Carissa & Matt's Wedding

We had a beautiful day for Carissa & Matt's wedding!  It started off a little crazy with a huge  farmer's market right outside the church doors when we arrived to set up. Luckily the farmers market disappeared in time to start taking some portraits.


We headed outside for some beautiful portraits at the park across the street. We were able to capture some awesome portraits with their church in the background.

First Presbyterian Church,Cedar Rapids

 A stunning bridal gown by Macy's Bridal Salon (Chicago)

                   

Some gorgeous rings from  Greenberg Jewelry

a great shot of  the beautiful flowers by: Race Horse Royalty

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After the wedding Carissa's wedding all the guests released balloons and Carissa and Matt walked across the street and released pigeons.

Loved the flowers next to the detail of the stain glass windows.  flowers by Race Horse Royalty

Once we were finished with the releases Carissa and Matt jumped in the limo with their wedding party and headed off. We were able to capture some great portraits with the whole wedding party using a country road we found.

Some really sweet tuxedos: Men's Wearhouse

a great shot with the all the bridal party! 

When it was time for the reception we headed to the beautiful Cedar Rapids Marriott where Unique Events MC'd the reception.

Cedar Rapids Marriot Hotel: some cool lighting with the monogram and purple uplighting by Unique Events 

 Programs, Menus, Table Numbers, Placecards, Etc.: Zephyr Weddings

                                                                         

 some very elegant table linens: Marla's Linens & Chair Sashes: Celebration Linens

A great creation by Tip Top Cakes: Check out the deatails 

Cake creation by Tip Top Cakes

a great series of shots at the end of the night.  I always like to create something romantic to end their album with

                                          

      We are almost finished designing Carissa's wedding album, as you can see it was an amazing day and a beautifully detailed reception! We have some great portraits to include.  

Dena & Travis's Sneak Peak

A few beautiful images from Dena & Travis's wedding. It was a beautiful day and everyone was incredibly nice. It's so much fun to work with people who are excited and happy. They chose not to see each other before the wedding which can sometimes be very difficult but they built in lots of extra time between the wedding and reception to ensure that we had time to create some artistic portraits. Their wedding was at the Catholic Church and their reception was at the always awesome Hotel Vetro in Downtown Iowa City. The cool pink up-lighting was provided by Unique Events.

found this little window and vase in Dena's mother's house while she was getting ready - the perfect spot for an artistic shoe shot!

Dena's Bridesmaids had some of the coolest bridesmaids dresses ever! They each separately found the perfect dress for themselves and Dena got to approve them.

I always love the atmosphere uplighting gives to a room. 

uplighting and dance floor spotlight provided by http://www.ueweddings.com/

Brittney and Bryan's Wedding, Mason City

A quick sneak peak of Brittney and Bryan's very fun wedding. It was a hot humid day but they braved the heat and we were able to capture some beautiful shots in a park near the church. I can't wait to finish processing all of their portraits. As soon as they have a chance to view them I will be posting more so keep an eye out!

Bryan doing a great job modeling the parasol  :)

Ashley & Aaron's wedding

Ashley and Aaron were married this August and I was lucky to be able to spend the whole day with Ashley and Aaron on their wedding day and be there to capture their entire story of their wedding day. I started off at the hair salon capturing candid moments of the girls as they had their hair done and drank mimosas.  Then I met the guys at Aaron's parents house where they were hanging out and getting ready.  Their house was amazing and was the perfect backdrop for portraits.  Ashley arrived awhile later and the guys went to the backyard while the girls took over inside.  I especially loved the vintage feel and texture of Ashley's dress from Laura's Couture Collection.  The small details in the dress really stood out and definitely helped complete the awsomeness of her wedding.  Another great detail was her  lace parasol. I loved the parasol so much that after her wedding I went and bought one for myself in case a future bride wanted to use one.  Their reception was held at the CPMI Event Center in Ames.  I loved the look and details that Ashley had going with the cream and light green accents, fluttering ribbons and tents outside. Ashley's beautiful flowers were created by Cynthia Betts of Weddings in Iowa and the awesome dinner was catered by Occasions Made Right.  Aaron's custom ring was made at Gilger Designs and Ashley's ring was from Christophers Fine Jewelry.

Joanne & Mike

We've had a few weeks of bad weather leading up to Mike & Joanne's wedding but their day ended up perfect.  We started out at Vander Veer park for their first sight and created some beautiful portraits there.  We then headed down to the Adler Theater for some  more portraits.  Mike & Joanne's first date was at the Adler and they wanted to stop in again.  We had lots of fun photographing there and I love the images that were captured.  There were many beautiful moments through out the day - here are a few of my favorites.

Visons of Love

A sweet video of Michelle & Cameron's wedding at Hotel Vetro

Awards

This past weekend the Professional Photographers of Iowa (PPI) convention was held in Des Moines. Last year was my first year attending and it was an amazing time with lots of great speakers. They were impressed with my work enough last year that this year I was honored to be asked to be a speaker and teach a class on my popular composite work that I do. I was very nervous for my class but it went very smooth and I actually had a great time doing it.

At the state convention there is also a print competition that is held every year. Over 400 prints were entered, and one of my favorite parts is seeing the culmination of everyone's very best work from the past year.  To give a brief explanation of the process, you can enter 4 prints into the competition to be judged by a panel of judges and awarded points on a scale from 0-100. In the competition there are two main categories of photographers, master and non-master.  Photographers achieve the designation of master by earning service, speaking, & exhibition merits - in other words they have had high scoring prints in numerous contests and have spoken and assisted at many events. Since last year was my first year, I am still in the non-master category. 

An awards banquet was held on the final night.  I was honored when they announced at the awards banquet that my prints had outscored all but one other photographer - master photographer Micheal Cerizo.  I was named Iowa's 2011 Top Photographer of the Year in my category and brought home a bunch of awards.   

 The following print was named Desolate Determination and scored an 88.  It was awarded a ribbon for judge's choice and 1st place in women outdoor.

In the illustrative category, I took 2nd to the very talented Dan McClanahan.  This is the image I entered - titled Return To Me.  It scored a 96! It is stitched together from a bunch of panoramic shots.  I created it as a 20x80 inch print and it is really amazing up close.

Quick story- The McClanahan's are very close friends, and earlier in the year when we were hanging out Dan & I had made a pact that we were both going to make the top 10 photographers in Iowa this year (despite the fact that last year was both of our 1st time even  entering the competition!).  Our pact ended up working out well for us with me earning top photographer and Dan taking a close second.

This is another image I entered titled Desolation.  It scored an 84 which is still a very very good score.

The final portrait in my print case.  I really liked this one because of the gritty emotion it portrayed.

The following print was entered for score only, just to see how good it was. (It doesn't count as part of your final score, but the judges don't know which prints are for score only so that they judge everything the same.)  This wedding image would have scored a 91 if I had entered it into the competition!

Finally, I swept the digital competition for the 2nd year in a row with 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place. The images below each poster are some of the original elements I used to create the poster.