claire & ben: engaged

i have a problem. i'm not very good with exclusiveness. i SAY i have favourites...but it carries a bit less weight when i tell EVERY NEW COUPLE they are my favourites.

so. claire and ben are my favourite couple getting married in february of 2008. the fact that they are the ONLY ones who've hired me for a wedding that month (thus far) should mean nothing to you, because if they were not awesome, they would not have earned the favourite title.

claire is a minister and went to harvard divinity school...she's very unassuming about it, and i had to ask her directly where she went to seminary. smarty-pants. i can't remember what ben does, but he is very nice, and he likes claire a lot...there is little in the world more endearing than a guy thoroughly wrapped up in his girl. maybe baby fingers/toes, but...that's a close one.



anyway, they met at...wait for it...adult kickball. isn't that the most amazing thing you've ever heard? it made me want to run out and join a league, but the closest ones are portland, me and the boston area, and neither of those are really close enough. so. i will sit here, living free instead of dying, in nh...kickballless.

but you didn't come here for that. you want to see photos, yes?

we met in newburyport, ma for our session...grabbed a few shots downtown, and then headed out to maudslay state park. there just HAPPENED to be a playground right near where we met, and apparently they were swayed by my pathetic longing...i've been dying to do some playground e-session shots for...many months. they were totally up for it and laughed right along with me at the logistical difficulties of positioning two adults in a child-sized crawl-through tube.


anyone who does photos with me in newburyport will have "the coke wall" shot. it is basically my favourite thing in the entire town.

(this was their favourite, but i think i like the next one just as well.)



one of the things i love about my job is getting to know the different couples who hire me...another wedding photographer friend of mine once described the relationship as something like...temporary best friends. i get to see lots of intimate moments and they've got to trust me to capture those things. i am genuinely interested when i ask about their stories...how'd you meet, what are your "things"...funniest moments, etc. claire's got one of the cutest "things" i've seen yet. she likes to smell ben's head. she pulls it down towards her, closes her eyes, and breathes in deep. "pheremones: they're real," she announced to me.



(kissing down by the river is better than living in a van down by the river, right?)



one last thing i love about these two: they've both got hyphenated last names...so they're picking one from each and creating a new hyphenated identity...just for the two of them...to start their new family. fabulous.

so, this one time...i actually ATTENDED a wedding.

my friends hannah and zach got married. and then they got married again. and then they had a wedding. we all find that quite tremendous. (he's in the army, so...the multiple marriages/ceremonies were for logistical AND sentimental AND tradition purposes)

their wedding-wedding was in oklahoma, and it was the first one i've attended...in a non-involved (ha!) capacity...maybe ever.

i went to my babysitter's wedding when i was little, but bek-the-sister and i wore our special jessica mcclintock outlet dresses and passed out programs. the flower-girl consolation prize...we were ok with it, because we got frilly pink dresses. i went to my honourary brother jeremy's wedding in 1998 and held the cup for communion...hey...i had to wear a pretty pink dress again and stand on stage, so...that counts as involvement, right? then bek-the-sister got married in 2003, and i spent the morning of the wedding frantically trying to finish my dress...and wishing to GOD i actually LIKED margaritas so i could relax. i've managed to not attend any of my college/hs friends' weddings because they get married in far off and ridiculous places like calgary, or south bend, indiana, etc...

i've gone to countless weddings in the last couple years...but when i'm behind the lens, it's quite different. so. this was an experience. i learned how to use floral wire and tape and made some really cute corsages and boutonnieres.


got to photograph the bride on the loo (i am extremely eccentric, and there is something about the disparity of the huge white dress, and the very non-ceremonial call to nature...combined w/ the fact that said white dress is SO HUGE that it renders the delicacy of the situation basically non-existent--that just cracks me right up!)


the distracted little flower girls walked in to "concerning hobbits"...hilarious AND apt.


the groom is a west point grad, so of course they had a saber arch...i had a sleeping flower-girl on me at this point as i was given child-duty so mom and dad could play their respective parts in the ceremony, so i didn't actually take this photo...i just directed. :-D


i love the light on this one


oh, and me...with sleeping flowergirl...who didn't get her nap that day, so it's a good thing i had snacks and toys and several years of childcare experience under my belt...no crying during the ceremony!


i totally helped design this bouquet. well...why not...i've seen one or two this year. :-D


the bride has 6 younger brothers...who decorated the car. this window says, "guess what we're doing tonight?" ha.


then some friends asked me to take a few pictures for them during the reception...doesn't really matter that i wasn't the official photographer, huh? 's ok. it's what i do.


hey look! i got them all to look...and the baby isn't crying or grizzling! i must be a magician.


course...sometimes the moments they don't know i'm watching are the best


then we had a little fun in the pastor's study...churches sometimes have...INTERESTING things in their closets. like john lennon wigs.


lastly...the afterparty...at which the army fellows demonstrated how long they can last before all the bud lights catch up with them. heh. (some of them did quite well. the one on the floor...did not.)


i'm feeling extremely motivated to catch up on TONS of things i did not blog about this summer/fall, so...stay tuned. and hound me if you don't see regular posts. nagging: it works!

that's just what i wanted to hear

i changed my hair fairly recently...(went UBER blonde.) i've had a few client meetings/engagement sessions since then, and i was mildly concerned that they wouldn't be able to recognise me because the photo on my website (and here) is me with darker hair.

but all of them said, "oh no...i could tell it was you from your glasses."

NICE.

have i ever mentioned how much i love my vintage cat-eye glasses? because...i so do. i spent an embarrassing number of hours searching ebay for JUST THE RIGHT ONES.

anyway...here's me w/ blonde hair and my awesome glasses. (taken w/ le macbookpro. please note the kitty litter to the left side of the photo. awesome.)

contrite

a friend just informed me that it is UNACCEPTABLE that it has been 20 days since i last posted here. i don't like it, but i am inclined to agree. please accept my humble apologies and recycle through some of my old excuses...because i don't have any new ones.

so...to appease her, and hopefully you, here's my favourite image from a recent senior portrait session i did with abi in portsmouth. iPod ad, anyone? (also, she's wearing a really cool hat...she doesn't have a funny shaped head.)



maybe if i'm really on top of things today, i'll post some of the few shots i got when i ATTENDED my first wedding in 4 years a few weeks ago...i was mostly not in photographer mode, because i was in florist, girl-friday, child-wrangler mode...

warm fuzzy emails

today i got an email w/ the subject line, "vegan shoe girl with backpiece". it was a guest from a wedding i photographed in may writing to say that she loved the photos i'd taken of her and her husband. (whenever anyone tells me, "i'm not photogenic...i always look _____ in pictures", i take it as a personal challenge.

so, i grabbed her and her husband (he was the best man), and did a 5 minute "mini-session" with them. also, she had a beautiful tattoo and awesome shoes, so it was just kind of coincidental that i wound up with so many stunning shots of her/her accessories/ink.

these are the photos she was talking about.

the awesome shoes


the back ink


her crazy-awesome blue eyes (and jovial best-man husband)




aren't they so cute?

downtown wedding

i am so in love with this image from saturday...lesley and ken had an absolutely gorgeous reception at the algonquin club, and we stole 15 minutes to walk across comm ave to take some photos in the little park area...i snapped this one on the way back. (lesley was very certain she wanted to be there for her cocktail hour.)

oops!

to anyone who has sent an inquiry via the form on my website: i did not get it. :(

i was trying to protect myself from spam, so i listed my address as gwyn [at] gwynethcolleen [dot] com. however, like a bonehead, i did not read the fine print (this is the email address to which your client inquiries will be sent.)

so. if you wrote to me, please write again! i want to hear from you!

lastly, this must be said:

GO SOX!!! yeeaaaaah!

(oh, and photos coming...sometime? i know, i know...this is a PHOTO blog, and i am PHOTOgrapher, but i am a snowed under photographer. i hope you still love me.)

my hood

i am so infatuated with and privileged to live near portsmouth, nh...

i went there w/ a friend on sunday...we were walking around, and he said, "i always thought your pictures were so colourful...and i'm sure you do some processing, but it really is that vibrant around here!"

behold...these were all taken w/in a block or two of each other, in about 10-15 minutes:

haaaaaaa!

over on this post at offbeatbride.com, someone asked about "roles of honour" other than having a friend stand up as a member of the wedding party. in the comments, someone mentioned that she attended a wedding that had a "best dude"...he had interesting responsibilities, including keeping people "well-liquored".

tremendous.

playing ketchup

i was a weird kid...one year for my birthday, i wanted to have an egg-fight party. no seriously. i did. my mom told me i could have x amt of people, and we'd each get a dozen eggs. she took us down to this vacant lot, and we ran around throwing eggs at each other for, oh, about 2 minutes. i don't know if anyone actually got egged, but...i was happy. i have, uh, different creative outlets now.

i wanted to have a ketchup fight the next year, but that never materialized.

anyway...i've got sooooo many things to blog about...i've lost track of time and space, so, i'm just going to be posting things as i come across them...please don't expect anything in order!

(also...life should slow down enough for me to breathe sometime mid-november. i'm looking forward to it. i'm also looking forward to actually ATTENDING a wedding...my good friends hannah & zach already wed, (before he got transferred to hawai'i...poor things, now they're trying to settle into married life on oahu. i really feel sorry for them, don't you?) and they're celebrating their marriage with a ceremony and party in oklahoma city in november.

here they are in DC in january...before they were even on each other's "hmmm?" radar. we went to arlington for the day. (to make the story even better, zach's sister becky is hannah's best friend and college roommate...)

Catherine & Dave

stop me if i've already told you this one...

catherine contacted me a few months ago to see if i could come photograph her everything-but-the-ceremony in PA near Philadelphia. i was all over that, because my sister lived nearby, and hey...bonus! through back and for emailing, it didn't seem like it was going to work out...but the promise of a long weekend with bek-the-sister had been dangled in front of my nose, and i decided to go anyway. AFTER i'd already bought the ticket (very tricky!), i heard back from her...there had been some changes, and they'd like me to photograph their wedding after all. it just worked out so very perfectly.

they were SUCH fun to work with...and totally good-looking people, too!

so, i'm also excited about this post because this is my first ever slideshow. do you guys like slideshows...do you prefer individual images to be posted? talk back, people.

not photography related...

just AWESOMENESS related!

my friend erin has this incredible design blog. little o' this, little o' that...she's got some great, eclectic, and colourful taste. go check it out if you don't like same old, same old furnishings and aesthetics.

(and, if you're reading MY blog, i'm betting you don't fit into the cookie cutter mold, so go give her some love!)

design for mankind

also, the title of her blog makes me think of one of my favourite jack handey quotes,

"maybe in order to understand mankind, we have to look at the word itself: "mankind". basically, it's made up of two separate words- "mank" and "ind". what do these words mean ? it's a mystery, and that's why so is mankind."

new website!

well, it is 12:03am on 9.28.07...which means 2 things:

1. my new website is finally live! (it's still a teensy bit under construction, so please bear with me...september is pretty much the most ridiculous month in my universe. i don't think i've cooked anything besides popcorn--the non-microwave kind, i'm old school--since sometime in august.)

www.gwynethcolleen.com

i love it soooooo much, and i hope you do, too!

2. it's my birthday! leave me some love, all you blog-stalkers...i know you're out there. i check my stat-counter. :-D


ok. i've gotta get back to work...hopefully by the time you all wake up and read this, the site will be far less under construction, and more 'under tweaking'. (also, past clients: your proofing galleries have been redirected. The old links should still work; if you're having issues, please email me, and I'll sort everything out!)

favourite. EVER.

soo...on 9/1 i headed down to philly-ish-town to photograph the everything-but-the-ceremony-because-they-already-did-it-in-PARIS-i-KNOW!-i-feel-bad-for-
them-too of catherine and dave.

we met at a park to do some couple and family photos before we headed to their family restaurant for a pretty awesome party/reception.

as per usual, bridal hairdos take longer than expected, so our time was cut a wee bit short...making me triply glad i'd done location scouting beforehand.

these two images are probably my favourite bride and groom shots ever. (ok, as i type that, i'm reviewing other favourites and going, "hmmm, is that ACTUALLY true? i don't know..." they're contenders for the all around, and definite gold medalists for the "fun" category.)


i told them to "give me rockstar"...catherine pulled out the big guns, totally trumping dave's token rockstar sign. i told dave, "dude, she totally beat you!" and because dave is a rockstar kind of guy (catherine made him take off his skull ring for photos), he said, "wait, wait...let's do it again. i can do better.)

and this next one...this was ALL her. which is why she is my favourite (of the minute...i kind of have a lot of favourites.)

rachel and ali...engaged

so, basically...the highest honour you can ever receive is to be applauded by your peers, right? because they're the ones who really *GET* what your job entails, and if they think you're good at it...you totally are.

so.

i was extremely flattered and hugely intimidated when Rachel (of decent urban weddings fame), the fabulous one, who gave me my start in wedding photography, asked me to shoot engagement photos for her and her new fiance.

we met in lowell, ma (have you heard the death cab for cutie song by the same name? i believe it is a free download from epitonic.com.) which is chock-a-block with urban decay...colours and textures galore.

here are some of my favourites:


hey mister...
(this is one of my favourite concepts...i didn't make it up, but i'm owning it!)








SMUNCHYFACES!


she is NOT the typical bride. (in FACT...she got her dress off ebay, but she's so unworried about this stuff that...because she doesn't have an ebay username, she asked me to buy the dress on her behalf. i think that's hilarious.)


(i called this their "anthropologie catalogue" photo.)


(this is her favourite.)










this one is my very favourite, and i think they should use it for their save the date cards.

new stuff

my new macbook pro arrived...it is glorious. it also has photobooth, so after i got home from getting my hair cut tonight, i played with it.

family session

i feel so behind on life right now! and there's no respite in sight. in the next 4 weeks, i have 5 weddings, a conference, and three engagement sessions. ack!

i'm out of town this weekend for an everything-but-the-ceremony (they took care of that in Paris last weekend...i know. i feel bad for them, too.) in Philadelphia. i'll see my sister, and we've bandied about the idea of getting some great bridals for her...she's been married 4 years now, but she wasn't very happy w/ her wedding photographer, and hey...how convenient...her sister became one. look at that.

without further ado, some of my favourites from a family session i did with some college friends back in July when i was in Indiana. these are some cool, quirky people that lived in mexico for a while, and then produced a ridiculously cute child.