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Erin, we thought you'd love a bright pink one so we got her for you as a thank you for all your hard work while we're away enjoying the highlands of Central America!

Seriously though, Guatemala is an amazing, beautiful, and complicated country and we'll have a lot more to write when we're back but for now, here's a picture from the market in Xela.

(no, we didn't buy one)

Fast forward a dozen years or so and into the era of the all-pervasive social networking websites.  I reconnected with Mike through facebook a year or so ago and was so happy to see he was still an active photographer living in NYC with his own business, Echo Imagery and continuing to produce amazing work.  It came as great news when Mike wrote telling me he was getting married to a woman he'd met in Sundance, UT named Venessa and he wondered if we'd be interested in photographing his wedding in Tulum, Mexico.  Oh man, how frustrating when we checked and were unavailable on the date so we suggested the next best thing...Hardy!  Now Hardy will be there in October to capture the day for them and we'll be there in spirit.  

We met in Oceanside to take a few engagement photos and it was great to catch up with Mike and meet Venessa.  The two seem like they've never existed apart from each other and were both intimate and extremely silly - often within the same minute.  Good fun and great effort guys, meeting me at 7AM in the drizzle to negotiate with the guard at the drive in for a few minutes of photos.  P.S...Alex loves to be involved with the picture taking so when we met for lunch the previous day, we gave him the Olympus XA and he took the last photo.  Wish I'd started so young!

Megan and Dan were actually set up by Dan's sister and brother in law who were both professors at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where Megan was studying her MFA in Creative Writing. Cute huh? There was a lot of family love that day - I have to say, there were a few times during the speeches that I teared up. 

We were especially excited to hear a good friend of the bride and groom, and one of our favorite artists, Sia, sing the acapella song, Never Gonna Leave Me. 

The Pentax is photographed using our other new recent acquisition, a complete Nikon Camera/Lens/Flash system!  The shot was made with the ridiculously amazing 45mm f/2.8 PC on our D700.

The other photos represent an extremely random collection of testing the first few rolls through the camera around the house and at Lake Powell, UT.

Some artists you just have to see to believe and it's been a long time since I've seen such an all-out performance.  Bouncing around on stage smiling from ear to ear, his enthusiasm would earn him a straight A and is extremely infectious.  Josh pulls the crowd right in and you feel like you're sitting on a shag carpet with him in his lounge while he spins yarns and plays his deeply soulful tunes even though you're standing in a huge room, shoulder to shoulder with sweaty, sunburned strangers.

Josh doesn't take himself too seriously but his musicianship is dead serious.  The sound and set progression was genius; well thought out featuring songs from all albums and even an awesome cover version of Moon River for all the ladies in the place.  The band members all stood strong on their own (the bass player with the awesome moustache even did a solo cover of Chris Isaak's Wicked Game that was surprisingly rad).  On top of that, they all genuinely seemed to like each other which was really nice.

Great show, great music, cool guy...

Ingredients:

2 oz dried Pasilla chilies

2 medium sweet, yellow onions

½ cup olive oil

12 cloves garlic

4 large portobello mushrooms

½ cup fresh oregano

1-teaspoon salt

1-teaspoon pepper

1-teaspoon dried sage

1-teaspoon cumin

½ teaspoon thyme

4 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce

2 tablespoons grainy mustard

4 cups no-chicken broth

1 lb. carrots

1 lb. baby red potatoes

1 ½ cups bulgur wheat

2 teaspoons Spike gourmet natural seasoning

4- 15oz cans chili beans. (Kidney, pinto and black)

2- 28oz cans chunky tomato sauce

2- 28oz cans diced fire roasted tomatoes

1 green jalapeno

1 red jalapeno

1 cup fresh cilantro

2 green bell peppers

¼ cup BBQ sauce

1 teaspoon Mexican chili powder

1 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1 teaspoon dried oregano

2 additional teaspoons cumin

1 additional teaspoon pepper

1 additional teaspoon salt

1 additional teaspoon Spike

1 lime

Avocado

Grated cheese

Sour cream

Sourdough bread 

 

 

Prep:

To rehydrate chilies: Remove stem of the pasilla chilies, slice the chili down the side, and remove seeds and veins. Flatten chili. Cover chili with hot water and soak until fleshy. Discard water and set aside.

Heat olive oil in a cast iron skillet over medium heat, add finely diced onions and roughly chopped mushrooms. Sauté until onions become translucent.

Add diced garlic and remove from heat.

Add roughly chopped oregano, salt, pepper, dried sage, cumin, thyme, Worcestershire sauce and mustard to the onion mix and stir well.  Set aside.

In a 10-quart pot, add broth, finely diced carrots and diced potatoes. Bring to a boil.

Add bulgur wheat, beans, spike, tomato sauce, diced tomatoes and reduce heat to low.

Stir well, cover, and simmer over low heat for 10-15 minutes stirring occasionally.

To the pot, now add: 

finely diced pasilla chilies, diced jalapenos, chopped cilantro, onion/mushroom mix,           BBQ sauce, diced green peppers, cumin, salt & pepper, cayenne pepper, chili powder,  Spike, dried oregano, and the juice of one lime.

Simmer over low heat for about an hour, stirring frequently.

Remove from heat and let cool.  Top with sliced avocado, grated cheese, sour cream and serve with a side of sourdough bread...or whatever sounds good to you!

We actually were booked to photograph Rosanna and Tommy's wedding last year, but the venue they were having it at was sold, so they postponed it for a year. We were unfortunately, booked on the day they settled on - so sad for us! But our associate extraordinare, Hardy Wilson and his sidekick Michael Mullady did a fantastic job in our place. 

"We absolutely loved going out to the private beach with Dennis & Jaime to wrap up the big day with some memorable photos by the water.  It was relaxing and beautiful... like a fresh breath of air, we finally had a chance to recollect ourselves and cherish the moments for many more years to come." - Soo and Seong

Even though it seems like a given that friends would want to have other friends photograph their wedding, we know that it's a big decision and has to be the right fit on multiple levels.  We are truly honored that Jami and Mike had us there with them and wish them all the best!

Paul's is Latvian, I have never actually met any Latvians so it was pretty exciting... we got to see Katie's traditional Latvian engagement ring, and they even did the Polka for us! They also brought an old Graflex 22 camera that used to be his Grandfather's.

I know this is starting to become a regular thing - we ended the portrait session with martinis, a cheese plate and fried chickpeas...