Tara and Adam’s Wedding – Sneak Peak June 30, 2008

So, folks, I made it through a very long day. I was friend, candid wedding photographer, and “pseudo” wedding assistant for my lovely friend Tara for the day.

I’ve been in and to so many weddings that it felt natural being able to help out for the day. It was SOOOO hot out but we made it through the day without anyone melting… LOL

I arrived early and photographed the ladies getting all beautified at the salon, went back to Tara’s parent’s house and photographed everyone getting ready and quickly got ready myself. The official wedding photographer arrived and took his formal shots, I followed them to the church and I photographed as much of that as I could there, then we all headed to Spring Lake for formal bridal party and then a quick stop at Spring Lake beach for photos of just Tara & Adam.

After the formal photos we headed to the reception in a beautiful ballroom looking over the ocean. When the night ended I drove the bride and groom back to the hotel, we all gathered at the hotel bar, eventually got some sleep, and all met at 10am yesterday for a great breakfast in the hotel lobby.

I took about 1500 photos (not sure if that’s the real total…I’m still counting *LOL*) They will me take forever to edit but I’ll get it done!

This is my favorite of the day:

I couldn’t help applying a texture. Thanks, Heather, for the original coloring underneath this texture.

Tara & Adam’s Rehearsal Dinner June 28, 2008

My beautiful friends Tara & Adam asked me if I’d photograph their wedding rehearsal dinner for them. Of course I answered yes immediately! Even with my bum ankle/foot I couldn’t say no!

They had the dinner at La Nonna Pianocone’s Cafe in Bradley Beach and the room that party was in was fantastic. The food was great too!

Tara and Adam have two wonderful families and I enjoyed spending the evening with them all.

Tara and Adam were glowing with happiness.

They prepared a wonderful slideshow with photos of their family & friends throughout their lives which everyone really enjoyed watching and giggling at all of the memories.

Such a wonderful group of family and friends

Tara and Emily…my two buds from the college sorority days!

Yay D Phi E! LOL!!

I tried to coax Tara’s dad to tell one of his good jokes!

Tara’s dad said a few nice words at the end of the dinner…

Tara and her sister Bridgette – her maid of honor.

Adam and his brother Jeff – Best Man.

It was a wonderful night filled with love, laughter and joy

And we got Adam to take one of Tara and I before we left:

Looking forward to the wedding tomorrow!

I know I will be taking hundreds upon hundreds of photos!!

New York City in a Lovely Shade of Tonemapped June 27, 2008

I had nothing new ready for tonight so I thought that I would post some of my favorite photos from new York City from December.

I tonemapped the single RAW image in Photomatrix.

This one is called : MUTED CITY

I call this one: I HEART NY

Let me explain why:

I got to this photo and and I stopped in my tracks when I saw the shot after tonemapping! Take a look at the skyscraper on the left! The sunlight shining on the building created a…..HEART! ! I couldn’t believe it and I felt it was really special. This was not manipulated.

This photo of Times Square has become another favorite of mine from that day mainly because I love how the sun is shining in the top left of the photo and then the light literally makes its way across the street like a spotlight.

LADY IN THE CITY

I hope you love them as much as I do!

When I get my new place I hope to blow some of these up to hang them.

If you’re interested in seeing my entire gallery of all of my HDR or Tonemapped RAW photos click here: http://www.jenrinaldiphotography.com/gallery/3868580_st8qe/1/312956580_pNjzs

Forgotten May Beauty June 26, 2008

Loving that the 50mm is so versatile…

I forgot all about these flower photos until tonight. I was sitting here trying to decide what I wanted to work on for tonight and I knew it wasn’t wedding photos or portraits (for tonight) so I looked around in the mass of unedited work and realized I forgot all about these beauties from May 5th.

They were all taken with the Nikon 50mm 1.4. It’s not just for portraits! LOL!

I adore the sunlight illuminating the background here…

Looking at them makes me remember how beautiful this May day felt to me when I laid under the tree in my front yard to take this photo.

A little antique action…who said flowers can’t be antiqued? Not me!

And a favorite edit for this session…. (yes, yes, yes it’s texture!) LOL!

Anthing You Can Do I Can Try Too! June 26, 2008

These are not the greatest photos in the sense of “technique” but they are “good moments” and memories of my buddy learning something new.

Who said you can’t teach an old dog new tricks? My sister never said that…because she did!

Lucas stayed with my sister for the day while I was at a bridal shower in May. She was practicing dog agility with her Jack Russel Terrier JoJo (featured HERE recently) and she decided to see if she could get my Black Lab, Lucas, to do some jumps…and he did!

When I arrived to pick him up he demonstrated his new skill.

JoJo says…. “Watch me, Lucas, I can do this even with a ball in my mouth!”

And Lucas says… “Anything you can do…I can do too!”

I’m so glad I had my camera with me. I love that lil (big) guy!

Beautiful Bond June 25, 2008

Below you’ll find some of my favorite edits of EJ’s session all photographed with the Nikon 50mm 1.4.

Who wouldn’t love to capture the bond between a new mother and her precious baby?

This is one of my closest friends (since grade 2) and I feel very honored that I get to capture her baby (and their bond) as he grows through the years as their personal photographer.

I love the texture so much on this one. I think it’s one of my TOP favorite textures that I’ve done.

Since I loved this texture I decided to apply another conversion over it to get this result. I love this as well!!

This one is just BEAUTIFUL. Don’t I have such a beautiful friend??

Talk about beautiful eyes on mom & baby!

I thought this looked like a nice moment for an antique finish.

More texture! Love it!

And a brown-tined conversion for the version above.

How about a black & white conversion?

Such an adorable moment!

Adorable!

Look at that little face!

And just a cute one in the stroller to show off those BIG BLUE EYES!

Oh, to be this happy! June 24, 2008

Workin on more edits of EJ! I can’t wait to finish the basic tweaks I’m doing to the color shots so I can do some fun editing! Here are a couple that I converted to B&W. I love that little face!!

Update on the busted ankle…just a sprain! June 22, 2008

This morning, first thing, my mother was kind enough to take me to the Urgent Care place because my foot was hurting worse than yesterday and was more swollen.

The doctor took the xrays right on the spot and we were able to see them right on the screen within a minute which was kind of cool. I never had an xray before (except for my teeth).

If I was smart I would have asked for the xray files on a CD to take home…and share here…hmmm….maybe I will ask when they call me to follow up.

Although I forgot to about the CD of the xrays I didn’t forget to bust out the trusty Canon Powershot A620 and ask my mom to take a photo of me at the urgent care facility… The whole situation is unbelievable so why not share it for the whole world to see. LOL

This is not the most flattering photo of me…but find it hysterical that the room they put me in was the one with the children’s jungle mural on the wall…LOL. Look at my apple dishtowel…lol

Of course I snapped one of mom with the remote control.

Mom insisted on changing the channels repeatedly *LOL*!!

Angelina! And the Case of the Busted Ankle June 20, 2008

Today I met my friend Angie halfway between where I live and where she lives. We haven’t seen each other in a couple years and I was so happy that we were both free today! She and I are friends from college. I missed her so much!!

We met at a shopping center called the Promenade where they have all of these great stores/shops and a couple great restaurants.

We got there right at the same time which was great and we did a little bit of shopping. Then we headed over to this great restaurant called The Red Stone American Grill. We sat outside because the weather was gorgeous and I think we got the best table in the place! We had a great appetizer and these awesome faltbread pizzas where we tried 2 varieties to share. Mmmmm they were good (I should have taken a photo – what was I thinking!)

Before were were leaving the table we took a couple of those “take your photo moments” (I love how the Canon Powershot A620 has the window that flips around so you can see yourself!).

Eventually our waitress saw us and offered to take a photo of us.

Such great smiling moments….until….the unthinkable happened…

We were walking through the restaurant to the restroom and I didn’t see that there was a step down (because the steps and tile floor were all the same black color)…and I took a nice nasty fall and twisted my ankle!

I’m talking I actually went down…shoe flying off and all…and I was hot with embarrassment!

I immediately paniced…I don’t like pain…

Jen + PAIN = VERY BAD!

The end result is that my ankle wasn’t broken because it never blew up or turned purple or anything like that. It just HURT VERY BAD! The 2 restaurant managers were SO nice! They were very accommodating to make sure I was comfortable (I know they hate when things like this happen in their restaurant but things happen!!) They got me ice, water, and were very calm dealing with me (and my anxiousness over pain). Eventually Angie had to leave and all I wanted to do was get home once I felt a little better so we got ready to leave. The manager gave me a new bag of ice, bottled water, and walked me to my car. I drove the hour home in PAIN but made it home safely. Now I’m just elevating it and icing it.

Before I left the manager was kind enough to give me a 50.00 gift card so I would come back again sometime. I would definitely go back – the food is great, the waitress and managers were wonderful and it’s a beautiful restaurant. They should have the stair marked w/ a yellow stripe or something but other than that it was an unfortunate accident that I am suffering for now (especially since I have a photo portrait job tomorrow morning and a College Greek Reunion tomorrow night).

If you are interested in feeling bad for me…here is my poor ankle getting some ice.

I hope you enjoy seeing my ugly toes!

Just pray it doesn’t effect me tomorrow when I have my portrait shoot and that I can go to my reunion.

Dog Agility Winners! June 20, 2008

On June 7th I attended my sister’s first dog agility competition in Willingboro, NJ. It was the first time she and JoJo the Jack Russell Terrier officially competed.  They had been taking classes for quite a while and my sister decided to go for it.

I agreed to photograph them and made it there just in the knick of time as my sister was doing her walk through the course to memorize the order of the obstacles.

The unfortunate side of it was that there was a stinkin’ heat wave in process and the temperature was close to 100 degrees! They braved through it while waiting for their turn. I, on the other hand, got out of the car and felt like I was going to faint immediately (I’m a hot-weather-wimp…show me the air conditioning!!)

Here they are at the staging area getting ready to start:

JoJo started off great! Look at her go!

I got like crazy trying to get as many photos as I could in for my sister of the obstacles:

Look at her go!

A little confusion on the tunnel…

…but she figured it out!

She rocked the weave polls!

When she got to the top and went over all you saw was a little tail poking up

And she finished!

The bad news for Saturday is the they didn’t win either competition but the good news is that on Sunday they won both!

Congrats!!!

For All the Amy Fans! June 20, 2008

I need a break from wedding editing so I went back to my shoot with Amy that I never got to finish from April 5th.

You might remember all of the Amy ones I posted back in April…if not go back to my April archive.

There are so many that I liked that it was hard to narrow the ones I want to edit.

Below are my favorite edits from her session that I edited tonight.

Texturizing…Love It June 18, 2008

Tonight I was in a texture mood…so I found a few of Erin & Noel’s wedding that I wanted to try them out on.

Later on I discovered that I have I have many photos of my own that are actually perfect textures (especially the macros I’ve done recently!) Once I discovered that I had a number of great textures right under my nose I went on a hunt for photos to texturize and work on the next 2 versions:

I think people will either LOVE or HATE this one:

2 nights ago Heather at One Shot Beyond Photography was having her texture challenge so I submitted this photo with her texture to be featured on her site. Hopefully others will participate in the challenge in the up coming weeks!

These are my submissions for next week’s texture challenge:

Radial Blur June 18, 2008

2 Fun edits of Erin’s wedding from tonight…using the radial blur tool in photoshop.

I thought this effect worked wonders with the original of these 2 photos:

Reception Merriment – Erin & Noel June 17, 2008

Sharing a little fun from Erin & Noel’s wedding!

(Yes, I’m still working on them, amongst other things!!)

She’s so cool!

I love how Noel is not afraid of Erin’s Canon!!! He looks like a pro!

Erin and a moment with sweet lil “JuJu”

The kids loved that microphone!!

Could he be any cuter with that balloon??

That hat got around!!

Ummm…soooo cute!!

But look at the look she’s giving him! LOL!

I love when the guests “get into it” on the dancefloor!

Don’t kill me Erin…but I love this one!

I Miss My Girls! June 16, 2008

I miss my girls!

I can’t wait until you two return from Punta Cana!

I snagged this pic from Meleah’s Flickr account.

Tara’s Bachelorette Party June 15, 2008

Last night was my friend Tara’s Bachelorette Party.

We celebrated down the shore with a very nice dinner and a great restaurant by the marina and then everyone went dancing, etc. at some local places.

Unfortunately, had my night ended early, when I didn’t feel well after dinner.

I felt bad but it was better that I went home then not feel well all night…

That’s Tara on the right and her sister on the left:

I’m not sure what Tara was talking about here but it seems really intense… LOL!

My college roomie, Tracey, and me.

(Don’t ask me what was with my hair…it was hot and humid and we were right by the water…doesn’t make for a good hair day!)

Emily and I

You might recognize Emily from the FIGURA GIRLS blog post (portraits of her and her sisters on the beach)

Everyone had a great time and we’re all looking forward to the wedding which is also down the shore!

Should be a great time….and you know I’ll be photographing the entire day from the candid perspective!

Those photos will be soon to come!