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!