Jenna + Raymond

06.22.07 @ La Valencia- La Jolla, CA

She had the most beautiful half-up half-down do to date. Star gazers in her hair with gazers intertwined in the bouquet, too.

Oh Happy Day!!! Beautiful wedding today with Jenna Kern and Raymond Domingo! They took 6 weeks of dancing lessons and blew me away with their version of a 'dip.' Raymond rocks!

This has to be one of my fave shots, its totally candid in an odd setting and it shows people in their natural state! These two truly can't take a bad picture. They're always smiling together...

The internet connection is like syrup tonight, I'll have to post more Monday... La Valencia was built in the late 1920's and receives constant repairs and facelifts. Its not at all noticeable, the venue was kept in tip-top shape...

LOVE these two!!

Ray took these two shots, he had his own little agenda at the wedding!

Not sure if Ray caught me chimping the flatscreen or if I was changing out a card...

Jenna's dad beamed like the sun during their father-daughter dance. Was tough to keep a dry eye...

Jessica + Z

Meet my 'Monday' Bride & Groom:




Raised in Seattle, but currently livin' large in the Midwest and booked with us out of state only to have their wedding locally! How'd that happen? Long story!

In a nutshell, they gave me total freedom to shoot their e-session this afternoon! They're not into stiff-portraits and only requests were images that enhance their collection of artwork at home. Simple, clean, unique. Awesome!


A little funny business with Z's folks Heidi & Dallas...cool folks! Can't wait till Monday!

4,000

Aimee Gasser- Anchorage, Alaska : married June 17th, 2006 (Happy Anniversary!)

Over 4,000 images processed in the last couple of days. WOW what a productive start to the week! It feels great to get things accomplished! Not to mention I faithfully hit the track each morning. Calves are so sore from sprinting, the only methods of training today were walking (slowly) and throwing weights around. Some grunting included, lots of sweating. Working on a nice UVA/UVB tan, too. The dermatologist will scorn...

Starting tomorrow we're an additional 3-4000 more images to the workload by the Tuesday's COB. Yay! During busy times of the year, its GREAT to set your own hours and to be your own chief! Downside is there's no such thing as OT. UPside is meeting new people!

Had a case of the lonelies today (despite ALL this work) and snuck in the bookstore at 10 minutes 'till closing. Picked up a book by Dave Barry. I LOVE DB. My dad got me hooked on this retired humor columnist years ago. If you need a wit-inspired side-splitting good laugh, read Dave and don't eat or drink while you read. You'll probably get it stuck in the windpipe.

Just a thought: one year ago I resigned from my full-time, full-benes, profit-sharing, stock-having, hazardous & dirty, rotating shift position as a QC Tech in the largest steel mill in the Northwest.

This photo was taken during a very trying period of my life, go figure, I was supposed to be on vacation after resigning. Forget that idea. I resigned from my position with little more than 3-6 months of work to my name. I would like to say it was a miracle that we kept our heads above water. The network of awesome friends & clients helped put us on the map for good, or at least I hope! Fast forward today: happy as a turtle. Never imagined life would take such a huge detour.

In the Works: Coming soon will be Emily + Daniel's album design in the next little bit AND check back Thursday evening for Jessica & Z's E-session! They're coming in from Ohio for their wedding! After that expect a snippet of our highlight weddings taking place on Saturday & Monday! Someone asked me 'Who gets married on a Monday?!' Exactly! Wait and see!

Meanwhile back at the ranch: Motofish gears up for the "Pampered Pet's photoshoot!

Check out their blog here for funny business: www.motofishimages.blogspot.com. Also, we're casting for HOTTIE Baristas. Yes, you too can be paid the big $$$ if you work in a non-chain espresso stand or coffee shop. Email me for details! This is one of the toughest castings we've ever had! Over 200 miles covered along the I-5 corridor combing the stands for hotties on the job and less than a handful of applicants panned out. Ladies, what's going on!? Where are you? If you or someone you know has a fresh face and sexy smile and is a real live BARISTA you need to send me a headshot & contact info. $200 is no joke! Could buy you that new Coach wallet...

Time for bed. All too much excitement!

Trash The Dress

Photo by: The Wiebners

Photo by: the Wiebners

John Michael Cooper of AltF photography was recently featured in the New York Times along with Susan Stripling, The Wiebners and a few other amazing photographers. The topic is really hot. Had to share!


I'm so crazy about the breakthroughs in wedding photography. You can't believe how happy I am about a new niche of wedding artistry. This is not your mom's wedding photography. Do away with standing in a line, flowers at the hip, frozen smiles with everyone's head cocked towards the middle. Boldly, photographers shredded the norms with Trash the Dress sessions started by JMC. Not so much trashing as it is just getting a little 'dirty.' In fact, there's a website devoted to it: www.trashthedress.com

Check out the articles & photos from Sunday's New York Times HERE!
Also, see the photos listed under Multimedia on the lefthand side

For anyone interested, I'm hosting a ENORMOUSLY discounted day of Trash The Dress sessions. I want everyone (client or not) to be in on this excitement! That includes guys too. We can do "Trash the Tuxedo" to make sure you don't feel left out.

Dates to be announced!! If you're interested in setting up an appointment, email me! april@aprilgreer.com

Dashing Pair

Someone hijacked my blog yesterday! Here are the actual pictures I wanted to post....

Elizabeth + David : my favorite pair of brunettes~ Gotta love 'em! You might recognize them from our snow e-session earlier this year. This is part deux of their photo shoot!

In just a few shorts weeks "luscious" Liz & "dashing" Dave will join the ranks of the married as they tie the knot in Riviera Maya for a tropical destination wedding!

Ray and I have mucho travel planned from June 21st-July 15th for destination wedding photography, if you have questions, concerns, about your upcoming wedding or e-session, etc. please call or email us now for info! Soon we'll be crazy busy with travel and enjoying the Sun in all parts of the globe!

Three cheers for E+D!

Something NEW!

There's something nostalgic about roller rinks! For most of us 80's kids out there, rollerskating was a part of the middle school phenomena! It became an intricate part our social life AND today its what sets us apart from the video game generation. We were 80's SKATERS baby!

Motofish turned me on to this re-live the 80's thing. I've had an idea for rollerskating pictures in my head for the longest time! Working with Greg & Chris gave me a sense of gumption to just GO for it. Thanks for the inspiration guys!

Meet Sarah + Scott, you might remember them from the Creature party I shot earlier in May. They had no quams with skating around for fun & goofing off.

Kids swarmed the set up area pelting them with questions ' are you from the newspaper? are you Nicole Richie? are you a celebrity? why are you taking photos? are you in a magazine? who are you?'

Although we had to slightly diss the kids in order to shoot, we chiled with the tikes afterwards and let them showoff. Overall, we had a great time, it tickled my funny bone! Neither Sarah or I had any clue Scott was SO talented! He gave us the big showdown! When he wasn't goosing Sarah's body he was skating by himself and weaving in and out of the crowd. They're a very down-to-earth & laughable couple!

Finally I shot most of these pictures skating backwards AND I didn't fall! Can I get a round of applause? That is, until the end! Scott snapped us on the way down to the ground. Those photos have been deleted *wink*

It was way too much fun. I could do it every Friday! Sarah & Scott, you were AWESOME!!!

Photographer's Funniest Wedding Moments

I found these on a forum for wedding photographers. Someone suggested post a photog's worst wedding experience/nightmare story. These are true stories from wedding photographers. I had such a laugh for some of them, and sitting on the edge of my seat for others. Thankfully, no brides or grooms were hurt in the making of the experiences.
:- )
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The bride was about to walk down the aisle when I realized I only had four frames left before my Compact Flash card was full. {to change cards}I opened the little door on my camera and pushed the eject button hard in my rush... only to have it FLYinto the HOLY WATER behind me. It was only in there for about 1/16th of a second, but then I was shaking the entire time the bride came down the aisle until I was 100% certain the card was dry and I could re-insert it to make sure I hadn't just lost 4Gb of images! They were all there. Phew -anonymous-
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I was shooting a Corporate party here in Tucson with another photographer. The company was Luis Vuitton and it was their top sales people and the big wigs. About 500 people split into groups and I went to one area to shoots groups coming through that were doing team building things.So 2 mins into I squat to take a photo and I rip my jeans from the zipper to the back. Luckily I had on underwear. -anonymous-
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The bride had given us tickets to the Tennessee Aquarium to enjoy on Sunday after her wedding. I wanted to make sure that ALL of the film I shot for all three events would not overheat in my car since it was over 90 that day in the shade...as a lab worker, I've seen what baking your film can do to your images... I put the film in a ziplock bag in a cooler full of ice...When we returned to my car, the bag had leaked and all 30+ rolls of film -both 35mm and medium format - were completely submerged in water. I thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown for the entire 3 hour drive back to ATL!!!!! I was crying the whole way home...I knew I had to keep the film submerged and not let it dry out!I had a darkroom at my house and having the experience of working in labs for 16 years, I knew that what I needed to do was to first separate all the film by speed and color/B&W. Then I strung extra wires all around the room and began - in pitch black darkness - to unroll every roll of film and hang it up with pins on the end. The next day I rolled every roll back up gently in light tight boxes according to the types and took it to work with me to load into film magazines to put into the C-41 processor.Luckily I came out with only damage on about four frames of film out of those 30+ rolls!!!!!To this day, no one but my mom and my coworkers at the lab knew about this.
anonymous-
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I was photographing a bride getting ready and it was dragging on a bit so I said "I'm going to go downstairs, drop my bag, takes some shots of Groom, and I'll be back in about 15 minutes. Ok? Just wait for me to put your dress on." Oh sure, great, no problem, take your time says Bride. Well, I come back and start photographing again and somehow the bride doesn't see me even though I'm standing no more than 2-3 feet in front of her. She's in a panic and screams, "Where's the ****ing photographer?!" I flash a big smile,wave, and say, "Here I am." She was absolutely mortified and started apologizing profusely. I told her it was fine and not to worry about it. Later at the reception her brother said "Are you the ****ing photographer?" and then smiled and explained how bad his sister felt. I just laughed it all off. I'm actually thinking of getting a t-shirt printed up that says "Where's the ****ing photographer?" because it's become a fun buzzphrase for anyone who knows me. anonymous-

Beach Weddings

There's a lot to be said for the couple that fares the elements at a beach wedding. This bride didn't care about a sandy dress. Sand, of course, doesn't stain. I love her choker: satin ribbon!