I Have A New Blog!

You're seeing this because you loaded my RSS feed or my blogger address! Hey! Thanks! WOO HOO! Guess what? I moved my blog. The address is still http://www.rephotodesign.info, but the RSS link change. So head to the new blog then update your RSS!

I'm a Junkie

It's a well kept secret, I'm a CNN junkie. I leave it on all day long as I work. For a while I banned watching the news because I used to work in TV news as a feature story editor and I know how the news works. I just couldn't watch it anymore after I left the news business. Now since the election campaigning starting months ago, I watch CNN like it's going out of style.

If anyone was watching the news yesterday you would have seen an airplane floating in the Hudson river in NYC. The pilot somehow landed it there when the engines went out. Amazingly everyone survived. AMAZING! So someone in Kelley's family knows someone who had a friend on one of the ferries that was rescuing people sent this photo via his cell phone. I tweaked it a bit, but this is AWESOME! I had to share. It looks like it's credited to a friend of Christopher Tobin, via Robert Green (I believe Kelley's cousin), via my mother in-law, to me. The 4 degrees of RE!

Album Layouts

A few posts back I posted what the exterior of my albums look like. Now it's time for the layouts on the inside. This past year we had the most amount of albums my album designer, who's also a personal friend, and I have had to design. In fact, we are down to our last few. I was recently talking to a videographer friend of mine about how long it takes to design an album. Usually from choosing the images to final design it's anywhere from 5-10 hours, depending on the size of the album. I know for my albums they tend to take about 8 hours of design time... I'm picky about how they turn out and put a lot of thought into them. I really have no reason why I haven't l blogged about them, so here they are!

Also, I made commenting on my blog a little easier... feel free to leave one!

***UPDATE: I changed the coding for this flash object to make it work in Firefox and a little better overall.***

And The Nominees Are...

Today I did my initial run through of all the wedding and engagement photos I've given out this year. After looking at 27,928 images from 25 weddings and many engagement sessions, the nominees total 556! This will be cut down further before the final vote for the top 100. I've already picked 2 of my top 3 weddings of the year as well! The third is too close to call. The final images aren't always my decision. In the past I have released the nominees for public vote amongst family and friends. I will be doing that again this year, so stay tuned for your invitation to vote!

Here's a sneak peak at the top 556. Get out your magnifying glass!

Iceland, Here Comes Sigga!

Kelley calls me from work and says "Sigga is going to call you, she needs a headshot asap." I though, ok, sweet. Later on Kelley told me a little about Sigga. She's the Associate Chair and Lecturer of Economics for Yale University. Her resume is amazing. Sigga is originally from Iceland. If you've been watching the news you've probably heard that Iceland went bankrupt. The entire country! Bankrupt! One day Sigga got a phone call from a high ranking government official there asking her to head a committee to not only figure out why Iceland is bankrupt, but how to fix it. Crazy, insane! How often does someone get asked to do this? So she came over our house for a really quick visit and we snapped off this headshot. Maybe we'll be seeing it on the news!

Carolina & Michael!

I met Carolina and Michael at a wedding I photographed this year when Carolina was a bridesmaid in Sarah and Doug's wedding. I was thrilled when she called to say she wanted me to photograph her wedding too! I do get this often, seeing that 90% of my weddings booked for 2009 are client referrals from weddings that I've photographed.

Kelley and I met up with Carolina and Michael at Amherst College on our way back from Boston. They both went to college here, so we got to take their photos at some memorable locations for them.







Michael's dorm.


















So Carolina says Amherst has a dinosaur, a big collection of fossils... We walked down to the museum only to find it is closed! However there was a door open to the hall ways. Then Kelley goes off somewhere and comes back with someone to unlock the museum door! I don't know how Kelley does it, every time, she'll figure out a way to get us into anything.

Look Ma! I'm On TV!

While at the YMCA burn down, I ran into an old TV news friend of mine from when I worked at WTNH. Channel 30 was also there and I notice that I was kind of standing in front of their shot. So last night Kelley and I were watching the news after the Chargers win (GO CHARGERS!) and we saw this! Photos taken from my iPhone.

That's Kelley in the blue jacket and I'm standing to the right with my camera and tripod.

Burnin' Down The House

Before Christmas I did a holiday portrait fundraiser for the Soundview YMCA. They broke ground on the land that the building is going to be built on. But before they could start construction they have to remove the house that's on the land. So why not start a fire? The slide show is from my camera that I had across the street and set to take 1 picture every 5 seconds (right up until the smoke headed our way).



Here's a few cool shots of the house and Branford's finest.

Happy New Year!

Kelley and I had an awesome time with some friends at The Woodwinds for New Years Eve. This is the same place we had our wedding reception in CT. There are more photos floating around my facebook page!

Catching Up

I've been a little behind on blogging, so be prepared today!

Going all the way back to last year... Kelley and I took a little weekend getaway to Boston after Christmas. It was a much needed break from the holidays. While up there we went out to dinner with Matt and Enna Grazier, and Kelley's friend Cristina who's a pastry chef from Flour, at an excellent place in the north end, Pomodoro. It's a small italian restaurant with about 8 tables. It was soooo goooooood. Then we went across the street to Mike's Pastry for a little dessert. We had such a great time hanging out!



The next day Kelley and I had a whole day to ourselves. This is a very rare thing. So rare in fact we have the save kind of day today! So what to do with a free day in Boston. We took Matt's advice and went to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Are you kidding me? This place is amazing. Just to name a few things that amazed me: Rembrandt's self portrait, a Botticelli, letter's from George Washington, a letter from Ulysses S Grant stating his intention of leaving the Naval Academy, a stained glass window from Paris, a roman sarcophagus, various windows and doors that were used to build the museum, oh, and the center of the building 4 story venetian courtyard! Just to name a few. Everything seems so randomly placed through the museum, at the same time everything in each room relates in a way.

After the museum we did a little shopping, stopping at the Apple Store of course. We walked 3 miles from the Prudential Center to our b&b in the north end. Along the walk I was on a mission sparked by my friend Carla Ten Eyck. She loves to photograph anything that looks like a 10. So I was on a mission to find anything that had "RE." There were plenty of words that started or ended with "re" or had an "re" in the middle. But nothing by itself... until...

I made a reservation at what I read was an amazing restaurant in the North End, Carmen. Another tiny little place where you need a reservation. This was one of the best meals Kelley and I had ever had. It made our personal list of top restaurants. Unbelievable. Then to top it off we thought we'd try Modern Pastry around the corner. There's an argument in Boston as to which is better, Mike's or Modern. You either love one or the other. I always went to Mike's and thought, yeah, it's pastry. So we went to Modern... I never want to go to another pastry shop again. The cannoli was the best I've ever had, plus the chocolate ganache cake... yeah.

Looking forward to going back to Boston!