It has been almost two months since I last blogged. Needless to say, things got crazy for a little bit. I will do my best to sum up the past two months with some pictures and captions.
It seems crazy to announce, but spring soccer is over (go figure, its only summer now). Brian had a good time this year, but I think he struggled with his team a little bit. I think Brian got pulled from alot more games this year as a gesture of mercy to the other team. He was usually only allowed to play offense for the first half of the game, and he either had to sit out or play defense or goalie after that. There were a few games where the other team would try and come back, and then he would get put back in. But not too many. I really enjoyed taking pictures this season with my new camera. Sports photography is amazing to me. It’s where I was initially inspired and prompted to start taking pictures again, and I think I will always be drawn to the thrill of stopping the action, and showing athletic prowess with a still image. Here is a final shot of Brian playing to end the season
My last blog entry was about the new addition to our family with pet fish. Wow, what a learning experience. If our fish don’t feel loved, then they never will. When we bought our tank, we purchased about 25 fish to go in the tank. All was well for the first day, and then our fish started dying. We struggled for the first month and a half. No one told us that we bought to many fish, but we overpopulated the tank. There was not enough good bacteria in the water to kill the ammonia from the fish poop and food that went into the gravel. This basically made our water poisonous to the fish. We lost about half of our fish over the first two weeks. Some of our favorite fish died. But we still had our strong 12 fish, and they kept on tickin. We ended up getting a disease called “Ick” in the tank, and had to medicate the tank to save what we had. But after countless water tests and trips to the pet store, our water has now been deemed “perfect” by some of our favorite Pet Smart employees. We added 3 cleaner fish to the tank and lost one, but I think he was just stressed by being in the new tank. The other two cleaners are doing their job, and we have 2 baby fish that were born in the tank. The water can’t be that bad if it can support a brand new baby fish. Fish in a tank are very hard to photograph. They move so fast, and you can’t use a flash or it will reflect on the glass. Here are a few pictures of the fish I took.
Moving on, we have had some family activities since I last blogged. One of them was the baby blessing of a new addition to the Marchant Family, McKenna Monteneres. I was attempting to be a baby photographer on this shot.
The school year came to an end this year, and with it came lots of school programs and awards. Brian and Kallie do such a good job in school.
(Below: Here is Brian playing in the 3rd grade recorder program. He practiced for months before this day. I know they worked a lot more on playing the songs than I did when I was in Elementary School.)
(Below: At the end of the year awards assembly, Kallie was awarded a Cougar Scholar award. I think there are two students picked from each class for this award. We are proud of how hard she worked.)
(Below: Brian received an award for his age group for speed and accuracy while typing. This must be from all of his searching on the internet for Utah Jazz stuff, and Call of Duty videos on youtube)
As the weather has gotten warmer the kids have been outside more and more. They will play all day if they are allowed too. He is a snapshot I grabbed about two weeks ago.
I have continued to work on my photography all summer long. I have logged in over 6000 pictures on my new camera. I am continuing to try new things, and love it when I can get people willing to pose for me. My goal is to take pictures that people would want to hang in their home. One of the most rewarding experiences is seeing a picture I have been taken in printed form and in a frame. Eventually I would like to take pictures professionally, and want to make sure I am good enough to meet peoples expectations on what they are paying for. Until I get to that point, I will keep experimenting and working to get better. Here is a shot from the Skyway Golf Course here in Tremonton.
I was grateful for the opportunity I had to take pictures of my new nephew, Nathan (Brian and Michelle’s son). It was a compliment that Brian and Michelle wanted me to come and take pictures. Nathan is one cool dude, and his hair is awesome. He has a full head of hair, and I love it. Nathan has similar eyes to his brother, Camden. They pull me in, because they are amazing. Generally when I look at peoples eyes there is color and then there is the black pupil. These brothers have a small ring of white in between the color and the pupil and I think it is amazing. Here are a few of Nathan, and I couldn’t resist adding one of his brother!
(Below: this is not a “posed” picture, Camden’s motor was going 200 mph while he played with his cousins, This shot just worked out, I had about .5 seconds to grab it.)
And now for the busiest part of the last few months! Dan and Kristin are married! Kristin was a very brave soul and trusted me with some of the most important pictures of her entire life. This is the first wedding I have ever photographed, and hopefully it is just the beginning. Kristin had a lot of people willing to take pictures for her, so I was fortunate. Kristin had a friend take her engagement pictures. I think they turned out amazing. I took the bridals for them. Here are a few of my favorite shots from the day. I don’t think I slept at all the night before these pictures, I had butterflys so bad you would have thought I was going to play in the superbowl.
Kristin had an uncle who was supposed to take pictures on the actual wedding day. But I certainly wasn’t going to leave my camera home. My mother-in-law wanted me there taking pictures so I did. It was a good experience for me to shoot pictures when the light was less than desirable for pictures, and I am really happy with what I ended up with for the day. My all time favorite is the next one, I loved hanging out with my sisters, it was great to see them. For this picture I had just finished taking pictures of Dan and Kristin as they walked out of the temple, when both Charisse and Sarah yelled at me, and started striking poses. Love this picture.
Here are a few of the other wedding day shots. I like this next one because of the suprise on Kristin’s face while Dan pretended he was dropping her, and Brandon’s reaction (far right).
Standard cheering picture
Uncle Dan didn’t let the nieces and nephews feel left out either. The kids are really excited to have Kristin as their Aunt. Welcome to the family Kristin!
At the reception I tried my hand at a little detail photography. Kristin was so nice to put pictures from her Bridal session I took on every table and on all the decorations.
I took over 700 pictures at the wedding, the wedding breakfast and the Orem reception. It is so hard to pick which ones to share.
This last weekend, Dan and Kristin had their open house in Elwood. At this event, I knew I was the assigned photographer, I barely slept the night before. This was by far the most challenging shoot for me yet. The reason being was that everything was inside. I have not advanced in the business enough to have a turbo flash for my camera. Generally the result of using the on camera flash is no color on the person that is being photographed, and a major dark background. So all of these are indoors without flash which is a bit tricky. I think they turned out pretty good cinsidering the challenges and my skill level. I tried to get all the standard shots, and then I went for candid views of the guests. I looked through my wedding pictures and I have about 5 pictures of the people that came. And my memory is getting a bit hazy, hopefully Dan and Kristin appreciate seeing all the people that came to see them.
It has been a very busy couple of months. But we have been very blessed, and have been given great opportunities, talents and blessings. Here are a few shots of the Oquirrh Mountain Temple to close things out. Hopefully I haven’t drawn this out too long. We are all still here and still doing great.
