December 2011
5 posts
Paper Route - Sing You to Sleep
Alex & Jeremy
One of the highlights of our time in Tampa so far has been meeting a lot of great new friends in the Tampa Bay Clemson Club. It’s there that we have gotten to know Alex and Jeremy—two of the friendliest and warmest people Rita and I have ever met. Jeremy played football at Clemson and Alex was a swimmer. Jeremy coaches high school football in Tampa, and we’ve gone to see him coach his...
List of Eponymous Laws
Internet browsing and curiosity somehow led me to this Wikipedia List of Eponymous Laws. I’ve always wondered what it would take for me to think of something clever, call it Costa’s Law, and see if it takes off. There are a lot of great ones here, ranging from complex physics to stuff like Murphy’s Law. Some of my favorites are:
Rothbard’s law – “Everyone...
November 2011
1 post
October 2011
1 post
“It’s just amazing how long this country has been going to hell without...”
– The amazing Andy Rooney, suggesting that it’s myopic for one generation to assume that everything new is always worse
September 2011
1 post
On the Dumbing-Down of Spirituality (or the Search...
As much as Rita and I have enjoyed the last 5 months in Tampa, there is one aspect of settling in that we’ve found especially difficult: finding a church community that we are content with. I know that it’s never easy finding the best place, because nowhere is going to meet all the factors we are considering. Simply put, there is no perfect place, and we have to accept that. But our...
August 2011
5 posts
One More From Italy
One more that I forgot to post. Woman in Sienna.
Erin & Matt's Wedding
Cheers to Erin and Matt for a beautiful, perfect wedding. Also, I’ve never been to a wedding reception where I walked away thinking, “I can’t believe no one got hurt.” That crowd knew how to party like crazy, it was the most fun wedding reception I’ve ever been to where I wasn’t the groom.
...
360˚ View of Discovery Interior
Amazing. I busted out laughing though when I saw the crappy Dell laptop. At least they could stay up to date on all their favorite blogs while they were in space. http://360vr.com/2011/06/22-discovery-flight-deck-opf_6236/index.html
Italy Roundup
Here are some more personal photos from Italy. Some guerilla photography, pigeons, and mountains rising up out of the sea. I became obsessed with taking pictures of angry old Italian people. Rita read four books on the trip, I only read one. Catcher in the Rye. Somehow I had skipped it during my first 28 years. I wasn’t too crazy about it overall (it kind of bored me, yeah I said it), but I...
July 2011
6 posts
Kate & Will - Wedding
I was really fortunate to shoot this one. A little rain actually made the wedding more beautiful. Couldn’t have asked for a better day or a nicer couple. I knew Will a little before becoming their photographer, but I was welcomed in by everyone like an old friend.
Some Italy Photos
I haven’t had time to go through many of my Italy photos because editing the wedding photos I took there was my priority. But here are a handful. Sorry for the slow loading times and clogging up your newsfeed.
Misty & Jared Engagements in Greenville
The stars aligned for a last minute engagement shoot with Misty & Jared when I was in Greenville shooting a wedding. I love making good friends and shooting photos at the same time.
grace family pictures in baltimore.
Classic.
“It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real...”
– Wendell Berry, “The Real Work” (via bables)
Alison Krauss & Union Station - Lie Awake
...
June 2011
6 posts
The weekend before leaving for Italy, I got to fly back up to my old hometown of Greenville, SC to do two great shoots. I shot some engagements for Misty and Jared:
And I also shot Will and Kate’s wedding (the real Will and Kate). It rained a little, but it made it all the more beautiful. I can’t wait to finish up all the photos from these two shoots. Having a huge backlog of photos...
Italy
Rita and I just got back late last night from an incredible trip to Italy. We shot a wedding for some dear friends and spent 8 beautiful days exploring towns across the Tuscan countryside. Here are a few for now.
Paige & Carson
Got a chance to shoot Paige and Carson’s wedding up in the North Carolina mountains a couple of months ago. The weather was perfect and the music was loud. Couldn’t have asked for a better wedding.
Erin's Senior Portraits
Every once in a while I get to photograph someone who is so photogenic, it’s actually hard to get a bad picture of them. Other photographers probably know what I mean. Erin was definitely one of those people.
Wendy Davis
I was lucky enough to do a photo shoot with Wendy Davis, an actress on Lifetime’s Army Wives. The show films in Charleston, and she is on the cover of the summer issue of Charleston Home + Design Magazine. She has literally done hundreds of professional shoots before (and she had a whole team of people getting her ready), but she was still unbelievably nice and generous to little ole me. She...
Gareth, Ashley, and Easton
Before Rita and I left Charleston, we got to spend a lovely evening with some old friends (and a new friend named Easton). I love being able to relax, socialize with friends, share some laughs, and take some photos—all at the same time.
May 2011
1 post
Our New Home
My wife and I have moved to Tampa, Florida. It was a decision that was a long time coming, but quick at the same time. We have known since before we even got married that we would one day move to Florida, for several personal reasons. Rita’s family is all from here. And as much as we loved Charleston, it wasn’t a place we could see ourselves calling home forever. As our community of...
March 2011
7 posts
Recent Interiors and Exteriors
Thoughts on a Proper Work Space
I wrote a while back about the custom dining room table I made with an old door. I didn’t mention though that once I caught the door bug, I used the same idea to create a better work desk at home. My old desk used to be the crappiest tiny particle board Walmart desk. I hated it so much that after sitting there for 5 minutes, I always wanted to get up and find something else to do. This is...
comealive:
I love the lyrics to this new Fleet...
Kate & Will
Looking forward to shooting their wedding in June!
Late Night Fog
Rita and I got home late a few nights ago and there was a thick layer of fog covering Charleston. Driving around town in it was amazing. Instead of going to bed, I had to head out with my camera and get some dark foggy photos.
Lulie Wallace
I got to go to up-and-coming artist Lulie Wallace’s studio and shoot some photos of her last week. She has an awesome work space at Redux in downtown Charleston. I love all the different color schemes in her paintings. She has a great style and Rita and I are getting a few pieces from her. They make great gifts!
February 2011
10 posts
The Story of a Table and Some Chairs
One of my proudest achievements of 2010 was a custom dining room table and chairs that Rita and I made. Before we got married, it dawned on us that neither of us had a decent table for eating. She didn’t have one at all, and my table looked straight off That 70s Show and was about to fall apart. We looked in a few stores, but they were either cheap and we would want to replace them after a...
“Get really good at something specific and get paid for it (ex: teaching high...”
– Harrison Brookie
From Kate & Will's Engagements
I love that it seems like some enchanted forest or something, but it’s actually some random trees right off the interstate. More to come!
Ben Sollee & Daniel Martin Moore - Try
from...
Keeping an Eye on the World Going By My Window...
More Cook Family
When I think about my own family’s pictures when I was little and the ones I cherish the most now, it’s usually not the super posed Sunday morning style photos. It’s the fun, candid, “brings back the memories” photos that I love to look at. Ones that make me think, “those were some crazy years, I don’t see how my parents did it, but we sure had a good time...
Seabrook Island, 9:32 am, 39 degrees
The ocean is a calm, wise friend in the winter and a brash, callow friend in the summer.
“The artist who aims at perfection in everything achieves it in nothing.”
– Eugene Delacroix
My New Favorite People
Rita and I shot some family portraits for the Cook family and had the best afternoon. They have three young boys and it reminded me of my family dynamic when I was young. We were two boys and a girl, but my sister was tough enough to hang with the dudes. Seeing their family interaction and the adventure they were having made me look forward to having some kids one day. No rush though, sorry Mom.
January 2011
9 posts
“Because if this is gonna be a Christian nation that DOESN’T help the poor,...”
– Stephen Colbert
A Personal Story
I would like to share with you how the new healthcare law has personally helped someone very close to me: my sister. She graduated from college a while back and with no luck finding a full-time job, she got a job at Chick-fil-a to pay the bills. She enjoys it, but has to be extremely frugal with her budget. She went without health insurance for a few months until my parents realized that because...
Rita Waiting on the Train
Magazine Design
I spearheaded a few creative changes to the magazine this year, including a brand new logo. Logos (especially magazine logos) shouldn’t be changed too often because of the risk of losing brand recognition, but it was time for something that represented us more accurately. We wanted to push the local aspect of our magazine: the fact that it is all about Charleston. Home + Design is secondary in...
“Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.”
– Andre Gide (thanks Justin)
WatchNow this is my kind of rap song.