Articles Tagged with: party

Happy 9th Birthday Kegan!

Kegan's 9th Birthday

Just a little personal post today for my son Kegan, who some may say has the unfortunate luck of having a birthday the day before Christmas. I say baloney, as this boy gets the royal treatment this time of year! Last week, we held his birthday party at a new Laser Tag course. He and his friends had a blast!

Kegan's 9th Birthday Party

This was the invite I put together for him. I used light streaks from one of my old photos and combined them in Photoshop with a picture of Kegan holding a laser blaster:

Kegan9thBirthdayInvite

He got to eat lots of birthday cake – if you look closely, you’ll see in this pic that somebody snuck a taste of the chocolate cake before he even blew out the candles!

Kegan's 9th Birthday Party

So happy birthday, son – I hope you have a fantastic bacon-filled day 😉


Emily & Joe

Emily & Joe

Last month I shot a really cool wedding on Folly Beach in South Carolina. The couple was amazing as they were willing to do just about anything – they truly had fun at their wedding and it shows in their pictures. Lets be honest, how many people have a wedding party photo like this?

Emily & Joe

I did do a lot of more formal portraits such as this (which is probably one of my favorite shots of the day because of that amazing southern sunset):

Emily & Joe Sunset

But I’m sure a shot like this will make them smile pretty wide when they’re old and gray:

Emily & Joe

Joe & Emily really weren’t your traditional couple, which is a perfect fit for me since I’m not a traditional photographer! I did make sure to cover the basics of wedding photography though, such as capturing the elements of an American wedding.

WeddingCollage1

Here’s the bride getting prepared:

WeddingCollage2

And the first look:

Emily & Joe

The respective wedding party portraits:

WeddingCollage7

The ceremony:

WeddingCollage4

And the first kiss:

WeddingCollage5

The signing:

Emily & Joe

And then of course, everybody’s favorite part of the wedding, the reception. Here are some elements of their tables:

WeddingCollage3

The first dance:

WeddingCollage6

I did grab the newlyweds to do some sunset portraits during the reception. Joe didn’t know that he was going to be my movable sandbag for a few shots:

WeddingCollage8

After the sun went down, they partied:

WeddingCollage9

And Joe found the garter and Emily fed him some cake:

WeddingCollage10

I can honestly say that with couples as fun to shoot as this, wedding photography can be a blast. I consider myself lucky to have been their photographer for their special day.

Emily & Joe


Kulture Klash 7 Recap

Kulture Klash W/Logo

How do they do it? The organizers of Kulture Klash, the low country’s festival of art, dance, & music have managed to top themselves again. For the 7th installment of bi-annual event, the stand-out attraction for me was the live wakeboard demonstration provided by Chuck and Chalice to coincide with the festival’s water theme.

Kulture Klash W/Logo

OK, lets rewind a bit to yesterday afternoon, when the site of the festival was freely opened up to the public to view the art installations.

Kulture Klash 7

Kulture Klash 7

In addition to art for sale, the show featured artist interpretations of the quintessential Surf Shack:

Kulture Klash 7

Kulture Klash 7

This photo is all about BadJon, his framed art, and his giant Alien Bees ring flash:

Kulture Klash 7

Moving along outside, as the crew put the finishing touches on the wakeboard pools, the kids and dogs took advantage of the opportunity to get as dirty as possible!

Kulture Klash 7

What better way to cool off in the hot Charleston sun than with an all-natural snow cone from Rena Larch and her Happy Camper Snoballs?

Kulture Klash 7

Artist and the man behind (and in front of) the scenes at Kulture Klash, Scott Debus presented my kids with the coveted Blue Power Ranger, which also squeaks. I know this because I was woken up this morning to the sound of a squeaking Power Ranger!

Kulture Klash 7

The free art viewing was the perfect place to check out local art with your family. The kids were able to run around and be kids, people brought their pets, and the atmosphere was very relaxed. We also had a good vantage point to check out some of the Charleston Air Show, which local photo buddy Montwerx was covering from behind his lens.

Now it’s time for the party! I returned to the Klash a little after 8:00PM to an already packed house.

Kulture Klash 7

There was live music, dancing, and hula hoop girls all around! So began an adventure in low and no-light photography.

Kulture Klash 7

Kulture Klash 7

This works to my advantage, because the best way to tell the story of a party like this is to show the motion of it.

Kulture Klash 7

Also on hand was the newly founded Girls Rock Charleston, who performed an interpretive dance to live drumming:

Kulture Klash 7

The roar of the guitar and beat of the drums reigned in the alleyway next to Storehouse 10 as the band named Cusses took the stage.

Kulture Klash 7

Kulture Klash 7

Kulture Klash 7

As with past Kulture Klash Arts Festivals, there were live works of art being created during the course of the night, including a giant surfboard and this huge canvas:

Kulture Klash 7

Over in the next alley was the Urban Wakeboarding demo as well as another stage. The wakeboaders started out on one end of the alley on the back of a pickup truck. On the other end was a winch that pulled them across two pools joined by a rail jump in the middle.

Kulture Klash 7

Kulture Klash 7

Kulture Klash 7

Needless to say, nighttime action sports photography is not the easiest thing to do! That didn’t stop the throngs of cell phone videographers that lined the barrier broadcasting to their Facebook friends the watersports event of the evening. Sometimes I feel we’re all the stars of The Truman Show. So says the guy with the camera…

On stage was the dub sounds of Charleston’s Dubplates:

Kulture Klash 7

Kulture Klash 7

Kulture Klash 7

It was time for me to depart. The amazing thing was that at 11:00PM, a whole new crowd was coming in through the gate to experience a whole other set of performances. It’s an amazing festival that truly is whatever you make of it, and I couldn’t be more impressed by just how much awesomeness is packed into one evening. I’d love to see everybody’s photos and hear their stories about the evening, so please share!

Kulture Klash 7

As usual, you can check out the full extensive set of photos I took on my Flickr Stream.


Evans Rehearsal Dinner

Evans Party

I had the pleasure of shooting a wonderful couple’s wedding rehearsal dinner at Waters Edge at Shem Creek in Mount Pleasant, SC this weekend.

Evans Party

Beau and Kathryn Evans are two beautiful people whose awesome mother, Donna Evans hired me to shoot this event for their family.

Evans Party

I wanted to share with you some of my favorite pics from the evening. We had a great location at a great time of day with perfect weather – You couldn’t ask for a better combination!

Evans Party Evans Party

Evans Party

Evans Party

There was music, shagging, and shucking, oh my!

Evans Party

The more events I photograph, the more I realize how important it is to know your camera inside and out. I can’t tell you how often I double-check my camera and almost every time I do I find that a crucial setting has been changed, a button mashed, or dial spun that would have otherwise ruined or missed a moment. I don’t know how many times I would find myself chimping the LCD screen in the past – after a number of phantom setting changes, I do get real paranoid that I’m blowing the shots! The more I do this though, the less I need to check my screen because I accept that while I’m communicating with subjects, and squeezing through crowded bars, my camera is busy taking on a life of its own, so I check my settings before I press the shutter.

It’s also handy to keep a mental baseline of settings for each environment you shoot in. That way you can quickly reset the camera to that baseline and work up from there. I still find shooting people at sunset is the hardest time because the light changes so drastically with every passing second. Event photography is very fast-paced, so any method you employ that will gain you precious seconds looking through the viewfinder is the difference between getting a great moment or just missing it.

Evans Party


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