Working Hard

You know that saying about how still currents run deep? Yeah, think of our blog as a ‘still current’.

We’ve been building a killer meeting space, revamping our samples and albums, recoding the website, building a separate site for the photo station, and coming up with awesome new secret items for your wedding photographs. Kona, as always, has been helping out. 😉

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Kona – Year in Review

As promised: The Kona uber-year-in-review post, with enough cuteness to make a Care Bear flinch!

(Kona:) I like to run, and I like to sleep, and going for walks is the best. Sitting is really good, but playing is the best.  I met Cooper this year, he was afraid to come out of his kennel, but I helped him be brave. He is my best friend. Baths are scary for me, but I like when Mommy keeps me warm. Running around all wet and getting Daddy’s stuff wet is the best though; he chases me.  And playing with my best friend Cooper is the best, me and him are best buds.

Chewing toys is great. I love to lay on the Love Sac, or catch some rays with Mommy…or sit with Mommy, or read with Mommy…She is the best.  Wait… playing WITH Mommy ON the Lov Sac WITH toys- that’s the best.  Snow was weird, so I ate a lot of it. It didn’t stop Cooper and I from wrestling in the mud. Wrestling with Cooper is the best.

Christmas was… OMG — not as good as my birthday!!!  They put a hot thing on a puppy cupcake and sang me songs and put fun things on my head.  It felt strange, but I trust Mommy and Daddy (and it made me look super cool for St. Patties or Halloween).  Then they said I could eat the cupcake!!! People food!! REALLY?!?!   It was the best.

I had a very busy year – Daddy took a lot of pictures of me, I even helped daddy with his photo station. Oh man, that was the best – all the peoples! I love peoples – they are the best. Life is the best.






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Lightning

The strangest lightning shows I’d ever seen going on; I grab my camera and walk to the local park with a tall hill. I’m hoping to get above the crushing streetlights (How’s that for smart?? – go to the highest point in a lightning storm in order to get a photograph…:)) and get some really good photos (being a wedding photographer, you don’t get many chances at lightning…). Focused on the image – I nearly forgot that what was going on was actually quite a unique event.

When I get there, there was already a few other people – just watching. I made half-a-dozen photographs and then, not wanting to disturb the mood of 5 complete strangers watching silent lightning in the complete stillness of the night, just sat and watched for like 30 minutes. It was mesmerizing.

We are always so focused on the goal.  Don’t forget to just look sometimes; the world is a beautiful place if you let yourself see it.

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Joe always makes it to weddings!

… my wife makes sure of it!

I had to miss a friends wedding because I was shooting another friends. Normally Colleen is by my side at weddings, but for this one I got some other great help and she represented us both at Josh and Julie’s wedding.

I come home and see from some photo booth prints that Colleen really did make sure I was in attendance – at least in spirit paper (with a cool little hastily-drawn tounge too!).

I have me a good wifey.

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Congratulations Josh and Julie – I heard the wedding was awesome. I’d have loved to seen it in person..

The Best Purchase Ever

1 Year ago today I made the best purchase of my life; by far. (Read that blog post from then, before he even had a name!)

I’m planning a uber-Kona year-in-review post… but for now, this one photograph alone tells the story of the day I got him.  

Puppies spend 7-9 weeks with their ‘dog family’ and the breeder before being picked up.  On ‘pick up day’ we were last in line to select (this guy is a responsible breeder who only breeds a litter when he’s got MORE than enough people to take all the pups — and even then limits the number of litters so the female dog gets a normal life too), we only got Kona because he had a herniated umbilical and no one else wanted him for fear of issues.  

So here he is, saying goodbye to the human family that he played with for the first 8 weeks, and saying goodbye to his momma for the last time (note the dog pounding on the fence in the background is the mother… she just lost all her other children in the past 24 hours — and this was on Mother’s Day 2008… I’m so evil!) as he walked to the car for the ride home to his new family.

… where he’s proven to be one of the best dogs EVA!!!.