Alex the Photo Blog

A few weeks ago I was asked to help my friend Erin at The Nature Conservancy’s yearly donor event, “The Hoochie” (formerly “Hoochie on the Coochie”).  They originally wanted to hire me, but I chose instead to volunteer my photography services for the event since it’s such a wonderful organization- even if they scrutinize photography agreements more than any bride I’ve met with.     You can read more here about what TNC does.

This year’s event was hosted at the Top Hat Soccer fields in Buckhead.  I’m not sure what I originally expected, but I definitely didn’t think anyone would put a soccer field in the heart of Buckhead’s elite neighborhoods including the famous Tuxedo Road.  It really was beautiful driving through these neighborhoods before the event. 

The “pre-party” was hosted at the home of Martin and Jennifer Flanagan overlooking the fields.  I can’t really describe how amazing this house was, so I’ll let the first pictures speak for themselves.  The rest are from the event.  Enjoy!

The Georgia director of the TNC, Shelly Lakly, with Wendy and Hank Paulson (left to right).

Inman Allen, son of Atlanta’s Ivan Allen Jr.

Fresh shucked oysters all night long.

Erin at the “Birds of Prey” show just before dinner.  I’m pretty sure she had no idea they’d have a python there…

The auction tent.

Keri has been working her butt off lately, so a couple of weeks ago we both decided to take a day off and do Atlanta-y things.  The weather was perfect, so we rode bikes around Decatur, took a stroll through Oakland Cemetery (much more interesting and educational than it sounds), and ate at Sun in my Belly, Six Feet Under, and Caroll Street Cafe.  We also figured we’d go somewhere that we haven’t been since elementary school- the Zoo.

All in all a fun filled day that included french toast, graves, and pandas… very few days incorporate all of these things.

Keri and I experienced a very Hitchcock moment at the bird exhibit.  If you’ve ever been, you know all the bright colorful birds in the first few photos below are in a big netted and gated area that you can walk through.  We were with a bunch of other people for the first few minutes watching the birds and hearing all the cacophonous chirping.  However, as soon as the other people left Keri and I alone in there, all of the chirping stopped for about 10 seconds…. we thought were were about to be attacked.  Luckily the chirping started again as the birds knew they wouldn’t get away with it. 

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Howdy!   Last month a few of us went to NYC.   Keri and Greta had never been before and it was my third time.   Over the five days we were able to see most everything we wanted to… in fact, Keri and I got to see David Letterman tell the world his extortion/blackmail story.   No joke!  We were in the 2nd row for that taping!  It was very interesting (kind of surreal)… and a bit awkward because no one saw it coming.   We were told by the CBS pages to laugh at everything, but toward the end we just couldn’t.

Aside from the TMZ moment we had, I was able to snap a few pictures.  Even though the weather was cloudy everyday (except the day we left, of course), I think I had a few good shots.

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The next day Curt and I went to Mt. Rainier and hiked and camped there.  It was absolutely gorgeous.  The mountain was amazing (and intimidating), the flowers were blooming all over the place, and the views were incredible.  I can’t say we even made it halfway up, though we got close.   We had views of a glacier and waterfall and came up on the most amazing bathroom I’ve ever seen.  Aside from a delta flight, I can’t say I’ve been to a toilet at such a high altitude.   We camped at “Cougar Rock” campgrounds.  The name was incredibly misleading as Curt and I found no older single women looking to prey upon younger men.  Maybe it just wasn’t hunting season.

These first few pictures were from a “rustic garden” on the way to the park.  It was too ridiculous not to stop and take pictures.  I’ll stop and let the pictures do the rest of the talking…  fun trip.  Highly recommend it to anyone looking for some beautiful scenery and good camping.

Sneaky Maytag....

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Two weeks ago, I had the opportunity to head to Seattle and Portland for work.  Since it was essentially a free flight for me, I decided to take advantage and bring Curt along for the ride.  Neither of us have really spent any time up there, but we heard the hiking and camping was awesome.  Absolutely the truth.

This first post is photos are from camping on the west coast at Rialto beach (near the town of Forks, WA where they filmed Twilight).  We drove from Seattle to the coast and it was sunny and 75 degrees the entire time…. until the last quarter mile.  The scenery literally changes in a second to fog, mist, and 65 degrees.  The beach was like no other place I’ve been.  It felt like we were hiking the Scottish coast.  Fog, rocks, driftwood, rock formations… it was pretty amazing.  Very different than Florida’s white sands and abundant amounts of retirees.  We camped just off the beach that night, built a fire, cooked some hot dogs, then hiked back the next morning.

My goal was to get these photos up before I left for Chicago tomorrow.  I got through editing about 60% of them and realized it was midnight.  Luckily, the ones I hadn’t edited were the Mt Rainier daytime shots (to be in the next post), so they really didn’t need any editing.  They were great straight out of the camera- even shooting RAW!

Check out the new “lightbox” feature here on the blog.  Click on a photo and you can look through the entire post’s photos in a lightbox format.

Crescent Lake

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