Jazzfest (2 months late)

For the past few years Keri and I have driven to New Orleans in the spring for Jazzfest.  It is possibly the best trip we go on each year.  We love the music, the city, the friends, and of course the food.   If you haven't been, I can't recommend it enough.  This year was a bit different in that I was only able to go to the 'fest one day due to travel restrictions.  In addition to that, the one day I went... it was cold, windy, and rainy.  It took a normally slower Friday (versus Saturday) and forced most people to pack into the few spots of dry land.  The rest of the people were relegated to mud sloppin'.  So, overall, not the best experience, but we still got see a few great acts and eat some amazing food.

Sasha Masakowski

 Brushy One-String

 Ana Popovic

Working for Their Wedding | Lindsey & Mario @ Donaldson-Bannister Farm in Dunwoody, GA- Part 2

In case you missed the photos from Friday of Mario and Lindsey's wedding, click here!  Now, check out Part two of their beautiful wedding at Donaldson-Bannister Farm in Dunwoody, GA!  

Homemade cake by a family friend and Dad rehearsing his toast:

One of Mario's brothers' notes for his toast....

...and he was a huge hit.

There are two distinct ways to get a man on the dance floor, as shown here:

Working for Their Wedding | Lindsey & Mario @ Donaldson-Bannister Farm in Dunwoody, GA- Part 1

I shot Lindsey and Mario's wedding in October last year on the same weekend as Rachel & Andy's wedding.  I also recently met with the woman who helped with the venue to put it on, Linda Shulin.  When I initially met Lindsey & Mario and heard they picked a beautiful location that generally doesn't host many events, I didn't think much of it other than "cool!  I new venue to check out!"  During and after the wedding, I came to find out how much work went into just getting the wedding approved there, let alone the WORK they all put into it!

When Keri and I had our wedding, we did it semi-DIY by choosing venues where we could bring all our own stuff versus paying the venue to do it all or contract it out.  We thought that was a challenge at times.  Lindsey and Mario chose a historical home owned by the city of Dunwoody that had never seen a wedding in recent years and was being modestly maintained by volunteers.  Lindsey, Mario, their families, Linda and I'm sure a number of others made it happen through much paperwork, permitting, and heavy duty landscaping!  It helps that Lindsey is a lawyer and Mario is a landscape architect.  :)

I was told a number of hours were put in for many days making the venue as beautiful as it was that fall day.  The most notable of which is that the location where the actual ceremony took place (the grassy area with the hand-made-by-Mario white arbor) was an old swimming pool just 2 days before the wedding!  Mario, friends, and family filled it in and sodded it so they could hold the ceremony there!  I don't know about you, but I've never heard of so much hard work going into a wedding on top of all that jazz about finding a dress, caterer, DJ, and god-awful photographer.  ;)  Check out the photos below from one of the most beautiful DIY weddings I've ever heard of.

This was a POOL a few days prior!

And finally, a groomsmen idea.  :)

Imaging USA Day 3

Here is Day 3 of Imaging USA, including portfolio review, an aerial photo booth, the 8x12' Sharpie mural by Jai, and the Lifetime Achievement Award given to Greg Gorman.

The aerial photobooth.  Pretty cool idea from Leah and Mark

Jai's PPA masterpiece

Greg Gorman was given the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Award and Degree Ceremony Tuesday night.  Check out his website (specifically the celebrities) to see the incredible work he's done.  You've likely seen it before. :)

Imaging USA Day 2

Imaging USA Day 1 was a ton of fun, and Day two continued on with the same emotions.  Day two was where I realized what a historic organization PPA is.  To give perspective, I asked an employee "so, how many of these events have there been?"  The answer I got was "I dunno- maybe 120 or so?"  I knew PPA has been around, but I had no idea they celebrated their 50th anniversary as an organization in 1930!  You can read more about PPA's history here, including some amazing stories that range from World War I Signal Corps photographers becoming honorary PPA members to George Eastman introducing the first Kodak camera and film system to convention goers in 1888.  Once again, I was so happy to be a part of this historic organization and convention.

In addition to classes and the expo, PPA students were taking certification exams.

Dane Sanders giving away prizes after his class.

The Muñoz Brothers taught a very exciting and humorous live shooting class

Including posing tips...

The official PPA mascot for the event- Flash- heading downstairs to the Expo.

David Bergman showing the Nikon booth area how to snap great event and sport photos.

Photographing the volunteers proves to be quite humorous.  They were barking questions as me from below.  "What's your f-stop!?  What camera setting are you using?!"  When I would tell them my answer, they would always reply "NO! That's wrong!!!"  :)

Lindsey Adler teaching a small group of PPA students.

Michael Barton came away with a few awards at the Grand Imaging Awards ceremony, including photographer of the year.

This character also won an award for best image with his shot of the final shuttle launch.  I was amazed at how he took this photo.  Because NASA won't let anyone around for miles, he set up his tripod a few miles inside the "danger zone" the day before the launch.  He set the camera up on a sound trigger and hoped for the best.  The next day, he went to find his camera had captured a number of images, including this winning shot!

Imaging USA Day 1

Last August I was approached by the marketing director for the Professional Photographers of America (PPA).  She had seen some of the work I did at Social Media Day at Terminal West last summer.  She said she really like my event work and that they were unimpressed by last year's event photographer at their yearly Imaging USA event.   I was extremely flattered to be chosen as the photographer to photograph photographers.  :)  It was last Sunday through Tuesday at the Georgia World Congress Center.  It was a ton of fun, albeit a little crazy with over 10,500 photographers in attendance!

Though they had pre-classes Thursday through Saturday, Sunday was opening day of the Expo.  I had my lovely assistant, Curt, with me for part of the day.  He was a great mule on the Expo floor carrying my gear and also gave me the idea to borrow a monopod from Manfrotto to get some of the "aerial" shots of the floor.  People did look at my pretty crazy hoisting my rig 7 feet in the air, but it captured a few neat shots.  First up, I have a few shots from one of the most popular speakers, Jerry Ghionis:

My favorite shot of the weekend.  Can you tell who the excited audience volunteer is in this photo?

As people gathered on the 3rd floor for the Expo opening and ribbon cutting ceremony, my event contact, Sarah Ackerman, snapped this photo from above and posted it to Twitter.  With all the hustle and bustle of the #IUSA13 tag, the photo was at one point trending on Twitter.  :)

After the ribbon cutting:

My mule assistant heading down to the Expo with me.

Winter Post, Summer Wedding- Adam & Rebecca

Here is the other wedding from last summer that I completely slacked on putting on the blog.  Adam and Rebecca had a beautiful wedding in Marietta with their reception at the Roswell Mill (one of my favorite venues!).  The happened to be on the hottest weekend of the year, but fortunately they planned their wedding indoors.  It was quite a challenge getting any photos outside due to the 100 degree+ heat (as you'll see in one of the photos below).  I made sure to only run outside for a few shots at a time as there is nothing worse than a hot and sweaty wedding party.  A hot and sweaty wedding photographer is a different story... I wore all linen to try and beat the heat but by the time I got to the reception even my pant legs were soaked.  A/C was my good friend that night.  :)

Christmas In Febtober: A January Summer Wedding Post

With the New Year comes reflections on 2012.  Though I have no grand ideas and emotions I'd like to emote, I will say I am launching a few ventures this year to help Alex The Photo Guy keep the business strong in the new year.  I resolve to shoot more projects for myself and hang out with Marc Del Santro taking photos out in the wilderness (I have a few ideas for 2013 on that).  I also resolve to market my wedding business harder, update my website, follow-up on emails quicker, and stay on top of the blog.  With the latter resolution comes two blog posts- both way late, as they were weddings I shot during the summer at the height of the heat wave.  I generally stay on top of blog posts, but with wedding season continuing strong from summer to fall I fell behind on these two on the blog.

The first wedding I'm making up lost ground on was Sallie and Aaron in Asheville, NC.  Sallie is one of my sister's best friends and she had a beautiful wedding at the Biltmore UMC and Doubletree Hotel.  It was a beautiful location wedding, albeit a very hot weekend.  The one thing Sallie told me was "I HAVE to have a mountain view shot."  My trusty second shooter, Curt, accompanied me on the trip and we spent a few hours the day before scouting locations near the church that we could get to and from before the reception.  In the end it turned out, the best shot was in the parking lot of the church.  Few people saw this shot with their naked eye beforehand.  That's because the trained eye of a photographer knows he needs to to lay on the black asphalt with a long lens in order to avoid parking barriers and the rusted chain link fence below the hill.  Plus, it helped that the sun poked its head from behind the clouds for just a moment, parting the way for the mountains.  ;)

 

Andy & Rachel’s Wedding at Park Tavern- Part 2 | Atlanta Wedding Photographer

Here is part two of Andy and Rachel's Park Tavern wedding.  Not surprisingly, Park Tavern knows how to host a good party.  You'll easily see below that this wedding was quite the party.  :)

Did I mention I was the second most talented photographer at the wedding?

Andy & Rachel's Wedding at Park Tavern- Part 1 | Atlanta Wedding Photographer

I've posted before on Facebook that often when sitting at a coffee shop editing wedding photos, I find myself smiling back at Photoshop.  Not because I love the program, my computer, or my coffee.  I smile because for wedding editing, I'm looking through photographs of two people on the best day of their life.  Almost every photo has someone smiling, laughing, dancing, and sometimes crying tears of joy.  Maybe it's the dumb reflex part of my brain wanting to mimic smiling faces I see or perhaps it's that through the hectic 8 hours of photographing a wedding day, I only get to truly reflect on the event when going through the photos days later.

 As a general rule, I'm not often outwardly emotional as my wife (who cries at sad TV commercials) would note.  However, having been married and seeing Keri walk down the aisle in her dress and having family and friends there, I know what it feels like to be overcome these feelings on this occasion.  I say all of this because I smile a lot at coffee shops, but the other day I found myself tearing up.  I'm not particularly close to Andy and Rachel, though I have spend time with them prior to the wedding and think they are a wonderful couple, so it surprised me to feel the saltwater welling up in my eyes.  It was the following two photos in particular that got me.  Maybe it's because I was in that same spot a year ago and wish I looked as sharp as Andy in his tailored suit.   For me, seeing these two photos of Andy as Rachel walked down the aisle really got to me.  You can see the childlike reflex of pulling his hands from his pockets to holding onto his suit like a security blanket.  He was overcome with this inexplicable emotion of seeing Rachel for the first time in that long white wedding dress.  I'm glad I was able to capture this moment on digital film.

These two photos aren't the most photographically impressive photos, but to me they evoke more emotion than most.  These two got me.  I'll post one more that I thought was sweet, then get on to the rest of Part 1.  This next one is pretty self explanatory of the mother-son dance, and to be honest I think explains a lot about the two photos of Andy above.  (p.s.- Andy, I hope this didn't embarrass you too much). 

Alright!  Now onto the fun stuff!  I have to first give a shout out to the vendors as they pulled of a beautiful and fun wedding!  Simply Charming Socials did the day of coordination and lovely decorations, Pink Cupcake Dreams brought delectably decadent cupcakes (I took a few leftovers home to Keri!), and DJ Andrew Wrobleski lit up the dance floor (more of those photos to come in Part 2!).

Cat Island, Day Two!

Just a quick update from Cat Island!  During the day I took the Gro-Pro out snorkeling on a local island and we kayaked through the mangrove to a secret beach.  Last night was the rehearsal dinner and dancing.  Nicci, the bride, surprised everyone by hiring a local drumline, Junk-a-Noo, to bring a 45 minute conga line (without stopping the music) through the resort!  Then, between beers, I was running back and forth on the beach getting star trail photos.  Having an incredible time at the Fernandez Bay Village!  Here are a few shots from the day:

Cat Island, Bahamas Wedding

The blog will be pretty scarce this weekend as I'm in the Bahamas shooting a wedding.  I know, I know- I work too much.  Don't worry, I'll try to get to the beach this weekend to get a little sun.  :)

No wedding photos just yet, but maybe a teaser to come Sunday.  I just wanted to put something up to let all of my avid readers know I haven't forgotten about you!  When I get back, there will be plenty of photos to update you on.  Coming up, I have two beautiful summer weddings that somehow slipped away from the blog (so sorry!), more fall family portraits (call me soon if you want to book one!  The weather will turn cold soon!) and more real estate related work.  Have a great weekend!  Here are a couple of shots from day 1:

Double-Header + 2 Portrait Session Weekend Teaser!

My friends generally know that I often have busy weekends.  However, this weekend was my first wedding double-header in a while- one Friday and one Saturday.  On top of that I had a maternity/family session on Sunday and a 3-month baby session on Monday.  Needless to say I was a bit nervous about it all week.  My main fear, oddly enough, was that I throw my back out at the Friday wedding and was unable to shoot the Saturday wedding.  That obviously didn't happen, but I did find out for sure that I have begun getting tennis elbow from lifting about 15 pounds of camera, batteries, battery grip, flash, and wireless flash trigger over 1,000 times each day with poor form by my right arm.  Both nights I actually had to ice my elbow!  I'm getting old!

Both weddings went great.  If you were outside at all this weekend you know the weather was some of the best Atlanta has to offer.  Blue skies, warm days, cool evenings- just about everything you could ask for in a wedding- both of which were outdoors!  I'll give more dedicated posts on both weddings once I get through editing the photos, but I will say I had a ton of fun all weekend.  Rachel and Andy had such a fun group of guests and bridal party at Park Tavern that I ended up spending most of my time on the dance floor!

Here are a few photos from Rachel and Andy's wedding:

Lindsey and Mario had a beautiful wedding at Donaldson Bannister Farm in Dunwoody- actually the very first one that the venue has seen!  I initially thought they "just" planned the wedding (note: the word "just" is in quotations), but after the ceremony Mario told me the ceremony site- a beautiful grassy garden area on the property- was a swimming pool just about a month ago!  He laid all of the sod and did the landscaping himself!  Here are a few from their wedding:

Now here are a couple from the Sullivan family shoot followed by two from my sister's 3-month old- Hudson.  I know I know- I'm an incredibly efficient blogger!  I say that jokingly- more on these 4 events to come!

Lou and Erin Davis Wedding Preview!

He's a quick shot we pulled off just before the toasts at the wedding reception this Saturday at Wahoo Grill in Decatur, GA.  I had just a couple of moments to steal the bride and groom away for this shot that I'd had in mind all day.  I'm just glad the cars moved out of the way and the sun went down (well, that's kind of an expected outcome).  Congrats to the newly married couple!  They are off to Greece in a few days for their much anticipated honeymoon, but not before I give them an in-person photo lesson on how to take great vacation photos.  Maybe I'll start offering lessons to all my brides and grooms- what do you think??  :)

Where In the World is Alex the Photo Guy?

Yes, there has been a blog slowdown.  I knew you were worried, but don't be!  I've been out and about through the east coast and midwest with not enough time in the day (or sleep at night) to blog enough!

I was recently awarded an incredible photo assignment for architecture photography that has put me in Boston, New York, DC, Minneapolis, and Chicago in less than a month.  I was also able to shoot for a wedding in Hilton Head and visit my brother's family with Keri.  It's been an insane September for me so far spending less than 4 days at home between August 30th and Sept 24th.  I've been on 6 rooftops, 6 planes, in 4 rental cars, and in over 25 office buildings.  I had NYPD graciously move police cars and bomb surveillance units out of the way for one of my shoots and have also sat with my tripod for an hour and a half waiting for a shadow to move out of the way.  I've sat in rush hour in 5 cities yelling at the clouds to go away (I'm not counting Atlanta rush hour- I see that all the time).  It's been an incredible assignment, with still a few more cities to go.  Luckily I have time on the last few- the reason why I visited the cities I did when I did was to catch them before the leaves fall off the trees.  The other cities up next are southern or California.  I'm neck deep in editing for these (some of these aren't final products yet), but I'll share a few quick highlights.

...nevermind that jerk in the pic.  Someone should have stolen something out of his open camera bag.

Here's my map of August 30th to Sept 24th (click for larger):

Jessica and Jeff | Atlanta Wedding Photography

Jessica and Jeff's wedding was one of the most fun weddings I've been to, including many that I attend as a guest.  The two of them did a superb job of a true DIY wedding.  Take a look at the photos and see at how they turned a grassy field into a beautiful ceremony and an open part-time photography studio  into a warm party palace.  The incredible food was provided by the tastiest food truck I've ever met met- Ibiza Bites (see marshmallow fluff covered sweet potato fires below!).  There was beauty at every turn, be it the weather, the preparations, or simply the bride and groom.  I couldn't have asked for a better wedding to shoot.  Even after the bridal getaway, the DJ  (Andrew Wroblewski, featured below) spun tunes while the bridesmaids packed up the decorations and leftover beer.  I can't say I didn't end up with decorations and beer in my hatchback at the end of the night.  ;)

 

Sinclair / Brown Wedding!

Happy Monday everyone!  This post is long overdue, but I have the photos from Carly and Russell's wedding!  You may remember this beautiful couple from the engagement session I did with them back in 2011.  And now that I search my blog for the link to their engagements, I realize I never posted them... I'll have to fix that in the very very near future.  :)

Carly and Russell were married at the Druid Hill United Methodist Chapel and had their reception at the Atlanta Brewing Company.  I LOVE the brewery reception idea:  local beer, ping pong, darts, and catered BBQ!  We had an awesome time, the weather was perfect, and everyone danced their butts off to the Brian Wiltsey Band.  For me, this was also a great wedding as it was my first wedding with a true second shooter.  I've had an assistant before (my lovely wife, Keri), but never someone who could fetch AND shoot!  I can say he helped a ton and was integral in another wedding I shot two weekends ago in Asheville, NC.  Now, without further ado: the photos!

The bride walking outside the chapel with a blanket so the groom doesn't see her.  :)

Carly's sister played her down the aisle.

Carly surprised Russell with the Tech Trolley to shuttle them to the reception!

The bouquet toss was interesting on first attempt- Carly showed a little too much muscle!

... and with an hour left in the reception, Carly voluntarily decided to tip Curt off to the single girls out on the dance floor.  :)

Curt and I were having so much fun that one of the guests "borrowed" one of our camera for a moment to document us!

Last Weekend Teaser

Last weekend was one of the busiest I've had in a while.  I had two engagement shoots, a wedding, a bride consultation, a Match.com profile photo session, and after it all had to wake up at 5am Monday for corporate portraits at the Ravinia Crowne Plaza at Perimeter.  Though I plan on taking this weekend off to relax at the lake, I'll still probably squeeze in some photo editing since I now have a LOT to do!  Here are a few teasers from the weekend, starting with Friday's engagement session with Lou Davis and Erin Winters.  I was told they would not pose for any photos at all- unless they were funny.  Here is pretty much the only posed photo I got out of the session and I think it ranks up there with possibly my favorite engagement photo.  On Lou's facebook page, it already has roughly 80 likes.  :)

Next up chronologically was the wedding of Jessica Gay and Jeff Manning at Whittier Mill Park in Smyrna followed by a beautiful reception at the Granite Room in Castleberry Hill.

Sunday morning I had a bride meeting with Sallie Watkins who is getting married in a month in Asheville, NC (!).  This was immediately followed by a Match.com photo session for my good friend David Oliver.  We had hatched all these crazy plans of ridiculous photos, but only ended with enough time for a few setups, though we hope to have more soon.  Essentially his plan was for a few serious photos accompanied by a number of off-the-wall ones in order to attract women with a good sense of humor.  Here are a couple:

Immediately following the Match.com photo session were engagement for Adam Bryan and Rebecca Flowers who are getting married in a month a half in Roswell, GA!

And as I had mentioned, I had to get up at 5am after these shoots to do some corporate head shots for the company I work with part-time... the following isn't one of these shots, but you get general the idea.  :)

Barnhart/Lord Wedding

This is to build on the teaser I put up a couple of weeks ago found here from the Barnhart/Lord wedding in Athens, GA.  The ceremony was great and the reception was jam-packed full of  fun, food, and dancing.  As much as I love DJs and recorded dance music, it's hard to beat a good wedding band.  The the Bride and groom were happy as can be and were not fearful of bustin' a move on the dance floor!  As usual, I'll let the photos do most of the talking.  Brides don't typically hire me fore my literary skills.  :)

The bride's daughter was able to watch the "first look" from a window nearby.

One of my favorite things about this church was that the kids were able to ring the bell after the ceremony.  How cool is that!?

This happened to be a photo taken by accident when my on-camera flash was switched off... and I liked it.  :)

Jazzfest, Day 2

With the late night show Friday night keeping me out until roughly 5am, I was much less ambitious with photos on my second day at JazzFest.  Not to mention there were easily 30% more people on Saturday vs. Friday meaning that if I wanted to push my way up to the front of some of the more popular stages (CeeLo, Tom Petty), it would mean telling Keri and my friends goodbye for the next few hours.  I decided to spend most of my time sticking around my friends and snapping photos of some of the people of JazzFest.  It's funny that one of the common themes I found throughout the day was lots of love in the air.  Coupled with the engagement I saw on Friday, there were lots of lovey-dovey people all over!  It was all really sweet to me.  While I came for the music and the food, others came for love- maybe just bringing couples closer together.  I decided to feature some of of here in addition to the shows I caught.

Though these next two in these photos aren't together, Alex and Allie just got married in October and are a very awesome couple... especially since they bought matching RayBans at the 'fest.  :)

Now for other photos.  Here is Feist on the Gentilly Stage:

Carolina Chocolate Drops:

New Orleans Bingo Show on The Gentilly Stage: