Caitlin and Alex: Married!

Can I say how much I love this job?  I have amazing opportunities to photograph people on some of the most special days of their lives.  As I have grown and expanded this business, I continuously thank God for all he has done for me and for the beautiful people who graciously trust me to capture them in the precious moments of their lives.

Last week, two of those beautiful people were Caitlin and Alex, now happily married! 
Caitlin actually hired me while I was in Italy, so we had to Facebook message back and forth until I came home.  We actually managed to do a short engagement session the night before the wedding.  I had to get some photos edited that night, so they could be used for the wedding the next day.  I got it done, barely :P

The day of the wedding was hot, but we all made it through with ice cold water and lots of fanning!  Caitlin was a gorgeous bride and Alex was such a handsome groom.  Together their beauty radiated through their smiles and their pure joy!

Congratulations! :)

My favorite photo of Caitlin of the entire wedding!  So gorgeous!

(Thank you, Corrin, for helping with the veil!)

Alex, you are one handsome man.

May you have many, many happy years together!

Italia Parte Tre: Venezia e Verona

My last post of my trip to Italy.  *sniff*  After we left Sorrento, we took the train up to Venice.  We were sad to leave such a beautiful place as Sorrento, but, Venice is beauty that cannot be compared to any other.  Almost half of all my taken photos on the trip were taken in Italy.  St. Mark's Square alone has so much beauty that I wanted to try and capture in my camera.  Luckily, our convent in Venice was a 2 minute walk from the square!

Probably the two most photographed structures in Venice: St. Mark's Basilica and the Campanile.

So, St. Mark's Square is filled with lions.  Apparently (according to Rick Steves), the lion is the St. Mark's Symbol.  This is the most obvious one, stop one of the two pillars at the entrance to the square from the canal.

I love this photo because it makes the pillar look taller than the Campanile, which completely not true. 

Sarah and I did go inside St. Marks' Basilica.  At this point we had discovered that Rick Steves had a free app we could use as we went sight-seeing.  Instead of paying four a tour, like we did at the Vatican, we just used our phones.  If you ever travel to Europe--get this app (Called Rick Steves Audio Europe)!

Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take pictures inside, but I captured the following photos from the front balcony of the basilica:

The famous horses of St. Mark's.  There are four gigantic horses on the front balcony of the basilica, but they are not the real ones.  The "real" (original) horses are inside on display in the museum, for conservation purposes.

The two pillars I mentioned earlier.  See that line that snakes through the photo? That is the link to get into St. Mark's Basilica.  Yeah, it was that long before it even opened!

From the balcony, we had a great view of the pillars and architecture of the Doge's Palace.  I spent a lot of time photographing it.

Oh, the pink pillars.  I loved these--they made the photographer inside me tingle with excitement.  Patterns in a photo is a strong compositional aspect, but interrupted patterns are an even stronger compositional aspect in a photo.....but I digress.  They were so pretty!

These are only two photos, but I think took somewhere between 40 and 50, all using different settings and compositions.

Another thing I loved about Venice was the public transportation.  In every other city on the world, that means buses, metros, and trains.  In Venice it means boats!  It was so much fun to just ride the public transportation boats and take pictures.  All the architecture is so picturesque, the photo opportunities are endless!

This is the underside of the Constitution Bridge (Ponte della Constituzione).  I loved that it was red.

Just to give you a visual--this is a typical Vaporetto (what we would call a city bus elsewhere).  Looks crowded, right?  Not even close--we were often on even more crowded boats than this.  You were lucky if were able to get a seat up front--ideal place to sit and see.

It's true gondolas are everywhere on the canals, but it was cool to see a fleet of them making their way down the Grand Canal.

Again, but this time in black and white.  The colors in the buildings behind them were so pale, it made sense to go with the B&W.

LOVED the gondolas!

Confession: I love capturing shots like these.  I always get a kick out of getting a picture of the scene in focus on someone's phone with the same scene in the background, but blurry.  I guess it's kind of like a picture in a picture made easy.

We spent a day visiting a couple of the nearby islands Murano and Burano.  Burano is well-known for their lace and super-awesome brightly colored houses!  If it had not been so swelteringly hot the day we went, I would have stayed there ALL day.

Can you see the checkerboard effect?

And finally--St. Mark's Square at night.

At night, the cafes in the square provide live music.  There were four different groups that played in the square.  Sarah and I had dinner at the café we thought had the best musicians :)  They were great!  Other musicians in the area.....not so much.  We ran away from one violinist because he couldn't fix his intonation!  ahhh!

Possibly my absolute favorite photos of Venice. Gotta love the B&W.

Before heading home, we finished our trip with a few days in Verona.  I was often asked why Verona and not Florence.  Here is the answer:

Sarah and I went to Verona's famous Opera Festival.  Every few days, and Opera is performed in a roman arena.  It didn't start until 9pm (2100) so that it would be dark for the performance.  We went to see Aida, and I am so glad we did.  Aida is such a big production, and it was amazing to see it performed in an arena where they actually used the steps behind them throughout the performance.

Sarah was very excited--as was I.  If you notice--everyone is sitting on stone steps.  It would cost us more than double the tickets we bought to actually get to sit in chairs.  So we just rented a couple of seat cushions and stretched liberally in between scenes and acts.

The biggest tourist attraction in Verona is based on the fictional character Juliet (as in Romeo and Juliet).  It was (in my opinion) decidedly underwhelming to see her balcony.  I was more intrigued by the graffiti-ed sign.  Apparently it is a tradition for lovers to write on the sign and wall in the entrance to the balcony.

Just as in New Orleans (See that post here!), I was fascinated with a wrought iron fence outside the graves of Scaliger family (they were a big deal in Verona's history).

This photo was fun to capture.  I happened to see this reflection as we were walking by, and got really excited.  Sarah said it was really funny to watch me because there other people around me with their cameras pointing up, and I was the only one pointing down.  Another photographer did catch on to what I was doing and joined me.  I think that made me look less crazy!

The view from the Ponte Pietra.  Our last night in Verona. :'(

As before, I have way more photos than the ones featured here.  Click the links below if you want to see all of the ones from Venice and Verona.

Venice/Verona Part 1

Venice/Verona Part 2

If you have been following me as I relive my Italian experiences, thank you.  It has been such a joy for me to share my photos with you.  All of the photos in the galleries are free to download and enjoy!  If anyone asks where you got them, just tell you know this super-cool photographer who had a fantastic opportunity to travel Italy, and give 'em my name :)

Italia Parte Due: Il Vaticano e Sorrento

Part Two, as promised.  Here you will see highlights of our time in The Vatican and the picturesque "beach town" of Sorrento.

First, I would like to give you some advice, if you ever have the good fortune to visit the Vatican Museums.  If you have the money to do this, find someone you can bribe to let you into the museum before it opens in the morning.  Yep, you heard me--before it opens.  Once the museum opens, it has floods of visitors through its doors (somewhere in the thousands per day--even in non-peak season!).  It is also very easy to get lost in the museum, so I've heard.  Sarah and I decided to pay for an actual tour of the Vatican (as we heard of how intricate it was).  This was best picture I got in the museum:

This was the flag our tour guide carried with her so we could always find her.  Now imagine seeing at least 4 of these flags in one room, and you walk through 20 rooms.  Yeah, that's a lot of tours.  I appreciated the need for tours (especially tours in multiple languages), I was simply overwhelmed.

The rest of my pictures of the Vatican Museum can be found in the link at the bottom of this post.

(If you are wondering where my pictures are of the Sistine Chapel, you are not allowed to take pictures in there--which didn't stop many tourists being sneaky away from the guards.  I wanted to respect the rules.  Besides, there is no way the majesty and beauty of the Sistine Chapel could ever be captured in a simple photograph--go and see it if you can!)

Once we got through the Museum and the Sistine Chapel, we made it to St. Peter's Basilica and St. Peter's Square.

The Dome.

This was a portion of the ceiling under an archway.  I loved the gold!

The view from the front door of the Basilica.  This is almost what the Pope sees when he stands on the balcony above my head when I took this picture.  Though, I think he sees a lot more people when he looks out :)

The front of the Basilica, but what I love is the couple I was able to photograph as they admired  the Basilica together.

I saw these two guys taking turns taking each other's picture in front of the obelisk in the middle of the square.  They were doing insane flips and jumps and stuff for the pictures (well, it looked insane to me--I could never do what they were doing).  The guy in the red shirt's hat flew away--I helped him get it!

To give you a sense of scale, I asked Sarah for her modeling skills again (can you see her at the bottom?)  These are the columns that run around the edges of the Square--really tall!

Front view.  By the way--unless you have a helicopter or a lift of some sort, it is difficult to get a  decent centered shot of the front of the Basilica and the obelisk.  The obelisk will block the Basilica!  Anybody want to lend me a helicopter?  I so wish......

Nuns taking a selfie with a tourist---love!!!

And now for Sorrento....

Sarah and I stayed in Convents for the majority of our time in Italy.  Our one in Rome was run more like a hotel, but this was the entrance to our one in Sorrento--La Culla.  We were checked in by Sister Monica.  Sarah and I felt like we were in the principal's office when we were in her office!

The view from inside our room.  You can't see it from here, but Vesuvius is across the water.  Yeah, the volcano.  No, it did not erupt, thank God!

This is one view from the three-sided balcony at the top of the convent.  That was the train we rode in on.  We affectionately nick-named this train "The Sketchy Train."  This is due to the numerous warnings Sarah had read about pick-pockets and our own experience with pick-pockets and traveling gypsies on the trains.  No, we did not get anything stolen (we refused to take our hands off of our secured bags), but we spotted a few pick-pockets, one of which was very obviously targeting us!

Mount Vesuvius.  This guy was actually very difficult to photograph.  Not because he was camera shy, but because it was very hazy over the gulf.

I love this photo!  It is simply a cactus flower on the balcony at the convent, but it came out beautifully!

The mopeds....I loved the mopeds!  In Sorrento, it is much easier to get around in a moped than in a car.  Driving laws are more like suggestions in Southern Italy, so mopeds dash in and out of traffic easily.

The view of Sorrento from above.  This was the start of our private drive down the Amalfi Coast.

If you ever go to the Amalfi Coast, do invest in a private drive down the coast.  The road is incredibly windy with lots of twists and turns, plus the mopeds and tour buses.  Trying to navigate it and see the amazing views at the same time is simply not possible.

Our first stop: Positano.  In my opinion, it was the most picturesque of the three we visited (Positano, Amalfi, Ravello).  We started at the top of this hill and walked down.  Tough to walk back up, but beautiful!

Positano from afar.  I would go back again in a heartbeat.

Sarah got creative when I asked her to model for me again.  This is a yoga pose, though I can't recall which one it is.  This little set up was located in the Villa Rufolo in the town of Ravello.  It had some beautiful gardens and a stage where they have their summer music concerts.  No, we didn't get to go to one.......still a beautiful place to visit.

A sunset view from our (communal) balcony.  This was also the place where Sarah and I took a day to recuperate from our first week of intense sightseeing.  We could not have picked a better place to sit and relax in Italy.  The nuns really know how to pick a spot :)

The last rays of sunshine in Sorrento.

I have many, many more photos than the ones I have shared in these last two posts about Italy--far too many to put them all in the blog.  Below are two links that will take you to all of my chosen photos from Rome and Sorrento.  More photos of Venice and Verona to come!!

Click: Rome

Click: Sorrento