Balkis and Fritz’s Wedding

After this couple’s engagement session, and photographing Balkis’ bachelorette party (sorry folks, what happens at the bachelorette party, stays at the bachelorette party), I expected a lively crowd for the wedding.  The bride began her day getting ready at the Sheraton Suites in Plantation, FL with her bridal party.  They rode in style to the traditional ceremony at St Clement’s Catholic Church, and followed with a celebration at the Jacaranda Country Club.  The girls and their flowers were colored beautifully in red, which carried through to the décor at the reception.  One of my favorite features was the tallest wedding cake I’ve ever seen!  Congrats to these two, and I wish them many happy years together!

Roly & Taty’s We Just Got Married Light Painting Session

Roly is one of my trainers at the gym, and we were all so happy for him and Taty when they announced their engagement, and wedding a few weeks later. If you follow me on Facebook, you've probably seen my recent interest in exploring light painting. So far, my experimentation has been limited to my living room with my kids, but I've been dying to take this outside, and these two were my willing test subjects. We had a great time, and I hope you enjoy the photos as much as I do!! 

If you love them so much that you’d like to have a light painting session, I’m now offering them!  Check out the info here. 


I’m often asked how this is done.  I won’t reveal all my secrets here (a magician never does, and this is my kind of magic), but I will share some outtakes where I didn’t get out of the frame before the shutter closed.  In the first one on the left, I was painting a barbell (remember, Roly’s a trainer), and was working out how to correct for a mistake in the next shot (we decided on dumbbells instead for simplicity, pictured above).  In the second, I forgot that I had made my exposure shorter, and just didn’t time my exit from the frame.  I love that one both ways.  Landscape, it’s a great action shot of me, and in portrait orientation, I absolutely love the trail of unidentified light in the sky, b/c it looks like a shooting star.

Ilan’s First Birthday Party

I had the pleasure of taking this family’s portraits a few weeks ago in honor of Ilan’s first birthday.  So as a clutter free gift to him and his mama, I captured these moments at his party.  He is an extremely happy boy, so the smiley theme was perfect to celebrate his special day.  He celebrated with a small group of family and close friends, and really enjoyed his bagel, cake smash, and bath afterwards. 

As a photographer, events in their home are a dream to photograph, with all the natural light streaming in through many windows, which means my flash was only providing a small amount of fill light, with most of the light being natural, which is always beautiful.  Also, I shot the entire event with a favorite prime lens of mine, which I haven’t used for a while.  Prime means it’s a fixed focal length and doesn’t zoom in and out.  All “zooming” is done by walking closer to or farther from the subject.  I loved it, and it really helped me create some strong compositions that I might have missed without it. 

All in all, it was a beautiful event, to celebrate a beautiful child, and the images from a day like that can’t help but be beautiful!

Alina and Brett welcome Norah and Harper

My mom teaches with this mom, and on a visit to the babies, was sharing the photos I’d taken of Stella.  These twins hadn’t had their first photo shoot yet, so we connected that weekend to capture them at 4 weeks old.  To take the kind of sleepy posed newborn photos you see all over Pinterest, you need sleepy babies, and these girls were not very tired when I arrived!  So we captured some great moments of mom and dad loving their girls.  A great family shot was a goal as well.  It took a few tries to get everyone positioned just right, but I absolutely love the first portrait in this post!  A “money-shot” like that, as I like to call them, is definitely worth all of the outtakes!!  When they were ready, the girls snuggled together in their vibrating bassinet, and we were able to get a variety of shots with the various props mom had prepared, including adorably feminine head wear, a perfect pillow quote, and the bouquet from her wedding.  It was so special to be able to capture some sweet sisterly moments as they dreamed side by side. 

Balkis and Fritz Engagement

This couple tied the knot a few weeks ago, and since they used some of the photos at the wedding, including a large framed print, and some photos in a sign-in book, I agreed not to post them until after the big day. These photos were taken in April, when the sunset lighting was bright and beautiful and not rainy! I look forward to sharing the photos from their wedding in the weeks ahead as I make my way through their edits!