipe for losing connection with a couple and that's the worst thing possible. We don't work with models and I don't really ever want to - I love real people who are really into one another and it makes me feel good that we're getting to give people something they're going to always want to look at and remember that particular time in their life.

Blah, blah, blah, all light is good. Say what you will, I prefer sun.

(Have you noticed how much easier it is to write the blog not at 11:30 at night when we're passing out on the couch?)

Yeah, I feel like we should go have more in-depth discussions about Independence Day or whatever we were watching at 11:30 last night. I'm surprised we're functional at all after another 6-hour night (thanks, Murph!)

I don't know if watching mid-90s action flicks is functional, but whatever :)

Seriously, these two are gorgeous. And PS - Amberle, your dimples are AMAZING.

Also, I want your hair.

I like this one the best :)

Anyway, after working our faces off the past week, we're going to try and recharge and refresh our family life today before another long wedding day tomorrow. Hope everybody has a great Friday/Weekend and we'll see you all back (hopefully? have we burned you guys out??) same blog, same blog place, who knows what time on Monday when we blog the fabulous wedding we have to shoot tomorrow.