Bethany and Norm's Amazing Wedding!

Beyond being a beautiful couple on the outside, our friends Norm and Bethany are beautiful to the core. It was my pleasure to be asked to preserve their special moments at their wedding last week!!

Terri and I got to try out some really awesome new techniques that really made the coverage amazing, which was really important to us!

As you can imagine people of this caliber are surrounded by equally amazing friends and family! Norm's groomsmen were hilarious, they never stopped smiling and having a great time! Bethany's bride's maids were elegant, kind, and beautiful!

And Bethany, herself... stunning!

It was a beautiful day!

Absolutely breathtaking! Lucky Norm!

I have to say my beautiful wife, Terri, is making me nervous she may take over as main shooter! Her images from this wedding were outstanding! It's hard to believe that she can take amazing shots like these while holding our off camera light! Check her out!

And speaking of great photographers... the beautiful Bethany worked in the wedding industry and invited scores of her photog friends! Check out the day from the perspective of Eddy Wong, Harbison Studios, and Kalyn Mann. All combined I think we could make a spot animation movie!

Here's a cool concept group photo Bethany and I planned. It took just a second longer than Jaylee was interested )

To elaborate about Norm and Bethany, they are amazing spirits that lighten up a room. Norm has always been industrious, dedicated, and kind. Bethany is gorgeous, genuine, warm, and graceful! SO Nice! They were great and can't take a bad photo!

This one is just amazing!

Everyone had a great time!

CONGRATULATIONS AND THANK YOU

TO A FANTASTIC COUPLE!!!!

Ginny and Matt's Engagement Session

(Lead image this week by Terri Viltrakis)

This week I had a fantastic experience photographing Ginny and Matt's engagement session. They are truly in love and just being around them i can tell you their feelings are contagious!

Family portrait!

What a great couple! They are very easy to work with and so nice!

I just can't wait for their December wedding!

We hiked all over Ault Park, one of the couples favorite places, to find some really amazing scenes in which to place the smitten couple!

We even got to the pavilion to grab a few last images at sunset (some with mom and dad too!)!

It was a wonderful time!

CONGRATULATIONS!

Ronald McDonald House Red Tie Gala

Last weekend I had the privilege of being the event photographer for the Ronald McDonald House's charity fund raiser, the Red Tie Gala.

Along with splendid decor, the event included a silent auction, fine dining, and a live auction!

Another exceptional show was the speed painting performance from artist Tim Decker. In under 5 minutes each he created amazing portraits of iconic images! His paintings were auctioned off first and drew in 15 thousand dollars to start!

You can find out more about Tim here: http://www.facebook.com/PainterTim

One thing that impressed me about this event was the generosity of our fellow citizens here in Cincinnati. Near the end our auctioneer simply asked "Who will donate $10,000 for the charity?" and 5 or 6 people raised their cards. When no $10,000 donations were left he asked "Who will donate $5,000? And 15 more people raised their cards. This went on until the amount reached $100. Each person donating received a balloon, the silver was for 10K, the gold 5K. (In the picture above you can see at least $50,000 being donated and that was only a fraction on the attendees! Check out this panorama!

This is our volunteer of the year who donates his time 8 hours a day 4 days a week (and has for the last 10 years or more)!

After the event raised what must have been close to a million dollars for cancer patients and their families, the band began to play and dancing followed!

This was a tremendously eye opening experience in generosity.

If you would like to contribute to the Ronald McDonald House, you can find their Cincinnati Website here:

http://www.rmhcincinnati.org/

More Elmer Family!

This week I was also lucky enough to take a few pictures for one of my favorite families!

Originally we had planned to take some photos at the zoo, but when we found out it closed early we moved our session to one of the beautiful parks in Blue Ash with fantastic results! (Cally was tired :( but still cute as can be! We woke her up from her nap)

Jessica and Taha

This wonderful couple is Jessica and Taha, two of the most amicable and gentle people ever!

They decided to have their special evening under the stars at the Cincinnati Zoo! And it was a magnificent choice. The entire reception area was lit with millions of tiny purple led lights! It was amazing!

Our dutiful groom Taha calmly preparing for the moment.

A pause in the action to pose with the beautiful Jessica!

And this is the intended result of the Henna Celebration [photos] from last week. :)

Jessica and Taha were a pleasure for Terri and I because they knew what they wanted. That made it simple for us to keep the style of the day true.

Like this classic image of Joey and Chad "monkeying" around :)

The lovely bride's maids. These girls were amazing too! Emily L. above is SO lucky she found 8 4 leaf clovers and passed them out. PROOF

It was am intimate ceremony in the shadow of the Zoo's Elephant Reserve.

...and then!!! Jessica and Taha got to meet the elephants!

The Zoo has some seriously amazing facilities available for any event you might need a space for. There were animals with handlers walking around throughout the evening, amazing settings, and free reign over the whole park! I even got to see a lion at the end of the night! I can't say enough good things about it, really!

This is one for the moms :) My flash didn't recycle fast enough and the light was from Terri's off camera 580, but it catches the glee on both mom's faces while they watch their children cut the wedding cake :) So perfect!

(You have to see this large!)

Late in the evening, further proof that the maids of honor (there wasn't just one, they all were) were awesome, Taraheh performed a part an opera.

This really was magic. THANK YOU SO MUCH JESSICA AND TAHA!! Thank you for letting Terri and I be your photographers!

Oh yea, and Terri is awesome look here.

Rehersal Dinner Zoo Art

The Cincinnati Zoo has FANTASTIC botanical gardens as well as a stunning array of animals!!

While scoping out locations for the wedding I snapped off a few neat scenes!

The Spiders!

So in not photography related goofyness, in honor of October, Terri and I took pictures of spiders hanging around our front yard for fun the other day. I know some of you aren't fans of spiders, so I posted this infamous spider as a place holder. You can see the slideshow (including some macros) of the spiders here:
SPIDERS!