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.
July 12, 2011
July 4, 2011
July 2, 2011
“ It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,
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we have come to our real work,
and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.
Wendell Berry, “The Real Work” (via bables)
July 1, 2011
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Alison Krauss & Union Station - Lie Awake
This one from their new album Paper Airplanes is awesome. They are such precise musicians, it just blows me away.
June 29, 2011
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 to edit is a great feeling. I never want to take it for granted. Having moved to Florida, photography is about to slow down big time so I am trying to relish every moment of what I have now.
June 28, 2011
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.
June 17, 2011
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.
June 16, 2011
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.
June 7, 2011
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 even had sandwiches ready for us when we got to her home.
June 4, 2011
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 28, 2011
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 friends dwindled away from Charleston and career possibilities looked more and more stagnant, we knew it was time. Rita snagged a great job down here, so we made the move quickly. It’s already been a month, but life have been so crazy that I haven’t had the time to sit down and type out the words that I have been thinking. I have been working remotely for the magazine, so everything has been going nicely so far.
It’s a different world now—the comfort zone has been blown away. But what major move isn’t like that? There are risks and definitely steps back that are incurred from major decisions like this. Photography will definitely slow down, and I am going to have to find a new job down here. That makes me a little nervous. But having more time will be nice. I have a lot I would like to add to this blog, if I can muster up the self-discipline. I have a lot of photography I have done that I haven’t put up. If you are reading this and I never blogged about a photoshoot I did for you, I apologize. It’s not because I didn’t want to!
Now that most of the boxes are gone and I can get around in our new apartment, the to-do list is shorter and will leave me time to start learning about my new city. Rita and I hope to join a church, build a solid community, settle down, and feel like this is it. If not here, then somewhere. It’s not that we aren’t happy already, we definitely are. And there’s nothing we cherish more than adventure. But we are ready to just say, this is where we are and where we are going to be.
My friend Justin and his wife moved from South Carolina to Washington DC a few years ago, and I looked back on what he wrote on his blog when they moved. I could relate with his words about the weight of such a decision:
The move is here but the search continues. Great decisions have been made and yet the answers aren’t that much clearer. Sometimes they feel just as hazy as they’ve always been.
I am confident that the answers will come. Maybe they already have; I just haven’t been able to see them yet. The process is slow, but each day feels a little more comfortable. Besides, this is not Rita’s or my first time doing this. Leaving Charleston was not easy for us though. I’ll never forget the morning I left—driving the packed giant moving truck over the Cooper River Bridge, seeing the sun rise over the skyline of the city and the water, and thinking about the wonderful memories we made. Our relationship flourished during our four years in Charleston, and we spent our first incredible year of marriage there. We have also left behind a lot of loved ones, and that was definitely the toughest part.
In his blog post, Justin also included this quote from Emily Dickinson:
“Parting is all we know of heaven, And all we need of hell”
March 31, 2011
March 24, 2011
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 difficult for me because I do a lot of creative work at my desk at home at all hours. I decided it was time to finally create a work space that frees me and gives me everything I need.
Because the door worked so well for the dining room table, I went back to the same Habitat for Humanity and found an incredible flat, white door that would make the perfect desk top. It was solid, heavy, clean, and had no fancy indentions, so I didn’t need to buy an expensive piece of glass to cover it. Best of all, it was only $5. Copying my pal and fellow designer Matt Bolt’s idea, I then headed to Lowe’s to buy some simple sawhorses to set the door on. I bought two sturdy metal sawhorses for only $18 each (the edges really aren’t as sharp as they warn you about). That’s $41 for a complete huge sturdy desk.
My top priority is having lots of space on my desk top, so the door is perfect. I have lots of paperwork, music, computer gear, cameras, and other stuff on my desk at all times and need lots of real estate. I thought the door might slide around without being fastened to the sawhorses, but I was wrong. This thing isn’t going anywhere. Drawer space is not important to me. I have a penholder, a basket for a few random things, and a file cabinet for documents, and that’s all I need since the majority of what I am doing is on the computer.
I firmly believe that a proper workspace should have all the comfortable elements that make the job easier. A good chair, a good desk, and good lighting. It vastly improves the quality of your work, and for someone in a creative field like me, it makes the long hours of having to be artistic much more bearable. Now if I could only retire my five year old iMac, but that is down the list a bit and it’s still pretty fast.
March 19, 2011
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I love the lyrics to this new Fleet Foxes song… In a way, this first statement is very un-American and very Christian.
Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues
I was raised up believin’
I was somehow unique
like a snowflake, distinct among snowflakes
unique in each way you can see
And now after some thinkin’
I’d say I’d rather be
a functioning cog in some great machinery
serving something beyond me.
But I don’t I don’t know what that will be.
I’ll get back to you someday
Soon you will see.
What’s my name, what’s my station
oh, just tell me what i should do
I don’t need to be kind to the armies of night
that would do such injustice to you.
Or, bow down and be grateful
and say ” sure, take all that you see”
to the men who move only in depleted halls
and determine my future for me.
And I don’t I don’t know who to believe
I’ll get back to you someday
Soon you will see.
If I know only one thing
is that everything I see
of the world outside is full of such wonder
that often, I barely can speak
Yeah, I’m tongue-tied and dizzy
and i can’t keep it to myself
what good is it to sing helplessness blues?
Why should I wait for anyone else
And I know, I know you keep me on the shelf
I’ll come back to you someday,
soon, myself
If I had an orchard,
I’d work til I’m raw.
If I had an orchard,
I’d work til I’m sore.
And you would wait table til you ran the store
oh oh ohh
If I had an orchard, I’d work til I’m sore
March 7, 2011
