Happy New Year!!!!!! A huge thank you to all my incredible clients for making 2011 so lovely and to my 2012 clients for giving me so much to look forward to! (You too, 2013′ers!)

I have been super busy working on decorating my house, I am almost finished with my great room and will post before and after pictures as soon as I have it finished. I built 2/3rds of my chandelier this evening, I can’t wait to finish it!

I met with Kate and Mike in Victor (it was the least I could do considering they came all the way from Clinton, NY) over the summer and we set up the engagement for late September. We originally thought it was going to be cloudy and rainy but it ended up being a beautiful sunny day and we made our way through Rochester (and giant clouds of midges) to shoot at a few different locations. We started at Highland Park, Kate and Mike were like “We’re nervous!” but this was the second exposure I made. They are clearly lying liars.

The sun filtering through the trees was so pretty…

Kate + Mike + Black + White= hotness!

Ah, midges. The light was pretty intense over in this spot but I had to document the midges… yes, all those little glowing things were BUGS. Which, if you know me, is pretty much my nightmare. When I was in Iceland we went to a place called Lake Myvatn, the literal translation of which is Lake Midge (or Midge Lake, if you’re nasty.) Fortunately when we were there the midges weren’t there. Apparently they hatch a couple of times a year and the clouds are so thick you pretty much can’t breathe without them going in your mouth and stuff… I imagine it looks a bit like this. I had them in my bag, in my shirt, all over the place… it was pretty gross. But it looks awesome!!! And that’s all that counts (unless they had been spiders, in which case I would have set everything on fire and driven off a cliff.)

Then we headed to Village Gate for some more pictures, the light was getting prettier by the minute and Kate and Mike were killing it.

LOVE this one

And this one.

So much to work with at Village Gate!

Our final destination was the Old Toad, where these two met… I am so glad they met here, what a great photo op! And of course a couple of pints never hurt anybody!

So looking forward to the wedding you two, see you in a few months!

Apologies for yet another lapse in blogging… I have spent the last month alternating between snuggling with Pepper, looking at Pepper, taking pictures of Pepper and looking at pictures of Pepper- a busy schedule that hasn’t left much time for blogging! Heh heh. Happy 2011! A huge thank you to all my incredible 2010 clients… what a year it was! I’m thinking of compiling a 2010 favorites post, but first things first!

Alycia is the sister one of my lovely 2008 brides, Cristyn, so of course I was thrilled to get her email about her 2011 wedding… I love doing multiple weddings for a family, it is so much fun! We chatted about the wedding and went over all the details and when they were ready to book I asked Alycia for her fiancé’s last name. When she told me, I pretty much turned into a valley girl and was like “NO. WAY. NOWAY!” It turns out Cameron and I grew up on the same street! I hadn’t seen him in probably 20 years, so of course I was excited to see him again. We lucked out with a 40-ish degree day (after 2 straight weeks of below freezing) and met up at High Falls to start things off.

There’s so much great color around High Falls.

One of my favorites… they’re so cute together.

We also headed over to the Memorial Art Gallery for a few shots. These twisted branches make a cool pattern in the background.

Alycia and Cameron were so fun to photograph, just totally chill and laughing pretty much the whole time. Makes things easy for me!

The front of the MAG is really beautiful.

This is ridiculously cute. Ridiculously!

I hope you guys had as much fun as I did, see you in a few months!!

Ahhh… that blog silence was the sound of me catching up on my editing! The end of the season is always a hectic time with so many weddings to edit and lots of people trying to schedule portraits to take advantage of the beautiful fall colors. I was so happy to get Rebecca and Ryan’s engagement in while the leaves were just at peak. Engagements are always a great way to get to know each other before the wedding, and without fail they make me 10x more excited for the wedding… that’s certainly the case here, Rebecca and Ryan were great sports and totally up for anything. It was such a fun shoot!

They brought their beautiful husky Kiyra, which was cool. I love dogs and am always in favor of incorporating pets in to shoots!

Leaves on the ground are perfect for photography. So much color! Also, SHOES! Those are some serious heels. My brides hike in stilettos, I love it.

At one point Rebecca confessed that she and Ryan were “bad at pictures.” Oh, you are so wrong my dear! So very, very wrong.

Ridiculously cute.

Love this one.

I’m a huge fan of things flying through the air during a shoot (snow, rain, pollen, seed puffs, whatever) I think they add so much to a picture, so any chance I get to use them is always welcome. Rebecca and Ryan were in the middle of this field and as they walked through, tiny seed things were flying around, so Ryan offered to kick a bunch and send up a big cloud. They went flying everywhere, but Rebecca and Ryan hung in there like champs for a cute picture!

Ryan was super helpful “encouraging” the puffs to fly out of the plants, ha ha. He’d kick them and then immediately jump right into a pose, it was pretty impressive.

For this shot, Rebecca grabbed a handful of plants and shook them… one unfortunate gust of wind sent the entire blob of puffs directly into Ryan’s mouth. This is pretty much the only time I’ve ever wished I shot video, because it was flippin hilarious. Ryan inhaled a couple puffs, they both started choking and then Ryan kind of dropped Rebecca. It was such a mess, but we were all cackling hysterically (and Kiyra was howling from the car, which just added another layer of funny.) Rebecca wanted to make sure I included that sequence on the disc, and of course I did… I thought the final result was pretty sweet, too.

I knew I would like Sipra from the start. Her first email was sweet, engaging and enthusiastic and when we met to talk over details, her personality matched right up. I didn’t get to meet Jan until half a year later, when we did the engagement shoot, and I totally love their dynamic- she’s bubbly and sweet, and he’s quiet and witty. It’s a really cute combination! We had fun wandering around Highland Park and Corbett’s Glen for the shoot… I even forgot that I was moving the next day! With only a few weeks left until the wedding, I am really pleased I got a break to post the engagement photos!

We started at Highland Park, which was a challenge since it was during the Lilac Fest- there were people everywhere. I managed to find a few angles that looked like we had the place to ourselves…

Then we headed to Corbett’s Glen, which is a cool place to shoot!

Is that spiderman crouching up there on the ceiling… I mean, I can’t blame him for wanting to join the party, we are pretty cool after all.

We also went to the other entrance to Corbett’s Glen, which is a really pretty little trail.

I love this one… his big manly hand next to her dainty face!

Pretty light..

See you guys soon!

Another weekend, another great engagement! Lizy and Wyatt came up from Baltimore for their shoot, it was so great to meet them after corresponding with Lizy last summer. Lizy’s emails were so full of warmth and personality, I kind of felt like she was smiling while she typed them… so of course I was looking forward to the shoot. Lizy and Wyatt are really cute together and were a pleasure to photograph!

You’d think from all the lovely flowering trees and bushes that spring is officially here, right? It snowed yesterday morning. Ah Rochester…

My brides always wear such hot shoes… even in the woods! Love it…

As we walked down towards a field, I told Lizy and Wyatt about the time I was in the same area for a shoot a couple years ago and there were about 40 deer standing around… de ja vue! There were probably 10 or so just chillin’ in the field, it was pretty cool!

Sorry deer, my couple is cuter than you…

…by far!

So pretty…

One of my favorites…

See you in a few months, it’s going to be a fun day!

The 2011 couples are already here! Jill and Martin’s wedding is next summer, and they wanted to set up an engagement so they can start sending out their save-the-dates. I’m so happy that we fit the shoot in this week, because EVERYTHING is in bloom right now… it is just gorgeous outside, even when it’s gray and cold (which it definitely was for our shoot!)

Jill and Martin are both getting their doctorates in psychology in Pittsburgh, and I’m so glad we got to meet up despite their extremely busy schedules! I had so much fun wandering around Highland Park with them, chatting about dogs (they have an adorable pug!) and attempting to outrun the threatening skies. Let’s get to it!

YES:

Gorgeous couple, beautiful view… what more could I ask for??

I kind of get a Jerry O’Connell vibe from Martin… cuteness!

More magnolia trees on Oxford Street

How beautiful is she!?

We also stopped into the Lamberton Conservatory for a few shots… I love this place!

I got about 5 shots off in this room before the humidity fogged up my lenses (to be fair, they had been out in the freezing cold for the previous hour or so!)

Love. It.

Thanks for making the trip up you two, have a great year… I can’t wait til the wedding! It seems so far away…