I am awed by this woman’s tolerance for cold. Holy mackerel.
A marathon engagement shoot on the crappiest day of the year. But we made it, and it was worth it.
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what we talk about when we talk about love.
So, it’s valentine’s day. I’m a foreigner and my husband is – well, a guy; so we never really went for the whole V-day thing. Nonetheless, if you want to romance your significant other, you could do worse than take a few ideas from my sweetie.
1) the mix tape is a classic – but make it personal. When M made this for me, he knew that
a. my favorite word was “defenestrate”
b. my favorite book was the OED – condensed version, that you have to read with a magnifying glass, and
c. my favorite sock animal was (and still is) a sock monkey.
2) Give her a sweet note when she’s got a tough day.
3) tell her she’s pretty.
4) take care of her when she’s sick.
5) make her feel better if she accidentally dyes her hair black and totally hates it.
6) let her know that you appreciate her.
7) Avoid cliches. Embrace awesomeness.
a little bit country, a little bit rock and roll.
Lovely folk/country/hybrid/singer/songwriter Annie Crane asked me to shoot some promo pics for her, and we had a grand ole time.
Annie’s been on tour but is now performing in NYC again. Check her site for dates if you want to give a listen!
Here’s how the CD turned out, designed by Moselle Spiller:
Annie’s marrying her sweetheart Eric this June in Rochester and I’ll be shooting it, so stay tuned for those photos. Rochester is a trek from here, but hey – it is the birthplace of Eastman Kodak. So kind of a pilgrimage to Mecca for me, really.
Love conquers the infamous New York winter
All the couples I shoot love photography, or they wouldn’t spend a chunk on me, but Rachel and Lenny really set a new bar. Rachel let me drag her around the dirtiest parts of lower Manhattan in her amazing, pristine white dress, without a coat, in the middle of December, while enduring being heckled by dozens of drunk Santas (I know I’m prone to hyperbole, but this really happened. Dozens!). All this before the ceremony. A champ!
I’m not one for false modesty; I got some ass-kicking shots. It helped that I had the most photo-friendly couple in the history of weddings. It also helped that Rachel and her crew are so gorgeous you want to hate them. But the real reason? From the moment I showed up until the last bite of cake, Rachel loved everything. She loved her dress, her makeup, the music, the food, her family and her friends and her husband. She enjoyed the hell out of every second of her wedding – and there is just nothing more photogenic than that.
I tip my hat to you, Mrs. Vaisman; you’re still a Starr to me.
carbo-loading
For the past few months I’ve been doing various gigs for a baked goods company called Bread Alone. You may recognize them from their ubiquitous presence at farmer’s markets throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn. Were you wondering if they are delicious? They are.
These jobs are some of the most fun I’ve ever had at work. The free food doesn’t hurt, for sure – but I really, really clicked with these people, who talk about baking with the same reverence and awe that I talk about photography.
Ready to get hungry? Here are some of the shots I did for them this weekend at their restaurant upstate:
Already full? Amateurs. There’s always room for desert.
The coolest part was getting a glimpse of the bakery. I caught a few snaps behind the scenes.
And in my tour of their farmer’s market stations, I learned that impossibly adorable kids and dogs are powerless to resist anything made with flour and/or sugar. Good to know.
Find locations, ordering info and anything else on their site www.breadalone.com.
My husband is a superhero.
I’m sure many wives think that about their husbands. But how many of them have proof? I do.
We got married a couple of months ago, and leading up to the wedding, I constantly bitched and moaned about how planning a wedding is so hard while doing absolutely nothing. Meanwhile, Matthew – well, he planned the wedding.
I don’t just mean he made some calls and hired vendors. I mean everything in our wedding he made with his hands. I’m not kidding.
Case in point, our save-the-dates. Here are the totally unreasonable instructions I gave him:
“can you draw a picture of me flying through the air? But gracefully? And you running? With brown and lavender? And kind of reminiscent of Russian propaganda posters? Also a hot air balloon somewhere?”
The result:
And a few months later, I came up with a taller order. I asked him to design, illustrate, and print two sets of invitations – one set in Hebrew for my family, who all live in Israel. So, he called my dad and they talked geeky typography stuff, and he did it – all by hand. Check it:
(front and back)
The invites were such a hit that he’s now designing wedding invitations for several of our friends. Heartened by his successful attempt to to write in a completely foreign language, he then proceeded to make our ketubah, which is a marriage contract of Jewish weddings. He made it by hand, on canvas, painstakingly and line by line. Also, flawlessly.
But as meaningful as that is, the true genius of Matthew can only be truly understood by seeing our hand-sculpted cake toppers:
Did you see the gnomes’ little camera and paintbrush? The bride gnome is actually wearing a piece of my wedding dress, saved from the alterations.
Swoon.
If you’d like to see this brilliant man’s artwork – you’re in luck! There’s a whole mess of his incredible paintings on his website here.
Photos courtesy of the delightful (and exhausted new dad) Dante Williams.
Wedding cakes courtesy of my mom.
dog day afternoon
A puggle is a pug/beagle combo, not (as I previously thought) a combination of a pug and a snuggle. Thanks for clearing that up, Holly and Jeff! For my third Central Park photo shoot in as many weeks, I wondered: Would I be able to come up with fresh, new ideas? Answer: no. But there was a bright sun and a cute dog, it’s pretty hard to screw that up.
What’s cuter than a monkey in a hat and suspenders smoking a pipe?
Up until this week, I would have said, definitively, nothing. But now I know: Eva and John are. Evidence to follow.
btw – their wedding will be in Hong Kong and they live in London; so what are they doing in NY? “Mostly for the pictures”, says Eva. LOVE!
I now pronounce you ghost and goblin
Okay, so Nikki and Al are actually both human and alive, But they did get married on Halloween, which is kind of awesome. Also awesome? They skipped a good chunk of the reception to take more photos with me; now those are the kind of priorities I can get behind.
Their Brooklyn Bridge park ceremony, perfect for their guest list of about 20, cost them $25. TWENTY FIVE.
Then, the traditional placing of a plastic bag over your new bride’s head. No, kidding, it started raining.
We head back to the city in true New York fashion.
and borrowed some kid’s costume.
A halloween-inspired spread inspired me into a sugar coma.
Okay, enough dancing. Back to picture taking!
by Inbal
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