birchblazephotography.com » The Photo Blog of Kerry and Taylor Struble

The Darby Field Inn is a great little get-away just off Rt. 112, otherwise known as The Kancamagus Highway, aka “The Kanc.” It’s in the town of Albany, New Hampshire, about 6 miles from North Conway. It’s a great New Hampshire Inn and many of the rooms have gorgeous views of the Mount Washington Valley. The place has a really cool vibe. The Inn-keeper Marc and his staff keep the Darby Field running clean and smooth, and we were especially interested to find out that they host weddings, including elopement packages (since Birch Blaze is now offering wedding photography) so you can get ‘er done! Here are some shots Tay and I took that day…

Love, muse, inspiration, model, hero, partner-in-crime, best friend, soul mate…anam m’anama, that is, “soul of my soul,” –in Gaelic. Yes, I do know how lucky I am! I get to wake up, go to bed and spend most of almost everyday with the person I described in the first sentence of this paragraph. Taylor, who is also my beautiful Wife—together with my kids, my Mom, my Sister and my parents-in-law (yes, my inlaws!)—make my world a most amazing and wonderful place to be. The only thing that could possibly make it better would be if my Dad was still with us. He would have loved Taylor….

Tay and I decided to step outside yesterday to taste a little preview of summer’s golden hour. It was a good day…

–k

Back in February we did a food shoot for our good friend Kim Dion at Bella Tavola Catering. Kim was great to work with and we had a blast, not to mention getting to sample some of the incredible edibles we photographed! Kim is great at what she does, not only creating culinary masterpieces that taste amazing and look absolutely gorgeous, but she can wrangle any event, pulling it together and making it happen whether things go exactly according to plan or even if Murphy’s law rears its ugly head! We know because we’ve witnessed it with our own four eyes (six if you count my glasses). Kim catered our wedding in ‘06 and the location was a challenge for sure. We were married in a beautiful old barn (even had a bluegrass band!) in the middle of a field and everything—food, tableware, silverware, chafing dishes…everything—had to be hauled in—and out. No kitchen. Kim made it all happen seamlessly even though it was probably one of her tougher gigs. The food and the presentation were amazing(Alaskan king crab legs, come on?!) and our friends and family still rave about it! On another occasion my Band, Casual Labor, played a wedding that Kim catered and that went off without a hitch (at least to everyone in attendance) under similar circumstances as well. The Girl knows her stuff. So if you have an event that needs catering, give Bella Tavola a call. Kim’ll hook ya up. Cue the pics:

And at the end we snuck in a couple of nice ‘environmental’ portraits of Kim:

Thanks Bella Tavola Catering! Till next time…

There is a well known photographer from Seattle named Chase Jarvis (check out his website and work here). The guy is amazing. You may not have ever heard of him, but it’s likely you’ve seen his work. Volvo, Reebok, Apple, REI, Microsoft, Jeep, McDonald’s, Columbia, Red Bull, Nikon…these are a few of the companies Chase calls clients. Not bad, huh? A few months back another guy by the name of Russell Byrne (Russell’s blog) asked for, and received a pair of Chase’s shoes. Huh? What? To quote Russell, “Photographer Chase Jarvis once told an audience that anyone who walked his walk would find success, which led me to wondering what walking a mile in his shoes would really be like. So I asked Chase to send me a pair. And he did!” Russell wasn’t about to keep Chase’s soles to himself, so he posted the following challenge on Flickr: “I would like to see the shoes shot in as many ways as possible… let me know if you are ready for the challenge to….SHOOT CHASE JARVIS’S SHOES” (visit the project website) His well-traveled, Adidas Muhammed Ali Classics, to be specific. And I was. I was ready to put our Birch Blaze, White Mountains of New Hampshire stamp on those shoes. And what better way to represent than sneakers sporting snowshoes? This was definitely a team effort. In fact Tay actually snapped this pic. It was a lot of fun and we hope Chase might happen upon our effort and maybe actually even like it (if you have an extra minute, after the pic you might find the story of how I received the shoes mildly amusing):

This shot was taken in the ’shadow’ of Mt. Washington, a mountain which, on April 12, 1934, recorded a wind speed of 231 mph, which is “the highest natural surface wind velocity ever officially recorded by means of an anemometer, anywhere in the world.” A record that still stands to this day (I can Google with the best of ‘em). You can check it out for yourself at MountWashington.org. The Presidential range continues north from Mt. Washington, so I’m guessing it’s probably Mt. Jefferson or Mt. Adams in the background. We took this with the Canon and a 50mm. No flashes involved here, this was lit with nothing but the strengthening March sun—camera-left—and a pop-up reflector—camera-right. Those are my legs and feet, by the way…fitting tho, I think I’ve found my calling, “Kerry Struble; Well-worn sneaker model.”

How I Got the Shoes
I signed up to be a part of this project a few months ago and had no idea when or even if I would actually get the shoes. I’m ashamed to admit that I actually kind of, well, ok, did forget about them. So… one day Taylor and I pulled up to the house to see several boxes from UPS on our step. They had actually delivered some packages we were expecting to the wrong house the day before, so I was pretty relieved. But wait, here’s a box that I wasn’t expecting, in fact, I have no idea who it’s from. Tay told me I better be careful opening it. At first I didn’t think anything of it, but then I noticed the box wasn’t packed professionally, like you would get from an online retailer, say. Taylor’s words and thoughts of mail bombs and bio-terrorism began ringing in my head…Cut to me opening the box (which is now sitting on our front step) with a 2×4, peeking out from behind our front door. Boy, did I feel foolish when I saw that darn pair of sneakers looking for all the world like a puppy waiting to be claimed by it’s new owner. Shhhhhhh! Don’t tell Chase!

…And since one picture is never usually not enough, here’s 2 or 3 more we took that day…

enjoy!
-k

We love mountains, so it works out nicely that we live amongst some. As I think I’ve mentioned, we live at the far, southern end of the Mt Washington Valley in New Hampshire (maybe just a tad beyond). If the Mt Washington Valley was a bathtub, we would probably be located somewhere around the drain (no offense Effingham, really!). Anyway, Tay and I head north and venture deeper into the Valley, more specifically, North Conway, maybe twice a week or so. We never tire of the beautiful scenery we get to breath in everyday, and what’s cool is sometimes I still get surprised by something I’ve seen many times before, but all of a sudden presents itself in a new light. Over the weekend we drove past a view of Mt. Washington that is partially hidden from the road. This time it really jumped out at me and after driving past I decided that, no, I can’t leave this one in the rearview. Tay was driving so I had her turn the car around…here’s what I came up with…