AWLA at The Bungalow in Shirlington

Another Saturday... another charity event! That's ok. Any excuse I have to photograph cute puppies and help some homeless pups get adopted; I'm more than happy to oblige.

Today, I photographed over at The Bungalow Bar & Pool Hall in Shirlington. Aside from it now being on the top of my "Restaurants to try" list, I now have a new favorite area of Arlington. Can you believe I've lived here a year, and have never even been to Shirlington?! So many dog-friendly stores and restaurants! I'll have to take Hailey next time.

Anyway, Steve (the manager of the Bungalow) sponsored an event to benefit AWLA. There were raffles, a silent auction, and even a satellite adoption center running on the patio. But if that isn't enough... The Bungalow staff donated all their tips to AWLA too! Now if that isn't fantastic and the text-book definition of selflessness, I don't know what is. The Bungalow even brought in guest bartenders (whom also donated all their bar tips to the charity) to help out with the crowds - military members and volunteers and such. So if you live locally, please stop by The Bungalow as a thank you for working so hard for the shelter today. We need more companies like this in our community!

They had a huge turnout, which led to loads of great pictures. Of course, being me... most of them are of the dogs.


The wonderful volunteers and dogs from AWLA working hard at the event.


The Bungalow's manager, Steve, and a co-worker taking a quick break to pose for me.

Kelly & Ed's Wedding

Ok, so punctuality is not my strong suit. Here it is July and I'm posting images from weddings I shot in... April?!? And no one's questioned this? What gives!?!

This wedding has some history behind it. When you jump ahead to June, you'll see the wedding of Scott & Patti. Scott's been a friend since ... forever (he's also the guy to yell at when my website is down), so naturally I was thrilled when he told me he finally asked Patti to marry him. Anyway, Patti and Ed worked together, and that's how I met Ed and Kelly.

Ed and Kelly's wedding was a semi-destination wedding. (As if you could call New Jersey a destination! Hey, I can insult Jersey - I'm from there.) The wedding took place at the Mill at Spring Lake Heights. Beautiful location! Better yet, I got to play... I mean, work... with Noelle Zaleski as a second photographer for me. While Noelle and I have spoken quite a bit on online forums, this was our first opportunity to really work together on a shoot. And now I want to shoot all of my weddings with her! (Her or Cassandra Sullivan. Don't tell Dave...) Good Lord, did we have a blast working with them!

First, we met over in the Sheraton Eatontown, where we took a LOT of Kelly in front of this wall...


Then, we photographed the ceremony over at the church...


Then, we drove to Spring Lake for formals... Except we hit a detour. Hey, any couple that stops for a liquor run on the way to the reception is my kind of people! (I said it was an especially fun wedding!)



There are lots more pictures of Ed & Kelly on the website.

Secret Raffle Winners!

We've decided to try something a little different. As a reward to those of you who actually read the emails I spend DAYS writing up... I decided I would give 12 people, completely at random, a $200 studio gift. The names were selected randomly using the Bridal Showcase April list, since it was the fairest thing I could think of at the time!

Please call if your name is on the list (703.349.6269):

Jenifer Kane
Bridgette Sabis
Jill Tobias
Sara Sousa
Allison Drab
Virginia Wichern
Amy Tenhouse
Tara O'Brien
Candace Baumann
Rachel Prager
Marilyn Patterson
Kathryn Cummings

Congratulations, and I look forward to working with each of you!

Sebastian the Himalayan

Meet Sebastian! He's a beautiful all-white Himalayan, and (as far as cats go) extremely amenable to being photographed. He didn't even seem to mind it. Sebastian is definitely the prettiest of pretty kitties.






Ok, so he was happy most of the time... (still one of my favorite cat portraits though!)

Walk for the Animals 2008

In addition to our Calendar projects, we are also photographing many charity events in the DC area. Seems like it's been almost every weekend since May! Below are some images for AWLA's Walk for Animals 2008.

AWLA's Walk for the Animals was in mid-May. Dave walked Hailey while I photographed. Oh, and it rained. It rained a rain of biblical proportions. (Ok, maybe not THAT bad, but I had to shoot through a plastic bag!) What's best though, is even though the weather wasn't all that great, AWLA had it's most successful turnout ever. More people and more dogs showed up than any year prior. We all had a great (albeit muddy) time, and I know we look forward to photographing next year!








Of course, an obligatory picture of Hailey. (She's filthy, and not at all pleased about the rain.)

Spurs & Jilly

Pugs are tons of fun! I love photographing multiple animals - especially when they have such different personalities. Jilly & Spurs are both five year old pugs, adopted from Gloucester, VA and San Antonio, TX, respectively. They came in for a very fun studio session (their owner was one of the Secret Raffle winners) in late May.

These two remind me of the comedy/tragedy theater masks when they're together (and they're always together). Jilly, the tan one, always seems to be smiling - she's the high-energy one. And Spurs, the black one, always looks like you just offended him - or he's afraid you're going to yell at him. I haven't decided which yet. These extremely well-behaved dogs made for some really cute pictures. It's like they're professional models. :)

Calendar for Charity - how cute is this!?

We've been asked by not one, but TWO, local charities to photograph all twelve months of a calendar to benefit pet adoption. Currently, I'm working on 2009's calendar for All 4 the Animals. We will also be photographing the calendar for Lost Dog & Cat Rescue in Arlington.

The images below are of 5 adorable rottweiler pups. They were only about 5 weeks old in these. Cindy (Maggie's mom) bought these puppies to the studio... "handful" is a gross understatement. The shoot required my assistant and her fiancé, as well as Cindy to puppy-wrangle. And we were still overwhelmed. Puppies everywhere!

The ending to the story is bitter-sweet, however. Sadly, 2 of the 5 pups succumbed to Parvo-virus, which can be deadly to small dogs - they were too small to receive vaccines.

The other 3 found were happy and healthy and found loving families when they were at an adoptable age!

I'm a bad blogger... you can spank me now.

I've been naughty. I haven't updated my blog in far too long. And no one's complained? What's with that!? I know I have at least a few loyal subscribers - I know, I get emails from you. So why hasn't anyone been on my case to post more... hmmm???

So here's what's been up in my life.

1) Dave's back from Afghanistan. He returned safely in May... and I'm sorry for not telling you all sooner!

2) Photographed quite a few weddings in the last few months. And a lot of pets. Sorry, it's not an excuse for ignoring the blog. I'll post pictures.

3) Went to Disney World! Woo hoo! I'll post pictures of that too.

4) I'm now running a professional photographers' online forum with Zack Davis of Diane Davis Photography in California and Betsy Finn of Betsy's Photography in Michigan. It's in start-up phase now, but it's surprisingly active and looks to be successful.

Ok, so that's a brief reply I know. BUT... just wait. I have a ton of images to share from the past few months!