Monthly Archive for September, 2007

Alaska Day Five: The Last Day

Sadly our trip to Alaska had to come to an end.  There are obviously not enough words to describe just how much fun we had.  We cannot wait to go back!  I hope you’ve all enjoyed the photos.   Here are couple more from our last day.

Before catching our plane back home we hung out at Lake Hood for a bit, one of the busiest seaplane bases in the world.  Hundreds of seaplanes lined the shore of Lake Hood and made for a very cool community of pilots.

This last photo, in my opinion, perfectly sums up the people of Alaska…happy!

Alaska Day Four: Homer to Seward

Our fourth day in Alaska we made our way to Seward.  Since it was such a gorgeous day we decided to take it slow and stop for plenty of photos.  We only took the highway for the little bit that we needed to and spent the rest of our drive on the gravel Skilak Lake Road.  We had a blast stopping at the various lakes along the road and just enjoying all of the beautiful scenery.  Just before arriving in Seward we stopped and hiked to Exit Glacier.  We were able to hike right up the face of the glacier which was really amazing and really, really cold!

A shot of Skilak Lake Road.

Fishing on the Kenai River is very popular!

I’ve never seen water this color before.  The Kenai River was simply breathtaking.

Photo op!

We saw these signs everywhere in Alaska!

Exit Glacier at the entrance to Kenai Fjords National Park.

Getting up close and personal with Exit Glacier.

It was crazy to see how far Exit Glacier has retreated over the years.

It was a gorgeous night in Seward.

It was so beautiful watching the moon rise over Resurrection Bay in Seward.

Technical Difficulties

Okay, so you’re probably wondering where “Alaska Day Four” is.  Unfortunately there won’t be a new post until Friday.

Mark is currently working on transferring our web host, therefore you may experience technical difficulties throughout the day today and possibly tomorrow.  We appreciate your patience and apologize for any inconvenience!

Check back on Friday for more on our trip to Alaska!

Alaska Day Two: Homer

It didn’t take us long to fall in love with Homer.  Homer is one of those quaint little towns that makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside like what you see in movies but doubt really exist.  There is just something in the air in Homer that is hard to define.  You can tell that the people of Homer, Alaska love where they live and they made us tourists feel like we were right at home.  This little town of only 5,000 people sits at the tip of the Kenai Peninsula.  Everyone in town has an unbelievable view of Kachemak bay as well as the peaks, glaciers and active volcanoes that are right across the bay.  I look forward to the day that we can pack our bags and spend a summer in Homer.

We stayed at the very end of the Homer Spit, a narrow piece of land that stretches out five miles into the ocean.

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The view from our deck.

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There were piles and piles of kelp that was left on the beach after the tide went down.

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Alaskan motorhome.

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Shops on the spit.

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The Seafarer’s Memorial honors those that lost their lives at sea.

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This Cow Parsnip was everywhere.

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This sign cracked me up.  Behind me the road dead-ended into the ocean.  Seems like a no-brainer!

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I love this post office/liquor store combo.

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I’ve saved the best for last.  The fact that I told my dad to decline the rental car insurance and he listened seemed to haunt me on this trip.  I pulled off the side of the road for a photo op and when I decided to back up the shoulder kind of went away.  The result, I nearly rolled the damn thing!  Luckily the cameras didn’t come out until after we were able to carefully get the car back onto pavement.  Still, here’s the evidence.

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Alaska Day Two: Girdwood to Homer

Our second night in Alaska was spent in the quaint little ski town of Girdwood. On Tuesday morning we had the most amazing sourdough pancakes at The Bake Shop and then made our way down to Homer. Aside from the fact that this was a driving day, it was also extremely windy and rainy so we didn’t take many photos. I’ll have more about Homer tomorrow, I absolutely fell in love with this quintessential Alaskan town.

This is the cottage we stayed at in Girdwood. Girdwood is located in the Alaskan rainforest. I can’t wait to go back and do some hiking through this area.

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This bald eagle soared for hours back and forth in front of our place in Homer.

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I’m not a huge bird person but I love the detail in the wings of this sea gull.

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The weather may have been a little rough but it didn’t stop us from getting our cameras out and playing a little bit…from inside the townhome.

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Alaska Day One: Prince William Sound

We’re back!  I can hardly put into words the out-of-this-world experience that we had in Alaska.  The beauty of Alaska is so overwhelming that our photographs hardly do it justice.  To say the least, it was the trip of a lifetime and I couldn’t have spent it with two better people, Mark and my dad.  Needless to say, we took tons of photos and will be posting some every day this week.

We arrived in Anchorage late Sunday night.  On Monday we were off to Whittier where we boarded a boat and toured Prince William Sound.  In four hours we got up close and personal with 26 glaciers!  Viewing a glacier in person is unlike anything I’ve ever seen in my life.  I can’t find words to describe what it’s like to be face to face with this massive force of nature.  We were lucky enough to see some of the glaciers calve-huge chunks of ice breaking off into the ocean. We also saw several sea otters as well as seals.

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Alaska & The Paparazzi

Okay, so these are two completely unrelated topics just being combined for the sake of this post.

Tomorrow Mark & I are hopping on a plane and heading to Alaska for the first time!!! I don’t think it is physically possible for me to be more excited. It’s been too long since we took a non-work-related vacation. We’ll be meeting my dad in Anchorage and touring the Kenai Peninsula for a week! The most exciting part is that we get to shoot for fun and plan on coming home with some awesome personal photos. Oh, and the second best part, no computers or cell phones for a week! So, if you need to reach us send us an e-mail or leave us a voicemail, we’ll be in touch with you when we’re back in the office on the 24th.

Now on to the paparazzi. Last night we shot Rachael & Hugh’s wedding at Ten Mile Station in Breckenridge. Though I don’t have time right now to do a complete post on their wedding, I wanted to share this one image with you. I realize everyone owns a digital camera but only few of the weddings we shoot is this an obvious fact. This was one of those weddings. While I was taking shots of the cake cutting from a less obvious angle I couldn’t help but snap this image of Mark in the sea of wedding guest paparazzi! Keep in mind there were about 6 or 8 more guests with cameras that I couldn’t fit in the shot. Isn’t this hilarious!

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Hope everyone has a fantastic week! Check back for trip photos next week!

Breckenridge Wedding Photographer

Colorado Wedding Photographer

From Raw to Wow!

We rarely share with the world a raw image (straight out of the camera) but I thought it might be fun to show you the power of raw processing.

We spend a lot of time individually editing each image that we shoot to bring it to its fullest potential before anyone else sees it. We sit at our computers nearly everyday working on images and I still love watching an image evolve through our fine tuning process.

Here are two that Mark was working on yesterday from Tracy & Ned’s wedding. I just love how they “pop” after they’ve been processed!

Before

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After

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Breckenridge Wedding Photography

Keystone Wedding Photography

Terry, Sherri, Courtney, Cody, Walker & Harley

We had so much fun hanging out with this family and taking some Freestyle Portraits on Saturday at the Evergreen Lake House. What a blast these guys were! All of them were completely comfortable and natural in front of the camera. We can hardly call it work when we’re working with such awesome people! We had to reschedule this session a couple of times and ended up shooting at the perfect time on the most beautiful day. Here are a few of my favorites.

I love that Mark got both dogs to look at the camera when I took this shot.

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Mark caught this great candid while I was setting up an individual shot of Courtney and the rest of the family was just hanging out in the background.

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Evergreen Portrait Photographer

Denver Portrait Photographer

Cozmo & Bosco’s Excellent Adventure

We had so much fun dog sitting for our friends Lauren & Calvin this weekend. It’s been a blast having another dog around the house and Bosco is such a good dog. I couldn’t help but snap a few photos while he was here.

The trick to wearing out dogs with tons of energy: the pack. Put a bottle of water in each side, works every time!

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Bath time!

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“I’m too clean, must get dirty, must get dirty.”

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Once Bosco discovered the lovesac I thought he wasn’t going to move for the rest of the weekend.

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They get along so well!

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Bosco’s a digger. Here he is making a discovery of some kind.

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Happy to oblige to the routine dirty paw check before coming back inside.

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I can’t wait to get another dog!