Matt & Gretchen - Engagement

Last Saturday I went to Philadelphia to photograph Matt & Gretchen's engagement session. Matt and I met while I was working at Lockheed Martin as an engineer. We immediately hit it off since we are both Eagles fans. I had such a great time hanging out with Matt & Gretchen and look forward to coming back to Philly in May to shoot their wedding. Hopefully since it poured during their engagement session they will have sunny skies for their wedding day.


We met at the Philadelphia Museum of Art to start the session. The only problem was that nearly the whole museum was covered with scaffolding since it was being renovated and the weather was rainy as well. I still managed to get off a few shots using creative angles so you didn't see the construction while keeping Matt & Gretchen dry. Here is my favorite from this location.

While we headed off to Penn's Landing for our next location the skies started to clear. As soon as we parked and got out of the car the skies clouded back up and opened with an amazing downpour. Gretchen and I quickly jumped in the car. Matt was a little behind us and got pretty wet. I thought for a moment we wouldn't get their engagement session in but less than 5 minutes later the rain stopped, the skies cleared, and the sun came out. Here are my favorite shots from Penn's Landing.

With only about 30 minutes before the scheduled sunset we headed off to Temple University to grab a few shots. As we made the drive over to Temple the skies started to get cloudy again. By the time we got to the bell tower at Temple the skies in front of us looked very menecing. I managed to get off only a few shots before you could hear this loud rumble from the distance. We quickly ran for cover and made our way back to the car. Matt even ran out ahead to grab the car and pick Gretchen and I back up. Here is one of the shots I got in the 1 minute (literally) that I shot at Temple.

I just want to thank Matt and Gretchen again for choosing me to be a part of their special day. I know we are going to have a blast on their wedding day. Here is one final image of Gretchen. She is going to be a beautiful bride. I can hardly wait for their wedding day.

Themes so far this year

So far this year each month has had a separate distinct theme.


January - A month of being sick. I started off the year with a trip to Ohio for Jon & Alison's wedding. After I got back I spent the next several weeks sick. I didn't feel back to normal until the last days of the month.


February - A month of visitors. The first visitor we had was my wife's best friend April who came towards the beginning of the month and stay for a long weekend. We had a great time going out on a whale watching trip out of Long Beach and doing other fun things. The second visitor was one of my best friends, Richie. Richie and I have been friends since middle school when we worked in the computer lab together. Richie stayed for a week and we had a great time visiting the filming locations for E.T., Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, Back to the Future, and other movies. It was a great month and I hope we have more visitors soon.


March - A month of travel. March is just starting out but the theme is pretty clear. I am currently writing this blog post as I sit at LAX waiting for my flight to Baltimore. I am heading back to Baltimore to visit friends and family, shoot an engagement session, and donate my time and skills for a great charity. I come back on the 12th only to head back out of town again on the 15th for WPPI in Las Vegas. Make sure you check back for images from my travels.

Somewhere in the world is an elephant seal named Rustin

Yesterday I promised to tell you why I was sorry I didn't have my camera in hand the whole day when we were visiting the Central Coast. While my wife, Victoria, and I were scouting a location to photograph the sunset, we saw a team from The Marine Mammal Center of California headed down the bluffs to the shore. We followed and saw what they were after: a stranded Elephant Seal pup. They carefully loaded the 100+ pound baby into a crate, and then asked for my help to get it back up the cliff. Afterwards, they asked us to help think up an unusual name for it because they track thier rescues by name (not number) but cannot reuse a name for ten years. My wife suggested "Rustin". The folks from TMMC were kind enough to take a picture of us with Rustin and sent us an update on his condition later that evening. You can track his progress at thier website under the Current Patients link.

Here are the other pictures from Saturday. I took these earlier in the day when we stopped on the beach in San Simeon, CA to see the Elephant Seals. I wish I could have gotten a better angle and had better light but I am pleased with the results. All of these images were taken with my Canon 40D and 70-200mm f/2.8L IS lens with the Canon EF 1.4x II Extender attached.


This is what baby Rustin will look like one day

Here are some other great shots of the Elephant Seals

First outing with the 5D

Since I don't have any weddings or engagements to shoot until next month, I took out my Canon 5D for a test run this past weekend. My wife, Victoria, and I drove up the coast of CA to San Simeon to see the baby elephant seals. After seeing the seals we started driving back down the coast towards home and stopped just north of Cayucos to watch the sunset. We arrived with a little over an hour to go before sunset so we went for a walk to scout out a good location to photograph the sunset. I will tell you more about that walk tomorrow and why I made a big mistake by not bringing my camera.


Here are some images with my 5D. All were shot using my new Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L lens except for the last one which was taken with my Canon 15mm f/2.8 fisheye. Enjoy!