Hey folks!  I'm at MCC this morning watching my daughter Shannon swim at the Niagara District Gold Championships!  She swam yesterday also and did really well.  These benches are really hard and uncomfortable but I sit against the wall and there are plugs up here for my laptop!  Cool!  I thought about bringing the camera this morning but it's cold and snowy outside and hot and sticky inside and I decided that I didn't want to lug everything around with me.  

Last week was pretty busy as i met with Katie on Monday to discuss the timeline for her wedding next year!  She and Brian want to have images made at the County Office Building and the beach and maybe Durand Eastman golf course so the timeline is important.  

All the brides out there should keep this in mind - Scott and I would love to have at least a few hours between the wedding ceremony and the reception so that we can go to some of these locations with the bridal party and make some cool images!  It also gives the newly wedded couple to have a little time and a lot of fun with their close friends before the feeding frenzy of the reception!

Later in the week I met with Jaclyn to discuss her wedding plans for next year also.  She is one of the more prepared brides that I have met and has a really good idea of what she wants in a photographer - actually photographers, as her guest list is close to 300!  Once again I was more than pleased to see a bride's reaction to our images in book form!  Scott and I are always striving for perfection and trying new things to take our images to the next level but it's really nice to see that everyone loves our images!

Yesterday we finally went out and got a Christmas tree!  Our annual trek to Shetler's in Brockport -  it takes forever as they are almost a mile from our house!  :-)  We picked out a great blue spruce with nice blue coloring and dagger-like needles that seem to cut through your gloves.  It's the first time that we went to get a tree and didn't have a truck though!  I never even thought about it.  Had to tie the tree on top of my RAV4!

Anyway, it's up and we might even get it trimmed tonight...  Have a great day and I'll be back to everyone soon!

Today we lost our great friend, Churchill.  I would love to say that he was the best dog we ever had - so I will.

Churchill came to us from my sister, Kris.  It was her dream to get a NewFoundland puppy and she searched high and low to find a breeder that she trusted and that others with dogs from them trusted also.  She traveled to Ohio to get him and bring him home to West Virginia.

We first met Churchill as a roly-poly ball of fur that attacked stuffed animals and people alike with love and kisses.  I remember that he would flop down in front of a full water bowl and lay his head in it as he splashed water all over the floor and whatever and whoever was close enough.  Kris tells a story about coming home after work one day to see all the couch cushions arrayed around the back yard.  Churchill had pulled all of them out through his doggie door without damaging any of them!  I guess the ground was hard out there...

Not long after, Kris divorced and moved to Alabama and we adopted Churchill as an 18 month old lovable doll.  It wasn't long after that that he blew out both knees while chasing birds around the back yard on wet grass.  Those swallows turn so fast!

After his surgery to repair the ligaments he had torn I had to carry him - all 120 punds of him - up and down the stairs to go outside.  We had to support his rear end with a towel so that he could walk.  Still, we loved him and we couldn't do anything different.  We went so far as to build him a ramp so that he wouldn't have to climb the stairs.  Funny, the ramp scared him, even with railings, and he never would use it.  But it still stands there 8 years later...

As time went by and he got older, arthritis and hip displatia set into his joints.  There were times when we wondered that he made it through another winter.  It was painful to see him get up from his normal spot near the fireplace.  But you never heard even a whimper from him.  

He insisted on sleeping in our bedroom upstairs at night.  13 steps up.  We had to lift and carry his rear end and he would walk up on just his front legs.  We've been doing that for years now every night.  I'll miss that, too.

He loved winter.  With all that fur it got too hot in the house and he would be wanting to go outside and sleep in the snow.  Then he wanted in and we would have to get the snowballs off his fur and then let the rest just melt off.

Somewhere along the line he developed a talent for training my wife, Anne.  His special, high pitched, nerve shattering bark told her that it was time for a little milk. Or water.  Or food.  Or just a petting.  

A few years ago we thought that he was on his last legs and decided to get another dog to keep him company.  We ended up with two lab puppies, Jake and Murphy.  They loved him from the first, maybe too much!  But they got him up and moving and active.  I'm convinced that they extended his time with us.  Jake took it upon himself to keep Churchill clean after every feeding.  We thought for a while that he was just bugging Churchill until our vet told Anne that it was classic pack behavior.  The young cub taking care of the oldster.  

Churchill was a gentle giant.  The cats love him.  The dogs love him.  Little kids just think that he's a big bear to hug.  We love him.  We'll miss him terribly.

Hi all!  It's been a whole week and I'm feeling neglected...  But, it's been busy - weddings to finish up, portraits to release, websites to update!  

I've been working with Candie to create composites of her two adorables, Zach and Lily.  I took some shots of the two of them in conjunction with Abigail's first session.  Great kids!  Zach was so patient with us!  Here's a couple shots...

This week is a little busy too as Shannon has sectionals for swimming on Wednesday.  We are hoping that she makes finals and swims again on Friday.  As a freshman she has a few years left in her high school career but she is already doing wonderfully!  We are so proud of how hard she has worked!  Good luck Shannon!

Also, Scott and I have a Rochester Wedding Network meet and greet on Tuesday and a Greater Rochester Professional Photographers meeting on Wednesday.  

Look for our ad in the newest Rochester Wedding Magazine that should be hitting the newstands this week!  It's our first advertisement and we are hoping to see a large return...

On another note... Katie Lauricella and Brian Ebben have hired us to photograph their wedding next October 17th!  Welcome to the club guys!  I have been going through lots of images from this years weddings and I can't wait to try some new things next season!

Next week is Team Portraits for SEAS and IRON and then the following week we get to shoot the Peters' 7 month old triplets!  Cross your fingers for us!

New York City.  I love New York almost as much as Paris!  Any kind of food you want you can find.  Looking for a whatchamacallit to go in a whosudunit?  You can find it.  Looking for a great image to take?  There is an unlimited number of subjects everywhere you turn!

The Expo was kind of cool.  Lots of companies there hawking their wares.  Scott and I met with Doug Murdoch, the President of Think Tank Photo - he's one of our Facebook buddies!  Great guy and he has terrific products!  We also saw Joe McNally and Scott Kelby giving short seminars on lighting techniques.  We met with Jim Garner, a Seattle-based wedding photographer after he gave a talk about his wedding portraiture style.  We picked his brain a little for new ideas...

We spent a lot of time just walking around the Expo and then around Manhattan shooting.  Central Park was beautiful!  We had a gorgeous fall day on Saturday and there were lots of people out trying to get in what could be the last hurrah of the fall before the weather turns.  Couples walking hand in hand.  Kids skateboarding.  Row boats on the lake.  People feeding the ducks and squirrels.  Just a photographer's paradise!  

For one reason or another we ate each night in an Irish Pub!  The proximity to Guiness could have had something to do with that but you never know.  Shepherd's Pie, lamb, pork, gravy - yum!  There's so much more ethnic cuisine to try there but couldn't talk Scott into falafel or doners.  He says that he's a burger and fries guy!  If I lived there I would probably gain 10 pounds a day and then walk it off every night!

All in all it was a great few days and we will definately plan on going back next year!  Maybe I can talk Anne into going down for Christmas...  Hmmm....  Here's some few of the images I took while we were there.  Enjoy!

Hi!  Scott and I are back from NYC and the Photoplus Expo!  It was a grueling three days of walking, talking, and shooting.  We had a lot of fun and met some fantastic people...

Thursday night we went to the Kodak PDN 30 reception after spending some time at the Expo in the Javits Center.  Dan Milnor surprised us by showing up - just to see us of course - and besides, his wife Amy was at the Canon reception!  

We met one of the 30 photographers being shown, Graeme Mitchell.  He's a very nice young man from Manitoba, Canada with a great love of black and white photography and film.  His style is very different from ours but very cool!  Loved meeting him and hopefully we can visit him in NYC again!

We also met with a bunch of our Kodak brethren, Audrey Jonckheer and Joe Paglia among others!  What a great bunch of people.  Sometimes I wonder how Kodak can go wrong with people like these working for us...

Anyway, look for some images from NYC coming here soon!

On Sunday Anne, Shannon, and I went to McCracken Farms Great Pumpkin Patch which happens to be right down the street from us.  This is an annual trek that we make with the Patterson's, Molongoski's, and the Lage's.  The Molongoski's moved back home to Boston so they didn't make it this year.  As always I took my camera and made some images.  Good times and great people!  Have a good one!

The last few weeks have been have been nuts!  One more wedding this Saturday and then we have to crunch away at the 10,000 images that we took!  When we say that we are charging for shoot, edit, print, and store we really mean edit!  It's amazing how much time it takes and how painful it is to, as Chris Usher says, "Drown Your Puppies!"  There are so many great images that never make the cut.  And when it's your own work it is really hard to choose sometimes.

Our wedding last Saturday with Kaylin and Nick was an absolute blast!  After the ceremony we took the wedding party up to the Charlotte Carousel and boardwalk, after the stop at McDonald's of course.  Lots of terrific images there - I can't wait to see them!  They are all downloaded and backed up, I just need to get to them.

Sunday morning I went to Kevin and Kimberly Wake's for a portrait session with their new daughter, Abigail.  I love to shoot the babies!! She's a doll and we were going for the baby parts poster images.  You know, a poster print with 9 or 16 images that have parts in them - a foot, a hand, an eye, etc.  Can't wait to put that together!  We also made images of Kevin's niece and nephew who we also have images of from Kevin and Kimberly's wedding last summer.  It's great to see the kids growing up!

Yesterday afternoon I went and did Senior Portraits for Christopher Gartley, Alexander's brother.  Christopher wants to go to school to be a sound engineer so we made images at his church where he plays the piano and works the sound board.  It always amazes me to see someone just sit down at a piano and play something that I recognize!  Wish I could do it.

This Saturday's wedding is with Erin and Anthony in Webster and at the Daisy Flour Mill.  Should be a good time as Scott and I will both know people there and Scott did Erin's sister's wedding a few years back!  I haven't been to the Flour Mill in years - all I remember is good food!  Wish us good weather and look for images here soon from Kaylin and Nick and Erin and Anthony and Christopher and Mary and......

My daughter, Shannon, got her name in the paper for the first time this morning!  Her relay finished first in the swim meet between Brockport HS and Irondequoit HS!  Shannon swam the lead off leg and did very well, giving her team a large lead that they held throughout the rest of the race.  Great job, Shannon!

Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, September 26, 2008, page 6D.

Scott and I have created our own Facebook Group - Slattery & Crist Photography - so, if you are on Facebook, come join us!