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Winnipesaukee Salmon Run: Opening Day

birch — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 14:45:35 +0000

Well, we’re hanging out in Wolfeboro, NH for a few days while we put the finishing touches on our home & office remodel project. Ok, “finishing touches” might be a bit premature, but anyway… We’ve shaken off the winter chill, ice-out on the big Lake has been declared (earliest ice-out on record) and we heard the peepers last night, which is our unofficial cue that spring has arrived! This news along with this post hails a renewed vigor for keeping the Birch Blog active and fresh for the coming summer—and beyond—and this summer promises to be our busiest yet, photographically speaking. Speaking of Lake Winnipesaukee, this time of year has always been an exciting time in Wolfeboro. April 1st is the first day of salmon fishing in New Hampshire. It always brings me back to the excitement of catching my first salmon (using a sinker-weighted grey ghost fly on a spinning rod, for you fishermen out there) as a kid, down at the Wolfeboro town docks. The weather has been gorgeous the past day or two and I took advantage of the early morning fog bank over the bay for some fun shooting. Hope you like ‘em!

This gentlman engaged me in a nice conversation about photography. He related how he was a bit of a photographer and had actually snapped a pic of Marilyn Monroe on a tank when she visited the troops in Korea during the Korean war. Wow, what a story! He still has the slide. Thinking about it afterwards, I think I’m going to try and track him down and pay him a visit. I’d love to see that photo and the rest of his collection…

Carley Sophia: 3 Months

birch — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 15:34:00 +0000

“Babies are such a nice way to start people.” ~ Don Herald

In November we had the opportunity to photograph my cousin’s beautiful baby Carley. And may I just say that you haven’t lived until you’ve experienced such nummyness! I’m slightly enamored. She was a trooper for most of the shoot and she hung in there long enough for us to end up with some fantastic shots. Much props to Mom, Keaghan for keeping her in her “happy place”. We’re looking forward to 6 months…

These were her little moccasins. Very cute!

I LOVE this face…so plaintive. I think she may have been nearing the end of her patience here, but I suppose it isn’t easy being green.

THE END… ~Tay

Seniors: Melissa!

birch — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 14:20:56 +0000

We LOVE shooting seniors pics! The kids don’t always know what to expect and are usually a little nervous at first, but they’re old pros by the time we finish and a good time is had by all. Melissa was no exception and she was totally into our idea of taking her senior photos at one of the local corn mazes here in New Hampshire. Taylor and I had never actually been to a corn maze and it was really cool! Thanks to Lake Knoll Farm in Alton, NH for allowing us to use their beautiful farm and corn maze—complete with red caboose—as a backdrop!

Married in Colorado: Derek + Angel

birch — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 15:53:59 +0000

I was pretty bummed when my bud Derek moved out to Colorado a few years back. We were bandmates and had some great times together and I’ve missed his wacky sense of humor and penchant for solving problems, especially mechanical ones (among Derek’s creations are a complete salt-water aquarium filtration system, a full home-brewing set-up and a video steadicam—all his own design and all from scratch!). Derek called me in July and told me that he was getting married, and wanted me to be his best man! Wow, what an honor! In usual D-style, Derek did it up when he proposed to Angel. He rented out an entire movie theater, produced his own video “movie trailer” and even hired nationally-known, movie trailer voice-over guy Al Chalk to be on it (Heard of Snakes on a Plane, Independance Day, The Fugitive, Madagascar? Yup, that voice-over guy). Derek arranged to have the theater slip his self-produced proposal “trailer” right in with the other trailers. After picking Angel’s jaw up off the floor, he proposed! Crazy…but SO Derek! (she said yes) I wish we had been there for that! Derek also asked Taylor and I to photograph his wedding, which of course we were thrilled to do, though obviously Taylor had to handle the ceremony. After the wedding we hopped in a limo and drove up to Jackass Hill (yep, you read that right) and got some awesome shots of the newlyweds with the sun setting over Denver and the Rockies in the back ground. SCORE! We had a blast in Colorado, and got lots of pictures while exploring the Rockies which we plan to share in a future post. Here are some of our favorites from the wedding…

To start the day off, Derek made us his special multi-grain waffles with fresh fruit and real maple syrup…diggity!

Derek’s kids, Jamie and Jason helped us decorate the bridal coach. What fun!

Arriving at the afore-mentioned, famed “Jackass Hill”…what an incredible spot for wedding pics, and we scored some dramatic skies to boot!

At the reception dinner we caught Angel’s daughter Eliza preparing for her new family by reading, what else? Parent magazine! Too funny!

Dar Williams in Freeport

birch — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 15:18:53 +0000

After a great wedding client meeting in North Conway, Taylor and I drove up to Freeport, Maine this past Saturday to see Dar Williams appearing at the LL Bean summer concert series. We love Dar Williams—she’s a very funny modern folk singer-songwriter—and were thrilled to get to see her at this very cool venue. It also gave me a chance to put our new 70-200 Canon L lens through it’s paces. That is one sharp lens! Check it out…

Sun setting behind the stage, how cool was that? And this was pretty cool… there was a deaf interpreter onstage for the entire show. We think it might be an arrangement by LL Bean because we’ve seen this at other shows here. Oh, and LOVED the accordian! I really want to play some of my originals with an accordian player!

So there you have it. What a great way to spend a summer Saturday night in New England! Here’s the video to one of our favorite Dar Songs, “As Cool As I Am.” See ya next time! –K&Tay

Lifestyle Session: Alexa’s Senior Portrait

birch — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 19:45:43 +0000

What a great time of year for photography! We love the way the sun drapes the New Hampshire hills, mountains and woodlands in late summer, early autumn. The golden tones of an August evening set against the lush greens that the oft-lamented rains have gifted us this year.

Alexa and her family are good friends of ours, and we had already talked about getting the oppotunity to photograph her, when we were asked to do her senior portraits. It was a beautiful day last week and we enjoyed shooting at some great locations near her home including a gorgeous mountain meadow, and a swift, rocky river. Alexa’s hair and makeup were styled by her Mom, Jen. With experience as a former model, Jen was great to have along, though Alexa was a natural and didn’t need much coaching! We all had a great time, and Taylor and I are so pumped about how these photos came out. One of our best shoots to date. thanks Alexa!

This next one has such a Peter Pan quality about it. Love it!

We were blessed with SO many keepers. I don’t envy Alexa and her family choosing their favorites, what are yours? –K&Tay

Adventures in Maine

birch — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 20:09:58 +0000

Wanderlust – “ a strong, innate desire to rove or travel about.” It’ s in our blood. We’ve been known to become uncomfortably involved with a class VI road because we “just want to see what’s around the corner.” Anyway, while we can’t travel as extensively as we’d like right now, we try to have fun with little road trips. We’ve had beautiful weather lately, (in the wake of about a month’s worth of rain) so it seemed like a good opportunity to do some explorin’ . This past weekend we found ourselves in Maine. Of course, we’ve been there many times before but we found some very neat places/things and we thought we should share. Enjoy. –Tay

…as we made our way to Ogunquit Beach, we came across two really cool places, the first was the Old House Parts Company, a recycled building materials warehouse in Kennebunk, Maine. Tay and I (Kerry’s handling the play-by-play for this post, btw) love this sort of thing and they had a ton of great pieces, all extremely well organized. It was a great photo op (the photo on the right, below, was taken at this place as well as the 2nd to last pair of photos):

The next place we came across was the Johnson Hall Museum, a fairly strange—but interesting—privately-owned curio shop morphing into a musem of sorts (also in Kennebunk). There were lots of quasi-historic out-buildings in various stages of decay, but again, crazy photo ops. Tay was a little creeped out by this antique jail cell, but not enough to avoid posing in it for me! Most of these photos are hers, by the way, she has a great eye for this sort of photography.

As mentioned, a couple from the Old House Parts Co.

Ahhh, finally at the beach! The ocean is so reinvigorating. We always say we want to get to the ocean a lot every summer, but then don’t. In the past two weeks we’ve been there three times, yes! This was a fun series of images. We were on a boardwalk amongst the dune grass and wild roses. I wanted this shot, but had to sit on the opposite railing, hook my legs underneath and lean way back over the rose bushes to get the right angle. Let’s just say my abs weren’t quite up to the task and Tay couldn’t keep a straight face for very long! Of course, it was worth it and I’m still waiting to take a bad picture of her. Love this shot.

–Tay&K