I’ve always wanted to have a book published… I’m not sure why but it is just something that I have always had in the back of my mind. It would probably be non-fiction and not about photography, hopefully it would be interesting and would be a New York Times Best Seller . I have no real plans to write a book but it is just something that I felt like sharing.

Here are more leaves, enjoy the colors

I am planning my fall schedule out right now to photograph a few sun rises, some water falls, some huge views, the Finger Lakes and pretty colors. I have to get it all done quickly since the colors peak and disappear in a few weeks

Have a great weekend!

Whoa! Marybeth is the fastest wedding videographer that I have ever met. It has been less than a week since Hanny and Jesse’s wedding and she just emailed me today and said that the video is done!!! That is like 19 weeks faster than the second fastest wedding videographer that I have ever met! I think she is going to send me a copy so after I watch it I can be 100% confident in recommending her

I just found a great book, well, the title is great . I have no idea what it is about but I have to read it… How To Make One Hell Of A Profit and Still Get In To Heaven

The new business cards have been ordered, the new email address has been set up, the toll free number is configured, the new domain name is ready to go and the new (temporary) site will be online soon. The next step is the hardest and that is to pick out the best photos … it really is much more difficult than it sounds.

So for this new site… I purchased a great looking template which will serve as my site for the next 6-12 months. After I fully develop who I am as a business I will be having Ten Bricks custom build me one of the best websites ever! The one and only reason why they are not making my current site is that quality costs a significant amount (which I am cool about paying… it basically replaces a studio gallery) and I want to make sure that when I do finally hire them I get a site that summarizes who I really am and since I am still trying to figure out who I really am, a template will have to do

The fall is so much fun; hopefully it is raining less tomorrow so I can take a break and photograph the leaves. I am tempted to go out anyway today but I have to sign for a lens that is being delivered to my house and I am anxious to get it… it is not the 85mm f-1.4 yet, I’ll order that soon enough . I also have a web conference in a few hours and my hikes tend to take all day so I may just go for a short one after the conference so I don’t miss anything.

Go here for a NYS foliage report. According to the site my area should be looking pretty this weekend, “Overall color change in the Finger Lakes region is still in the early stages, although Ontario County is approaching mid-point with 35 percent change expected by the weekend, highlighted by bright red, gold, orange and yellow leaves.” I wonder if the rest of the county is changing faster than around my house, I am at 5%-20% depending on which stand of forest I am in.

I am going to visit my grandparents in Buffalo this Saturday

Have a great day!

Wow, 3 blog posts in a day… make sure you read below for the other two

I really love photographing the guys getting ready. The girls are a lot of fun and always look beautiful but it is the guys who just relax and have a great time no matter what is going on (probably because they only have to put on deodorant and a tux to get ready ). Without fail there is always football on the TV, iTunes on the notebook, someone talking on the phone, room service in the corner, a bottle or two of tequila and the competing aromas of various colognes

These are a few of my favorites from when Jesse got ready for the Christian ceremony on Sunday.

I love self portraits

Have a great day, and read those other posts too!

I went on a second walk today after I took those fall leaf photos.

When I was outside I saw a black bear and 8 turkeys… now, before you start doubting, you first need to get an idea of where I live . I reside in the Finger Lakes of New York in the middle of a multi-thousand acre hard wood forest that is almost entirely undeveloped and uninhabited so seeing wildlife is totally normal. However, seeing my neighbors, their houses or their cars is very rare.

This is an aerial map of where I live… there are no structures, just nature

I have seen black bear before when they have crossed the road in front of my car and I have seen them walking through the woods behind my house but today was a much closer experience.

I was walking along a trail in the woods… to my right is a 50′ ravine with a creek below and to my left is a much deeper ravine with water at the bottom too. The crest of the two ravines is maybe 25-30 feet wide. I am walking along the right side of the trail about 3-4 feet from the ravine edge and about 15-20 feet to my left is a black bear. It was lying down and when I got close to it (I could not see the bear initially, mainly because it was off the trail and I was not looking for it ) the bear quickly got up, looked at me for a second then ran off to my left.

The bear wasn’t too big, maybe 200-220lbs. I am very glad that it ran down the ravine and not toward me.

I wasn’t really scared, more fascinated by how cool it felt to be just 15-20 feet from a bear.

I didn’t take any photos; the whole encounter was much too brief.

When I was walking back home I saw 8 wild turkey in the woods. They were all hens (girl birds) and were just eating things off of the ground.

These are some of the fall colors that I saw today

I had a nice email conversation with my friend Pat today. They have 5 songs for their new album done (or close to it… they sounded great to me but he said they are demos still) and are working on the next 5 now. Pat is possibly the hardest working and most passionate person that I know and I am excited to see what he can make happen over the next year

Have a great day!

Natalie’s fish Milo died on Tuesday morning at about 1am… this is what the fish looked like

I am buying a new lens really soon. I am very excited about it, I am going to be getting an 85mm f-1.4 lens. Basically, that means that I can take really awesome photos with it because I can shoot in very low light without flash and get some cool effects that would be really hard to do otherwise. The lens is also on the long side (in terms of focal length) so I don’t have to be very close to you to take a picture and it will still look like I am next to you

This is the 85mm f-1.4 lens (thanks to Nikonusa.com for the photo )

I had my Superman shirt exchanged for a medium and it looks great! I will model it later this week

After I woke up from my nap I ate some mint chocolate chips… actually, I’m lying, I ate a lot more than some, I ate most of the bag

The fall is so much fun, after seeing all of the pretty colors I love it when the leaves fall on the ground. Making huge piles of leaves then jumping in them will never get old!

Ooh, I had several wedding photographers and up-and-coming wedding photographers email me while I was at Jesse and Hanny’s wedding asking me questions or asking to meet me soon. I am excited about that, I love getting to know people. I’ll start to have a lot of free time begining on 10-14-06 so we should get together

These are the wedding photography blogs that I read each week, I thought you might like to know who I keep up to date on. I read a lot of other blogs too but usually only once or twice a month

Brady Dillsworth (yes, I do read my own blog )
David Jay (he suggests a lot of good books)
Gary Fong (he is a former photographer who retired young and rich)
Luke Walker (my good friend from Ithaca)
Frank DiMeo (I shoot with Frank a few times each year)
Becker (he said I look like Harry Potter)
Jessica Claire (she is pretty talented)

Expect to see an 800-number, a new photography site, new photos, new business cards, a new domain name, magazine articles, several great partner resource sites and a bunch of other great things in the very near future. Hahaha, I have to call Bank of America today and have them take the alert off of my credit card account. I am sure the constant buying, paying off and rebuying that I have been doing over the past 2 weeks set off some sort of automatic fraud thing… seriously, getting ready for 2007 has meant a lot of big buys that get paid off like the day after I get charged but I’d guess that cycle means they want to check to see that the purchases are legit

MaryBeth left me a great comment on the blog about Hanny and Jesse’s Indian wedding, check out that post if you missed it.

Have a great day!

THURSDAY
Covered by Frank and Shai

FRIDAY
Wow, this wedding is pretty amazing! Everything is beautiful, the people are friendly, the music is great, the dancing is awesome and the photos are perfect!

I love cultural events like this, they are so engaging

I finished editing my photos at around 12:15am, Frank finished at about 1:45am and Shai finished working at 2am. Frank and I were just having a conversation and I am pretty sure that he fell asleep mid-sentence… with all of the cameras on the bed!

The synchronous movement of a room full of people dancing is so powerful… I can’t really begin to explain it. Just envision hundreds of people all doing the same thing for the same reason. Now see dozens of vivid colors, fast paced motion and huge smiles… set all of that to the beat of enchanting music with sticks clapping and bodies moving; that is what I spent the past few hours photographing!

Frank brought ear plugs for us because he snores very loudly. I laughed at him and said I’d be OK but I am starting to change my mind…

Room service hamburgers and French fries at 12:30am are such a nice treat after photographing a wedding

I have to get up in a few hours; Saturday starts nice and early with Hanny getting ready at 6am.

I would update this blog from the room’s internet except that I don’t know what my blog login password is offhand so I can’t do it until I get back on my desktop. I guess you’ll just have to read about my adventures all at once

Have a great night!

EDIT: Apparently Frank did pass out before… he just woke up (15 minutes later) and started talking right where he left off… he still doesn’t think that he snores

SATURDAY
Today was a crazy day, in a good way! Frank photographed the day on about 5 minutes of sleep and Shai and I got a few hours more . There are many parts to a Hindu wedding, it is not just a 20 minute ceremony on the alter, like with many Christian weddings, this is several days of meaningful events that take place in the morning, afternoon and evening in many locations with little breaks in between. There is dancing and singing in between the rituals and it is so great seeing everyone get involved! Jesse came over on a white horse with a group of people dancing, clapping and singing following him in the Jaan (I think this is the welcoming of his family, but someone please correct me if I am mistaken) and it was great! After Jesse came over there was this interesting game that was played where one side would sing to the other, then they’d yell and point and push somebody over and try to take them back! It wasn’t in English so I have no idea what they were doing but all of the smiles and clapping made me understand it well enough.

The second ceremony was one of my favorites. Jesse and Hanny were separated by a cloth for a few minutes and it was one of the most visually appealing things that I have seen in a long time… the photos look like they are right out of a movie.

We had the most amazing dinner ever tonight. We went to a Brazilian restaurant where the servers just kept bringing out these trays of meat for us to pick our pieces off of and eat all we wanted. I think the 10 types of meat came around a few times before we all went on to dessert. I don’t think I have ever eaten so much meat in a single course before! The restaurant was closed by the time we left, our sever Danny got a good tip though, so I am sure that he did not mind staying late

Shai, who speaks Portuguese, asked our server (who was pretending to be Brazilian) a question in Portuguese and he did not reply so Shai asked what ethnicity he was and at that point the server’s fake accent disappeared and he said that he is Russian!

SUNDAY
Luke Walker and Nathan Holritz are here today. It is nice getting to see Luke again and to finally meet Nathan, who is from Tennessee. I think Luke saw Natalie at Ithaca Commons on Friday afternoon, which is really cool.

We ordered a huge breakfast of scrambled eggs, rye toast, home fries, bacon and orange juice this morning. It was a nice way to start out the day.

The photos today are focusing on the Christian side of the wedding since Hanny was married under the Hindu faith over the past few days and now Jesse is getting married under the Christian faith tonight.

The photos today are guaranteed to be amazing because I am wearing a Batman undershirt

OVERALL
The hotel is great…the shower is the best ever!!!! Being 6’5” I am pretty used to hotel showers hitting me in the chest with their water-saver heads spraying out about 3 ounces of water BUT at this hotel the shower head is mounted on an arm that can be suspended 8’ in the air with two heads that spray a ton of water! It is so great showering in comfort. The one crazy part about the shower is that it is huge but is only covered by a glass door across the front half; there is nothing to cover in the back half. Every time I reach up to wash my hair all of the water pours off of my elbow and onto the floor and counter… when I got out this morning the only dry part of the bathroom was where my, now soaking wet, clothes were

Frank is talking to his daughter on the phone now and just made a date to go to a tea party with her tomorrow. Frank is also talking to his son and said,

“I miss you bye!?!? Is that all you have to say to Daddy!!!???”

He is talking to his daughter again and said “you spilled your tea party and it is dripping through the table? No, that is not OK, clean it up.”

When Frank and Shai get tired during their nightly edit (which I finish in about 1/3 of their time so sleep extra ) they start talking to each other and the more tired they get the louder they become and they get louder and louder until they realize that they wake me up then they get quite again and the process repeats…

I guess the maids came by yesterday to clean up while we were out. We forgot to put out the do not disturb sign, which we usually do because who wants to let the employees know that we have three sets of wedding photography gear worth a significant amount in the room. When we came back and saw that everything had been cleaned up Frank commented that they probably saw all four computer monitors, 6 cameras, 8 flashes, 6 light stands and about 20 different battery chargers and thought that we were either spying on someone or filming an adult movie

This wedding was excellent, take the time to let the entire series of photos load, I am sure that you will love them!

Luke bought me a donut, thanks Luke!

MaryBeth Longo (Skaneateles Lake PT2 and Sackets Harbor) provided the video and it was excellent. She had all of the angles covered and I think Hanny and Jesse are going to love watching the events again and again. I can’t wait until I get to work with her again.

Everyone who knows me, do me a favor… Watch the Birdcage with Robin Williams and pay attention to see if I sound like one of the characters. MaryBeth says that I sound just like one of them but I won’t say which one yet. If you’ve never talked to me call me this week at 585.764.9256 so you can hear my voice and then you can play along too. Email me your guesses

I am not going to caption very many of the photos since I don’t know what is happening in most of them. I will be adding links to the cake (which was amazing, possibly my second favorite of the year), the interior desiging (sooooo pretty), the video (MaryBeth is the best in NYS), the coordination (top quality considering the stress they were under ) and Turning Stone Casino (that place handled almost a thousand people flawlessly!!!)

Frank and Shai doing the stick dance (sorry, I forgot the name of the dance again )

Me during the stick dance

Frank sleeping with his eyes open after a full day of work

Me after a full day of work

Me in the hotel room after a full day of work

Frank still sleeping

Me after a shower, ready to work

Nathan Holritz, from TN

Enjoy all of the photos! Have a great day