Sometimes I just have to post something completely unrelated but because it is so full of awesomeness it simply has to be shared. I envy the patience and effort that this chap puts into not only shooting thousands of gorgeously delicious still images but editing and composing all that into these videos. Wow, just wow.

You’re gonna want to hit the little fullscreen button for this one.

Oh yeah, and let it buffer first if you are on a slow connection for best results. Enjoy!

The photographer is Dan Eckert and I think he’s cool. You can check out more of his videos over on Vimeo. I recommend it.

Nisa & Qa’ed make a great couple. They have a history that goes all the way back to when they were kids and Qa’ed picked on her and pulled her hair (obviously he had a crush even back then). Another thing they have going for them is such a great support group. It was really cool to see what awesome families they have; each family welcoming and accepting their new family members as if they were there all along. Thanks you two for letting me tag along at your reception!

Arizona summers bring a lot of cool things: gorgeous sunsets, monsoons, barbecues, 4th of July, summer break from school for the young ones and even the occasional vacation. All those cool things aside, summertime typically isn’t very cool here. Take yesterday for example, it was only about 105 degrees outside when we started this senior portrait session. Doesn’t sound too bad does it? Well, I’m not a meteorologist or anything but I saw that the heat index was more like 116 degrees out there. That’s just downright nasty, gross and definitely not cool. Anyway, now that everyone knows I’m not a fan of the heat let me show you something that is cool, a few frames from the portrait session.

… just thought you’d like to know that. You know, in case you were wondering you could just look at these pictures and see how cool sleeping babies really are.             

Have you booked your high-school senior’s portraits yet? Come on now, they are going to graduate and move away, like, tomorrow. What are you waiting for?
Call or  hit me up on facebook, twitter, or email. =)

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A few weeks ago I left my wife and kids in Snowflake to visit the grandparents for a week and I drove back home for a fun-filled week of work. It is rare that I am on a roadtrip without anyone under the age of five in the car with me, so I have to admit, it was rather nice to crank up the music, roll down the windows and sing along. Along the way I also got to stop and watch the sunset for about an hour. Driving in the city, the only light changes I’m concerned with are the ones when its changing from red to green; there at that lookout I enjoyed watching the overcast late afternoon light transform from stormy blues and grays to a warm amber glow peeking under the clouds from the west as the sun inched down.

Everyone should watch a sunset every now and then. Sigh.

Here’s a few cute pictures that I took a few weeks back in up in Snowflake. I love blue eyes.

This past weekend I enjoyed the rare treat of escaping the heat of my desert abode, if only for a few days, and trekking up into the wild North. No, not Alaska or anything epic like that, just a little jaunt up to the Silver Creek valley and the towns of my youth, Snowflake and Taylor. Yes, that’s right. Towns. Plural. I don’t know why, but for some reason there are two separate, distinct, and highly individual towns that for all intents and purposes are essentially the same little town. Oh well, like I said, I don’t understand it but I will continue to differentiate the two hamlets because to do otherwise would surely invite the wrath, of at least part, of the indigenous population.

Anyway, to get to the point, this past weekend was the 24th of July. That doesn’t mean anything to most people, but the 24th of July is actually a state holiday. Now before you go all Wikipedia on me, I didn’t say it was an Arizona state holiday; it is a Utah state holiday. (see that? I just used a semicolon…correctly even…I think) Pioneer Day is a celebration of the Pioneers who came into the Salt Lake Valley back in the day. It is a pretty cool event, you should check it out sometime if you don’t already know. Why, since Snowflake and Taylor are both quite obviously in Arizona, do they have a Pioneer Day celebration? Well, basically those towns were settled by pioneers too; many of them the very same families that came across the plains to Utah originally. (Pretty sure a semicolon doesn’t belong in that last sentence)

To make a long story short, pioneers came, they settled, they ranched, they farmed and they had big families. Now in commemeration of all that (and because the chambers of commerces are keenly aware that the population of the town roughly triples) they tend to have an all out 4th-of-july-style shindig complete with a parade, a rodeo, a massive bbq, multiple high school class reunions, and activites for young and old.

Without further ado, I present the pinnacle of the celebration, the fireworks…

Hopefully no one is still using dial-up out there. If so, this post will probably take quite a while to load, sorry!
I had a blast doing these wedding photos, Jason & Cristina are a great couple and you can tell by their faces in a few of these photos that they were really excited to get married! Stay tuned and in the next few days I will have the full wedding gallery online and if you can convince the happy couple to share their password can you take a look and order a few prints if you would like.

Look at them racing away from the reception.