This is Pete and Jamey - worship pastors at our fantastic church, The Garden Long Beach. In August they released an album on Bandcamp it is amazing. They took 15 Psalms and turned them into beautiful, modern music - making it the most wonderful way to memorize scripture. I may sound a bit biased, but seriously - its amazing - you should check it out.

The Garden Variety

Oh and this is just the first album, they plan to release a new one every 6 months until all the Psalms have been done!

Shot with: Rolleiflex 2.8F
Shot on: Kodak Tri-X 400

Shot with: Holga
Shot on: Kodak Portra 400 

Shot with: Rolleiflex 2.8F
Shot on: Fujichrome Provia 100F

I absolutely loved their first meet. Cristina was a bit nervous about the day, since she's not too thrilled with the idea of people staring at her. But so telling of their relationship: the moment she saw her best friend everything was better and the party started. 

AHH!! Isn't she GORGEOUS!! I think I tell Cristina every time I see her that she has the best hair in the whole wide world - YUP.

And here's the bridal party playing a brief game of Where's Waldo. 

Blake was OBSESSED with their DJ. He was beside himself to hear Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros, Daft Punk, and Sleigh Bells all in the same night. It made for some pretty amazing dancing.

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I (Blake) feel like we’ve been MIA for the last few months with our move home and Oli’s birth - but we figured it was time to give an update because we’re really excited about some changes that we’re going to make! So - we’ll start with the source of our new changes:

My favorite artist is Joseph Mallord William Turner, who is known as “The Painter of Light”. He was a watercolor landscape painter who paved the way for Impressionism. His landscape paintings were similar to Realism but he used light in a way that made everything look a bit surreal. Isn’t this painting beautiful?

I love the way that he used light to manipulate reality and we have tried to do the same with photography. We perceive life as beautiful and full of joy - and love to photograph people in a way that physically demonstrates that - making the world look bright and dreamy. Give me a wooded glen, beautiful light, and a couple in love and I’m happier than a morbidly obese man at Hometown Buffet! If you look back at the past few post you’ll see that I’ve been trying to do that. But here’s a few so you don’t have to search =)

During our time in Thailand I fell in love with film all over again and it just sparked new creativity in me. When I started photography I used film and it has shaped the way that I shoot: if I can do it in camera I will, I don’t ever use the burst frame mode, and I meticulously frame very shot. Digital photography has it’s perks but I think that film just looks more real. I can’t really put it into words - but I feel like there is a true sense of stillness with film. As much as I’ve shot with my digital gear I always want to go back to film for that reason. We just shot a wedding a few weeks ago, and the couple wanted us to use film to supplement the digital images. I was so excited to do so and here’s a little teaser for what’s to come in a couple of weeks...

So that brings us to our new changes...

Starting immediately, we are shooting FILM along with digital!! Our digital equipment will be phased out in the future - probably in 2012. Our prices are staying the same through 2011 - but will increase slightly in 2012 because shooting film is more costly. We are so excited for this change, as it allows us to explore some new artistic avenues!

Lastly, we’ve decided not to pursue photography full time. We absolutely love wedding photography because it allows us to spend time getting to know beautiful people and sharing their stories, but I have a full time job and Ali is staying home to raise our son Oliver. So, we will start to limit the amount of shoots we do each year and we will not work on Sundays so we can have a day to be family together. 

Anyways, that’s it. That’s everything that’s going on with us during this time of transition! We’re very excited about this and can’t wait to share more film images with you! Check back soon!!

Our son, Oilver, was born just about 6 weeks ago! We've been having so much fun with our little muffin that we haven't even bothered with photography... well except photographing him!

It's been a crazy 6 weeks (even longer since we're been settling into life after Thailand) but we wouldn't change it for anything! As soon as I held him I felt my world change. I wouldn't say that I'm a selfish person but as soon as he looked into my eyes any inkling of caring solely about myself melted away. We just love him so much and we're so happy to have him in our life =)

I'll spare you the details of Ali's labor but lets just say that once he was born it was a big relief! He came in at 8 lbs. 5 oz. and 21 inches. He's already past 11.5 lbs now =)

Oliver was very excited to meet his cousins/aunt!

Here are some pictures of him at 4 days olds.

And here he is at 6 1/2 weeks! We feel like he has changed so much! We're excited for all of his future milestones but we also want to enjoy him just the way he is because we know how quickly it all changes! 

We'll have some new stuff to post in the future but excuse us while we go play with our little man =)

So - as you can imagine after reading the paragraph above - directing the pictures was a little bit confusing with two Blakes. So, I decided to nickname Blake (husband) "photographer" - which I shall now call him forever. 

Oh how I love both of their beautiful smiles!

Kate and Blake - thanks for letting us document your love - we had a blast! xx

Here's Oli and Charlotte's first picture together =)

Right before we left for Thailand we did a quick shoot with them because their son, Chase, had just turned 2! We never got around to posting them so we figured we'd share a few in this post!

We love you guys and are so excited that our kids will have cousins so close in age! We can't wait to meet Charlotte :)

Jeanette was born to be a mom - I know because growing up, she thought that she was my mom - reminding me how many minutes until my curfew expired, rushing me when I was late, and letting me know when I was talking too much. Everyone needs a friend like Jeanette. She is loyal, selfless, protective and loving - all the things I hope to be as a mom.

AND - she's gorgeous:

And that's a Jeanette laugh! And there's one of both of us with our little beastlings - I can't wait to meet them!!! Love you Jeanette xx 

We had so much fun taking their pictures - but how could you not have fun trekking through the wilderness with guns??

And we'll end with a Holga shot :)