Wish me luck...

As you can probably tell from some of the posts here or if you know me, Kelly turned me into a full-on football (real football, not that garbage they play here in the States) hooligan. I've played soccer now for almost five years, mostly in goal, but lately more and more as a forward or midfielder. My first love in sports though was volleyball. I played for three years at Purdue on the Purdue Men's team and for several years after that. Once I picked up soccer though, volleyball kind of fell by the wayside.

Well tomorrow night is my homecoming...I'm starting on a volleyball league. Just a local church league, but I'm still really looking forward to getting back on the court!! Still...wish me luck! :-)

Tracy & Adam From a pair of Purdue grads to a pair of soccer hooligans, how could life get any better?! We had the task of photographing this cute couple on the day of the US-Italy World Cup match. Though we had the TiVO set to record it, there was still a little twinge in the back of our minds of wondering what the score was. Luckily, the first thing we saw when we walked into the church was a big multimedia screen dropped from the ceiling and the utterly lovely vision of about twenty feet by twenty feet of glorious German World Cup soccer pitch projected above the heads of all the groomsmen. We watched and listened to the games right up until it was time to start photography, and immediately after the ceremony we were back at it. Another great day!

Valory & Kyle

This wedding had us on the road to sunny (well actually it rained that day) Elkhart, Indiana. I mean, how can you say no to a couple of fellow Purdue grads?! When they were introduced at the reception, it was to the sweet strains of 'Hail, Purdue'. What a way to kick off a party!!

Shannon & Chris

What a string of weddings we've been having! Kelly and I have both been getting some amazing photos over the past couple weeks. Here are a couple from Shannon & Chris's wedding. They were a blast to work with, and their reception was a three-alarm riot! :) We had an amazing time spending the day with them and their family. Here are just a few of the highest of the high points...

A New Sport... The child has discovered a new sport...laundry basket surfing. She crawls into the laundry basket and yells, "Riiii?!" ('ride'). Then we slide her around the floor. When our arms get tired, she yells, "Agaiiii??" ('again'). Thankfully, she eventually gets dizzy and won't ask for more. :-)

Planning Tips...

After being to more weddings than we can count, sometimes Kelly and I feel like we should go into the wedding planning business! ;-)

Here are a few random tips that can make your big day easier and more memorable...

• Unless you've got your heart dead-set on a summer wedding, go for a fall or even winter wedding. It'll be much easier to find vendors for your date, and you won't have to worry about wearing a heavy dress / tux in 90* heat!
• I know everyone wants to party into the night, but photography especially is a lot easier in well-lit conditions. Of course that's just the photographer in me talking, but overall your photos will come out much nicer in daylight.
• Make your day your own! Tradition is good, and there's nothing at all wrong with a traditional ceremony and/or reception, but don't be afraid to buck some trends here and there to make your wedding a truly memorable occasion.
• In our opinions, there are things to spend money on, and things it's okay to cut back on...spend on good food, moderately good booze, photography, and reception site. Things it's okay to cut back on...DJ, table settings, video. That's not to say those things aren't important, just in our experience those are the things that if you have to cut somewhere, that's where you'll notice it less.
• When considering a ceremony site, look at the details. The things that drive me batty as a photographer because I know they ruin photos...old carpet (70s orange, bay-beee!), bad lighting (including very low lighting, fluoroscent lighting, etc.), lots of power cords and other clutter draped all over everything.
  

jessica & john engagement photos Only a day after Jami & Ryan's wedding, I was out with a fresh set of batteries photographing Jessica & John for their engagement photos. Here are a couple from the set...

Jami & Ryan

We had the opportunity to photograph Jami and Ryan's wedding this past weekend. It was a fun day (even if the two Purdue grads had to venture into IU's Bloomington!). We got a lot of great photos, including these...

Just one quick shot from our most recent wedding. Good stuff! :)

Back Home...

Well I survived my trip to the great white north. Actually the great white north looks a lot like Indiana. It was a long and crazy three days, but I got the studio completely up and running, wireless camera systems and all. Now I'm back home and trying to get caught back up on everything that I missed in those three days. Wee! I just got finished processing the photos from our last wedding, so should be able to show some of those shortly. Got my first commercial shoot tomorrow (advertising layout for a bus company), and another wedding this weekend. Let the fun begin!!

I'm a Consultant!

I'm writing this from a slightly smelly, very out-dated room at the Holiday Inn East St. Paul in St. Paul, Minnnesota. The studio I do some work for is expanding a franchise into a suburb of the Twin Cities and they asked me to come up for a few days to do the complete tech setup. I flew in this afternoon, and have already set up several of their computer systems. Tomorrow they should have the cabling finished for their file server, as well as the delivery of the print server.

Today was long. Tomorrow is shaping up to be a marathon. But it's fun...I get to play with lots of computers and cameras with a couple of cool fellow Purdue alums. I have a feeling tomorrow night will involve beer. Tonight though, is just a hot shower...and hopefully this bed is a lot softer than it looks!

Daddy's Girl...

So we went out and shot a wedding today. First of all, good wedding. Second of all, Kelly is absolutely hard-core! She's still got stitches in her knee, still wearing the anti-embolism thigh-sock, still doing her PT several times a day...and she wanted to come to the wedding and help shoot. I told her she could come as long as she stayed sitting most of the time and let me do the majority of the shooting. Yeah, right. She shot it pretty much like a normal wedding. It's 10:40pm and I'm writing this while the photos are downloading from the CF cards. We've both been going since about 11:30 this morning, and she kept up with me pretty much shot-for-shot.

Anyway, good wedding, got lots of great shots, and will have some of Erica and Brad up in the next few days. But the real heart-breaker is that I was talking with my mom (who nannys for us during the week) about how Molly did tonight. From 7:00 until after 9:00 she just roamed the house crying and saying, "Daddddyyyyyyy" over and over and over. I just want to cry, I love that little kid so much!! I really want to go get her and let her sleep with us tonight, but you know...I really want to get some sleep, myself!

Believe it or not...this is NORMAL!!!

Therapy is so much easier with an IV full of Darvon and Percocet!!

Last look at an umarked knee...

A New Knee...

Kelly had her knee surgery early this morning. Dr. Shelbourne went in with the scope around 9:30 am, where he found a completely torn ACL (main ligament that runs through the center of the knee) and some moderate cartilege damage. I've been at the hospital with Kelly all day, working with her on her PT every two and a half hours. It's sore going, but it's going. Right out of surgery she already had full extension and flexion, so that's a great thing. Most of the swelling will come over the next couple days, though, so that's when the work really gets hard. Of course, the camera came with, but I have no way to offload and process the photos from the hospital room (I'm just glad I found a wireless network in here to hack on to...I've been working on my class stuff all day between PT sessions). So photos of the gimp will have to wait a couple more days. :)

Svedka Party, 2006

Svedka being a great Swedish vodka. Long long ago, we wanted to play soccer. So we started a league. One of the 'founding fathers' so to speak was a slightly weird Swedish guy named Joel. Well, over the years, the core gang of us got to be really good friends, having huge drunken bashes a couple times a year. We all ended up playing on the same soccer team and figured what better team name to go with than our favorite Swede's favorite vodka...and thus F.C. Svedka was born. And we were happy.

Just before the start of 2006, we got the unfortunate word that Joel's time with our group was going to be coming to an end--his work visa was expiring, and his company was transferring him back to Sweden. What better way to send him off, we thought, than one last big Svedka bash. Here are some of the photos taken before the bar really opened up...

Hey exciting news! We went to see Dr. Shelbourne, Kelly's orthopaedic surgeon (who also happens to be the team doctor for Purdue and for the Indianapolis Colts). She 'tweaked' her knee a few weeks ago playing soccer. So he's poking at her knee and asking her what she thinks is wrong. (We've had so many injuries over the years, we're pretty good at self-diagnosis.) She's saying something about possible MCL tear and maybe some meniscus damage. Then he did the Lochman's (sp?) test, which consists of grabbing her lower leg and pulling it forward away from her upper leg. A normal leg should not move at all. Kel's leg slid out a good inch or so. ICK!!!!

So Dr. Shelbourne asks Kelly when she's thinking about having her surgery. Yep...torn ACL. Luckily, the reason we go to Dr. Shelbourne is that he is a world-renouned (did I even come close to spelling that right??) ACL surgeon. In fact, he repaired Kelly's other ACL five years ago. So after a quick re-hash of the post-op exercises and therapies, Kelly is on the books for Monday morning.

Too bad I can't bring my camera to the operating room.

Molly playing in the ditch. Oh my.

WHEW, what a weekend! And it's only Saturday evening!

Thursday I had a great photo shoot with one of Kelly's soccer girls (Kelly is a high school soccer coach). Danni was a great subject, and we got a boatload of awesome shots. Here are just a couple of the highlights...

Friday was "man-day"...at least in the morning. I spent the morning on the golf course, relaxing with one of the most stressful "games" ever conceived by man. It could be worse, I guess. I had at least one par hole. :)

Then today I was in the studio all damn day. Don't get me wrong, I love doing studio photography. But I was there for over 10 hours today and shot four sessions (doesn't sound like a lot, but that's actually a pretty heavy shooting load). The last session should've counted for about four, though. A two-year-old and a four-year-old, both boys, both nearly uncontrollable by their parents. Oh man I came out of that one with a splitting headache! Got some good shots, though, so i guess that's what really matters.