Boston + New England Wedding Photography, Boudoir and Portraits bio picture

Hello.

I'm a Boston wedding photographer with a photojournalistic approach.  I also love fun, candid portrait photography and boudoir sessions.  My style is modern, organic and emotional, with a little bit of goofball thrown in.  My specialties?  Decisive moments, big hugs, dramatic backgrounds, perfect details, sideways glances, goofy expressions and raw emotion.

My favorite things in the world are beer (a pint of Manny's or my hubby's home brewed porter), food (cheese or sushi, yes please!) and warm, geeky, loving, smoochy people and their doggies.  If you're looking for my website, click here.  And don't forget to leave a comment on one of the posts below - comments make me happy.


Lyman Estate Wedding: Kate + Alex Ceremony and Cocktails

This may well be my favorite post so far from Alex and Kate’s beautiful sunny wedding at The Lyman Estate in Waltham.  It’s picture heavy, so I’ll keep the chatter to a minimum.  :)

Kate and Alex’s ceremony was officiated by an old family friend of Alex’s parents, Erika.  She filled the ceremony with wonderful anecdotes, and the written word in its many forms featured heavily.

There’s nothing more pleasing to a photographer during a ceremony than a row of tearful bridesmaids.  Kate shed a few tears too.  :)

Cocktail hour followed, outside the grand house.  I love the mix of smiling faces and delicious food.  Yum!

The light was spectacular towards the end of cocktail hour, so I pulled Kate and Alex aside for a few portraits.  These photos make me so happy …

And a few more – the side of the house was just out of view of the guests, and the light was divine.

The reception will be along soon.  Alex and Kate are on their way to Australia right now (to live!  for a year!), so if you’re a friend or family member stopping by to take a peek, leave them a message in the comments … I’m sure they’d love to see who’s been by!

Lyman Estate Wedding: Kate + Alex First Look and Portraits

Kate and Alex love the grand staircase at The Lyman Estate, and decided to hold their first look there.  It’s a beautiful spot, and it was fun getting a different perspective to the usual:

We moved outside for the group photos and I was relieved to find a large area of shade – look at the size of this bridal party!  Fun.  :)

I had fun with the guys – especially with them running towards me.  And although I didn’t quite mean to set it up that way, I kinda like that it looks like they’re all chasing Alex.  The girls were just gorgeous.  Wow …

After some relaxed family formals, we had a little time to spare to get some portraits of Kate and Alex around the grounds.  My favorite photos of them are coming later (cocktail hour coincided with the most amazing light) but I had to share a couple here too:

Lots more coming soon – so stay tuned, folks!

Lyman Estate Wedding: Kate + Alex Getting Ready

Saturday was one of those perfect, gorgeous days.  And not just the weather – everything about Alex and Kate’s wedding was just right; from the moment I walked in to Kate’s room at The Charles Hotel in Cambridge for some getting ready photos, I knew it was going to be a good day.

To start, some black and white images of Kate and her girls – aren’t they all gorgeous?  It was not unlike walking onto a movie set, being in that room …

I love that Kate wore flats – cute flats by Kate Spade!  The invites and programs by Sarah at Red Bumble Bee were beautiful, and full of awesome facts … the first year of their relationship was spent long-distance (two days after meeting in NYC, Kate moved to China for a year) and they wrote letters back and forth.  Real, hand-written, postman-delivered letters.  Here are some of my favorite facts about their year of letters (stolen shamelessly from the program): number of handwritten words: 26,880; miles traveled by letters: 234,100; net international trade deficit accrued: 108 dollars.

While the girls were getting their hair and makeup done, the guys were having lunch down the street at The Red House.  I popped over for a few minutes to grab a few shots and could have stayed a while – the guys were quite funny.  :)

Then, we all headed over to the beautiful Lyman Estate in Waltham.  The pretty hydrangea bouquets were by Bronwen Flowers.

That last photo above may just be one of my all-time favorite getting ready photos.  Love the excitement all over Kate’s face!  And some more black and whites of the girls finishing up:

Before the first look with Alex, Kate asked if we could have a little moment with her parents – I loved this idea.  There was a lot of emotion in that room …

The first look with Alex will be along tomorrow – as well as some very fun bridal party portraits …

An International Award Winning Image (Again!)

The results for the ISPWP‘s Summer 2010 contest came out this morning, and I was super excited to see that my image from Karen + Phil’s wedding at The State Room in Boston placed 5th in the Bridal Party category.  Nice comment from one of the judges too: “Gorgeous concept, lovely execution.”  Well, thanks!  Happy Sunday everyone!

Hyatt Regency Cambridge Wedding: Neeta + Rich

On Saturday, I got to second shoot for one of my very favorite people in the whole of the US: fellow photographer, Brit, lover of beautiful shoes and fine booze, Leah Haydock.  Leah second shot for me back in early July, and it was my turn to return the favor … and what a fun favor it was!  Neeta and Rich were married at the Hyatt Regency in Cambridge.  It was a joining of cultures (Neeta is Indian, Rich Korean) and a festival of color.  After a year of blue themed weddings, I was so very ready for some shocking fuchsia, oooh yes!

I started my afternoon just as Neeta was about to get into her gorgeous Maggie Sottero gown:

I loved how excited and happy all the girls were, and how touched Rich was as he opened a letter from Neeta in the room next door.  The colors for this wedding were awesome … combine that with the henna tattoos: photographic bliss!

One of my very favorite things about this wedding was the food and drink.  As guests arrived for the ceremony, they were served glasses of mango lassi.  Yum!

The ceremony was very personal and there was a good mix of teary eyes and huge laughs.  I especially loved the moment when Neeta pointed out their soft toy, Liger, who was watching the ceremony from up inside the hotel:

While Leah was busy taking awesome couples portraits of Neeta and Rich, I headed into the 16th floor Charles View Ballroom to get some detail shots.  It was such a gorgeous setup, and there was so much light to work with.  The fabulous Christy at Cake Weddings and her assistant Erica not only did a spectacular job with the decor and flow, but were SO awesome to work with.  I highly recommend them!

And some final photos of the reception, including some cute couples portraits in the lobby.

Huge thanks to Neeta and Rich for their wonderful warm welcome, to their friends and family for bringing the fun, and to Leah for inviting me to second shoot for her at such a fabulous wedding.  And be sure to head over to Leah’s blog for gorgeous photos galore.  :)   Oh, and for any techies out there reading this: I wanted to see if I could shoot an entire wedding with just two lenses, a 24 1.4 and a 135 2.0.  Turns out I can … until the dancing starts.  I had to bring out my trusty old 35 1.4 for the dancing (and my 85 1.4 came in handy during the reverse-angle cake cutting too).  What I did find, though, was that I absolutely did not miss the gigantic 70-200 2.8 that I used to rely so heavily on.  Happy days!

Tokyo Part One: Skyscrapers and Temples

I went to Tokyo in March with my husband.  It was a totally last minute trip, and it was amazing.  Josh was working much of the time, so I spent a lot of time exploring with my camera.  It was a little isolating … the culture is so different, and deciding to go just two weeks before we had to leave didn’t give me enough time to learn any Japanese.  I took well over a thousand photos over the ten days we were in Japan … I’ve knocked them down to 250 or so keepers … and many of them will be posted here, at some point.  I figure, pictures are meant to be seen, right?  Even if it is just a random assortment of my impressions of the strangest and coolest city I’ve ever visited.

I was utterly fascinated by the ultra modern right bang next to the old and traditional.  Both beautiful, but in such stark contrast.

Tokyo’s huge fish market, Tsukiji Market, deserves an early start (6am is not early enough) and a week’s worth of exploration.  A couple of hours whet my appetite … as did the multiple breakfasts (Josh ate three separate breakfast meals that morning).

More to come … at some point.  :)