Kerry & David's Engagement Session at Snoqualmie Falls

What a Saturday evening!  Erin and I had the pleasure of shooting an engagement session with David and Kerry in advance of their July 7th wedding!

The weather has really not been cooperating the past couple of weekends so we postponed the session a couple of times hoping for nice weather.  So Saturday arrived and the weather forecast was of course calling for rain, but we were out of time with the wedding two weeks away, so we were prepared to make the best of it. 

We arrived at the park and as we approached the falls, a rainbow appeared!  Talk about God shining down on you! It seriously couldn't have happened to a nicer couple.  It is always a joy to work with people that are so visibly in love.

Click on any of the pictures to launch a slide show and congratulations Dave and Kerry on your upcoming wedding!  Erin and I can't wait to capture it.

 

 

Sidney's portrait session

This past Wednesday I shot a portrait session for Sidney who recently turned 1 year old. 

After a few indoor shots (I loved how her orange dress looked against the green fabric), we moved outdoors.  Kids like Sidney make my job a cake walk.  She's about as cute as they come :-) 

Click on any of the pictures to see more of the pictures that I captured during our session.

I love my Zune and have shelved my iPod, but not for the reasons you might suspect...

Yes, I work at Microsoft, but I have now had my video iPod for a year and a half and love it.  The Zune came out and I wasn't in line to buy one.  Why should I?  I had everything I wanted with my iPod.  At least that what I thought....

Then a job opportunity emerged in the Zune org, so I decided that I had better buy one and at least develop some opinions on it.  I didn't care for the fact that the hard drive was 1/2 the size of my 60GB iPod.  I didn't care for portions of the overall experience of the Zune player (but know that realistically, the software will just get better over time).  What I LOVE about the Zune however, is the Zune Pass for marketplace. 

Let me qualify this a bit.  I HATE digital rights management (DRM).  I've had all kinds of problems with it in the past and as a result, all of the music that I have downloaded to the Zune and iPod was music I ripped from my CD collection.  At the same time, there are services out there that allow you to subscribe for a monthly fee and download and listen to all the music you want.  These services use DRM to basically insure that you are still a paying member of the service.  I have always ignored these services assuming that they would only have a small library of old artists that no ones cares about any longer, but when I bought my Zune, they offered me a free trial of the marketplace subscription.  I'm now in my second month as a paying customer and couldn't be happier.  I've been discovering all kinds of new artists and staying abreast of all of the latest music to hit the airwaves.  Today I found the new single Tarantula from the Smashing Pumpkins.  I liked it so much that I bought the single even though I can listen to it as much as I'd like as long as I'm a member.  Downside?  I realized after purchasing the song that it is DRMd (grrrr).

Steve Jobs makes the argument that "customers don't seem to be interested in it" [subscription services].  I couldn't disagree more, but then again if you had asked me 3 months ago, I would have concurred.  My request is that we should keep DRM limited to the subscription services and then like Apple, charge a bit higher of a fee to purchase songs or albums without DRM restrictions.  I would use the subscription service to discover music and then purchase the music that I want to "keep" over the long haul.  If Microsoft can add this feature (non-DRM'd music purchases) to their marketplace, I think they have a service that trumps iTunes.

A few shots from Nathan's last baseball game

I haven't had time to edit all of the photo's yet, but here are a few good ones that I grabbed last weekend during Nathan's final game of the season. 

 

Jott rocks! You've got to try this free service

Go to Jott, set up a free account (only takes a minute), add their toll free number to the speed dial of your mobile phone. 

Next time you need to remember to do something, you hit the Jott speed dial number and leave yourself a message.  The Jott service converts your speech to text and sends you an email or SMS message with the text (as well as a recording of your original message).  In addition, the Jott website keeps all of your Jott's listed and you can organize them. 

But wait, there's more.  You can import your contacts, so that you can Jott other people too.  And the icing is that this is a local Seattle company started by a couple of ex-Microsoft folks and the current plan is to keep the service free (using Ad funding or premium service model). 

I hope these guys shoot the moon with this product. 

Full moon over Seattle May 31st 2007

I met up with my sister and some friends from work last night at Kerry Park in Seattle to watch and photograph the full moon rising over Seattle. 

I snapped this shot when I arrived at around 9:00 PM.  Click on the picture for the full resolution photo.   

I also took this panorama while waiting for the moon to appear. 

Here's a shot of the moon which finally appeared as it was approach 10:00 PM.

and one last wider angle shot.

Next time I'll have to bring one of my telephoto's so I can grab a few tight shots of the moon in focus with the needle.  These were all taken with my wide angle 17-55mm and my Nikon D2x.    

One last dip at the Destin beach before flying back to Seattle

Our flight back to Seattle on Thursday didn't leave until 6:00 PM, so we took the opportunity to spend the morning at the beach before packing up for our journey home. 

We had an amazing time and want to thank everyone for contributing to the great memories we now have.  And to think it's not even Summer time yet ;-)

Click HERE or on any of the photos below for a slide show!

Erin was excited to get some shots of me spinning Cole, but he would only allow mommy to do it :-(   Love the results though!

I think Nathan might end up being a runner.  He's sure built like one!

Here's a shot of Erin taking advantage of the larger than usual surf.