Sorry I haven’t blogged in ages. (What exactly is an age, anyway?)  I could say it was because I lost the password to my blog site, or I was on a pilgrimage to Nepal for 8 months, or a myriad of other excuses, but the truth is I just didn’t feel like writing.  I took lots of pictures I was excited about, I just didn’t feel like writing about them.  However, a few people have asked if I was going to start blogging again, so here I am, back writing, still probably with nothing to say, but lots of pictures I am excited about.  Hopefully my writing will convey some of the excitement I felt when I was taking these pictures.

The first one I have is one I took at a church service.  The pastor had said that the younger generation was our future (so true) and that we needed to nurture them.  He then asked that the adults all find a child and hold them.  There was an excitement in the air as the Praise and Worship band stated playing and people gathered the little ones in their arms and started praying for them.  I know we have our problems, and it is never easy raising children, but when I saw all the love everyone had for the kids, I felt everything will be alright.  Here is my favorite picture I took that morning.  It says everything I felt:

Adrienne Atkins interviews JR Martinez, winner of Dancing with the Stars, on the red carpet.

Last weekend I was lucky enough to be able to go to Indy and shoot some pictures at the Style Icon celebrity gifting event that was a part of the Super Bowl festivities. Taking place over two days, the event was run by Louisville’s Andre Watson, the owner of the Style Icon brand. Andre is known for styling stars such as Valerie Bertinelli for the Kentucky Derby!

For two days stars from the entertainment and sports worlds stopped by to pick up some swag and help promote some awesome new businesses! Michael Epps, Indy’s Super Bowl Ambassador was our great host! The event  also served to raise money for the Michael and Mechelle Epps Foundation, which helps at-risk youth. Michael’s wife, Mechelle, was displaying her new clothing line, Memenic, which looked really amazing! Everyone had a great time at the event, and I got to take some great pictures and hang out with some amazing people. A few of the pictures I took are posted below.

Shannon Sharpe

Michael Epps, the host and Indy's Superbowl Ambassador!

Rob Gronkowski from the Patriots with his brothers and their dad, and Kelly Kupper from American Rebel PR

Darryl "DMC" McDaniels

Rocsi, host of the video show "106th and Park", and Ramses Varden of the NY Giants

Caroline Manzo from "The Real Houswives of New Jersey" and her family. They were incredibly polite!

Members of the band "Here Come the Mummies" and Adrienne

Oozie Mummy!

Style Icons's Andre Wilson and actor Keith David

Megan and Adrienne posing with jerseys from the two QB's

Mechelle Epps and the sign for her new clothing line, which will be out this spring.

Me and JR Martinez! Meeting him was the highlight of the whole event for me!

The photo above is one of my favorites from last year, and of course it has a great story behind it. I was shooting a wedding in Westminster, Maryland, for Katie and Jacob, a really fantastic couple. It was a great trip and a great wedding My wife and I drove out early for the wedding and visited her son Alex, who is a Navy Corpsman at Bethesda, MD. We spent a couple of days in Washington, DC before heading to Westminster.

On the wedding day, we were at Katie’s house doing some portraits before heading over to the church. Katie noticed her dog, who had been a part of her life for many years, and mentioned that she would like a picture with him. I was trying to figure out the easiest way to do it when she called him over to her. He jumped up onto a footstool into some perfect light and it looked as if he was posing. I told Katie to close to him and I got in front of them and aimed my camera. She leaned a little towards me and I got the shot.  As I pressed the shutter button the dog started to get up, and that quickly the moment was gone, but we did get that one great photo. We took a few more portraits which she really loved, but that one is her favorite.

I have a lot going on this month. Last night I met a bunch of great photographers and had a lot of fun talking about photography.  It was actually a nationwide meeting, and there were people from all over the country participating. A lot of thanks Natalia from  ChocolateBox Photography and Conrohd from Conrhod Zonio Photography  for hosting the event. I can’t wait for the next one!

Then, later this month, I will be at two bridal fairs. Bridal Bliss will be at the mall in Elizabethtown on January 22^nd, from noon until 4, and the Louisville Bridal Showcase will be at the Henry Clay, 604 South Third St., from 12:00 until 5:00 on the 29^th.

In February I’ll be at Bridal Fest in Bowling Green, at the Sloan Convention Center. That will be on the 19^th, from 12:00 until 4:00.

In getting ready for the Bridal Shows I have been going back through last years’ photos, looking for great ones to make my display, and I love the memories they bring back. Every wedding is so special, and for each one the bride puts so much effort into making the details uniquely hers. I shot a wedding in July that was just amazing! It was at the Whitehall Mansion in Louisville, a really spectacular old house with an amazing formal garden. Sometime I’ll have to post some photos of the gardens.

Anyway, the color theme was a peacock feather, which led to some incredible touches. One of my favorite details was the flower girls. They were dressed as fairies, and they wore some cute little wings. Of course I got a lot of great shots of the three girls, but one of my favorites was taken during a quiet moment when they were sitting around waiting to get their wings on in the master bedroom. There was a lot of sunlight coming through the window, and I saw an incredible photo. I’ve posted that picture and a few others below.

I hope everyone is having a great Holiday season. I know I am! I always think I may get to take a break this time of year, but between wrapping up last minute orders, making sure my books are in order for the tax man, and getting ready for next year it seems I am even busier than usual. However, over the next few days I am going to make sure I take some time off to relax and hang out with family and friends.

This picture is one of my favorites from this year. The wedding was in July at the Brown-Pusey House, a really fantastic venue in Elizabethtown. It was time to the pictures of the wedding party I needed to get a shot of Jenny, the lovely bride, and her two adorable flower girls. These flower girls were real pros, by the way. This was already their fourth wedding of the year.  This day they were both a little under the weather and their mom wanted to take them home for a nap before the ceremony started. We just had a few moments for a quick shot in the garden behind the house. It is always a challenge at weddings to get great shots that look both fresh and timeless, but I hope I did that here. I used a flash to overcome the sun because the light was very dappled under the trees. I had Jenny sit on the stairs and the two girls sit on either side and lean against her. They were all looking at me and I took a couple of shots, then I had Jenny interact with them; she looked down and I quickly got “the” shot. I knew right away we were done. They girls went for their nap and came back in time to be part of a wonderful ceremony.

This week I am posting an interesting image I took this fall.  The bride had a gorgeous dress with a five foot train, but she was getting ready in a normal sized house full of people and furniture. There really wasn’t anyplace to display the dress for a really amazing photo.  I walked all through the house several times looking for some place, then I headed outside.  As soon as I walked into the backyard I saw a lovely tree with the sun behind it and some autumn color in the leaves, and a stout branch to hang the dress from.  I looked around and luckily there was even a ladder leaning against the house, which I needed since the dress was going to be hanging about twelve feet in the air.  I went inside and got the dress and with the help of one of the bridesmaids I carried it outside and carefully hung it in the tree.  The sun was behind the dress and a little high, so I shot from a low angle. I hit the front of the dress with a kiss of light to balance the sun and got a great shot that shows the beauty of the dress and is a unique memory for the bride.  She loved the photo!

I love this photo and am so happy I got to be a part of creating it. It was taken at the Linnview Retreat in Nancy, KY, a small town near Somerset. The couple, Audrey and Nick, were awesome to work with and so very easy going! They really enjoyed their wedding day and savored the day, which helped me get some really great pictures. Wedding pictures always look so much better if the couple is relaxed and really enjoying themselves.

Linnview Retreat is a really great venue to hold a reception or even an entire wedding. They have a log cabin and a lot of outdoor space, perfect for a really nice country wedding. They also have a gazebo, and at night it is covered in Christmas lights and looks so very romantic. Audrey mentioned that they wanted some pictures taken there, and I was more than happy to oblige. The couple headed to the gazebo and I went and grabbed a couple pieces of equipment. When I got to the gazebo they were inside of it, which was very nice and romantic with the soft light of a thousand tiny light bulbs, but I wanted to capture the gazebo itself in the photo, so we moved in front of it. I had an idea to light them a little from the front, but decided first I would get a silhouette. I’m glad I did; this was one of my favorite pictures from the whole day, and the couple loved it as well.  The color and the touch of rim light on the couple make it a really special image

I haven’t posted to my blog in awhile, preferring instead to post my pictures to Facebook. However, it seems a lot harder to tell the stories behind the pictures on Facebook, so while things have slowed down a little for the winter I am going to go back and visit some of my favorite images and share the story behind them and why they are so special to me.

I’ll start with a portrait of Megan, a gorgeous bride whose wedding I shot in October. She was getting ready at her fiance’s house but things weren’t going according to plan. She was running a little late and we didn’t get a chance to shoot any portraits of her at home where she was getting ready. As soon as she was ready we had to dash to the church for the ceremony, leaving me with no time at all. We arrived at South Fork Baptist Church in Hodgenville and I ran around like a crazy person shooting detail shots and a few of the guys finishing up their preparation. Once I had those images safely in the camera I went looking for Megan. I found her relaxing with her bridesmaids in a Sunday school classroom. It was only five minutes before the start of the ceremony, but she had had a little time to relax with her friends in a Sunday school classroom and was looking very calm and beautiful.

A classroom is not usually the ideal place to shoot portraits but there wasn’t a lot of time to go anywhere else. I did noticed a north facing window with some nice light, and knew I could use that to make a lovely picture. I had Megan sit on the window sill so she was as close as she could be to the window, and I took a series of images. The one below was my favorite of the series, and I think it looks great in color and in high-key black and white. I can’t decide which I like better Both versions are posted below. Enjoy!

I have a busy weekend lined up, so I thought I would try to squeeze a post in while I can. Tomorrow I am heading to Washington, DC to see Manchester United and Barcelona play at Fed-Ex Field. Whoo-hoo! This will be great, even if Lionel Messi won’t be there. I am really looking forward to the game and the atmosphere, but not the long drive. Oh well, it’s one of the sacrifices a sports fan has to make from time to time

I thought this week I would post some family photos. I took these pictures couple of weeks ago of Chris, Esti, and their dog Aspen. Chris is the Executive Director of the United Way of Central Kentucky, and has been a great help to me and my Help-Portrait event s that I run. He and Esti were so great and easy to work with ? They will be welcoming the new addition to their family any day now, so our best wishes go out to them! I love the black and white picture of Esti with Freeman Lake as a backdrop; it is so simple and yet says so much. I also got some great shots of Aspen as he was crawling through the grass; the light was perfect.  Here are the pictures:

I hope you have an awesome weekend!

I am still super busy, so busy in fact, that I never got around to posting Kendall and Josh’s engagement pictures.  Since they are getting hitched in a week I think it’s definitly time to get them up on the blog.  I am really looking forward to their wedding.  It is going to be at Whitehall Mansion in Louisville; a really beautiful setting for a wedding. I can’t wait!

Anyway, here are the pictures from their engagement session a couple of months ago.  We met near Beef O’Bradys in Elizabethtown and just humshooting down there.  It was a lot of fun! They even brought Bailey, their dog, along for some “family” pictures