She said "YES"

Most amazing weekend of my life!... and I'm engaged.

"love lights the world"

Nancy and Bob

I just finished the slideshow from Nancy and Bob's wedding.  It was a great day and a wonderful wedding.  The rain stopped for the perfect amount of time allowing for the portraits and the ceremony to be outdoors.  Thank you Nancy and Bob!!!  There are many more images but here are some of my favorites... enjoy the pictures!

Nancy and Bob Wedding Website

AFRICA

(To skip the writing and go straight to the pics: CLICK HERE FOR AFRICA SLIDESHOW)

Wow... almost two months since my last post. I am pretty horrible at this blog thing. Sorry about the blog delay but I think you are gonna like this one...

Christy and I had a pretty amazing time in Africa. We spent most of our time visiting and traveling with Christy's bro Dave (African name: Daudi Kimuli... pronounced Dow-Dee Chee-Moo-lee), and the rest of the time venturing out to Masai Mara, Northern Serengheti, in Kenya. I am so amazed by what I have experienced in Africa. Everything is so incredibly different... the people, the transportation, the food, culture, landscape, wildlife, daily routines, time, showering,... everything.

I really think we traveled in a way that allowed us to do as the African's do. "When in Rome"... right!... Well, while we were in Africa... we did as the Africans did. We ate "matoke" with our hands, we pooped in pits, stuffed 24 people into a 14 person "matatu" (taxi-bus), traveled by Boda-Boda (motorcycle), and best of all, spoke a little Lugandan and Swahili. Without Dave, I don't think we could have done this. He quickly showed us African culture, mannerisms, and many, many words of conversational Lugandan. With his daily lessons we were able to constantly greet, converse, and properly thank all of the people that we came into contact with. I quickly realized that speaking a native tribal language completely separated us from other "Mzungu"(white person). Whenever we tried speaking Luganda with a local, they were so blown away that they had to keep us in a conversation. Our Luganda quickly ran out, but that didn't matter- they were just happy that we took the time to try.

After a few days in Lukaya, we decided to bargain with the local "boda-boys" (motorcyle taxi drivers) to see if we could borrow two of their motorcyles for a week. We think they make around $5 a day driving around locals by Motorcylce, so for $10 a day for 7 days they were doing pretty well with our deal... Minus the risk of us crazy mzungu's wiping out or never bringing back their Boda Bodas. So without signing a single piece of paper, showing any license, or giving any credit card we took off on their bikes for an epic week of traveling Africa by Motorcycle. My guess is that we did about 300 - 400 miles on these bikes but there is really no way to tell, because we rode on unmapped dirt roads that would have challenged even the dirt bike I used to own. We arrived at national parks on the bikes at dusk (when hunting animals are their most active). We were charged by elephants, and almost blown off the dirt roads by trucks screaming by at insane speeds.

At the national parks we mostly camped out in our tent. It was like the guards of a zoo allowed us into the wildest cages of the biggest beasts and set up a tent... only we weren't at the zoo and the animals were all in the same cage... our camp site! Just to give an idea of the proximity of these animals... IN our tent, we had an elephant tusk. Reaching distance, we had baboons and other monkees. Within sight, we had warthogs. Within ear-shot, we had hippos. We even heard that their was a lion walking around our camp sight before we woke up. Our camp sight was only about ten tents big!

Well that is about all I have in me for writing... I put all of my story-telling effort into the pictures. Everyone always asks "how many did you take?"... I took about 2800 this trip and narrowed a slide show down to 200. My hope is to show you a little bit of African life, happy faces, wildlife, landscape, and our interaction. A majority of the wildlife pictures are taken in 1. Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda 2. Lake Mburo National Park, Uganda and 3. Masai Mara, Kenya. A majority of the people pictures are taken in Dave's town (Lukaya, Masaka) and at his children's center (Hope Destitute Children's Center). I'm sorry that the pictures are not in order... I'll get to that some day soon.

If you ever get a chance to travel to Africa... Go! The people are amazing!... It will change your life.

Enjoy the pictures!

CLICK HERE FOR AFRICA SLIDESHOW

REV3 Triathlon Assignment

By far the coolest photo assignment I have ever had!!!  This past weekend I was hired by Cannondale bikes to photograph the Revolution 3 Triathalon in Middlebury, CT.  The half Ironman (1.2mile swim, 56 mile bike, 13.1 mile run) had about 30 Professional athletes and almost a thousand amateurs.  I focused mainly on Mirinda Carfrae, Cannondale's pro rider, from brisbane, Australia.  She was up against a few Olympic triathletes and former Hawaii Ironman champs (Joanna Zeiger USA and Natascha Badmann SWI).  I knew she was an amazing triathlete but I never expected her to finish first!!!  What an amazing day!  

listen how crazy this weekend was.... I photographed for shore publishing on sat. from 930 to 1230, shot a wedding with Steve Depino (awesome photographer) from 2pm until midnight.  I got home around 1230am and spent the next hour clearing memory cards and recharging batteries.  I fell asleep in my chair around 130am and woke up at 330am for the tri shoot.  Arrived at 5am, The athletes came soon after to prepare and warm-up.  They hit the water for the swim at 7am.  I was cruising around in the back of a pick up truck following the bikers from about 830-10, and captured Miranda's finish at around 1130.  One of the best photography weekends I've had!

Check out the Cannondale website www.cannondale.com , two of my images of Mirinda are on the homepage!

I'll be shooting for Cannondale again tonight... they will be testing out a new bike at a local race.  I'll be photographing from the back of a motorcycle... wish me luck.

Iconic Madison Assignment

This past weekend I had an assignment from ELAN magazine.  A small local magazine that is part of Shore Publishing.  They sent me out to capture a few Iconic Madison shots... here are a few of the images I submitted.  I think they are using one of them for their cover image... Sweet!

Allison and Dave Wedding

Happy Memorial Day!

I had a wonderful weekend and It all started with a much anticipated wedding on Friday afternoon and night.  The wedding was amazing...it could not have been better!  Allison and Dave were so great to photograph, the weather was perfect, I had Tony Spinelli helping me out, and everyone was having a blast.  I've got hundreds of pictures that I can't wait to compile into a slideshow and into an album for Allison and Dave.  Here are just a few of the images:

Stay tuned for a wedding slideshow on the website.  I hope to have the wedding images and a slideshow on the website within a week or two.

BLOCK ISLAND PHOTOGRAPHY

Here are a few images from my trip out to Block Island.  I spent a few hours hanging my work up at the KORU ECO SPA and spent the rest of my time exploring and photographing the island.  Living the life of a landscape photographer for two days was pretty sweet....  Waking up before sunrise, hanging art work, napping on the beach during the bright hours, and then racing around capturing golden sunset light.... Not a bad lifestyle.

Let me know what you think... give a bro-tographer some feedback!