Wedding Preview.

Here you will find a general selection of some of the weddings I have done within the last year. Beautiful subjects such as the people in the following images make my job easy. Most of these are unedited and straight from the camera, but you will be able to tell the ones I have tweaked. Take a gander and feel free to return some feedback- it's always welcome!

Chad & Lauren's Fall Engagement.

In October of 2008, I had the pleasure of being hired as a secret photographer for a beautiful engagement. It was quite cold as I hid in the woods, but thankfully I could still operate the camera even though I had no feeling in my fingers. Chad had planned it out perfectly. He and Lauren liked to ride horses at their friend Lisa's farm and were doing just that on this particular day. However, this was not the usual ride around the farm that they were used to. Chad had set up a special fall (Lauren's favorite season) scene complete with champagne, a camouflaged photographer and of course a ring! Lauren did not suspect a thing and was pleasantly surprised when she rounded the corner and saw the setup. It was a very sweet moment and I was so happy to be a part of it! One year later, I had the pleasure of photographing their wedding with my friend Josh- also in fall and also beautiful :). Here are some of the engagement photos. Enjoy!

If I Had One Ray of Sunshine...

I found this stunning flower at none other than the Arboretum on UK's campus. One of my favorite photo destinations- always plenty of beauty to capture!

Amateurs.

I just want to put something out there that has been burdening me since the moment I graduated college and then realized that I was solely responsible for supporting myself (a very scary thought). When you choose a career path that does not require you a) to mold young minds, b) hold a political office, or c) have an extra D and r before your name, you pretty much enter into a world of uncertainty and chance. Now I like to consider myself to be more of the adventurous type. Yeah. I like to take risks, challenge myself, take the road less traveled...or at least that's what I have been trying to tell myself ever since I did not choose one of the aforementioned careers and instead went with something I enjoy as a career. What I am now plagued with is the notion of whether or not choosing a career based on personal satisfaction is ultimately more beneficial than choosing one that ensures stability and perhaps even a decent paycheck.

Allow me to digress the the real point of this particular blog entry; one that I hope enlightens and awakens what seems to be a somewhat oblivious audience. I am in the creative field- design/photography to be more definitive. This is an area that has exploded in the last decade or so as better cameras and software have emerged and become available to consumers of every skill level. This is a good and bad, very bad, thing. Good for all you young mothers wanting to capture every moment of your child's new life, and good for all you college students searching for moments to document and post on the latest social networking site. But lets get real for a second because this phenomenon is potentially fatal to all of us who have set out to make a living creating beautiful images. To all of you who have hired a friend who somewhat knows how to operate a camera to shoot your wedding; to those who think picnik is a great editing tool; to all of you out there who happened to get lucky and take one decent picture and think 'hey I could do this for a living!'- please, please stop replacing what could be beautiful, skillfully planned, quality images with poor attempts at recreating the former. I look at some of the stuff put out there and just cringe that most people are not knowledgeable enough to realize the lack of work or skill that actually went into the making of it- and because of this, they buy into it. This is where the true craftsmanship and knowledge get overlooked because people are ignorant enough to put out such crap. There is a reason good photography is expensive- and WORTH the INVESTMENT. Photography is the only mechanism for freezing the moments in time worth revisiting each time we glance at a photo. It is the only thing that will last from your wedding (other than your vows let's hope) and one of the few things that can allow emotions and special moments to become permanent and tangible objects.

I am not claiming to be a perfect or even fully qualified photographer- but I have the ability and inspiration to do the job right and do it well. I am still learning and growing, but I think that is what every great artist constantly seeks to do in order to perfect their art. Take it or leave it, but at least understand this- I do not attempt to give medical, political or educational advice because I am not under the false impression that I know what I'm talking about in regards to such subjects. In the same way, give us photographers a fighting chance and invest in our know-how. And your smile will resurface each time you gaze at that perfectly captured moment later on down the road.

*p.s. I almost contradict myself with the accompanying photo which was taken with my webcam and edited in 5 mins. Almost.

30 Minute Photoshoot

Here are some highlights from the most recent photo excursion. It was cold outside, so for my subject's sake (and mine), I made it a quicky.

And So the Weddings Begin...

Here are a few highlights from my close friends' recent wedding...

2008 Senior Show

Being a graduating art major at Georgetown, I was required to have an art exhibition in our prestigious campus gallery including works all completed during my senior year. My theme revolved around the premise that mankind's advancement is destroying our the natural beauty of our environment. It opened on April 17th and will be up until April 27th in the Anne Wright Wilson Fine Arts Gallery. Here is the postcard I designed with the given theme and preferences of the seven other featured art majors in mind:

Here is my artist statement and thesis statement and some pictures from the actual show!

Artist Statement
I do not doubt that the paleness of my skin may have at one time been attributed to my Irish descent, but that was before I became an art major. Now, although it has yet to be scientifically proven, I am almost certainly convinced that my fair complexion can be directly credited to how I spend a vast amount of my time. The neon tan I exhibit is no doubt related, if not completely caused by the glow that is daily, nay hourly, emitted from my computer screen and onto my pallid face. As a digital art and graphics major, my computer is my canvas and paintbrush, my clay and kiln, my outlet and release. I nurture it daily with attention and in return it provides me with the means to create. The enjoyment I obtain from the collaboration with my computer is not because of the computer itself, but comes from the experience of making art. Knowing that I have the power to produce something that is not only aesthetically pleasing, but also thought-provoking and emotion inducing, makes the experience all the more pleasing and worth while.
It is my goal to help combat the mass amount of graphic design atrocities that have become so prevalent in our amateur-photoshop world by producing quality and skillfully-crafted images with substance. My work generally speaks for itself, however, if one should choose to investigate it further, there is always a deeper story behind each of my pieces. Many things inspire me, but God’s beautiful creation (nature and people) is what I have found to be the greatest stimulation for my art thus far. I often incorporate my own personal writing into many of my pieces with the hope that someone may get a glimpse into what goes on under this pale skin of mine.


Thesis Statement
The rippling grass tickles the rolling hills ever so delicately as it sways in the gentle wind. Pink highlights glisten off the backs of the thoroughbreds as they gallop through the pastures against a sunset backdrop. To the left there is a magnificent magnolia tree, its impressive trunk leading to each branch, and each branch to a fragile white blossom. To the right-- a neon orange traffic barrel. They are building a road; destroying this landscape…
My work for this show is centered around the premise that natural beauty is superior to the man-made structures that tend to corrupt it. In many of my works, I have attempted to reveal the sharp contrast between a scenic place in nature and how it is ruined by something “artificial” that has been placed there by humans. This is to demonstrate how we, as a society, have no regard for what is truly beautiful and are gradually ruining the gorgeous creation that was originally intended for our enjoyment. I have used several technological items such as computer monitors and Polaroid cameras to represent man’s ideas of advancement, but then have included some of my thoughts about how these ideas have become damaging to our natural environment.
It is my hope that through these works, I can help people to regain an appreciation for the natural beauty we take for granted on a daily basis and to understand the danger of how our selfish advancement is destroying it.