Originally when Anvi, Augustine and I had talked about an engagement shoot we were looking at a few parks outside of Boston. Later Anvi asked if we could go to the public gardens.  I mentioned the problems but she clearly wanted to go to the gardens…and after all its her wedding. OK, we’ll do the gardens.

I drove down to find that there was an accident tying up traffic on Storrow Drive – the backup was all the way to beyond the bridge leading into the city. Chose an alternate route ( even though I knew I’d lose my GPS signal in the O’Neill tunnel) – came through the tunnel, driving blind with no satellite signal, made a few guesses and about the time I acquired a signal I was in front of the public gardens…still not sure how I did that.

Most of the meters were bagged – a film crew was working in the area – and the car was overheating. Not feeling good about this at all! Circled the gardens a couple of times, finally snagged a parking place, grabbed my gear and sprinted to the meeting spot. Anvi and Augustine were late…they had to deal with the same lack of parking, but we connected and off we went.

Its funny how I can be a little down about things – but that all goes away when the shooting starts. Ok, for all you “hate-to-get-out-of-bed and go to work people, all the can’t wait till the week’s over folks…I really can’t relate. The fact is I love what I do. Yeah, I know – I’m really lucky! But I digress.

Dealt with the crowds – they really weren’t as bad as they could have been, think the possible rain kept some away. Anvi and Augustine were a joy to work with – we knew we were running just ahead of thunderstorms and shot a bunch till they hit. Spent 30 minutes or so under a bridge by the swan boats, talking, looking at photos in the back of the camera, then at it again as the storm passed. Having so much we even pushed the limit on the parking meters. Finally wrapped it up and parted excited to do the wedding. Can’t wait, what a neat couple!

Here’s a few photos from the shoot.

The castle itself was closed, but the grounds are amazing. Stone turrets, stone walls, beautiful woods, simply a great place to shoot photos.

We weren’t without our moments – at one poiint I heard a car alarm going off, didn’t think much of it until a short while later when the Windham police showed up. Turned out we had set off motion alarms while walking around – the car alarm was actually a breakin alarm. The police officer was great – it became clear we weren’t there to steal the castle and he was most gracious about having to respond to a sort-of false alarm.

Hannah and Miles were great too! We tried all kinds of photos, the more we shot the more they got into it. And when we were done ( it was starting to get dark) I had way more photos than I will ever be able to work with. Here’s a few from the shoot.

The couple gets used to being photographed and dealing with my personality. Additionally they get a start on a “family” album. So often couples have individual photographs but few of them together.

One of my wedding couples from this past year passed along my contact information to  Zhen and John. A few emails later and we agreed to meet in Gloucester to do an engagement shoot.
It was cold and windy – not cool, not chilly, but downright bone-crunching cold!
I had on my heavy winter jacket but Zhen and John were a couple of real troopers. They wore light sweaters, Zhen was wearing heels and scampering along the rocks better than I was! We shot at a few locations along the ocean, occasionally getting away from the water to hide from the relentless wind.
These are two people who are absolutely nuts about each other – heck, they did all the work – I just documented their total love for each other. At the end there were three pretty frozen but satisfied people ~ we all had had a great time on the shoot. The light was pretty flat and overcast but some post processing work added snap to the photos. I have to say that of everything we shot, my personal favorite was when Zhen jumped up on a stone, suddenly being taller that John and gave him a great big kiss in front of this beautiful stone wall of a building.
I processed it two ways – as a straight black and white and as a sepia tone.
Jump in here – what way do you like it better? Comments welcome!

What’s that got to do with an engagement shoot? Well,  scheduling has been a nightmare – and I’ve totally given up on paying any attention to the weather forecasts!

Mark asked Shelby to marry him while the two were at Hampton Beach in New Hampshire, so it seemed a natural place to do their engagement photos.

Forecast, warm, overcast, occasional rain.

Reality, like a fall day – bright sky, chilly and windy!

Shelby was a trooper – she had a jacket but was committed to being in a short sleeved shirt for the photos…Both she and Mark gutted out the temperatures while I was pretty toasty in a sweatshirt and jacket! When all was done, most of the photos I was holding her jacket, she never turned blue from the cold and we had a great shoot.

Here’s a few from the day.

This is a couple who are clearly in touch with the environment -the fallen leaves on the moss covered rocks were as slick as ice and they scampered over them like mountain goats as we explored locations for photos. The mid July wedding will be at another spectacular location – Pat’s Peak Ski Area in Henniker, NH.

When I started to edit the photos, I decided to try another ShowIt slideshow – figured that I should try to remember how I did the first one. this time it took almost no time to produce the show so it was blog ready – I guess I remembered more than I gave myself credit for – and the fact is that the program really does make it doable…thanks again David Jay for making this great piece of software available!

So….here’s a slideshow of Amanda and Scott – can’t wait for their wedding!

The wedding finally came through – and yes, they hired me to shoot the photos – and on a late October Sunday she and Nat were married at the 3 Chimneys Inn in Durham, NH. The 3 Chimneys is an classic old New England Inn – great ambiance in the rooms and the food and service is first class – worth going there to check it out and have dinner by the way.

The wedding party entered the reception separately and did a dance – the show stealer was Katie’s 82-year-old grandfather cutting it up to “Men In Black”!

Here’s a few photos from a glorious event.

“Jay, I know its last second but could we do our engagement photos tomorrow or Saturday?”
I’m shooting a wedding Saturday but I’m dying to get behind the camera instead of the computer…and Friday promises to be just  more editing and processing.

Salvation!!!
You never really know until you start shooting, but Caitlin, a nuclear engineer, and Andrew, a police officer are about as comfortable in front of a camera as is possible. We met at the Great Bay Discovery Center late in the day and walked and shot until it was too dark to focus. We shot all over including going out into the marsh grass for some stunning photos – just keeping moving enough  to (almost) keep the mosquitoes at bay.
Fortunately for Andrew and I, Caitlin is a mosquito magnet – we had precious few bites to show for the adventure.

The advantage to doing it so close to the actual wedding day – it was a great way to relieve the stress that builds as the date approaches.

But I had the opportunity to do a little personal shooting because I spent the night before Ben and Meridith’s wedding at the site on the lake. After the rehearsal and barbeque, after the karaoke and drinking, I set up a couple of lights and photographed Tammy and Gabby, a cousin and friend of the family. Working in the tight confins of the cabin was a bit challanging, but the two girls have potential modeling careers in front of them – they were as comfortable as any I’ve ever worked with.