Jared & Gina Craig

When you start out in photography, a lot of your clients are your friends, or your friends' friends, or family of your friends or your friend's mother's sister's uncle's cousin - twice removed. We've been so blessed by our friend's support throughout the last two years as they have been the driving force for us in gaining more experience in event photography. This was the case with Jared & Gina. Jared's oldest brother, Jason, was the best man in our wedding.

Jared and Gina's wedding day wasn't the first time we met or spent any time together. I worked with Jared one summer at a Young Life camp in Virginia and had occasionally run into him throughout the years being friends with Jason. One night back in early 2009, Lauren and I met up with Jason and his wife, Emily, to go to a concert at the Chameleon Club in Lancaster to benefit LOVE146. We were excited because we met up with Jared and his girlfriend (at the time) Gina. It was apparent to Lauren and I immediately that this was a very fun, easy-going, easy to talk to, and genuine couple. NEW FRIENDS!

So you can imagine the excitement when Jason's wife, Emily, approached me about convincing Gina to book us for their wedding! Emily must have done some serious twisting because it didn't take long before I received an email from Gina to confirm their wedding day!

Jared and Gina married in Westminster, MD on a very mild January afternoon, topped off by a blue cloudless sky and a beautiful brick campus and chapel. The church was breathtaking. While we didn't have a ton of time to spend on pictures, Jared, Gina, and their wedding party and family were troopers as we moved all over the church grounds to snap as many shots we could before the sun went down and the reception beckoned.

Something I've learned about shooting weddings is the necessity to be adaptable to your surroundings and your circumstances. We didn't have the luxury of time for Jared and Gina's wedding day, but we certainly had beautiful surroundings which made it a lot easier to snap the photos we needed to in the time we had.

Thank you to Jared and Gina and their families for their wonderful hospitality and kindness (and pateince!). Here are just some of our favorites from the wedding day as we are still working on editing, we wanted to give you all a sneak peak.

This was a first wedding in a number of ways for us: First wedding of 2010 and the first wedding with my new Canon 50D. I will have a review to write about the camera in the coming months as I will be spending a lot more time with it as the wedding season takes off.

Enjoy!

Sam Smith & the Blizzard

Sam

I consider myself a dog person. It's not that I have anything against cats, I grew up with 2. I just happen to prefer dogs as they tend to not make you feel like you need permission to pet them...or look at them...or be privileged to be in the same room as them. The cats I grew up with were outdoor cats and to me, that's the cat detail that seperates normal people from cat people - indoor vs. outdoor. I never considered myself a cat person. When you have an outdoor cat, you just coexist with them. You don't really have time for them and they don't really want time with you...unless it's time to eat. So anyways, you can probably guess my reaction when my phone rang at Lowe's picking up supplies for the Kitchen remodel (update to come), and it was Lauren telling me she was on her way home with the newest resident of 965 Green Terrace - a 3 month old gray tabby kitten.

Well it's been about 3 weeks now, and while I maintain my theory about cats, this specific little guy has won a place of favor with me. (oh, and if you're wondering how we came up with the name Sam, I suggested it in jest while pulling a Sam Adams out of the refrigerator But let me tell you, for whatever it's worth, he looks like a Sam.) Despite the first week of waking up at 3:30 am to a cat shoving it's butt in my face every night, we are slowly learning how to be roommates to a rambunctious little kitten who can go from 0-60 and back in 3 seconds.

He's quirky. He's a goober. He's a mama's boy. He's Sam. and he's allowed to live here rent free until he starts tossing up hair balls and scratching the finish off all our furniture. Enjoy the pictures below. (Lauren just asked me what I'm writing about Sam and asked if Sam would approve of what I'm writing. ha.)

the Blizzard

In other news, we recently had a snow storm in Lancaster, the likes of which I have not seen here since I was in at least middle school. I always find it funny watching folks get all worked up about a little snow around here. Just a little ice, people, let's calm down and back away from the kerosene lamps, bread, milk, microwaveable lasagna dinners, and the red box. It's one day, maybe two. Enjoy the great indoors, grab a board game, turn off the computer, and rediscover the human faces you live with.

I tried to introduce Sam to the snow but as soon as he caught a glimps of our neighbor's labradoodle it was airborne chaos. Sam leaped for the patio from 5 feet up and landed in the snow on his back. A little shaken he jumped up and started hissing at me as if I was the one who threw him on the ground and subjected him to such a tragic situation. Sorry Sam, but you subjected yourself to the drama, I just introduced you to it. He's fine now, but I'm pretty sure he's going to remain an indoor cat. Hence why when I woke up from a nap today I was told that I had just purchased a $75 indoor Cat tree.

Great

It's official. I'm a Cat person.

If you want to see pictures of me with Sam, just check out the photo album on Lauren's Facebook page.

The Art of Blogging

I have thought for some time now about the art of blogging. If you know me well, you probably know that I really don’t like talking about myself or talking myself up to people. It’s not something that comes naturally to me and in the end it probably works against me in my line of work. As an independent musician and photographer, I am my own marketing and advertising department and in order to be successful in business, I need to saturate the market with my brand (myself): meaning I have no choice but to actively be present in the social networks online, talking about myself and what I do.

One of the ways people do this is through consistent blogging. I have repeatedly made failed attempts in the past to blog consistently, failing every time for numerous reasons: busyness, lack of direction, nothing to say. I don’t consider myself to be someone full of wisdom or coherent thought, so maybe my lack of self confidence is to blame. Every time I sat down to write in the past I never felt like I had anything to say or write about. So instead of trying to think hard about something profound to say, I’ve decided to just blog about things and topics that I know something about and things and topics that I love. DUH.

If you know me well, you know that I like to take a planned and organized approach to things. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t. Regardless, I’m going to give it a go here.

Be on the lookout for an upcoming blog series on being a musician, singer/songwriter in the current economic and cultural climate from a business and artistic perspective. I’m throwing around the idea of putting together a blog series on the art of songwriting as well. If you think that’d be worth reading, let me know and I’ll give it some more serious thought.

For now, I’m finding beauty in the broken, and clarity through the eyes of God, simply by being still and listening.

New England Trip & Kitchen Remodel

New England Trip
Merry Christmas to everyone! It has been a whirlwind couple of weeks for us as we have been traveling up and down the northeast for the last couple of weeks. We have had a blast so far with the release of our new album, "Transition". Two weekends ago we were blessed by Tom and Patty Flaherty who opened up there home to us and all of their friends as they hosted the first of what we hope to be many more Living Room Concerts. They put on quite a warm evening of fellowship, food, and of course music. We set up shop in the corner of their living room and performed tunes off our new disc and shared the stories that inspired them. For the three of us, it was probably one of the most genuine of "concerts" to experience. (More on Living Room Concerts and our CD Release Party in the next blog). Thank you to Tom and Patty for your genuine hospitality and servant hearts.




Kitchen Remodel
The rest of this month has dealt us a series of exhausting days. In the spirit of being "economical" (synonymous with "cheap"), Lauren and I have undertaken the task of remodeling our kitchen on our own. With the help of some family and friends (Justin O'Brien pictured) we have successfully demolished what could be some of the most disgusting kitchen cabinets to ever grace Green Terrace. I have very little experience as a "handyman" but so far, the house is still standing and i fixed the plumbing under the sink without reading a manual. High fives all around! I like to live by the motto, "If someone else can do it...I can do it." Lauren now refers to me as the "Dandyman" (instead of "handyman")

In all honesty, this project is a referendum on my pride. Lauren comes from a father who fixes everything on a moment's notice with whatever object is laying around, and a brother who just passed his master's test as an electrician and dabbles in home improvement himself. Needless to say, I have a lot of ground to cover and a lot to prove to my new wife. She's very gracious, though, and reassures me that I have nothing to prove. Unfortunately, as previously stated, my pride has a lot to prove. :) It has been a fun process and we look forward to the final completion of the kitchen this week before mom & dad Brown visit for the holidays. That leaves me....holy crap! I've got a week?! This blog is over!

New Album Set for Release

As some of you might know, Lauren and I have been working in the studio over the last year with our good friend and fellow songwriter Nate Graham. The project began as a demo of 5 songs with Jabin Baxter (drums) and Jonathan Gascho (bass) and after our prospects for the demo fell through, we decided why not make melonade out of melons! So we turned a 5 song demo of songs just by Lauren and I, into a 12 song ep of original tunes written by Nate, Lauren, and myself.

What has been really authentic about these recordings is the live nature of all of the tunes. As you can see in the picture above, all of the acoustic tunes were performed live in the studio. It seems like everybody's trying to get that "nashville" sound these days, but for the three of us circled up in a small sound room, the big "nashville" production was the furthest thing from our minds.

We set out to make a disc that was true to who we are: three simple songwriters who love laughter and musing over melodies. It's a new approach for all of us, but it feels more real and appropriate to the music inside. That's why we've decided to call the new album "Transition". Check back for an exact release date set for late November.