Robert's Blog

Introducing Cameron...

Almost three years ago, Lauren and I photographed the wedding of Rachel and Kenny who at that time both had recently graduated from the Cornell Law School.  Rachel and Kenny are both of Chinese extraction, and although Rachel originally grew up in Hong Kong, and then Toronto which is where Rachel and I first met to discuss photographing their wedding.

Although we have photographed many Asian weddings (Laotian, Thai, Vietnamese, etc.) this was the first time that Lauren and I had photographed a largely traditional Chinese wedding which included a tea ceremony (at the Statler Hotel) following the wedding at Sage Chapel and prior to the reception which took place in a large tent located on the Cornell Arts Quad.  Lauren and I considered it a great honor to be chosen to photograph this unique and beautiful wedding.

One of the more memorable moments during Rachel and Kenny's wedding ceremony at Sage Chapel was when the officiant said to the families and guests in attendance that Rachel would be playing a classical piano composition that she prepared in her new husband's honor. 

This was a complete surprise to Kenny (and to everyone else for that matter), so once Rachel began to masterfully play the beautiful classical melody that she so carefully prepared for her wedding day, Kenny began to cry tears of joy.  This was truly a unique and profound time during their wedding ceremony to say the least.

Since I've always enjoyed getting to know many different types of people, it's never been difficult for me to become good friends with many of our clients.  This of course makes for excellent relationships, builds trust, and results in knowing how to best customize our services to each couple that we work with.

Rachel emailed me a few weeks ago to let me know that she, Kenny, and Cameron (the newest addition to their family) would be coming to Ithaca to attend a friend's wedding at Cornell this past weekend.  She asked if I might be available to meet with them while in Ithaca so that we could spend a little time together and so I could meet Cameron (which of course I was more than happy to do!).

Hence, the four of us met at the Statler Hotel bright and early on Sunday morning.  I brought some photographic equipment with me so that I could once again photograph Rachel and Kenny, but this time with the new addition of their gorgeous little boy Cameron.

Increasingly, Lauren and I are commissioned to photograph the weddings of brothers and sisters of former brides and grooms who's weddings we've also had the honor of photographing in previous years. 

It is always a great honor and a genuine thrill to be part of the history of the many great families that we've gotten to know over time, and it really made me feel warm inside to see Rachel and Kenny once again and to be honored by the presence of their new family member Cameron. 

So out of thanks for this most welcome visit from Rachel, Kenny, and Cameron, here is a brief pictorial re-play of this fine family's wedding, culminating with a few images that I created just yesterday which include the new, much loved addition to the family. 

 
 



 

I Won a Camera!

This past Tuesday evening, I attended another great Pictage User Group meeting in Baldwinsville which are always highly informative and fun. 

These "PUG" meetings are hosted by Alice Patterson who is a highly talented fellow professional photographer and her auspicious sister/business manager Beth (who is rapidly becoming a rather good photographer herself).  The PUG meetings are held at Alice's very cool (retro-modern) house in Baldwinsville, which is where she also runs her photography business.

This week's PUG meeting featured Baldwinsville photographer James Bass who gave a great presentation on how to reliably archive client images, which is a topic that is near and dear to the heart of any 21st-century professional photographer.

There are always great door prizes at each PUG meeting, and this time around I was the winner of the door prize, which is a cool Fuji Instax Mini 7S instant print camera (similar to a Polaroid in that it spits out an instant print right after you depress the shutter (compliments of Photojojo).

Here are a few photos of the camera that I am honored and grateful to have won, and now I can stop telling myself that I never win anything (which wasn't true to begin with, but it has been a while)...

 

Recent Boston Globe Assignment (continued)...

Out of curiosity (and being that it's Sunday or just barely), I thought that I would go to the Boston Globe Sunday online edition to see if any of the images I created for today's article on Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Kammen and his new book ("Digging up the Dead") made it into the newspaper.  And one of them did (the image they chose to run in the online edition is below).  If you're interested in checking out the article, click here.  The Boston Globe feature article is entitled, "Bone Wars"...

It will be interesting to see later today if they used the same image for the print edition as they did for the electronic/on-line edition.

Sage Chapel Images...

Happy Spring!...On occasion, various prospective clients ask me if I have experience with a particular wedding venue or location.  This afternoon I was asked if I had experience photographing weddings at Cornell University's Sage Chapel, and I replied that I have photographed at least one hundred and ten weddings there so far and that approximately 80% of the weddings that I photograph are Cornell-related.I have also photographed many weddings at the Fontainebleau (which is truly gorgeous), the Mirbeau in Skaneateles, the Sherwood Inn in Skaneateles, many winery and historic mansion venues on Skaneateles, Cayuga, Seneca, Keuka, and Canandaigua Lakes, the Skaneateles Country Club, the Ithaca Country Club, various Rochester, Syracuse, and NYC venues, the Everson Museum in Syracuse, a few Saratoga venues, a few Santa Fe, New Mexico locations, and the Promintory Ranch Club in Park City, Utah (to mention a few).  I have photographed many weddings as both a solo photographer and as a creative duo comprised of Lauren Youngs (who is excellent for sure) and myself, not to mention many editorial assignments such at the one I did two days ago for the Boston Globe (since the features photo editor told me she was attracted to my signature editorial style).

In any event, here are some Sage Chapel wedding images I put together for the couple I mentioned above to see.  I pulled these images from three or four recent Sage Chapel weddings, and I thought I would post them to this blog so that others could view the images as well.  I created most of these images with my Canon 5D cameras, and if you're curious I most frequently work with a Canon 85mm f/1.2 L Series lens, a 70-200mm f/2.8 Canon L Series lens, a Canon 24-70mm f/2.8 L Series lens. 

The lower the maximum aperture of a particular lens (such as f/1.2, etc.), the more light the lens is able to transmit which means that ultra-fast (and expensive) lenses such at the 85 mm f/1.2 L are able to provide a photographer with a sharp, beautifully illuminated image without using flash in extremely low light conditions.  This means that it is literally impossible for a photographer (such as many of those who are relatively new to the business) with "slower", non-professional lenses to create existing/natural light images similar to many of the images below (not to mention that lesser experienced photographers often do not have back-up equipment which could prove to be a major problem in the event of an equipment failure).

 

So there you have it, a few images from weddings I've photographed at Sage Chapel.  I hope you like them!

Short-Notice Assignment from the Boston Globe...

At around 1:00 PM this afternoon I received a phone call from Susan Vermazen, who is the Features Editor for the Boston Globe.  She asked me if I would be able to photograph a Cornell Professor Emeritus named Dr. Michael Kammen for a feature article that the Boston Globe will be running this coming Sunday.  The article will be about Dr. Kammen and his new book, "Digging Up the Dead", which will be released on May 1st of this year.

I asked her for details, and she said that Dr. Kammen would be expecting to meet with me at the Johnson Museum at Cornell this afternoon at 2:30 PM, and that they would be needing the edited, post-processed imagery immediately following the assignment.

I told her that I could do the assignment, hung up the phone, and proceeded to prepare myself and my equipment for this very short notice job.  I charged my camera body batteries while I shaved, showered, and changed, got dressed, and quickly packed my rolling equipment case and lighting kit.

I then headed to the Johnson Museum, but soon figured out that Dr. Kammen thought our meeting time was supposed to be 2:00, hence he went home after waiting for me for twenty minutes at the museum.

I called Dr. Kammen at his house, and learned that there had been a misunderstanding regarding our alleged meeting time.  At that point, Dr. Kammen said that he would appreciate if I could meet him at his house not far from Cornell, so that is what I did.

When I knocked on his door, the very friendly Dr. Kammen greeted me and invited me into his home.  After a couple of minutes of friendly conversation, I asked him if he would mind if I started to set up my lighting gear inside he and his wife's nicely appointed famiily room, to which he replied, "of course".

The geometry of the room was somewhat difficult to light, since the room ceiling is a very angled peaked ceiling.  I ended up photographing Dr. Kammen in a couple of locations within his family room (also after scouting what turned out to be unsuitable outdoor locations) with and without his cat, and with and without bounced strobe illumination.  My favorite images ended up being lit naturally (as in without any strobes) which produced a significantly warmer, softer light. 

I just completed the uploading of the imagery to the Boston Globe's Features Editor, and here are a few of the images that I uploaded (it will be interesting to see which one runs in Sunday's paper).  Susan said that the photo was going to be large in the newspaper, which is why the images are not closely cropped.  In the last image, Dr. Kammen is laughing because I told him that he looked great for a fifty year old...

 

 

So that's how my afternoon was enjoyably spent.  Life is definitely full of surprises (which is often the way I like it).

I look forward to seeing the article and accompanying photograph in the Sunday edition of the Boston Globe, and I hope they choose the one of Dr. Kammen laughing (we'll see).  Stay tuned!...

Life in Las Vegas...

For the majority of this week, I am helping my friend Shai Eynav to market his revolutionary new product (the Spider Holster) at the Wedding and Portrait Photographers international (WPPI) convention here in Las Vegas, Nevada.  Shai is an excellent photographer himself, as are the other two Ithaca area photographers that are working with us here at the tradeshow which includes Frank DiMeo and George Cannon.

We have a booth located within one of the two huge convention center exhibition areas that are both full of photographic industry companies who are presenting their latest and greatest products to the many thousands of professional photographers attending this major event.The response to our presence here has been nothing short of amazing, and we continue to be continually swamped with photographers dying to buy our Spider Holster system.I believe our success here is resulting from the Spider Holster being such an innovative and useful product for photographers, as well as the major publicity that we've been able to create by knowing (and being good friends with) many of the major players in the worldwide photographic industry.  Yesterday Marcus Bell who is an extraordinarily talented photographer (of Melbourne, Australia) and friend of ours wore our Spider Holster during his presentations at the Nikon booth at the trade show.  I watched his presentation yesterday afternoon where he showed how he is creating work for his clients which merges both still and video imagery along with sound to create beautiful results for them.  The last time I saw Marcus was during breakfast at a hotel in NYC where he asked me to join him and Joe Buissink (another legend of photography from Los Angeles who specializes in celebrity weddings, etc).  Here is a photo of Marcus below...

Here is a photo of Joe Buissink below mentoring other photographers at a photography workshop...

During our breakfast together, Joe's cell phone rang and the person calling was Steven Spielberg's assistant calling to tell Joe how much Steven enjoyed the photography that Joe created at his father's surprise birthday party (which I found to be pretty fascinating)...

Both Marcus and Joe are true world-class photographers, and excellent human beings.

On a related note, my long time friend and mentor David Ziser who is also an exceptionally talented world-class photographer who I've known well since my days at Kodak agreed to produce a video for his blog where he talks about our Spider Holster system.  He nominated me to be the video photographer who created the footage of him starting the video with him drawing a Canon 5D Mark II camera with a 70-200 mm lens as if her were a cowboy.  His blog is called digital pro talk and it is actively followed by 150,000 plus professional photographers worldwide.  David recently produced a book in conjunction with the American Association of Photoshop Professionals called, "Captured by the Light".

We have many other world-class photographers enthused about our product who will be doing web reviews, magazine articles, etc featuring the Spider Holster system.  We are having a great time here!

What's Going on This Weekend and Beyond...

The State of the Art Gallery in downtown Ithaca (located at 120 West State Street) is sponsoring their popular Annual Spring Juried Photography Show which opens this Friday evening at 6:00 PM.

This tends to be a very popular and well attended local arts event which features a very interesting and diverse selection of works by various local photographic artists.  I haven't entered anything in this show for the past couple of years (since I've been plenty busy with other projects, assignments, etc).  Nonetheless, I decided to enter two framed pieces this year and I received a phone call from the gallery yesterday morning letting me know that my two pieces had been accepted.  Here is what the two pieces look like:

The first entry (above) is of Carol who is a fellow creative and friend of mine.  Carol and I got together this recent fall, and went to Taughannock Falls State Park to collaborate in the creation of some new imagery in and around the ancient and spectacular gorge there.  Obviously, I've done a bit of Photoshop work to mirror the image, etc.  I do like the result which reminds me somewhat of seeing her through a kaleidoscope.

 

The second entry is of a close friend of mine Ron Walsh who is the former mayor of Cortland, an attorney, and a Cornell University Trustee (a particularly fun one, I might add).  Ron, myself, and approximately eight of our other close friends go to the Adirondacks each year for our annual "Man Trip" where we go to yet another remote Adirondack region every year to canoe, hike, camp, cook, swim, create, and have fun.  We've been doing this together since we've all been knee-high to a grass hopper.

Ron (or Bink as we call him) is one of the most talented character impersonators I've ever encountered, and he loves to emulate anyone in voice, facial expressions, actions, and character.  He is amazing at this.  Hence, on our most recent Man Trip I asked him if he would mind playing the role of a Mexican Wrestler for me (and of course he gladly complied), and I must say he did a beautiful job. 

I've always wanted to do a series of portraits of various and unique characters standing on the water (via an underwater platform, etc of course), so here is one example (among many that we created that evening) where Bink looks most like a true Super Hero to me...

Some New Exposure from the latest issue of Wellwed New York Magazine...

The most recent issue of Wellwed New York Magazine just hit the news stands quite recently, and once again they chose to publish some of our imagery.  So, I thought that I would post the pages within their most recent issue that illustrates a bit of our recent work.

Below is a scan of the most recent issue's cover so that you will be able to recognize the magazine the next time you're in Barnes and Noble, Borders, Wegmans, etc.

In each of their issues, the magazine usually publishes a section called "Our Wedding Album" that features a nicely put together collage of images that the magazine chose to feature from some of the more interesting wedding's they've come across.  Image #14 is one of ours from Alison and Brian's very memorable and beautiful wedding at the Farm Sanctuary near Watkins Glen...

Here's a close-up of the image so you can see it more clearly...

And here's my friend Marion Cardwell's ad from Sincredible Pastries (Marion's cakes, etc. are second to none) that is also in the most recent issue of the magazine.  I created the daisy cake photo, and Marion created the daisy cake!

Jessi and Trevor...

In spite of winter, I recently had the pleasure of doing an engagement photography session with Jessi and Trevor on the Cornell University campus here in Ithaca.  Jessi and Trevor met each other while pursuing their undergraduate degrees at Cornell, and I really enjoyed spending some pre-wedding time with the two of them.  The two of them reside in the New York City area as do many of our excellent clients.

Lauren and I will be photographing their wedding on July 10th at Cornell and their reception will take place on the terrace right off the end zone of Schoellkopf Field which will be a particularly unique location for a Cornell wedding reception (Trevor was an award-winning Cornell football player, so Schoellkopf field has additional meaning to Trevor and Jessi). 

Engagement photography sessions when practical provide a very nice pre-wedding "bonding" opportunity so that my clients and I can get to know each other better than would be possible otherwise (not to mention it also enables us to co-create some beautiful additional imagery that will become part of their long-term family history!).

Fortunately for us the weather the day we did the photography session was particularly mild for late January.  My backup plan in the event the weather was particularly harsh was to do all of the photography at a few suitable indoor photography locations I am familiar with at Cornell.

My basic approach to each engagement photography session I undertake is primarily to have fun with each couple I work with so that we can co-create a desirable body of well-executed, artful, and compelling imagery together that they and their families will love for many years to come.

Jessi, Trevor, and I spent almost two hours together that day, and here are a few images from our great time together.  I hope you enjoy them!  On a related note, our 2010 season is booking up quickly so if you are interested in possibly booking our services for your wedding this coming season it would be wise to act soon!

 

This Must be the Time for July Bookings!

Within the past hour, we just gained two more new, confirmed July bookings (July 24th at the Ithaca Yacht Club, and July 25th at the Fontainebleau which are both excellent venues).  Perhaps this has something to do with holiday time engagements, and people realizing that the better artists/service providers are rapidly becoming less available.

In any event, I continue to be thankful for all of our great clients, and their confidence in our abilities (as well as for their enthusiasm regarding entrusting us with such a great responsibility and honor).