You may remember Emily and Curtis from their engagement session that I talked about here.

The wedding and reception took place at Shorewood Country Club on the shores of Lake Erie just a little west of Dunkirk, New York.  I had been there a few times before but never for a wedding.  The view of the lake is beautiful and I thought we would have an opportunity to get some nice shots.

The day started out kind of windy and chilly and I was worried that the weather might put a damper on the outdoor service.  By the time the ceremony began, however, it had warmed up and turned into a beautiful day.

In the reception area they had this huge table filled with just about every kind of candy you could think of.  Now you might think that would be a good thing, but having walked past it numerous times and of course trying something different each time, yeah, not so much.  They also had tons of decorations that were made mostly by Emily and Curtis' families.  They looked nice, but by the looks of it, somebody spent a lot of time with the glue gun.  The cake was one of the nicer ones I've ever had the pleasure of devouring.  It was made up mostly of cupcakes, which isn't all that unusual, but the thing about it was there were like five or six different flavors of cupcakes, and, of course, not wanting to be rude, I felt that I should try more than just one flavor.... or two.....or.... okay, whatever, they were yummy (don't judge).

As the sun was setting on the lake I hurriedly grabbed Emily and Curtis and dragged them outside to do some quick sunset shots.  The shots looked really good so I started grabbing anybody else that was nearby for some photos against the sunset.   By the time I was done I had a bunch of pictures of people that looked like they had just been on a cruise and gotten one of those complimentary photos against a fake sunset backdrop.  (I'm still trying to figure out if that's a good or bad thing.)

Once the sun finally set a lot of folks went outside for the ever popular Chinese lantern lighting.  They really do look pretty once you get a bunch of them going and every now and then one of them catches on fire or drops out of the sky before it's gone very far which always keeps things interesting.

This wedding was a little different in that I knew a lot of the people there, having been friends with Emily's parents since elementary school.  It was really nice.  It was kind of like a little reunion.  I got to see and talk to people I hadn't seen in years.

All in all I had a great time and by the looks of it so did everyone else.  Below are some images from the day.

Designed and built in 1930 by a prominent Jamestown architect, the building was originally used as a private residence by the architect.  In the 1960s the home was sold and converted into a residence for the elderly and was used in that capacity for a number of years.  In 2008 the property changed hands again and became The Oaks Bed and Breakfast Hotel.

It was a fun and challenging project and I'm quite please with the way the photos turned out.

If you're interested in buying your very own castle you can find the listing here.

Sharon is allowed only a certain number of photos on the actual listing page so I've included even more photos below. (If while looking you listen very closely you might be able to hear bagpipes in the distance or some other thing that would make you think of castles....like the clanking of a knights armor....or the footsteps of a medieval army marching.... or the screams of someone being thrown out a window into the moat.  Yeah, stuff like that.)

Anyway, we decided to meet on the shores of Chautauqua Lake in Celoron Park, which you may or may not know, is where the now infamous scary Lucy statue lives.  If you don't know what I'm talking about you can read about it and see a video here.  Jessica and Brad asked if their dog Winston could come along too and be in a few shots and I of course said that was fine.

I didn't really ask anything about Winston.  I had done another engagement session with a couple and a dog a couple of years ago and I just had that image of a dog in my head.  He was a pure white Huskie kind of a thing and was really a pretty looking dog.

When I got to the park I found Jessica and Brad and as I got closer I saw Winston.  Let's just say, Winston was not going to be pulling a sled across the Arctic any time soon.  Winston was pretty much the biggest bulldog type thing I had ever seen.  He was, and I'm not really exaggerating here, pretty much as wide as he was tall, and had the biggest tongue I've ever seen on a dog..... or elephant.  My daughter Emily, of course, immediately fell in love with him.  I know her well enough that I could tell she was already trying to figure out how she could sneak him in the van and take him home with us.

We thought it would be best to get some shots with Winston first so that he wouldn't be stuck waiting around.  (Jessica's mom was dog sitting.)  The problem with Winston was that every time I knelt down to get to his level he assumed I was down there because I wanted to play and he would promptly come trotting over to me, tongue wagging in the wind.  We were able to finally get a few shots with and of Winston and he was released to go and play with grandma.  After that the rest of the shoot went pretty smoothly, we even got one with the scary Lucy statue.  I'll have the shots from the wedding up hopefully in a couple of weeks (or three.... maybe four..,) but until then here are some of my favorites from the engagement session.

Chelsea and Jason contacted me last Fall, but it wasn't about photographing their wedding, they wanted me to video it.  I said that I would be happy to do it.  We met a little while later and discussed all the particulars and agreed on everything.  I wrote them in my calendar and we were all set.  A couple of months later, however, Chelsea contacted me and said that the photographer they had hired, before they ever met me, was having to move to Georgia because her husband was being transferred.  She wondered if I would be able to photograph their wedding instead of videoing it.  I said that would be fine, but now we had a little problem.  I include an engagement session photo shoot with my package but we were now in Winter and I've never done an engagement session in the snow before.  We talked about it and decided to give it a shot because they wanted to have the photos so they could make up a sign-in book for their wedding that included their engagement photos.

Jason had some military obligations so we didn't have a lot of times to choose from as to when we could do the session.  We also didn't have a lot of options because of the weather.  We decided rather hurriedly one day to run off to Chautauqua Institution because everything seemed like it would work time-wise.

We had to trudge through some snow every now and then but in the end I was very happy with the way the photos came out.  Never having shot an engagement session in the snow before had me a little worried but I would be more than confident about doing another one any time.  Below you can see some shots from the day.

I always strive to make people look as good as possible in my photos, but with Jana and Cooper there was a little more incentive than usual.  You see, Jana is my boss at WCA Hospital.  Don't get me wrong, she's a great boss and we get along fine, but there's that little extra bit of pressure to make sure the boss looks good..... oh yeah, and her kid too.

I really didn't need to worry, however.  Jana and Cooper are both great in front of the camera.  Cooper especially, considering he was only eight years old at the time.  (He recently turned nine.  Happy birthday Cooperman!)

I probably should take this opportunity to offer a warning to all the parents of young ladies.  You may want to start planning on how exactly you are going to lock up your daughters, because young Mr. Cooper, in the not too distant future, is going to be a playah.  (Pardon my use of youthful urban slang, but it seemed appropriate....... I'll try not to let it happen again.)  He's a great looking kid with tons of personality and energy.  Earlier in the day he had participated in a cross country race (I think it was a mile) and I wondered if he might be a little tired and uncooperative or just the opposite, really wired and bouncing off the walls.  I didn't need to worry though, as he was very cooperative and even had some ideas for some shots himself.  One interesting thing though, throughout the whole shoot he kept saying that he really wanted to climb a tree.  I found that request to be a little random, but I didn't care, so I asked Jana and she said it was okay (although I think I sensed a bit of hesitation in her voice. I kind of got the feeling that Cooper may not be that much of an accomplished tree climber).

Now, if you've ever been to Chautauqua Institution, you realize that there are tons of trees there.  I figured it would be no problem to find a suitable tree for Cooper to shimmy up.  Well, I'm not sure exactly how they've done it, whether by creating some sort of genetically mutated tree seeds or by bands of crazed Chautauqua residents running around with chain saws, but we could not find a tree that was big enough to climb that had any branches that were closer than 10 feet off the ground.  Every time we went to a new spot to do some photos Cooper would ask if there was a tree that he could climb.  I would dutifully look around and then give him the bad news that no, there wasn't a suitable tree in sight. As the shoot was winding down we still hadn't found an appropriate tree and I was starting to feel pretty bad because he really wanted to climb a tree.  (To this day I'm still not sure why he wanted to climb one so bad.  I'm pretty sure his hometown has trees.  Maybe he lives in a tree free zone or something.)  As it was now getting dark and we were heading to our vehicles to leave, I suggested we look at one more place to see if there was an appropriate tree for Cooper to climb, and then........ there it was.  It was like something from a movie.  It was like a shaft of light was descending from Heaven and shining on this one tree.  I'm pretty sure I heard angels singing.  We walked over to it. It was perfect.  The first branch was about six feet off the ground and more than big enough to hold him.  I may or may not have hugged the tree, I can't really remember, it's all kind of foggy.  I asked him if this would do and he enthusiastically said, "Yes!".  I then triumphantly lifted young Mr. Cooper up onto the first branch.  The tree was big enough that he could have climbed up another eight or ten feet so I started telling him how to turn and which branches to use.  He got turned around and after a few seconds of looking at the path I had laid out for him said something to the effect of, "You know something?  I think I'm good."

"WHAT!?!", I screamed in my head.  "YOU'VE BEEN ASKING TO CLIMB A TREE FOR LIKE AN HOUR AND A HALF AND I'VE BEEN REALLY FEELING BAD BECAUSE I COULDN'T FIND ONE THAT WOULD WORK AND YOU LIVE IN A PLACE WITH NO TREES AND NOW WE'VE FOUND ONE THAT HAD LIGHT FROM HEAVEN ON IT AND ANGELS WERE SINGING AND I GET YOU ON THE FIRST BRANCH AND YOU SAY YOU'RE GOOD!?!  ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?!"  (Please note that the last paragraph was all said in my head.  At no time did I actually yell at the child like a crazed tree hunting photographer.)

I calmly asked him if he was sure he wanted to get down and he said, "Yes."  So I got him down out of tree and we all walked to our vehicles and went home.  And that was that.  Photos below.

You may remember Carly and Adam from their engagement session earlier last year.

The wedding day started out with my daughter Emily and me meeting up with the ladies at Dorian's Plus for hair and make-up.  Carly and Adam's moms were there too.  Hair and make-up might seem a little boring to someone from outside but it's a great time for everyone to relax, have a few snacks and just have a lot of fun together.

After the ladies were done we hustled over to the reception venue (a cool old train station) to see how the decorating was going and to get a few shots, only to find we weren't alone.  There just happened to be a few thousand people hanging out by the train station.

The wedding and reception were taking place in Jamestown, NY and for those that may not know,  Jamestown just happens to be the hometown of one Lucille Ball.  Yup, that Lucille Ball.  Jamestown does a great job of keeping Lucy's memory alive with a museum and lots of Lucy events throughout the year.  Today just happened to be the day for the Lucy half marathon and an attempt to break the word record for grape stomping.  I knew these events were happening the day of the wedding I just didn't realize that the grape stomping was taking place right by the train station.  I'm not sure I can put into words what an attempt at a world record grape stomping event looks like.  They literally closed off half the street by the train station and filled it with grapes.  60 tons of grapes.  Yes, you read that right, 60 TONS OF GRAPES!  And then they had 1,500 people stomping on said grapes  with I don't know how many hundreds (thousands ?) watching.  There were TV news teams there and radio stations..... it was really quite the sight.  My only thought was, "how are we going to have a reception here with all of this going on?"

After the train station we ran over to a hotel where the guys were getting ready.  Carly's dad was there too and I asked him how the reception was going to work with all the grape stuff going on and he said that the city had assured him that by the time the reception was supposed to happen everything would be cleaned up.  I kind of just stared at him for a second.  "Seriously?", I said.  "They're going to get a few thousand people and 60 tons of mushed up grapes out of there in a couple of hours?"  "That's what I was told", he said.  "Okay", I thought, "well, good luck with that."

After a few shots of the guys we all headed up to the church.  The getting ready and ceremony pretty much went off without a hitch.  The only issue happened when the moms were lighting the candles for the unity candle portion and the lighter was just not cooperating.  I got so mesmerized watching these poor moms endlessly clicking away the lighter that I almost forgot to take a photo.  Other than that everything else went smoothly.

After the ceremony the wedding party rode in a horse drawn wagon down to a bed and breakfast where Carly and Adam were going to stay that night.  We got a few shots there and then it was back to the train station.

When we got back to the train station, to my utter amazement, all the people and all the grapes were gone.  I couldn't believe it.  They had dispersed all those people and cleaned up 60 tons of grapes in a couple of hours.  I was thoroughly impressed and relieved.

We grabbed a few shots in back of the train station down by the tracks and then headed inside for the reception.  The reception was a lot of fun and everyone seemed to have a great time.  The food from Andriaccio's was delicious and DJ Denny Kyser had the place hopping all night.  One of the things we really liked was they had these three baskets filled with gourmet popcorn.  Delish!  Towards the end of the evening a lot of the guests went outside and lit and released Chinese lanterns.  It was really pretty.  I always wonder though, where do they end up landing?  I mean, does some guy in Canada walk out of his house in the morning and find 30 burned up Chinese lanterns in his front yard? Hmmmm, I wonder.

Anyway..

All in all it was a fun and eventful day.  You can see some of the photos from the day below.

Somewhere in there are 60 tons of grapes and a bunch of people with purple feet.

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My daughter Emily took this one.

While I was outside getting this one.

I was a little worried about how many photos we would actually be able to do because Max and Jack are three and five years old.  It's kind of hard to hold little guys' attention for very long and I feared it might be a little like herding cats.

When we all arrived I grabbed a blanket out of the car and threw it on the ground and had everyone lay down on it (okay, not me... I was laying in the grass).  We were able to get a few good shots there but they were anxious to do some moving around.  They really wanted to go on this path that went up a hill so we all headed toward the hill.  Trying to keep them somewhat entertained and interested, I asked if they could carry the blanket for me.  Wow, you would have thought that I had given them a brand new X-box gaming system.  They each grabbed a corner and went running across the lawn yelling, "we get to carry the blanket, we get to carry the blanket!!"  Hey, whatever works.

Just before we got to the top of the hill I had them stop and asked if they would like to make some piles of leaves.  Well, they got right to it and in no time at all we had a couple piles of leaves.  I then asked the boys to throw the leaves in the air and try and catch them.  I happily shot away as they tossed the leaves in such a way that you would have thought a small tornado was whipping through the woods.

When we got to the top of the hill I heard Chrissy say "uh, oh."  I looked up only to see two separate playsets.  Before we could get the boys attention they saw the playsets and that was that.  Off they went.  It was okay though, I wanted them to have some fun and be in good moods.  I used the opportunity to get a few shots of them playing on the playsets.

Throughout the shoot, every now and then, one of the boys would let out this big "yooooooooohhhhhllllll", and then of course, the other one would join in with a big "yoooooooohhhhhllll".  At times it sounded like a couple of coyote pups seeing the moon for the first time.  After a while it dawned on me that they might actually be saying something but I couldn't figure out what it was.  I asked Chrissy, and being the mother of three and five year old boys, she of course said she hadn't really noticed them yowling.  (Really?  I'm pretty sure there were actual coyotes in Canada that heard them.  I understood, though, as a parent you just get used to that kind of stuff.)  She asked them what they were saying and after a couple more yowls she turned to me and said, "They're saying your name."  Oh.  It turns out whenever Chrissy would say something like,"now listen to Joel and do what he says" the yowling would start.  It was kind of funny once we figured it out and I took it as a sign they liked me.

As we were headed back to the path to head down the hill Max decide he needed a potty break.  Oh boy.  Now I'm the father of two girls and when a situation like this occurs we need to find an official government approved potty fast.  I started to worry a little bit because I hadn't seen any kind of a bathroom since we had been there.  I was a little concerned about the length of time we were taking already and if we now had to go on a potty finding expedition I was afraid I might lose the boys attention and not be able to get it back.  My fears were short lived though as Max promptly ran behind the nearest tree and took care of business.  I love my daughters, but times like this, I'm thinking boys might have been easier.

The rest of the time the boys did great.  We found an old boat to sit in and went out on a couple of docks.  There, of course, was the periodic headlock (under the guise of a hug) and wondering when we were going to be done, but in the end we all had a lot of fun.  They were kind of tired of it all by the time we were finished but in between the yowling and the headlocks we got some great pictures.  You can see a sample of them below.

I met Emily and Curtis and Emily's mom Vicki at Celoron Park in early October for the shoot.  Celoron is a small town on the shores of Chautauqua Lake.  If you read my blog you may recognize it as the place we did some of Nick's senior photos.

Emily and Curtis were a lot of fun to work with.  They were pretty much up for anything and even brought along a few props.  Props are great because they help give ideas of different things to do.  I particularly liked the chalkboards.  No one I've shot has ever used them before and they were a lot of fun.

In no time at all we'll have some photos from the wedding day itself, but until then here are a few from last October.

This commercial was interesting in that we didn't use just WCA people but also incorporated a cello player from New York City who spends his summers at Chautauqua Institution and plays in their orchestra.  It's always tough work when you have to take part of a day and spend it at Chautauqua :-)   In speaking with him I found out that he's played in orchestras for numerous TV commercials and movies.  You might think someone like that would be a little...... let's see.... how to say it nicely ..... uppity perhaps, but he was really friendly and we had a nice visit.  When I told him that we were using a piece of music from Bach (I couldn't remember which one) he sat down and started playing something and asked if that was it.  I listened for a few seconds and then realized that it was indeed the song we were going to use.  I had him play the beginning and ending over and over again so I could shoot him at different distances and with different movements.  He was very patient with me and the folks that walked by his front porch, where we were, appreciated the mini concert.

The spot is playing on local cable on various networks and at local theaters (before the movie starts).  It took a while to get approval from all the interested parties but once it was all done I was pretty happy with the final results.  You can check it out below.

They said they had already taken some of the furnishings out of the house so some of the rooms were a little sparse but I said that was okay, I would still like the practice.  I had done some reading up on real estate photography and it appears that folks who do this kind of thing do it one of two ways: using multiple flashes or something called HDR photography.

HDR photography is a process where you take multiple exposures of the same thing using different aperture settings and then combine them into one photograph.  The idea is to expose one photo for the brightest part of a room (usually sunlight coming in the windows) and another for the darkest areas of the room.  You then do a varying amount of other shots between these two extremes to properly expose other areas of the room.  One HDR photo will typically be made up of anywhere from three to seven exposures.  I've seen some cool photos done with this process where the final photo looks kind of dreamy and .... just different, for real estate though, I've found that if it's not done exactly right the final results can look kind of strange and sort of fake looking.  Because of that, I decided to go with the flashes.

I only had three flashes available to use for this house.  If I start to do more of this kind of work I would probably get at least a couple of more.  It always seemed like there was some little spot that I would have liked to have had a little more light.  All in all though, being that this was a first attempt, I think things turned out pretty good.  Dan and Linda were happy with the photos and even ended up using them for their listing.  Oh, and in case you were interested, the house already sold.  I'm pretty sure it was the photos that did it :-)

We started out in Allen Park in Jamestown, NY.  It's a nice place with all the regular park stuff as well as a little valley that has a creek running through it.  Nick and his friends often hang out there.  After the park we went to Celeron, NY which is one of the little towns on Chautauqua Lake.  Nick and his dad like to go fishing there so they thought it would be a fun place to get some shots.  While we were there it got pretty dark so we broke out the flashes and had some fun doing some photos with flash.  I normally do mostly available light photos so it was fun to do something a little different.  We got some great shots from both locations, some of which you can see below.

I don't really have a studio so I brought a backdrop to the foundation's offices and set up on a couple of different occasions.  Once I figured out how best to do the white background shots things went pretty smoothly and I was pretty happy with the end results.

Below are all the shots I did for them, but if you would like to see what Elizabeth did with the board member's shots on the website you can find it here.  She did this really cool thing where if you hover your mouse over the board member their picture kind of jumps out a little and a short bio pops up.  All in all, a fun project to do.  Photos below.

The concert took place in Bemus Point, NY on the floating stage.  If you've never seen it, the stage actually is a floating platform that is sitting out in Chautauqua Lake.  It's pretty neat.  The audience sits on the shore looking out at the stage.  Every year the Bemus Bay Pops organization has a number of concerts on the stage during the summer months.  It's really quite the thing.

Margo Rey is married to comedian Ron White and is herself a cancer survivor.  Ron was at the event also and introduced his wife.  Before the performance Margo and Ron had a meet a greet with the attendees many of which were also cancer survivors.  Margo and Ron were great with talking to people, signing autographs and having photos taken.

The concert itself was great and at the end Margo had the cancer survivors come up on stage with her.  It was a really moving moment and one I'm sure they will all remember for some time.  Photos below.

Promo photo for the event

Lining up to take a group photo with Ron can be a bit of a challenge :-)

I met Carly and Adam and both of their parents one afternoon at Chautauqua Institution for their session.  Adam's family is from Pittsburgh, PA and his parents had never been to Chautauqua so it was nice to show them around. Chautauqua is such a great place to do photos because there's just so many different settings to do things at.  There's really cool architecture, a huge lake, lots of trees and walking paths.  We tried to hit as many places as possible and ended up with some great shots, some of which you can find below.

For the past 18 or so years I've also produced a video that talks about all the accomplishments of WCA from the previous year.  There's only so many ways, though, you can talk about the economic impact that WCA has on the community or about all the awards and accreditations they received or all the new equipment they purchased.  Quite honestly, after a few years they all started sounding and looking about the same.  This year, however, Linda Johnson, the PR and marketing person at WCA, thought it might be fun to try something a little different.  If you're into Facebook at all you may have noticed that earlier this year they were doing this thing to celebrate they're anniversary where they would make this little one minute video about you and your time on Facebook.  Linda thought it might be fun to do a year in review video about WCA that kind of looked like a Facebook video.  I told her I thought we could do it, so we did.  It was fun to do and I think it turned out pretty good.  If you've never seen one of the Facebook videos you might not get it exactly but you still get all the information we wanted to convey and it wasn't the same kind of thing we've done for the past umpteen years.  You can see the video below.

Writing isn't my most enjoyable activity to begin with but I was determined to try and keep the blog entries at least fairly regular (remember, it's good to be regular).  The last half of 2014 I have failed miserably.  So, with that being said, I will now begin to make up for lost time with a flurry of blog posts to finish out the year.

Way back in April I was involved in the "One in Christ" event which took place at the Reg Lenna Center for the Arts in Jamestown, NY.  It took place on Maundy Thursday and was a wonderful event that included music, drama, dancing and inspirational speakers.  I was asked to video the entire program as well as produce a video piece that was shown during the program.  (If you would like to view the entire event you can find it here on YouTube.)  Below you will find the piece that I produced that was shown during the program.  It highlights eight local ministries that were helped by the money that was raised at the event.  I've also included below a short promo piece that I produced that gives you an idea of what the event was all about.

Ryan was fun to photograph because he brought a bunch of different props, including his SUV.  It's usually easier to do shots when you have props because it helps give different ideas for different poses.  With Ryan we had everything from baseball and soccer to fishing and archery.  The session took a little longer than usual because of all the props, but that was okay, I think we ended up with some nice photos because of it.

Here are some examples from the day.

Ryan with his mom Beth

You may remember Sara and Hugh from their engagement session last fall.  If you haven't had a chance to see their engagement session I would encourage you to check it out.  There were some beautiful fall colors that day [along with just a bit of wind :-) ]

The thing that made Sara and Hugh's wedding so interesting was that it took place in the Reg Lenna Center for the Arts, an old vaudeville theater that was built back in the 1920's.  They used the theme of a theater for the wedding, from their decorations down to the programs they gave their guests.  It was really unique and a lot of fun, and, from what I understand, this was the first wedding ever held at the theater.

The day began with the Sara and her girls getting all gussied up at Salon One in Jamestown.  A little while later Hugh and the guys met for lunch at Taco Hut in Jamestown.  Luckily the restaurant is only a couple of miles from the salon and I was able to scoot over and get some shots of the guys before they were done.  Once everyone got to the theater they moved downstairs to the dressing rooms.  It was really neat because it was like everyone was getting costumed up to be in a play.  For a gift, Hugh got all of the guys super hero cufflinks, which I thought was really cool.  And, to even further the fun and uniqueness of the day, the boutonnieres the guys wore were made of comics.  We eventually went upstairs and did some formals on the stage, the girls first and then the guys.

Just before the ceremony started we did something I'm pretty sure you've never seen done at a wedding.  Back when I first met Sara and Hugh, Hugh told me of an idea he had to start the ceremony.  I thought it sounded like a lot of fun and told him that I was pretty sure we could pull it off.  His idea was to pass out those cardboard 3D glasses to all the guests when they came in to the theater and just before the ceremony started we would have everyone in the crowd put on the glasses and then have me take a picture of them.  The idea was to make it look like one of those old photos of people watching a 3D movie back in the 1950's.  Now, normally I try and be as unobtrusive as possible when photographing a wedding but that wasn't the case this day.  There I was marching out onto the stage and setting up some lights and telling the crowd what was going on and what I needed them to do.  I asked them to pretend they were watching "The Creature from the Black Lagoon" and that the creature had just appeared and they were all scared out of their wits.  We did that three times and it actually turned out pretty good.  Even if it hadn't turned out all that great, everyone had a lot of fun anyway.

Also, before the ceremony began, they played a video about Sara and Hugh that told all about them growing up and how they met and what led up to this day.  It was fun and a nice touch. 

The ceremony itself took place right on the stage.  The girls all came down the aisle of the theater and then up the stairs onto the stage where the guys were waiting.  Part way through the ceremony a friend of mine, Alex Conti, sang a song from the balcony.  At one point Sara and Hugh did this little ceremony where they nailed a bottle of wine inside a box.  A little reading was then done that said something to the effect of, "If one day things get really bad between us we will open this box, share the wine and remember this day."  I had never seen that before and the sentiment of it was really nice.

After the ceremony there was a cocktail hour that took place out in the lobby while we did the formal family and wedding party photos.

The reception itself was also held right on the stage.  All the tables were set up behind a curtain so you couldn't see them during the ceremony.  For table numbers they used hinged picture frames with the number of the table on one side and a mini movie poster on the other. The food was provided by Sandee's Catering and was delicious.  I particularly liked this Reuben sandwich dip stuff they had for the cocktail hour.  Whenever I had a spare minute I found myself walking past the table with the dip and scarfing one (or two) up.  My good friends at Prime Time DJ Services provided the music for the reception.  They did a great job and had the joint jumping the whole night.  DJ Sizzle even provided a little extra something when he whipped out a fiddle and played along with "Cotton Eye Joe".  

The father daughter dance is always a special time during the reception and this one was made even more interesting because Sara and her dad were serenaded by one of the bridesmaids who sang to them from one of the box seats in the theater.  The funny thing about that was that the bridesmaid didn't know all the words to the song so she was reading them off her cell phone.  Ahh, technology.

All in all it was a fun and unique event and I pray that Sara and Hugh are able to keep that "fun-ness" alive for their entire marriage.

Here are some shots from the day.

This is what you see on the ceiling when you lean your head back to get your hair washed.

Her unique and beautiful bouquet was made of broaches. (note: the 15th was their wedding day)

Best photo bomb of the year so far :-)

Each year St. Susan Center has a number of fundraisers, the latest of which, was their annual Basket Fair.  Sue Colwell, the center's director (no, it's not named after her :-) ), asked me if I was available to do some photos at the fair. Seeing that my schedule was open that day I of course said yes.  I've done some other projects for St. Susan and am always glad to help out.  If you look at the St. Susan website you'll see a video I produced for them a few years ago.  It really let's you know what St. Susan Center is all about and how you can help.  If you have a few minutes I would encourage you watch it.

The Basket Fair this year was held, for the first time, in the Jamestown Community College Athletic Center and was their most successful fair ever.  All the wonderful attendees helped St. Susan Center raise over $13,000.00.  

The photos that follow are nothing spectacular, just some snap shots, really, of a whole bunch of people that came together one day to help out a great cause.  

Sue Colwell (St. Susan Center Director) with former County Executive Greg Edwards and son

Weber Knapp is a company in Jamestown, NY that engineers and manufactures everything from cabinet hardware to counterbalanced hinges used on tanning beds.  I've done product photography for them before that they have used on their website and printed materials, but this was the first product that I've also done a short video for.  Nothing complicated, just a short video that tells about a new product.  I did all the video production as well as the voice over.

Thanks to my friend Elizabeth Gleason at Tint Press for the recommendation.  Elizabeth does web and graphic design and is the owner of Tint Press.  She created and maintains the Weber Knapp website.  If you ever need any graphic design or help with your website Elizabeth is the one to get in contact with.

Where we live we used to be able to get Canadian TV stations over the regular antenna and I can remember when I was little sitting with my grandpa watching wrestling and roller derby matches from Canada.  The wrestling and roller derby, even to a little kid, always seemed, let's see, how can I say this, ummmm...... less than genuine.  For the roller derby I can remember women skating around this banked track with a railing and every now and then someone would give someone else an elbow to the head and they'd crumple into a heap or go flying over the railing.  I found it a bit difficult to believe that my friend, and especially his wife, were going to hustle back from a nice dinner to go to this "sporting event".

It turned out that I wasn't going to be done with my videotaping in time to go to dinner but my wife and daughters thought it might be fun to go to the roller derby with our friends.  I again stared, this time at my wife and daughters, waiting again for the punchline and once again there was none.  They too were serious.  I tried to explain to them my experience with roller derby with my grandpa and how silly I thought it was, but that only seemed to increase their interest.  My husband/father vote to not go was quickly being vetoed by my wife and two daughters.  I grudgingly relented and agreed to go to the last roller derby match of the year.

As we were entering the arena I kept saying over and over to myself, "I can't believe I'm here and paying money for this."  The local team is known as The Babes of Wrath, which I at least thought was kind of a cool name, but as I sat down and began to look at the program my eye rolling really kicked into high gear.  You see, the ladies don't use their real names but rather nicknames.  Some of the more colorful nicknames were: Leanderthal, Meg 4 Mercy, Faye Tallity, Jowanna Scrap and perhaps my favorite, Susan B. Amputee.  "Holy cow," I thought, "this is going to be worse than I thought."

As I further looked through the program I discovered that this was classified as "Women's Flat Track Roller Derby". There was no high banked track with rails for people to go flying over and into the crowd.  They instead skated on the floor right in front of the crowd.  It also appeared that this was somewhat of a real sporting event in that the winner was not decided upon before the match began.  "Okay," I thought, "at least it's got that going for it."  I found a page in the program that described the rules, which was great because I could never figure out what was actually going on with the stuff I used to watch with grandpa.

We hadn't eaten supper yet and decided to get something from the concession stand.  My roller derby lovin' friend, with whom this all started, said they had some interesting food items to choose from, which of course had interesting nicknames too.  The one thing he said we really needed to try was a little number called the "After School Special", which is really a hamburger with peanut butter and bacon.  Yup, peanut butter and bacon.  My daughter Emily, of course, thought this was just about the most magical food item she had ever heard of, the rest of us, yeah, not so much.  I, of course, ended up getting it.  It actually looked worse than it sounds.  After taking it's picture I quickly replaced the top bun.  Emily took the first bite and promptly said it was good.  You can't really go by that, though, because Emily is the one who takes all the stuff from the dessert counter at the Chinese buffet, mixes it together and says it's good.  My wife and I each tentatively took a nibble of the burger and believe it or not, it was pretty good.  No amount of coaxing, however, could get Meagan to try it.  She applied the "Just say no" policy to the "After School Special".

Once the match started I actually kind of got into it.  Knowing it was a real competition and finally understanding the rules really helped and I found myself cheering on the Babes.  (This is probably the only scenario I can think of where my wife would not frown upon me cheering for Babes :-)  )  At halftime we walked around a little and checked out the souvenir table.  There was also a table where you could find out more about becoming a Babe and how you could sign up for the roller derby training camp.  At some point I decided this whole event might make an interesting blog post but then realized that in my angst about coming to begin with I never even considered bringing along a camera.  My wife, however, did have her little point and shoot in her purse and so I tried to get a few shots to commemorate the occasion.  It was quite dark in the arena so it was tough to get a lot of action shots but I got enough to sort of give you the idea of what it was all about.

When the match was done (the Babes won, woo hoo!) my wife and oldest daughter Meagan announced to me that they had been discussing attending the roller derby training camp.  I once again stared at them waiting for the punchline.  No such luck.  "You've got to be kidding", I said.  Nope, they were serious.  "But you'll break your necks if you try and skate with these girls", I said.  "That's why you go to the training camp", retorted my wife.

Well, to make a long story short, there I was a couple of weeks later dropping off my wife and oldest daughter at the roller rink where they were doing the roller derby training camp.  The camp was going to run two nights a week for four or five weeks.  They weren't sure if they would get to all of them but they wanted to go to at least the first one to see what it was all about.  I left them with instructions to make sure and get someone to take a picture of them so we could remember this moment many years from now.  When I picked them up they said it had been fun but they weren't sure if they'd be going back.  The rink is about 40 minutes from our house and the practices didn't get done until around 10 o'clock at night which made things a little difficult.  In the end that was the only training camp practice they went to.  It was just too hard to get there that many times and being so late at night.  So for now, it would seem our roller derby adventure is over.  But, who knows?  Every now and then I hear them talking about it and wondering if maybe next time they'll give it another shot.  I just stare at them, waiting for the punchline.

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My daughter Meagan and wife JoAnn, aka "Beastly Beauty" and "The Muffinator"

Fast forward a few years (okay, more than a few) to a couple of months ago.  This photographer's youngest daughter, Emily, who just happens to be a senior this year, doesn't have any senior photos.   Okay, it's not like I didn't know she was a senior, it was just one of those things that I knew I would do eventually....... sometime.  My wife would periodically remind me that "sometime" needed to happen and I would nod in agreement.  "Sometime", however, always seemed to get put on the back burner.

As I looked out the window one day it occurred to me there were no longer any leaves on the trees, I was wearing a heavier coat and running the heater in the car.  Oh oh.  "Sometime" better happen pretty soon or we're going to be doing photos in a snow bank.

I asked Emily if she would want to do the photos on the up coming Saturday and she said sure.  We decided to go to Chautauqua Institution because there's so many different places to get good shots.  We dragged along my wife and Emily's older sister Meagan with the promise we'd go get some supper when we were done.

Emily was a real trooper.  Let me tell you, it was cold, but she happily tromped through the woods, leaned on fences, sat on the ground and did just about anything else I could think of.  By the time we finished though, we were both freezing and ran to the van to get warmed up.  And while she had chattering teeth in between shots we think they turned out pretty good.  Next time though, I'll try and make sure that "sometime" happens a little sooner.

Joel

Until then, though, we did an engagement photo session at the Viking's Summer Lodge on Chautauqua Lake.  It was getting pretty late in the year to be doing an outdoor photo session but we got lucky on a sunny but windy Saturday. Now when I say windy I don't mean kind of breezy, like you'd like to have on a sunny summer day as you lay in your hammock, no, I mean like all of a sudden there is a gust of wind that makes you grab on to the closest non-movable object like a large tree.  We kept trying to hide behind buildings and trees to get out of the wind just to get some shots where Sara's hair wasn't being blown over her face and sticking straight out sideways.  Every now and then there would be some breaks in the wind and we would scurry out to do some shots out in the open.  

At the end of it all we had a lot of fun and got some great shots.  The way things are here in western New York I'm sure that by the time the middle of February rolls around we could have some even more interesting weather conditions to deal with.  Oh well, that'll just make the memories that more interesting.  I can just hear Hugh talking to Sara 40 years from now, "Hey hon, remember our wedding day and that blizzard we had?"

Joel

I didn't meet Jennie and DJ until the actual wedding day.  Up until then I had only met with Jennie's mom.  I usually like to meet with the bride and groom long before the wedding so I can get a feel for their personalities.  It makes it a little tougher to just walk in cold having never met either the bride or groom but sometimes that's just the way it works out.

The wedding was to be held in a cute little Lutheran church and the reception in the reception hall of a Catholic church.  (You kind of cover most of your religious bases when you do it that way.)  The girls got dressed in the meeting rooms in the back of the church where the ceremony was.  At one point I went out into the sanctuary to get an idea of what the lighting would be like during the ceremony.  Having gotten a good idea of how I was going to shoot the ceremony I went back to doing more pre-ceremony shots.  When it was time for the ceremony I went back out to the sanctuary only to find that it was about half as bright as it had been when I checked it earlier.  I wasn't sure what was going on until I realized that it had clouded over and was now pouring rain.  That was going to make things interesting because to get from the rooms in back of the church the wedding party was going to have to go outside to get to the sanctuary.  A mad scramble for umbrellas ensued and eventually everyone got to where they needed to be.

The ceremony went well.  The ring bearer got cold feet at the last minute and no amount of coaxing by the flower girl could get him down the aisle.  We were going to do some outdoor shots after the ceremony by Chautauqua lake but it was still pouring after the ceremony.  I should just realize that whenever anyone suggests doing some photos by the lake it's actually code for, "it's going to rain really hard any minute now."

The bride and groom left the church in a cool old Chevy truck.  I'm pretty sure though, by the way some were acting, that this truck wasn't used to seeing any rain.  I believe it went home to the garage as soon as possible.

The rain eventually stopped and we found a little time during the reception to scoot outside and a grab a couple of shots of Jennie and DJ.  I would have liked to have had more time with them but by this time it was starting to get dark and they needed to be inside at the reception.

Things didn't work out just like we had planned but all in all it still was a good day.  Congratulations to the happy couple.

Joel

As their last visit was ending my daughters and their cousin Andy hatched a plan for us to go and visit them in Minnesota the next summer.  I was less than thrilled at this thought.  I'm not really into driving long distances and it's at least a 15 hour trip.  Leroy made it by himself once in 13 hours but that was driving straight through with only two potty breaks.  (Leroy used to be in the Marines.  I'm guessing that bladder control is somehow taught in basic training.)  With myself and three women in the van there was no hope of coming close to making it in 13 hours.  After weeks of cajoling (whining) though, I grudgingly relented.

We planned the trip for the third week in August so we could go to the Minnesota state fair.  It turns out the Minnesota state fair is the second largest state fair in the country, but more on that later.  We kept going back and forth as to whether we were going to split the ride out into two days or just one right up until the day before we left.  We finally decided on one day (oi) because Leroy had all sorts of things for us to do and we wanted to get there as soon as possible.

The ride out was fairly uneventful.  The girls watched movies pretty much all the way out.  I hook the sound in through the van's sound system so JoAnn and I can listen to the movies too.  Even though JoAnn and I can't actually see the movies just listening to them is fairly enjoyable, and if there is something we don't understand we just ask the girls what exactly is going on and they give us a play by play of the action.  You'd be surprised at how much quicker it makes the trip seem just by listening to movies.  And you'd be surprised how many romantic comedies one can play on a trip to Minnesota.

We stopped for lunch near Sandusky, OH at a restaurant called Fazoli's.  It's a fast food Italian restaurant that used to have a franchise near our home.  It was one of our favorite places to go.  A few years ago, however, the one near us closed.  That made the one in Erie, PA the closest one to us which was an hour away.  We went there a couple of times and then that one closed and we were all traumatized.  We saw this one near Sandusky, OH when we were on the Jazz Band trip earlier this year.  As we rode by on the bus one of us saw the Fazoli's sign and yelled "Fazoli's!!". My entire family immediately plastered our faces up against the bus's window and longingly gazed at the restaurant we once loved so much and made a vow that we indeed would one day be back.  This now was that day.

As we walked in, that familiar smell greeted our noses and we all just smiled.  You may not understand it if you've never been to a Fazoli's, but they have the best bread sticks in the world.  And they keep giving you as many as you want.  They're all hot and squishy and buttery and garlicky................. sorry, I drifted off.  Anyway, by the time we were done we could barely stand up let alone walk, but that didn't stop us from bringing along a few "leftover" bread sticks for the rest of the trip.

The biggest problem I had with the trip out was the tolls and Chicago.  I could not believe how many tolls I had to pay.  By the time we got to Leroy's we had paid over $40 in tolls.  I paid tolls for things I didn't even realize were toll things.  "Thank you for using that bridge you just crossed, that'll be $5."  "Thank you for driving on this short four mile stretch of highway, that'll be $3.80."  It was ridiculous.  And my apologies to anyone from Chicago that may be reading this but driving through there was just crazy.  Have you ever seen those Grand Prix races where they close off part of a city and then have a race through the city streets?  Well it was pretty much like that except that there were hundreds of cars all going like 70 miles an hour through Chicago.  That was probably the most scared I've ever been driving. People were just flying by, switching lanes and just plain scaring the crap out of me.  I was never so happy to get on the other side of a city as I was after we got through there.

The whole way out the girls kept sending texts to Andy to let them know of our whereabouts.  We'd tell them where we were and they would say about how long it would take to get there.  By the time we got to Leroy's it was going on 1 am. After all was said and done it had taken around 16 hours to get there.

Leroy had tons of stuff planned for us to do while we there, much of which was based around eating, which was perfectly fine with us. He had each day mapped out as to which restaurants we were going to.  It was great.  This one day we went to a Japanese buffet for lunch and then a pizza buffet for supper.  To say we got a little full on that day would be a bit of an understatement.  I recall a lot of moaning on the ride back to the house that night and statements such as, "I'm never going to eat again!"

Leroy works in the jail in Minneapolis.  He took us there one day for a tour.  If I ever had any thoughts of thinking that it might be interesting to be in jail for a little while just to see what it was like, they were quickly dispelled by the time we were done.  Trust me, you do not want to be in jail.  I don't care if you do get three square meals a day.  It did not look fun at all.  And, there's not many of us out there that can pull off wearing an orange jumpsuit.

We were toured all over St. Paul and Minneapolis while we were there.  One interesting thing we got to see was the first gun fired at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.  It was from the ship the USS Ward and was manned by a group of Minnesota reservists.  Leroy's wife Rose's uncle served on that ship and his name is on the plaque with the gun.

We of course had to visit the Mall of America.  My wife and daughters made it quite clear we weren't going home without seeing the largest mall in the US.  I have to admit I was kind of curious to see it myself.  It's pretty big, but it didn't seem as big as I thought it would be.  I mean it's got an amusement park right in the middle of it but it really wasn't that hard to get around in.  It's set up like a big doughnut with all the stores around the outside and the amusement park in the middle.  It's four floors high in some parts and three floors high in all of it.  I thought it would be this long expansive kind of thing but it's relatively compact because it has so many floors. One of the interesting things about the mall is that the same exact store could be on more than one level.  We saw more than one location for quite a few stores.  It seemed a little odd at first but the more I thought about it it kind of made sense.  More stores more opportunities to get customers and you save them from having to wander all over the place to find your one store.

One day we spent at the Minnesota state fair.  As far as attendance goes it's the second largest state fair in the US (Texas is first but it runs longer).  Let me tell you, that did seem big.  We went on opening day (which was a Thursday) and the attendance for that day was almost 107,000.  Now that seemed like a lot of people but a few days later they set a new one day record with an attendance of 236,197!  I have no idea how they fit in twice as many people as the day we were there.  I thought it was crowded on our day.

The nice thing about the fair was that it fit into the theme of our trip quite nicely.  The theme for our trip of course being food.  You have never seen so many places to eat in your life.  One of the jokes about the fair is that you can get almost anything on a stick.  I can't even really come close to making you realize how many places to eat there were. Now Leroy and his family have been coming to the fair for years and they kind of had a food routine already figured out.  Thank goodness because if we had had to figure it all out by ourselves we would probably still be there.  Let's see, there were the miniature doughnuts, the cheese curds, the rice and meat burger, the Nitro ice cream, some alligator, fried pickles, a malt, a bucket of chocolate chip cookies, a root beer float, some super hot jerky that made me cry a little, pizza on a stick, taffy, free milk and I'm sure other things that I just can't remember.

A princess is chosen for the fair and from what I gather it's quite the big deal.  The official name of the princess is Princess Kay of the Milky Way.  Yes you read that correctly.  I read something about the whole princess thing and the history of it but to be honest I still don't understand what the name has to do with anything.  I was probably so tired from walking and full from eating that my brain couldn't comprehend it.  Oh, and to honor the current princess they carve a bust of her...... out of butter.  Yup, butter.  I actually saw it myself.  It was on a pedestal that twirled around inside this big glass enclosed refrigerator.  Traditions can be kind of curious if you didn't grow up with them.

One day, and as far as Meagan was concerned, the whole point of the trip, we went to Walnut Grove, MN.  I'm sure a lot of you remember that Walnut Grove was where the TV show "Little House on the Prairie" took place and where Laura Ingalls Wilder actually lived for a while.  When Meagan first mentioned going there I thought that it would be a nice little side trip for one day.  I didn't know exactly where it was, just that it was somewhere near St. Paul.  It was only after we got to Leroy's and started looking at maps that we discovered it was about three hours away!  I'm sure the look on my face and the tone of my voice when I shrieked "THREE HOURS!!" made it seem like the trip wouldn't happen but I knew how much it meant to Meagan, so off to Walnut Grove we went.

On the way there, once we got past Minneapolis, things got very rural.  And I mean VERY rural.  There were times when I couldn't see any houses at all.  You could look out your window and see nothing but acres and acres of corn and soybeans.  Every once in a while you'd see a little dirt road go off into the corn and then just disappear into it. There were just thousands of acres covered with corn and soybeans.  

Once we finally got to Walnut Grove we of course did all of the touristy things.  We went to the museum, toured around town, ate at Nellie's cafe and went out to the site of the Ingalls' home on the banks of Plum Creek.  The site is located on some private individual's farm (the Gordon's) but they allow people to go in and see it for a small fee.  It was really quite interesting and Meagan was about as happy as I've ever seen her.

We also stopped at an antique/junk store for the fun of it.  We love those kind of places and thought it might be fun to get something from Walnut Grove.  We got a couple of small things, but Meagan, of course, couldn't be happy with just a couple of small things.  No, she went and fell in love with a hutch.  I explained to her that there was no way we could fit a whole hutch in the van with six people.  It just wouldn't fit. She grudgingly agreed.  But that didn't stop her from thinking about it.

We had planned on stopping in Pepin Wisconsin on the way home.  Pepin is the birthplace of Laura Ingalls Wilder.  It was a little out of the way and it would make it tough to get back home in one day but we knew how much Meagan wanted to see it.  The day before we left Leroy's Meagan says that she's been thinking about that hutch in Walnut Grove and wondered if there was any chance we could fit it in the van for the trip home.  I believe I looked at her as if she had a cucumber growing out of her head.  "Are you nuts!", I said very calmly, "even if we were able to fit it in the van Walnut Grove is three hours away in the opposite direction of home!  That means we would have at least six hours of driving added to our trip home!  There's no way we would make it home in one day!  And that means we would have to spend extra money on a hotel for a night!  NOOOO!!"

Well, to make a long story short, after a lot of sad puppy dog faces and pleading, I, of course, gave in.  When we pulled up to the store in Walnut Grove (after three hours of driving) much to my horror the sign out front of the store said "Closed".  To say I flipped out a little would be a gross understatement.  I was on the verge of a panic attack when I noticed that there was a car near the store.  I thought that maybe the owner or an employee had stopped in to do a little something and that maybe even though they weren't open we could somehow still get the hutch.  I went to the door, expecting to have to bang on it to get someone's attention, but it was open.  I went in and found someone behind the counter and asked if they were open because the sign out front said they were closed.  She said they were indeed open and that she must have forgotten to change the sign out front.  I tell ya, if I hadn't have been so happy and relieved I probably would have strangled her.  I'm getting older, my heart can't take this kind of stuff anymore.

Anyway, Meagan pays for the hutch, we take it apart and somehow squeeze it into the van with all of our luggage and stuff.  I'm happily amazed that we actually get it to fit.  Now, finally, we're off to Pepin WI.

Pepin was nice but not quite as "Laura Ingalls Wilder-fied" as Walnut Grove was.  We visited the site of the Ingalls place a little ways out of town.  They have a little log house there to represent where the real house was.  It was fun.  I grabbed some dirt from a cornfield nearby and threw it in a to-go carrier we had left in the car so Meagan could always have a little bit of Laura's birthplace.  (Don't tell the farmer who owns the corn field.)

Because we had a couple of little side trips we, of course, weren't going to make it home in one day which meant we were going to have to stay over one night in a hotel/motel.  We had tried getting into a Hampton Inn but it was all booked up.  We ended up in a Motel 6 that my family described as something out of an episode of CSI.  There were a lot of motorcycles and semi trucks in the parking lot.  You weren't allowed to smoke in the rooms so there were all these people that went with the motorcycles and semi trucks standing outside of their rooms smoking and you kind of had to get by them to get to your room.  Yeah, it was a little unnerving.  I'm pretty sure Motel 6 would pass on using this particular location for a national commercial to promote themselves.  We were all quite sure that at some point in the night we were going to hear gunshots and then be surrounded by police.  God must have been feeling a little bad for me at this point though because we actually made it through the night without any incidents.

The next morning we hurriedly packed up and headed home.  Since we were in Wisconsin we thought it only proper to get some cheese so we stopped at a place along the highway that sold cheese and fireworks and other interesting things.  Chicago, of course, was a joy to get through again, although this time it wasn't because everyone was going 70 miles an hour it was because everyone was stopped.  We were going along and then just suddenly stopped.  We thought there must be an accident or something but we never saw anything.  It was apparently just traffic.  And this was a Sunday!  I can't imagine what it's like during rush hour.  What should have taken us 15 minutes or so ended up taking us over an hour.

The rest of the trip pretty much went off without a hitch.  There were, of course, more romantic comedies and even one apocalyptic type bad weather movie that was a little hard to follow without actually watching it.  All in all it was a great trip, although not something I need to do again right away (I'm getting older, remember).  Meagan, however, mentioned the other day that there was going to be a Little House on the Prairie reunion in Walnut Grove in the summer of 2014 that she would love to go to.  Um, is that a cucumber growing out of your head?

Joel

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Fazoli's!!!

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Grrrrrr

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Aaaaaaaah!!

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Help me not to have to pay so many tolls!!

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Where Leroy works.

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At the capitol.

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First gun fired at Pearl Harbor Dec. 7, 1941

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Those ants at the bottom are us.

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The amusement park in the mall.

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Funny, for some reason my wife barely gave me time to get a photo.

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Just some nice lady who let me take a photo of her gnawing on a turkey leg.

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Whoops, one ride too many.

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Leroy with a bucket of chocolate chip cookies.

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Mmmm, cookies.

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Meagan, Emily and Andy just happened to bump into Captain Jack Sparrow.

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Me and the root beer float.  Oh yeah. 

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See, I told ya.

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And this is why you shouldn't put pizza on a stick.

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The mantel is actually the one from the TV set.

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Hey, it's ma and pa Ingalls!

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The Gordon's

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Forget about being on the banks, Meagan is in Plum Creek.

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Nothing but corn and soybeans.

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The moment I nearly had a heart attack.

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Believe it or not there's actually a hutch in there.

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Ah yes, my darling children of the corn.

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Cue the scary music.

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Fancy cheese heads.

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The infamous hutch.

The first week in August found us once again at Kingdom Bound.  If you don't know what Kingdom Bound is, it's a kind of church revival meets Woodstock at an amusement park sort of a thing.  It takes place at Darien Lake Theme Park and Resort and has for the past 27 or so years.  We haven't been to all of them but we have been to quite a few.  I'd have to sit down with the Mrs. and figure it out for sure but I'm guessing we've been to at least 10 of them.  We actually have a friend who has been to every single one of them.

Kingdom Bound lasts about four days and makes for a great vacation for us.  One moment we can be listening to a great band or speaker the next we can be screaming our heads off on a roller coaster.  It's a lot of fun.  The first year I ever went we didn't even have children yet.  I helped chaperone a group of kids from our church and ended up in a tent in the "overflow" area.  "Overflow" means you're in a field with no water or facilities close by.  Yeah, that was fun.  (I probably don't have to say it but that last sentence should be read with a fair bit of sarcasm.)  Over the years I personally have slept in various RVs, pop-up campers and one year I even ended up in someone's van.  The past three or four years we've just gone as a family and not as chaperones and we've rented an RV.  It's kind of expensive but it's great having a whole RV to ourselves.  We bring along all our own food and make our own meals which helps on the monetary side of things.  The best thing about having our own RV though is the air conditioning.  I'm not a huge air conditioning kind of guy but when you've been walking around outside for hours in August it's nice to be able to go back to the RV and get cooled off and have something to eat.

Our first night there this year, it was going on midnight and we were getting ready to hit the hay, when all of a sudden there was a knock at our door.  Now I don't know about you but I've been around long enough to know that whenever it's almost midnight and the phone rings or there's a knock on the door it's usually not a good thing.  I, being the leader of the family, thought that it might be best to have the children open the door.  That way in case it was something really bad I could leap out of a window and go get help.  However, after a bit of thought I realized that might not be the best course of action for future family harmony.  I reluctantly shuffled slowly towards the door. When I opened the door I was greeted by two young teenagers who promptly asked me if I had anything to trade for a package of peanut butter filled cheddar crackers.

To say that I was a bit confused would be a bit of an understatement.  It was late, I was tired and the old noggin' just wasn't processing this situation.  I think I asked them again what it was they wanted and they once again asked if I had anything to trade for a package of peanut butter filled cheddar crackers.  I'm not sure how long it was that I just stood there looking at them trying to figure out what exactly was going on but it seemed like a very long time.  My family asked what it was they wanted and I said, " they want to know if we have anything to trade for a package of peanut butter filled cheddar crackers."  The confused look on my family's faces told me that it wasn't just me who didn't get it. Suddenly my years of chaperoning teens came back to me and I realized that they were playing some sort of scavenger hunt trading kind of a game.  I told my family what I thought was going on and we eventually grabbed a package of Ho-Hos and made the trade for the package of peanut butter filled cheddar crackers.

Night two.

It was going on midnight and we were all tired from the day and were starting to get ready for bed.  Suddenly there was a knock on the door.  "You've got to be kidding", I thought to myself, "not more peanut butter filled cheddar crackers."  I went to the door and opened it. Standing in front of me were two different teens.  These teens, however, did not ask if I had anything to trade for a package of peanut butter filled cheddar crackers, no, they asked if I had anything to trade for a watermelon.  "A watermelon!", I thought, "wow, that's quite a step up from a package of peanut butter filled cheddar crackers."  My family hurriedly searched around the RV looking for something worthy of trading for a whole watermelon.  We finally settled on a bag of apples and the teens went on their merry way.  I was actually kind of happy with the trade.  I could just imagine coming back for a meal after being out in the sun and having a nice piece of watermelon.  That thought was short lived.

The next morning I awoke only to find that my daughters had taken a Sharpie and drawn a face on the watermelon and named it Cedric. Guess what?  I found out that once a watermelon has a face and a name you are no longer allowed to eat it.  "It would be like eating one of the family!"  Sigh.  Thankfully that was the end of our late night teen visits.

One of the highlights of this year's Kingdom Bound was our trip to the Anchor Bar.  For those that don't know, the Anchor Bar is the birthplace of Buffalo Wings.  (Around here we just refer to them as "wings".)  The original Anchor Bar is actually located in Buffalo which is around a half an hour or so from Darien Lake.  This year they opened a second location right in the Darien Lake theme park.  Our youngest, Emily, was especially interested in this turn of events. She really likes wings (okay, we all do.... a lot) so much in fact that a couple of years ago about the only thing she wanted for her birthday was a chicken wing hat.  

You may have seen Green Bay Packer fans wearing hats in the shape of cheese, well this is a hat somewhat like those but it's in the shape of a chicken wing.  I looked all over the place for one and the only place I could find it was at the Anchor Bar online store.  So after spending a more than desired amount of money on a large piece of foam rubber in the shape of a chicken wing, Emily had her hat.  From that point on one of her goals in life was to go to the Anchor Bar and eat some wings while wearing her chicken wing hat.  When we found out they had opened a restaurant in Darien Lake, well, that was it, we were going.  So, one of the days we were there we all marched off to the Anchor Bar with Emily proudly wearing her chicken wing hat.

You get a lot of interesting looks when you walk around with a large chicken wing on your head.  Emily didn't care though, this was destiny.  We got our wings and Emily happily gnawed away while wearing her chicken wing hat.  One bucket list item checked off. 

All day long there are different concerts and speakers to go and listen to and each night there is the one big concert that wraps up the day's events.  The last big concert takes place on Wednesday night.  The band that was wrapping up the festival this year was a group called "Need to Breathe".  Sometime Tuesday we started hearing something about the concert Wednesday night but couldn't find out exactly what was going on.  We finally heard at another concert that the lead singer for Need to Breathe had been hurt in a car accident on Monday and had gotten banged up pretty bad.  So much in fact that they weren't going to be able to do the final concert Wednesday night.  Now I'm not sure exactly how they did this but as a replacement for Need to Breathe the organizers were able to replace them with Mercy Me.

If you're not into Contemporary Christian music you may not know who Mercy Me is but there's a pretty good chance you've heard one of their songs.  Their two most popular songs are probably "I Can Only Imagine" and "So Long Self". Mercy Me has been at Kingdom Bound before but they weren't scheduled to be there this year.  In fact, from what I understand, they were on hiatus (vacation) and weren't touring at all at that time.  The organizers of Kingdom Bound apparently called Mercy Me on Tuesday morning, after they found out about the accident of Need to Breathe, and asked if there was any way that Mercy Me could do the final concert on Wednesday night.

Now unless you've been in a band you may not understand exactly what this means.  This isn't like the local watering hole down the block giving you a call and saying the band they had scheduled for tomorrow night just cancelled and could you fill in.  This is a big time act that has played all over the world and they're about 12 hours away and they're on vacation.  It's sort of like giving Bon Jovi a call and seeing if there's any chance they could pop in tomorrow night and put on a show.  It just doesn't happen.  Once you start dealing with contracts and lawyers and logistics it's pretty much an impossibility.  But, they somehow did it.

Mercy Me jumped on a bus Tuesday night around midnight drove all night from somewhere in the Carolinas (I think that's where they were) and got to Kingdom Bound sometime Wednesday afternoon for the Wednesday night concert. Since they weren't touring at the time they had to make up a song list on the bus on the way up and they also didn't have a "show" with them.  They just had their instruments and voices.  No computers, no choreography, no light show, just a group of guys playing music.  And it was awesome!  We really like Mercy Me and were thrilled we got to see them.  I'm pretty sure you'd have a hard time finding another big time band out there that would have made the effort that these guys did.

On the way home we stopped in at Vidlers, an old fashioned 5 and 10 cent store in East Aurora NY.  We've stopped there the past three or four years on the way home.  It's a fun place with all sorts of stuff.  From old time games and candy to housewares and just about anything else you can think of.  This video kind of sums up the place.

And so another successful Kingdom Bound is in the books.  From peanut butter filled cheddar crackers to an unexpected concert it was a great time.  Who knows what interesting happenings 2014 will bring.

Joel

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Home sweet temporary home.

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Meet Cedric.

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Emily isn't exactly a morning person.

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Waiting for Emily's favorite ride.

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At Mercy Me concert.

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"I have no friends!" stated Kelly in a less than calm voice. "Can I come in?!"

"Uh, sure,"  stated Derek.

Now this little college dorm drama may not seem all that unusual until you realize that this was the first time Kelly and Derek had met. She must have made quite an impression on him though, because here we are a few years later at the wedding of Kelly and Derek.

The wedding was held outdoors at the Geneva Country Club on Seneca Lake in the middle of the Finger Lakes.  It was really a beautiful location for a wedding.  The only problem was the weather wasn't completely cooperating.  It had stormed the night before with lots of rain and thunder and lightning.  The morning of the wedding didn't look too bad but the weather forecasters were being somewhat non-committal.  We weren't sure really what to expect.

The hotel where the girls were getting ready was just across the street from Seneca Lake and near some railroad tracks.  We planned on going out there to do some shots with the girls after they had gotten dressed, however, just before everyone was dressed the skies opened up.  And it rained.  And it poured.

Forget the pre-ceremony shots, I was getting concerned about what we were going to do about the ceremony.  The outdoor ceremony. The outdoor ceremony with no tent and no real back-up plan, as far as I knew, for foul weather.  Somehow Kelly seemed quite calm during this time, though.  She just kept saying, "aw, it'll clear up."  I'm glad someone thought so because I wasn't so sure.

So while everyone was finishing getting dressed, it rained.  And rained some more.  And literally, about five minutes before we were to leave for the ceremony it stopped.  It just stopped.  (I'm thinking Kelly may want to look into another career as a weather girl.)

When we arrived at the country club a few people were wiping down the chairs and all but for a couple of teeny drops during the ceremony the rest of the day was quite nice weather-wise.

The ceremony itself went off without a hitch.  The ring bearer and flower girl maximized their time in the limelight but they were fun.  Even the release of the doves went well.

After the ceremony we did a bunch of formals and then the wedding party walked down to the end of the parking lot where a fire truck awaited them.  Derek is a fireman in nearby Penn Yan and had one of their trucks brought up to do some photos with.  That was a new one for me and was a lot of fun.

Kelly and Derek's ceremony and reception had a wine theme.  All the table decorations had to do with wine and grapes, etc.  It was really done nicely.  They also had this incredible "candy bar".  I never knew there were so many different kinds of orange candy.  Everyone was encouraged to take a bag and fill it up with their favorite treats.

There were a few anxious moments, but in the end it turned out to be a beautiful day all the way around.

Following are a few (okay, quite a few) shots from the day.

Joel

I always have all of these lofty goals for summer and pretty much like every other summer this one has slipped past with my "to do list" barely having a check mark on it.  It's not that I didn't have goals (like keeping up with this blog) but this summer just seems to have gotten away from me, more so than any summer in recent memory.  I'm pretty much behind a couple of months on just about everything. So, as we approach Autumn I begin my quest to catch up on Summer (bearing in mind of course it is football season). 

July found us once again at the Chautauqua County fair in Dunkirk, NY.  We really like the fair.  It's not too big, not too small.  As Goldilocks would say "it's juuuust right."  You can spend the day there and pretty much see and do everything.  We kind of have a set routine so we can make sure and do everything we want: check out the animal barns, ride a couple of rides, play some "I Got It", look at the craft barn (where Meagan had a display set up for our church's after school program that she runs), go to the museum, some more rides and "I Got It", eat supper, go to the grandstand event, look in the vendor barn, some more rides and "I Got It" and then a funnel cake on the way out.  Oops, I forgot the train.  The girls and I like the train, JoAnn, eh, not so much ("I've seen it every year for the past 15 years, it's the same train!").

The grandstand show this year, on the night we were there, were these guys on motorcycles going over this huge ramp.  These guys were nuts.  In my most daring and knuckle headed teenage years I wouldn't have even come close to doing what these guys were doing.  At times they had to be at least 30 or 40 feet off the ground and then they would do some stunt like letting go and hanging on to just the back of the seat only to jump back on just before they landed.  My question is, how do you get good at something like that?  I'm guessing the first few times you try that you're probably unsuccessful, which means you're dropping out of the sky without a motorcycle  underneath you or a parachute on your back.  I'm guessing it's hard to "try try again" when you're in traction laying in a hospital bed.

Supper found us at Campi's Pizza like it has for a number of years.  I swear, this pizza has the thickest crust I've ever seen.  It's like eating a whole loaf of bread in each piece.  They usually have four or five different pizzas out at any given time but it's a lot cheaper to buy a whole pie instead of individual pieces.  A whole pizza has eight slices and we would normally get just a cheese and pepperoni one because we can all agree upon it.  A few years ago though, I had an idea.  Wouldn't it be nice to get a whole pizza made up of slices that each of us chose.  I figured what the heck and asked the guy if we could each choose two pieces from the pizzas they had out to make up a whole pie.  He thought about it for a second and said "sure".  So for the past few years we each get to pick out which slices we want and make up our very own frankenpizza.  We can only ever eat half of it though so I always take the rest out to the car and we have leftovers later in the week at home.

When it came to "I Got It", yours truly was the only one who won a game this year.  I will admit though, last year JoAnn and the girls each won at least one game and I was shut out.  My jubilation this year was soon cut short though when it came time to choose my prize.

If you don't know what "I Got It" is, it's just a game where you throw these little balls on a grid and try to get tic tac toe.  If you win by yourself you get to pick a prize from these shelves in the middle of the tent.  Here's where my trouble started.  I couldn't find anything I really wanted.  Now you may be thinking to yourself, "oh brother, it's just a dopey old fair game, pick a prize and move on with your life."  And you would be correct in that thought.  However, on this night that would not be the case.  I wanted to pick a prize that I really liked and could use and would be representative of my great victory.  I casually walked around the prizes a couple of times trying to get an idea of what all there was to choose from.  Then I walked around a couple of more times.  My family tried to help with suggestions: "How about that T-shirt?" "No, I've got a hundred T-shirts."  "How about that little tool set?"  "No, I've got too many tools already."  "How about that huge frisbee with the Buffalo Sabres logo on it?"  "No, I don't need a huge frisbee."  This went on for a few minutes and a few more trips around the prize shelves when I suddenly realized my family was no longer making suggestions.  Actually they were no longer with me.  They were now standing outside of the tent talking to some friends of ours.  I thought this might be a good thing because they were at least doing something other than watching me walk around a bunch of prizes.  Hopefully this diversion would allow me the time to make a proper decision without the pressure of my family standing there and waiting for me.  I walked around the prizes again.... and again.... and again.  Surely I'm missing something.  There has to be something here that I've needed or wanted my entire life!  There has to be!!  It was getting bad.  Every few minutes the lady who gave out the prizes would ask me if I had made up my mind yet and inside my head I would scream, "NOOOOOOOO!!  IF I HAD I WOULD HAVE TOLD YOU!!!"  But I calmly said, "not yet" and kept on looking.  After a while  I looked up to check on my family and they were still standing outside of the tent except now they weren't speaking with anyone, they were just staring at me.  Cold, icy stares.

Now unless you are a man who has a wife and two daughters (aged 16 and 20) you may not appreciate the full dire-ness of this situation.  Three women waiting for you for something they don't think is a good reason to begin with.  Oh oh.  I'm toast.

I quickly picked up the pace of my futile search praying that God would somehow reveal something to me that I hadn't noticed on my first 20 trips around the prize shelves.  Nothing.  (God was apparently taking some time off on the ferris wheel.)  "That's it" I thought, "this is so stupid that God won't even help me."  And that's when I admitted defeat and stopped looking.  With somewhat shaky legs (I had been standing quite a while) I calmly walked down to where the prize lady was and made my selection.  No, I did not go with the T-shirt, the tool set or the huge frisbee with the Buffalo Sabres logo on it.  I did not go with the glass set, the camouflage printed baseball cap or the plastic food saver containers.  I of course went with...... wait for it ...... the souffle dish.  Yes you heard right, a souffle dish.

Now, this may seem a little odd on the surface but there was a bit of a reason for choosing a souffle dish.  My daughter Emily and I both like to cook and we're always watching cooking competition shows.  Around this time we had been watching The American Baking Competition with Jeff Foxworthy and in one of the episodes the competitors had to make a souffle.  Souffles are notorious for being difficult to make because they can fall so easily and the competitors were having a dickens of a time getting them to turn out right.  Neither Emily nor I have ever had a souffle much less tried to make one so we agreed that sometime we should try one and maybe even try and make one. And that my friends is why I ended up choosing a souffle dish for my "I Got It" prize.

The rest of the evening was fairly uneventful except for the fact that now wherever we went we were lugging around a five pound souffle dish.  The girls rode a ride or two too many and didn't feel all that great by the time we left.  We still did get our traditional funnel cake on the way out however (half cinnamon half powdered sugar of course, we couldn't possibly choose just one).

All in all it was a fun day and I'm sure we'll be back next year to do it all again..... except for maybe the souffle dish.

Joel

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All four of us in the family have been on every one of these trips except for one a couple of years ago that Meagan wasn't able to make.  We treat these trips as mini family vacations.  We've had the opportunity to visit some great places like Toronto, Philadelphia, Washington DC, New Orleans, Chicago and Disney World.

John Cross, the band's director, does a great job in planning everything out.  He always tries to make it interesting for everyone.  The kids of course get to play music in some reallly cool venues (like the steps of the Lincoln Memorial or the riverboat Natchez in New Orleans) but he also usually has some historical part of the trip as well as time at an amusement park.

This year's trip found the kids playing at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.  If you're into music at all and have never been to the Rock and Roll HOF you should really try and get there sometime.  It's really cool.

The trip began on a Friday morning as we left Cassadaga Valley Central School and arrived a few hours later at our first destination; the Kalahari Resort in Sandusky OH.  You kind of have to see this place to believe it.  It has this HUGE indoor waterpark that we all had the run of for the evening.  I didn't take any photos there because I didn't want to get arrested for being some kind of creeper who was walking around taking photos of people in their swimming suits.  You can check out their website if you want to see some photos of the place.

The next day we were to spend at Cedar Point amusement park.  It was actually opening day for the park and we didn't know for sure if that meant there would be a whole lot of people there or not many considering school was still going on and it wasn't all that warm out yet.  We kind of got a hint the night before when I noticed a newspaper that talked about a brand new $30 million roller coaster that would be opening the next day at Cedar Point called the GateKeeper.  I later found out that this meant there were going to be roller coaster aficionados from all over the world there on opening day.

Uh oh.

We got to the park before it actually opened and someow managed to get in the gates before we were supposed to (Mr. Cross is really good at things like that).  We thought we would go to the new roller coaster first because we figured that once the gates were open there would be this huge line we would have to stand in.  As we were walking we realized we were passing all these people that were just standing there.  My curiosity finally got the best of me and I asked somone what they were doing.  They said they were waiting in line for the new roller coaster.

Uh oh again.

Now you may think you've seen a long line before, but trust me, you haven't seen one like this.  This line was of biblical proportions.  It wound around other rides.  It went around buildings.  You couldn't even see the entrance to the new roller coaster from the end of this line.  If you ever wondered what the Israelites looked like high tailing it out of Egypt, well, minus the livestock, I'm guessing this is what it looked like.

Now what?  Do we stand in line for what we know is going to be a really long time or do we just say "forget it" and enjoy the rest of the park.  You see, part of the problem was, the new roller coaster had actually been running this whole time.  People weren't waiting in line waiting for the ride to open, it already was open!  We kind of just stood there for a moment with our mouths slightly open and our eyes starting to glaze over at the thought of standing in this supposedly moving line.  We finally came to the conclusion that we would probably never have the opportunity to ride a $30 million roller coaster on it's opening day again, so, in the line we went.  And stood.....and shuffled.....and stood.....and shuffled.  Literally one hour later we made it to the ENTRANCE of the coaster.

I must admit, there was a bit of jubilation and a small sense of euphoria as we entered the gate of the coaster.  That, however, was short lived.

If you've ever ridden a large ride at an amusement park you know how they herd you into these cattle fences that wind back and forth.  Well let me tell you, these cattle fences were like nothing you've ever seen before.  They had to have been designed by some psychopathic sadist that I am quite sure if his name ever came out to the public he would immediately be drawn and quartered and then burned at the stake just for good measure.  We went back and forth and back and forth for, and I am not exaggerating, TWO HOURS!  It was like we were starring in another Saw movie.  This was psychological torture like none I had ever experienced before.  Some people couldn't take it.  Every now and then you'd see someone take off and start climbing over the fences trying to get out.  I'm still surprised that someone didn't lose their cool and go nuts and just start beating on someone.

Anyway, so after three hours of standing in line it was finally our turn.  And guess what?  Yeah, IT WAS AWESOME!!  Probably the best coaster I've ever ridden on.  It was so smooth that it felt like I was flying.  It was so good in fact that after it was done we all considered, albeit only for a few seconds, riding it again.

The rest of the day was pretty much your normal day at the amusement park; lots of walking, lots of rides, lots of food that if you ate it everyday you'd weigh 500 pounds, souvenir shopping, being threatened with bodily harm by your wife because you made her go on a certain ride.  You know, normal stuff.  And to top it all off, as we were getting ready to leave and head out to the bus, it of course started to rain.  And I don't mean a little sprinkle.  Noah would have been a little impressed.  It didn't really matter if you ran or not, you were going to get soaked no matter what.  And we did (get soaked).  Oh well, all in all it was a good day.

Our last day found us at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  Like I said before, if you like music at all you should really try and get there some time.  Also, if you're into architecture at all this is a really neat place.

We got to tour the place first and then after a while it was time to set the band up.  The kids got to play for around 45 minutes and had a great time.  When they were done we packed everything up and headed for home stopping for a short time at the Golden Corral buffet in Erie, PA where we all waddled out with food babies* (*food baby - when you've eaten way too much and you feel like you're nine months pregnant).

We really enjoy these trips but are a little saddened as next year will be our last one because Emily is a senior.  (These darn kids, no matter what you do they just go ahead and grow up.)

Following are some photos from the trip.  I also threw in a video of the kids playing one of their songs at the Rock and Roll HOF.  Emily even has a little solo in it.

                                                                                       My view.

The parade isn't really all that long, but that's okay.  Everyone enjoys it, especially the kids.  We all follow it up to Evergreen Cemetery where it ends and then go into the cemetery for the memorial service.  It's really peaceful when you get back in the cemetery.  There are trees everywhere (hence the name) and in most spots you can't even see the sky.  We always gather at the same spot near the soldier monument.

The soldier monument actually has quite an interesting story that goes with it.  It was erected in 1891 "in memory of the defenders of their country."  It was cast in bronze and placed on a pedestal that is about eight feet tall.  One July day in 1966 someone discovered the statue was gone.  Sometime in the night someone had managed to get the statue down off the pedestal and stole it.  The statue was never seen again and those who took it were never caught.

A few years ago some folks decided the statue should be replaced and set about to do just that.  The cost was significant but after years of fundraising their goal was realized and in 2012 the soldier statue was back on his pedestal, hopefully for a very long time this time.

The main speaker for the memorial service was USMC Major David Grabow, a local product who has served in the Middle East.  He spoke of his time there and about those who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.  Major Grabow is an excellent speaker and he had a powerful and moving message.  His father was there also and you could see the pride he felt in his son.

Some from my family also participated in the service.  My youngest daughter Emily played taps and my wife JoAnn read the Gettysburg Address.  (She's the village of Sinclairville and Town of Charlotte historian and has done the address for the past couple of years.)

I've always liked Memorial Day.  Sure it's a day off of school or work and the unofficial start of summer, but it's really so much more than that.  It's a time to stop and reflect on those who have given so much for this country and us.  Never let us forget those who have made the ultimate sacrifice so that we can live free in this great country.

Here are some shots from the day.

(camera: Olympus E-PL1, lenses: Olympus 14-42mm 3.5-5.6 and 40-150mm 4.0-5.6)

For the past couple of years I've donated a free photo shoot to St. Susan Center in Jamestown, NY for their annual Basket Fair fundraiser.  The Basket Fair is usually held sometime in April and this year Lauren's mom Beth won the free photo shoot.  She thought it would be nice to use it to get some photos of Lauren to commemorate her senior year and to use for graduation announcements.

Lauren plays softball and we've had a very wet spring this year so a lot of her games had been postponed.  Now it was nearing the end of the school year and her team was playing practically every night trying to make up all of the postponed games, which made it a little difficult to fit in a photo shoot.  We finally found a Saturday evening in mid May when we could finally get our schedules to cooperate and off to Chautauqua Institution we went.

Lauren has a great smile that just sems to always be there.  It's so great in fact that it wasn't until I was doing the post processing on her photos that I realized I hadn't done any serious shots of her.  Ooops.

Lauren also has this uncanny ability to change clothes in the back seat of a car faster than anyone I've ever known.  She can seemingly get in one side of the car and then immediately get out of the other side with a completely different outfit on.  It was amazing.  It was like something you'd see at a magic show in Las Vegas.

One time after an outfit change I noticed what I thought was part of a birthmark on her left thigh but didn't really think much of it.  Later during some shooting her mom suggested Lauren turn the other way because you could see part of this huge black and blue mark on her left thigh where she had been hit by a softball.  Upon further inspection her birthmark was indeed a doozy of a black and blue mark that looked like it was made by a bowling ball instead of a softball.

I had a great time working with Lauren and her mom.  It took a while to get there but we finally made it and I think her photos look great.  Congratulations Lauren on your graduation; great things await you!

(camera: Canon 7D, lens: Canon EFS 17-55mm 2.8 IS)

Me writing

Well, here it is, my first blog post ever.  Yup, my very very first blog post ever.......... (cue the crickets).

Okay, okay, actually my wife JoAnn is the writer of the family.  She's really good at it.  You can ask her to write about some subject and in a few minutes she'll have something for you.  Me?  Yeah, check back with me in three days and maybe I'll have the opening sentence for you........  Maybe.

It's not that I can't write (although some may argue this point) it's just that when I start I'll just sit there in this blank faced stupor trying to think of something (refer to photo) and then when something actually comes to mind I'll get a hundred ideas all at once and then I get frustrated because I can't get them all written down before I forget half of them resulting in me sitting there in a blank faced stupor waiting for the next hundred ideas to show up.... all at once.

I tell ya, it can get viscious inside this head.

Alright, alright, enough of this self pity.  Let's move on.

My goal for this blog, as it says up top (which by the way took me two and a half weeks to write!  Whoops, sorry, I digress) is to share recent projects I'm working on and just stuff about life.  I'm going to try and submit things regularly to the blog (because hey, who doesn't like to be regular) but we'll just have to see how it goes.  Since I'm starting this whole thing in June of 2013 I'll probably do some back tracking to the beginning of 2013 and who knows, maybe some fun things from even farther back.

I'd love to hear from you and get your thoughts on my work, the blog or whatever.  If you have any technical questions or just want to talk about life or family I'd be up for that too.  I'm not really sure where all of this will go but I'm going to give it a shot and see what happens.  I invite you to come along.

Thanks, Joel