The International Society for Professional Wedding Photographers just released the results of their Spring 2009 competition and I’m thrilled to announce I am currently ranked 12th worldwide!  Check out the full story over on bishophoto.com 

I’m just posting about the amazing week I had at the Roots workshop in Cape Cod in July. Since I returned, I have been busy getting back to work, image editing, album designing, meeting with couples for 2009 … all of the things I do on a daily basis, so I haven’t had the time to post about Roots until now.

First of all, I want to thank Emilie for putting Roots together and working so hard to make the first workshop happen, I’m sure it will start to feed itself now that the first one is done. I know everyone had such an amazing week it’s bound to be a must attend workshop for the future.

Secondly I need to thank Arnold Miller, the multi-media editor for NewsDay and my team leader for the week. Arnold was a great mentor and friend during the week helping look through the images and guide me to see what I was missing from the story. We shared many late nights and gin and tonics to get through the week and I truly appreciate the hours that Arnold spent with me and all of his team. Arnie’s shack was definitely the place to be!

Finally, my subjects for the week, Liz, Carl, Katrine and Hilary. As a wedding photographer I am invited briefly into the lives of my couples every weekend. I see a small snippet of who they are and get to document very important moments in their lives. At Roots I was invited into the not so momentous occasions, but the day to day activities of this family of artists. My assignment over three days of fourteen to sixteen hour days was to document their life, no celebration, no fan fare. I can only imagine what it is like to have a photographer tagging along with you on your morning coffee run, or picking beans in the field, or following you to the beach with your friends. At no time however did I feel as if I was intruding in their lives. They opened themselves up to me and the process of being documented without hesitation. I am truly thankful to have been assigned to this family and feel as if I now have extended family in Cape Cod.

Click on the slideshow below to see a selection of images from the three days of photographic coverage of this family. The last couple of images in the slideshow are from the first night when I was invited to dinner and Katrine measured and wrote my name and date on the door jamb in their house. I truly felt welcomed and a part of their family from the beginning. Thank you is not enough, but it’s all I have.

Thank you!

It’s been a long time, but as promised, I’m posting images from the second day of my shoot with Rudy and Nicole.

Rudy and I had talked about making some more creative images both for our portfolios as well as for his salon. We began talking about a friend of Rudy’s who does costume design and that led to the fact that his friend had these huge angel wings. I immediately began thinking white on white on white on white. I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to explain what I was thinking to Rudy and Nicole, but I was amazed to see what each of them did to create looks for the models and how that translated to what I saw in my head. In the shoot I literally surrounded the models with light, using four softboxes wrapping around them to dissolve any harsh shadows. I had in my head that angels should be both beautiful and somewhat scary, for some reason the quote from Lord of the Rings “… beautiful and terrifying …” was what kept  popping into my head.  I think I managed to get that in a few of the images, and the models did a great job in getting that idea as well.  In addition to the angel wings, Rudy also convinced his friend to bring this awesome 16th Century, Marie Antoinette looking dress he had created.

I absolutely love the images we made, and working with both Rudy and Nicole is such a blast. I couldn’t think of two more creative and talented people to work with!

Below are a handful of the images that we made on the second day of our shoot. We’re planning on a third day for a contrasting set of images to the Angels. I’ll again post those as soon as they are shot.