G’day! I’m writing this from an apartment overlooking the ocean in Sydney — in fact, I have a straight view to the Sydney Opera House thanks to the generosity of our couchsurfing.com host, Alex. I’ve never couch surfed before, and I’m floored by how nice people are!

We’ve been traveling in New Zealand for the last 10 weeks and have 7 weeks of adventures ahead throughout Australia. I’m busily adding images to my stock photo collection of travel and adventure sports, which is all housed at my other site. Alex introduced us to Sydney on Australia Day, where we saw an amazing fireworks show with a few hundred thousand other folks in the heart of the city. I’m not much of a big city person, but I think Sydney is really cool — maybe even up there with Paris.

At any rate, I figured I needed to update this blog with some new photos from the adventure so far, so here are just a few random shots. These are everywhere from Yosemite National Park to New Zealand. You’ll notice in the first picture there’s actually a climber on the left side of the frame at the same height as the top of the wave. Yikes!

Hope everyone’s having a good 2010 so far. If you’re interested in getting some info about 2010 weddings, shoot me an email! I have a connection every few days, and have even been able to schedule Skype meetings with folks.

Happy Holidays everyone!

I’m writing this note from the West Coast of New Zealand, where I’m traveling at the moment in pursuit of beautiful light, great imagery, and an endless summer. It’s been a fun trip so far, and I’m excited to see what’ll happen next. Before I start the busy 2010 wedding season, I’m headed to Australia, Tasmania and Tonga, three places I’ve never been but have always dreamed of visiting.

2009 has been a wild, wild ride. It’s taken me across continents and oceans, and I’ve photographed almost everything imaginable: climbing in France; coral reefs off the coast of Venezuela; landscapes in New Zealand; and weddings in the Virgin Islands, the Bahamas, California wine country, and as far away as Norway. Back in September I added up the days my car had sat at the Denver International Airport parking lot, and was startled to discover the total: nearly 18 weeks. That means I was shooting out of state for about half of the first 9 months of the year. In October I shot weddings in Colorado and California, and climbing in both Zion National Park and Yosemite, and in November I flew to New Zealand. Despite being on the road, I’ve kept busy with new bookings and album designs — and as a cool side note, JenLos’ book, from their Virgin Islands wedding, was picked by Kambara USA as a sample album that the company will bring to trade shows around the country.

It’s been humbling to win awards from the WPJA, it’s been fun to see my shots for Sigma Photo show up in magazine advertisements around the world, and it’s been exciting to grow my studio with the addition of associate photographers (in two different states) and a production manager. Expect to see profiles of Bernd and Chris in upcoming blog posts — we are currently booking them weddings in both California and Colorado, and they do an absolutely rocking job. Both of them have seen it all: Bernd shot a wedding in Vail this year with a reception so bumping that the smoke alarms went off and the Fire Department came, while Chris just recently shot an elopement in Rocky Mountain National Park in the middle of a whiteout. Party on! You’ll love these guys.

I’ve had more fun behind the lens in 2009 than in any other year of my life. It’s been awesome to see the resurgence of break dancing, and I’ve been downright impressed with the all-star partying I’ve encountered at this year’s receptions. Resisting the urge to boogie has been a challenge, especially after watching people bust out award-winning worms, aerial stalls, head spins, and every other dance move invented in the last 40 years. I have realized that I need to learn to break dance. Can someone teach me? It’s also been cool to reconnect with past clients, learn about their lives, and even see their new babies. I love this job.

I’ll try to get a best-of-2009 post up soon, and maybe I’ll put up a few shots of my winter adventure so far. Meanwhile, here’s a shot of me jumping for joy somewhere in countryside in New Zealand, courtesy of Rannveig Aamodt.

Last but not least, please excuse me if I don’t respond to emails immediately. There’s a day or two lag time here, as cell reception is spotty.

High five!

The Wedding Photojournalist Association’s 2nd quarter contest results are now out, and this fun shot just placed in the Kids Being Kids category. Hillarious kid!

Wow, I don’t even know where to begin. I first met Mia and Jeremy last year and knew immediately that their wedding was going to be off the hook. For the wedding weekend I brought along two great photographers to shoot with me, Brett Butterstein and my associate photographer Chris. Jeremia tied the knot in Beaver Creek with a smaller rehearsal dinner at Beano’s Cabin and a huge night before party (with a mechanical bull) at the nearby Lazy J Ranch. The wedding was a jaw-dropper — Anuschka at Bloom did a fantastic job with a flower wall and flower huppah in the tent — and the ensuing reception was simply epic. The party knob was turned way past full blast until 3 am, and the flames were stoked by an 80s band called the Spazmatics. People were dancing on the stage all night — or on the chairs, tables, or on top of everyone else. It was the most amazing party I’ve ever been to. I’ve always wondered what if I could organize some sort of all-star wedding and put all the most amped partiers I’ve photographed in a room together and blast the tunes for hours… and then I realized that Jeremia basically did just that. I actually couldn’t sleep that night because I was so adrenalized and at the same time so exhausted. Anyway, CONGRATULATIONS YOU TWO!!! YOU ROCK! A big shout out to Michael and his LA-based planning team at Along Came Mary, the NY singers in Groundstone, the Jerry Barnett Orchestra, David at Design Works, Mia’s sisters Megan and Melissa at Planit Events, and the rest of the absolutely fabulous vendors that made the wedding oh-so-awesome. Here are a few favorites, along with a slideshow containing a mixture of shots from myself, Brett and Chris.

Here’s a great shot by Brett of Mia getting her hair done.

And an awesome shot by Chris of the first dance

And another great shot by Brett:

Dana decided that she wanted her wedding weekend to be something of a commune, so she designed what was one of the coolest weddings ever in the British Virgin Islands. Her, Adam and their friends converged on Villa Aquamare in the British Virgin Islands for a few days of pool parties, yachting and hanging out. I arrived the first night after traveling by plane, boat, bus and car to get there. It was a super fun adventure. The crowd was a ton of fun, and I had a blast shooting the festivities. I brought along an underwater housing for my camera, and spent half the time in the pool with everyone. A definite highlight was a trip to The Baths, an incredible jumble of boulders the size of houses, all scattered on the beach. The surf comes in between the boulders and forms a series of caves, pools and passageways. Great place. Anyway, congrats to Adam and Dana! You guys rock. I’ll never forget your rad hip-hop pool parties, your great senses of humor your absolutely beautiful wedding ceremony. Here are some favorite shots as well as a slideshow.

Just an update from that last Sigma post a few days ago. Today I got the latest issue of Rangefinder Magazine, which is basically the magazine for portrait and wedding photography. I was flipping through the pages and… hey… there’s one of my photos in the latest ad. This one’s kinda cool because I can read the ad copy. Sigma is using these ads in camera magazines worldwide for the next three years, and while I now which photos will run, I don’t know when they’ll run or where they’ll run. So it’s like finding an easter egg when one shows up.

Back in February I took a dive vacation to the tiny island of Bonaire to focus on my exploding interest in underwater photography. I was down there for two weeks and did about 30 dives. It was the longest time I’ve spent diving continuously since my travel-the-world days right out of college — back then I was on an extended year-long adventure. Mostly I was rock climbing, but I supported myself by working here and there as a dive instructor in Thailand and the British Virgin Islands.

At any rate, I had a blast getting back under the sea. I came home from the trip and sold a story about my trip to Reach Magazine. I wrote and illustrated it, and It made the cover. I have another story in Reach in the next few months about how to take good photos. That’ll be fun to see in print too.

Check it out ! Malisa and Todd’s wedding in Tulum, in Mexico’s Riviera Maya, is now one of the featured weddings in Wedvert Magazine, a publication all about green weddings.

Oh, and FYI — if you’re looking for a wedding coordinator for a destination wedding, check out Malisa’s site. She’s become a destination wedding planner!

Here’s some of what Malisa has to say:

Too beautiful to be true, Tulum, located on the eastern coast of the Yucatan peninsula, is one of Mexico’s most treasured national preserves and a nesting ground for turtles. It’s also the location and inspiration behind Malisa and Todd’s intimate seaside wedding. “I had a vision of white sand beaches, which are very hard to find in today’s environment of the mega resort,” Malisa says. “I stuck with my vision, though, and it led us to Tulum, where sea turtles nest and hotels are solar-powered in order to avoid light pollution and keep the turtles happy.”

The latest issue of the アサヒカメラ, also known as Asahi Camera, just arrived in the mailbox today, and it featuring another one of Sigma’s Our World ads that I shot last fall. This image was taken at the Great Sand Dunes National Monument in central Colorado — it was covered in snow, hence the white “sand.” Super cool place. It’ll be fun to keep watching these ads show up!

I’m proud to announce that the studio has renewed its small business partnership with CarbonFund.org, one of the nonprofit leaders in carbon offsets. That means the entire business is carbon neutral (actually, carbon negative because we offset more than we use).

We’re always trying to do our part to reduce our footprint. We partake in the easy stuff, of course — using rechargeable batteries, recycling, keeping all paperwork as electronic as possible, doing electronic proofing, using CFL lightbulbs, etc. But our partnership with CarbonFund.org is a step forward. Our annual donation offsets more than 70 tons of carbon emissions each year through renewable energy and reforestation projects in North and Central America.

If you’re interested in greening up your wedding, check out visit carbonfund.org, or give us a shout out for some cool green wedding ideas. These include everything from using locally grown flowers to hiring an organic catering company or booking a wind-powered venue. One couple used flatware made of corn, while another decided to have all wedding gifts be donations to a nonprofit of choice. If you’re interested, we carry a variety of vegan friendly wedding albums, as well as a book that’s totally carbon neutral and made of completely recycled materials. Cool stuff.