Lunging on....

several of you have mentioned that you dont think my lunging will become a trend... buhuh. so well, then i will just have to continue doing it myself. or have tim do it, of course..... 

just too bad im holding my bag, now the effect is less, i think.

ah well, plenty more opportunities to try again!!

A wedding!

a few weeks back we attended a wedding. but in this pic, when looking back at them, i first noticed the boy before i saw all those in the back. including the pretty bride.... the boy really liked the hat. he had found it. or perhaps his mom put it on his head, i forgot. and the  he just walked around with it. it seemed like nobody noticed, but at least i did... :)

Grand central

this was back in may, when we were in new york with the most awful weather... the first day it more or less rained non-stop! i guess thats why there were many (at least 4 when we were there) wedding shoots going on inside grand central terminal. the wedding group above was definitely the most interesting.

since a week or so i somehow got into the habit of watching "say yes to the dress". its about brides-to-be that are looking for a wedding dress in some fancy store in new york. to me its amazing what they are willing to spend on a dress; most dresses are not below 1500 dollars, and many are looking for dresses for say 5000 dollars!! (or even more...). i can only watch it when tim is not around, as he cant stand even the sound of all the screaming brides and bridesmaids and mothers and mothers in law.... haha.

Dutch wedding

today the weather was great1 even though it was a bit cloudy, it was rather warm. we first went to the gym; as opposed to our 24hr gym in boston, our current gym closes already at 3pm during the weekend (grrrr... i prefer to go in the early evenings). then we biked quite a bit through the city and passed by this wedding. i of course was enchanted by all the balloons. so pretty, and all heart-shaped! they were making music and singing for the newlyweds, but i never got to actually see them...

isnt it onvious that this is in the netherlands?! first, there are the houses in the background. then there is the guy with the "bakfiets" watching (those things a trendy since a few years, good for tranporting kids, groceries or furniture. i myself hop never become that crazy to own one). then there are the guys here; most have rather long hair that they mold into shape with some sticky hairproduct... (although it might not be very visible in this pic, i should once make a close-up to really show you. and all guys have it, young, old...etc). and the most annoying thing; so MANY people smoke here. really much more than in boston. even during this little ceremony outside the church many were smoking... couldnt it wait?! according to research, 28% of the amsterdam population smokes, and if you look specifically at the age category of 19-34 year olds, 52% (!!!) of the average-to-highly educated men smoke (for women thats 39%). crazy....

Photoshoots everywhere!

this past saturday we walked through the public garden in boston... it was very sunny and warm, and so there were many photoshoots going on. at least 2 or 3 weddings, an engagement.... etc etc. (and ofcourse the general tourists taking pictures of all the nice things/sculptures and whatnot thats to be seen in the public garden). i didnt know, but i learned that people even do photoshoots when they get engaged! then its in more casual clothes, but the poses are often far from casual (in my opinion).

anyways, this saturday the number of couples being photographed by at least 2 photographers (or more) was almost a bit annoying.....

Wedding shoot

whenever i see a wedding shoot going on i get excited. i like to take some pics too. but not the standard ones the real, professional photographer is taking.... this one seemed like a real fancy one! i have often wondered about the clothes for the bridesmaids. who pays that? who chooses the dresses? so i asked some real americans and they told me that sometimes the bride let them decide, "just" tells them the kind of fabric and/or color. or she chooses, or all of them together. often all the dresses are the same, as above. but the bridesmaids themselves pay for them...

when we were wathing (and photographing) the wedding spectacle a security guard ask everyone not to do so. "since they paid for their privacy". they were in the brooklyn botanic garden. on a saturday. while the blossom trees were in full bloom. so... what privacy?! i just looked up, a shoot, for up to 20 people, costs 300 dollars (thats for the botanic garden, and ofcourse does not include the costs of the photographer and so on...), is 45 minutes and comes with a security guard to enforce time limit and to make sure the session is not "disrupted". ah well, by then i had taken my shots... :)

The Bride

This is Shannon, Tim's friend of 11 years. Today we went to her wedding reception for which we flew from Boston to Texas. It was a very Texan wedding party, on a real ranch with a meadow, orchard and what-not. There was lots of good food (including a brisket) and drinks, and the owner of the estate showed us around. He is in construction and built the entire farm and adjacent buildings himself. He has a jeep from WWII, and other toys rich Texans play with, like a fishing boat, model trains, and hunting gear. The temperature was also quite Texan (sizzling!), so afterwards we went to cool off in the pool. If only the water was a little colder.....  but all in all, it was a hoot and a half!

(this time tim wrote... and i took the picture....)

On shoes

i am fascinated by the shoes american women wear. either they are like above, super high heels that i cannot imagine ever to be able to walk on normally, or big white ugly sport shoes. i do not see much in between, or maybe only these 2 extremes catch my eye. the big white shoes i never understand. sometimes a woman is so well dressed, but then i see her shoes... everything for comfort?! at the same time, for a party, or wedding, they suddenly are able to walk on impossibly high heels.. :)

the people in the picture above belong to the latest wedding i pictured. they were waiting while the bride & groom got their pictures taken... maybe now the guy has a picture of them at his desk, as to never forget he has a wife... ;)

a few months back i actually had the idea to take pictures of legs/shoes. but then i found out someone i once met at a party already did that, and even got a book published about that. curious? here is the link. is anything ever original? i guess everything has been said and done already before. some are just more succesful than others... :)

Wicked funny

another wedding yesterday, or wedding pictures for that matter, at the public garden (shortly before we saw another one as well, but this one was clearly more posh). i found the entire scene hilarious, really everything is wrong, and i am sure these people would not appreciate this photo at all.. :)
what was real wicked fun (a new expression for me but towards becoming a real american i should add it to my vocabulaire, i believe), and this really lived up to the definition of "wicked fun" was the movie we went to see last night; red (retired and extremely dangerous). with bruce willis, morgan freeman and john malkovich. my oh my! that was really funny.. and i recommend you all go and see it...
we went to the AMC Loews at/near boston common, and the movie theater itself was cool as well. it was enormous (bigger than "our" theater in revere), and soo american! should take some pictures there someday...

Wedding shit

today was yet another amazingly sunny day (it is october!!). we had a walk in the forest, drove around, landed on this beautiful beach in rockport with a lot of dogs and a bride & groom.. they were there for their wedding photos, i presume. there was a lady with a huge camera, their dog, and his parents (i think). the lady was directing them to run along the water together, he had to lift her up and she put her leg perfectly up in the air. after those cliche pictures were taken, the photographer put them down in the dunes, and finally she made them walk with the dog along the beach. beeeuuuughhhh!! who wants such pictures?! what do you do with such pictures? what does it capture? your perfectly orchestrated moments after the wedding?! ah well, i guess i am not suited for wedding photography. the only time i really became interested was when the dog took a shit and the groom immediately got down to put it in a plastic bag (pictured above). well, that finally was a true and spontaneous moment! the bride was looking the other way, while her husband was doing what he was supposed to do. and at that time ofcourse the wedding photographer with her enormous camera was nowhere to be found... (in fact, the only thing she said, was "gosh, you 2 made that dog soo nervous!! and then the poor dog was handed back to their parents and the photoshoot continued)