Michelle & Rich's Engagment Session (Fall River, MA)

Rich is a bit of a local celebrity and show promoter amongst the local music scene and the kind of guy that will both make a party both amazing and destined to end in flashing blue lights simultaneously. Michelle is an account executive at AMP Agency and this smiling, laid-back woman who yings Rich's yang perfectly. Michelle moved across the country to be with Rich and the two of them together make an amazingly funny real-life sitcom couple.



When they told us they'd brought props, we knew it would be a fun shoot. The rubberneckers slowing down to see the masked couple and photo lights around the Braga Bridge alley ways really made it that much funnier. Certain things don't happen much around Fall River...rockstar engagement shoots being one of those things.



Most women wouldn't be open to WWE match poses...but Michelle, after initial concern for her role in faking a choke slam, was instructing Rich to fake punch her toward the camera, not away, in no time.









Rich and Michelle are getting hitched in a small ceremony in January...their favors? Personalized Jones soda bottles with this photo on it! Pretty cool, but I'm a bit biased. Congrats guys!

December is for celebration.

December is always a hectic but fun month here. My brother's birthday, our family Christmas party, my son Aiden's birthday and then Christmas and the New year roll through one after another and I've barely cleaned the cake pan between use. (Alright, my dishwasher has barely cleaned the pan...)



Sometimes I forget to use my camera for me. One of my personal resolutions for the new year is to finally conquer a 365 project. I've gotten my hands on a Canon 20D body I will probably tow around in my purse to help keep me going. James wants to do one as well...we've got a lot of plans!



To practice, I've been using my camera for me all week. It was a good week to start with my family celebrating my daughter Zoe's 11th birthday, the kids decorating the tree and my son in his brand new (gently used, rescued from storage by James) racecar big boy bed. I can hardly wait to wake up to a juice cup being thrust in my face and I will miss him calling "Goooooood Mooooorrrnnning!" from his crib at 7:30am sharp.







Somewhere along the line, my baby became a boy and my little girl became a tween. Woah. Happy Birthday Zoe, please have mercy on me over the next decade. :)

Behind The Scenes: James, Class of 2010

James is my friend Kate's brother and he was a breeze to shoot. We arrived at his favorite summer hang out on Cape Cod just as the sun way closing in on setting. This is our favorite time to shoot because of how much you can do with a changing sky and directional light.

To get the shot above, we boomed a Canon 430EX in a shoot-through brolly. I was set at f/4 and 1/200th (to obey my sync speed).



There's James being the most attractive lightstand a girl can have.

Just after this shot we moved about 20 feet to the right and shot using the sun as the key light instead of the rim. Here's a couple from that spot to give you a good idea of the variety you can pull out of ten minutes during sunset.





James (the senior, not the sexy lightstand) wanted his photo made in that spot to get the white house in the background...apparently there's an urban legend involving dead bodies...

Good times!

Recent work - Winter Family Sessions

After a summer full of weddings, we always enjoy fall and winter family sessions because they're a nice change of pace for us...and we actually get to enjoy the outdoors a little ourselves! We watched Tamara Lackey's CreativeLive seminar on family and child portrait photography recently and we're pretty stoked to add family sessions to our regular schedule.

Here's some favorites from our family, senior and baby shoots this fall and winter! Click the photos for full galleries.



















We can't wait to meet our 2011 families!

Holy S&*t, it's almost 2011!

Dear readers, we are enjoying a much-needed break and re-group before 2011 officially starts. Part of our New Year's resolution list commits us to regular blogging of shoots, behind the scenes stuff and anything else we think you might find fun or interesting. We're not waiting for the new year to test out our new goals, so we've got lots of posts coming including some of our unblogged shoot favorites, our best of 2010 round ups and maybe we will even share our resolutions. :)

Until then, we wish you and yours the very best this holiday season, and watch for our live tweeting at our New Year's Eve wedding!

Rockin' The Dress: Nicole & Eddie

James and I have been dying to start doing some "rock (or trash) the dress" sessions for a while. A rock the dress session is a great way to get some use out of The Dress and give you amazing images that'll outlive your carbonite-encased, perfectly preserved gown.



These are also great for couples who didn't have a lot of time to spend on photos on their wedding day or just want to have another fun day in their rockin' dress! Some brides opt to take this to the next level and trashtheir dress. We've got a couple of those booked...stay tuned!















(Hair & make up by the fabulous duo behind Lady Luck Boutique)

Rockstar Couple: Billy & Christine

James and I arrived at Christine's "getting ready" location with open jaws. We get to see some really beautiful homes in our line of work and this was definitely one of them. We share a "luxury condo" which sounds really great until you consider what "luxury" means in terms of Fall River rentals. It's more like a nice brick building surrounded by dilapidated urban ruins...a cubic zirconia in the rough, if you will. We were in full swoon over the high ceilings and the oceans of beautiful window light that laid before us in this beautiful Gloucester, MA home.

I found Christine in an upstairs bedroom, smiling nervously as her sister struggled to pin the panels on the back of her gown in place. James was off light peeping around the house and as per usual, the flower girl and I got aquainted. Flower girls are always my favorite kids to shoot. No one does honest expression like a flower girl.







One of my favorite parts of my job is seeing all the unique details put into weddings. Everything is painstakingly selected and you can immediate tell a lot about the couple by the details of their wedding. Christine hand-made these amazing bouquets, I must have taken fifteen shots of them alone.





And her garters matched my camera strap...girl after my own heart.



Christine's father couldn't wipe the grin off his face all day. Look at this guy, this picture makes me teary-eyed. I know, I'm a wuss.



Remember the light I was raving about above?



After a renagade chase to track down the limo we opted to follow that left us at a redlight (now what did we learn?), we pulled into the church and scurried over to catch Christine getting out of the limo with the classic "let's do this!" smile on her face. The moments in the back of the church are some of our favorites because everyone is wearing their anticipation on their sleeve and that's the kinda stuff we photojournalistic shooters live for.







This shot of Billy as he saw Christine in all her bride-ly glory is one of my favorites from James this year.









Christine and Billy wanted to do their formals on the beach and as luck would have it, we had the perfect overcast sky for them! A bright, cloudless day on the beach is the kinda thing we have nightmares about. We did a little light testing and took some of my favorite formals ever.











They chose the beach because way off in the hazy horizon you could see the Boston skyline, where they met. Add that sweet detail to the rocking sailboats, golden light and beautiful rocky coastline and it really was the perfect location, on a very perfect day.



The reception was held at the Gloucester House and full of some of those great details I was talking about up there. There were candles for loved ones who'd passed on over the fireplace, a cupcake cake, a scavenger hunt for the kids to keep them busy and "rap sheet" cards for guests to fill out with memories and info to be combined in a book for Christine and Billy. There was even a spot on the rap sheets to affix the mugshot you could take in their self-assembled photobooth that naturally we had to test out!







The food at The Gloucester House was amazing and their staff was great. The dancefloor got lots of action and the whole place was buzzing all night.







We had a great time with Billy and Christine and wish them a lifetime of happiness together. Thank you to both of them and their wonderful people for treating us so well and allowing us the privilege of being their photographers.