Amber B. is an awesome Chicagoan artist I’ve recently started working with. She’s been making custom DVD cases for some of my wedding and engagement photo packages. Pretty neat. It’s fun coming up with ways to personalize them for the clients. Here, she designed the case with the engagement ring that Darin gave Emily. More to come!
When Kate asked me to shoot her wedding, I was pretty excited. She just oozes style. And as evidenced by the following photographs, Travis isn’t too bad himself. Travis, you should tell me where you got your best man’s bow tie….so I can get one too…
We walked around Pittsburgh in the sweltering heat and got some great shots before the ceremony. The locations paired wonderfully with Kate’s vibrant choice of blue and red wedding colors. The ceremony was at Smithfield United Church of Christ, the first church built in Pittsburgh. As we were leaving the church, an untimely monsoon hit but everyone made it to the Warhol Museum for the celebratory festivities. If you didn’t believe me when I said Travis and Kate have style, just check out this reception hall. Fantastic. They even spent three weeks in Paris for their honeymoon. You two were awesome and I wish you the best in life!
So good.
Lisa Malanij is one of my awesome friends back in Cleveland. She also happens to be a pretty awesome fashion designer. This was our second shoot together and I designed a much more complex lighting setup to showcase her circle.square collection. We wanted an edgy and high-contrast look that didn’t hide all her design details in shadows. To achieve that I used two gridded softboxes on either side with flags to keep light off the black seamless. A gridded beauty dish was on a boom directly over head and a bit forward of the model for high key. Finally, there was a gridded strobe behind the model and to the right to provide a subtle rim light.
The shoot went really well, and of course, really late into the night. All the models and makeup/hair artists were fantastic. Can’t wait for the next collection, Lisa!
Makeup Artist and Model: Stephanie Giamarco
Hair Design: Laurel Krysten [lkw101985@aol.com]
Lisa ventures out onto the seamless.
I think this is one of the only times Laurel even left the dressing room.
I had the pleasure of shooting Darin and Emily’s engagement photos this afternoon. It’s great when a couple is this comfortable with each other. Makes my job much easier! We walked around Manayunk, Philadelphia for a couple hours and braved the unusually chilly and blustery weather. Looking forward to your wedding in August!
Caleb and Katie had an exceptionally elegant wedding in Albany, NY. They were so relaxed on their big day, and I think this must have rubbed off on their guests. I’ve never seen so many people on the dance floor before dinner was served! The Karen Lawrence Band kept everyone of their feet, and the floor even filled up between the salad and the entree. Speaking of the entree, The State Room served what could quite possibly be the best prime rib ever. Ever. Caleb and Katie, thanks for letting me be a part of your big day!
JoLyn and I left Cambodia to return to Bangkok after quite a nice stay. I don’t have any other captivating stories to tell but we had a great time exploring the city on foot. It’s crazy to think that the same streets we walked have been home to violent protests in the last few weeks. Our trip would not have been possible with everything that’s currently going on. I kinda wish I had been there to experience it. I’ve never helped to overthrow a government before. Well, thanks for keeping up with my photos. This concludes my South East Asian travels.
This is the water taxi. It was a great way to get into the old city for I think under 30 cents.
Khao San road is a really popular backpacker hangout and was recently one of the fatal locations during the protests. Weird to think that I was walking down the same street a couple months earlier.
The tuk tuk was one of my favorite forms of transportation. We need these here.
They’ll prepare this fresh for you.
Muay Thai boxing match.
Two Thai friends: Pookpanda and Joey.
Japanese airspace.
I can’t emphasize enough how beautiful the Angkor Wat ruins are. It’s a whole different experience from walking around the Coliseum or any European ruin. The Khmers are trying to find a balance between restoration and keeping the temples in their current state. I think I like what they’re doing. While rebuilding some areas, the whole temple complex is still quite dilapidated and therein lies their charm. Most of the construction is to keep more areas from caving in. The Ankgor Wat temple itself is probably in the best shape and has the most tourists. The surrounding temples of Angkor Thom and Ta Prohm are crumbing and still overtaken by jungle trees but these were by far the most fun to explore. Plus, Tomb Raider was filmed in Angkor Thom.
Our hostel recommended us a guide named Chan for our day trip through the temples. He was great. For $15 he picked us up early and drove us to the temples in his tuk tuk. He would wait for us and then shuttle us to the next one. $10 is actually the going rate for such a service, but sometimes I hate to bargain for things like this. Chan had an uncanny ability to spot JoLyn and I from a distance. We would be heading back to find him and he’d be waving at us from 75ft away. It turned into a game of trying to find him first. We only won once. Chan has a photo at the bottom.
Listen to “Hello Seahorse!”. They’re Mexican but the music won’t make you look for a sombrero. -Bestia
The famous central temple of Angkor Wat.
Angkor Wat
Angkor Wat
Angkor Wat
Angkor Wat
This is the most famous landscape to photograph in Cambodia. Unfortunately, it was the dry season and the water was low and full of scum. Next time….
The main gate to Angkor Thom. I feel like I might get ridiculed for saying this, but I’ve never seen Tomb Raider. But you know what? I don’t care. The movie has to be dumb. This is where it was supposedly filmed though. Anyone recognize any of these places?
Angkor Thom
Angkor Thom
Angkor Thom
Angkor Thom
Angkor Thom
Angkor Thom
These remaining photos are from Ta Prohm. Of all the Angkor temples, I was most excited for this one because a photographer i like, Trey Ratcliff, has a lot work from there. It wasn’t until the past few years that they have uncovered this from the jungle.
Hello, Chan.
[I you don't want to read all this, don't leave. There's photos of monkeys at the bottom.]
Flying into Cambodia from Thailand is reserved for the rich and the ignorant. A ticket can cost upwards of $250 one way. We had been paying approximately $45 to travel elsewhere by plane and $250 wasn’t in our budgets. Besides, I had read quite a bit about all the scams you get accosted with trying to cross the border and it sounded like a lot of fun.
We flew out of Phuket early in the morning en route to Bangkok. After we arrived, we immediately tried to find a place to take visa photos for us. I was supposed to get E-Visas but never got around to it. This is unfortunate because I had a photo ready to be submitted that had me holding a PBR. If you read Cambodia’s visa rules you would most likely agree with me that they would accept this photo. Obviously, this would have been the best thing in my passport and a great conversation centerpiece.
We got our photos and tried to figure out which bus we needed to take to get to Aranyaprathet, the large Thai city near our Cambodian border crossing. While I was making sure we had our directions right, we missed the bus twice. Oops. Not to worry, it was a frequent shuttle to the actual bus station. Once we finally get there, we board a large bus without aircon and set out on a long, bumpy, and hot 4hr bus ride. The most exciting thing about the ride was that at one point we stopped so the Thai military could board and remove two teenage guy sitting near us.
The bus parks in Aranyaprathet and this tuk tuk driver rips open the doors and starts yelling all kinds of poor English at us. He climbs in and grabs my pack but I tell him to leave it with a loud and threatening voice. Worked pretty well. I shot down his expensive offer to drive us to Poipet, the Thai city which is actually on the border, and talked him down to a reasonable rate. Something close to $2. Here comes one of those fun scams I was talking about. Our driver veers off the main road and takes us to a semi-official looking building with visa information plastered all over the front. I told him to get back on the road and take us to the border, but he suddenly lost all ability to communicate in English. A well dressed man comes up and tells us in impeccable English that we need to buy our visa here. I tell him “no” and that we want to go back to the border. He says there is no way to get in without buying a visa from him. I lie and say we bought E-visas. I included a big smile along with the lie that I hoped had one of those eye twinkles that says “I know your scams and I have you defeated. sukka”. The twinkle worked and our well dressed man snapped some Thai at our driver and we were promptly off to the real border.
The Thai border crossing is all business and we get into Cambodia without further trouble. The only problem is that we can’t find immigration. Turns out we walked right by it. I figured this was Cambodia’s fault and if they wanted to hide their immigration then that’s their loss and I’ll walk right in. This didn’t fly with JoLyn and she insisted on entering the country legally. We found the building and went through the arrival process. Here comes the second big scam. There is a twenty dollar fee visa fee to enter. The Khmer official who stamps your passport will then ask you for an additional bogus fee of approximately 200 baht [$9]. I’ve heard horror stories about tourists refusing to pay this fee but I simply said “No. Just $20″ and pointed at the $20 sign. Our official shrugged and dropped it. Strangely, he was infatuated with my Suriname visa. He kept asking me about it and showing it to his friends. I got the impression he didn’t think it was a real place.
Our next step was finding a taxi from Poipet to Siem Reap, our Cambodian destination. Basically, we avoided a suspicious “government” taxi depot and found our own ride. This turned out to be much less sketchy than I thought. I was still really paranoid though. JoLyn didn’t share my intense precautions but under the circumstances I feel they were warranted.
Well, this puts us into Siem Reap: home of the Angkor Wat temples. I feel like I’ve written a book and this is a photo blog after all, so I’ll stop. Next post will go into detail about Angkor and Siem Reap itself. Until then: photos.
I feel like a needed a relaxing song to calm me down after typing so much. Wide Eyes by Local Natives.
Market in Siem Reap.
Love this sky.
For some reason this wall makes me think of The Secret Garden.
Of all the ancient architecture I’ve seen, Khmer wins hands down.
Indiana Jones right? I know.
We finally saw monkeys.
The monkeys were generally disinterested in tourists but they were all about JoLyn and her pineapple.
JoLyn and I flew from Chiang Mai to Phuket to get some requisite beach time. The islands in southern Thailand have some of the most breathtaking views I have ever seen. White sand. Blue water. Sheer rock cliffs covered in foliage. It’s beautiful and hot. Even the water is unnaturally warm. So warm that you think something isn’t quite right.
We started in Phuket which could be said to be one of the major tourist beach capitals of the world. Thankfully, our beach was a good bit more secluded and quiet. We then moved on to Koh Phi Phi: a pair of islands near the much larger island of Phuket. While the beaches weren’t as nice, the landscape was much more exotic and there were more touristy, yet fun, things to do.
By the way, don’t pronounce it Fuket or Koh Fi Fi. You’ll sound like you’ve never watched the Travel Channel. It’s a hard “p” sound.
This song by Freelance Whales makes me want to dance with my arms: Generator 2nd Floor
Sunset over Bangtao Beach, Phuket.
People were selling these all over the place. They’d chop the top off with a machete, stick a straw in it, and then you’ve got a tasty drink.
Fried rice baked in a pineapple. I need to make one of these.
The ferry we took from Phuket to Koh Phi Phi turned out to be kinda like a party boat.
We hiked up to a really neat overlook. You can see how the main island of Koh Phi Phi is made up of two larger chunks of land connected by a thin beach. This was completely destroyed by the tsunami. It’s amazing to see how quickly things were rebuilt.
We got up early to rent a kayak and explore the bay. It’s incredible to be right underneath the cliffs.
Kayaking around the corner of the cliff in the above photos revealed this secret beach. You can only access it from the water.
We took a tour boat around for an afternoon/evening which turned out to be pretty cool. This was taken on a beach that was supposed to be populated with hundreds of monkeys. The monkeys were hiding but this Komodo dragon was running around. Chasing it around with my camera was one of my better ideas.
Free coffee on the boat was a major selling point.
Went snorkeling under this cliff. Wish I had an underwater housing for my camera. The reef is gorgeous.
I don’t know if anyone has seen The Beach, with Leonardo DiCaprio, but this is the beach where it was filmed. I’ve yet to see it.
Longboats are an easy way to travel around the islands. They’re powered by these really long outriggers.
The final part of the boat tour was watching the sun set between these two islands.
We headed back to Phuket for one night before we flew to Bangkok to begin our travels to Cambodia. That’s going to be in the next post and will be worth reading. You can’t exactly get into Cambodia with much ease.
Valentine’s Day smoothies. There’s something weird about the papaya from anywhere but Bangkok. It somehow tastes terrible everywhere else.
It was the Chinese New Year and our dinner had a surprise performance that lasted for over 30 minutes. It was really weird and really loud and my food got really co
I’ve been away from my computer for awhile, hence the lack of posts. I plan on getting these up a lot faster now. Here are the last of the photos taken in Chiang Mai. Next up is Phuket and Koh Phi Phi: home of some seriously amazing beaches.
I like this song. Elizabeth and the Catapult covering Leonard Cohen’s Everybody Knows
Coke has never been more refreshing.
Really, this is all I need….
I should probably worry about how much she liked this.
Renting a bamboo mat and reading in the park is better than mingling in the streets with tourists.
Chiang Mai has a huge night bazaar. The streets go on like this forever.
The moat surrounding the Old City.
