d2e: living sustainably in new england

Today was Day 1 of d2e, a sustainable living expo in Boston. This is a really awesome show! Matt and I had fun visiting with the other vendors and seeing the sights before it gets really busy over the weekend.

The cooking demonstration was really cool... the guy made rice with crickets! This little girl was quite happy to eat many crickets, but she couldn't get me to try one.

Here's the chef describing his favorite insect...

The purpose of the expo is to give people "down to earth" ideas about how to live a greener (and healthier) lifestyle. All of the vendors are really cool - I love these beads made out of paper by refugees in Uganda, and the chic felt wine rack. I plan to leave the show tomorrow with some plants - can't wait for spring gardening!

And there are lots of yummy foods that can be sampled (besides insects!), such as this butterscotch sauce, eco-friendly 360 Vodka, and ice cream (sorry I have no pictures of Ben and Jerry's ice cream... the photographer was distracted from her camera at your booth).

Leaving Las Vegas

Joe Buissink

is such an inspiration

Gary Fong

We're at WPPI and the show just didn't feel complete until I saw Gary at work. :-)

Leslie & Eric - Engaged Bliss

These two are such sweethearts, we were overjoyed when they called us after leaving our studio and told us that they want us to shoot their wedding. Matt took them downtown for their engagement session, and they all had a lot of fun at the aquarium!

ShootQ and Pictage User Group Meeting... Bringing Down the House!

Eric Laurits was kind enough to share some of his philosophy behind his approach to wedding photography as well as his ShootQ studio management workflow. We counted 72 people at this meeting, generously hosted by BU's Center for Digital Imaging Arts.

Love Eric's motto - it truly reflects his joyful and easy going approach to photography... his work is unique and refreshing, and I love that everyone got to see his images and hear his ideas before he launched into the ShootQ demo.

He's fun to photograph too:

ShootQ is such an awesome tool that Matt and I rushed home and signed on right after the meeting. By 5 pm yesterday I had it all set up and today I was able to try it out with a new client today! Our bride Megan probably thought I was crazy because I was so giddy over how simple the online booking process was - I just couldn't contain myself!

Krista Guenin and Robert Mirani, wedding photographers extraordinare...

Meri Bond demonstrating shock and awe at how amazingly revolutionary ShootQ could be for our studios.

A few stragglers still hanging out before the guards and the lovely Lara Woolfson finally got us to vacate the building.

We were honored and so thankful to be able to give away gifts to many people in the audience. These photographers and businesses generously donated items for the giveaway:
Liana Lehman
Davide Greene
David H. Wells
Christopher James
Pro Lens To Go
Calumet Photographic
David Jay

Thanks everyone for making this another really wonderful networking event!

PS - register soon for David H. Wells' (C)-STOCK workshop! Seats are going fast!

Justin & Mary's February Visit

I don't know how these two do it... they've been on the road visiting photographer groups (aka PUGs) for the last several months. They gave a very inspiring talk to our fellow Boston photographers in February. Thank you for visiting Justin and Mary, you inspired everyone and gave us so many great ideas to think about!

Standing room only:

Here's the youngest PUG attendee ever, 1 week old Vera June:

Justin and Mary letting off a little steam at the ski house last week:

Ollie's First Book Report

Get Rocked in Boston!

Corey McNabb and Amber Holritz are offering some sweet deals for all of us in Boston! We'll be handing out special codes for you to get a 10% discount when you register for the Rock Star Roadtrip, and they are also going to do a drawing for a 50% credit on the cost of one of the seats if at least 8 people from the PUG meeting register. Enna and I have already registered for the Roadtrip, and we are stoked about it. Corey and Amber are amazing photographers who have a lot to share so check out the workshop info, ask us at the PUG, and sign up! Rock On!!

More Ski House Fun!

Enna and I are crazy busy catching up from a week away, getting ready for Tuesday's PUG meeting, a wedding in Seattle this Saturday, and the WPPI convention in Vegas next week. So here I am at 1am blogging:)

This is Andy Beet, myself, and John and Kim Sanderson at the top of Mount Attitash. Someone has a shot of this group later in the day with Justin Marantz, but I don't have it.

Here are some shots Kim took of us hitting a little bump on the trail. In order... John get's a nice cross n' grab, I get a piece of my board, and Andy fell victim to the notorious shutter delay of the digital point and shoot camera:) Sorry mate, all who were there know you got some serious air!

I still have a whole CF card of images to download from this trip!!

pink martini rocks!

Home Sweet Home

We're home! Jackson and Emmett are bouncing/woofing/meowing with joy to see us... I still have to check on Fish ~ hopefully he made it through the week too!

John and Kim of Sanderson Images, Tabitha and Larry of Sherrell Photography, Justin and Mary of Justin Marantz Photography, and Christine and Andy of Bello Photography joined us for a relaxing (well mostly... our boys kept us on our toes quite a bit) week of skiing, yummy food, and heart to heart talking about life and work. Next year we plan to leave the boys at home and bring a massage therapist along instead!

This is a collection of inspiring, brilliant, down-to-earth and fun photographers and we had a blast! It is so inspiring and rejuvenating to meet other photographer couples who share so many of our interests, challenges, and joys.

I can't wait to share pics from the trip, but right now I'm off to see Pink Martini with my cousin Keelin.... Matt kindly offered to stay home with the boys and watch Rattatouille.

More Ski House Fun

Here are John and Kim modeling their We Click shirts...

The view from the ski house... this is where everyone went skiing today.

Justin demonstrating his olympian air hockey prowess...

the first team building exercise.... well, actually the second. The first was this exact same scene, but at midnight during an ice storm, when Justin and Mary arrived. Nobody was taking pictures, but luckily (for viewers' benefit) we were able to reenact the same scene a few times the next day.

Ski Fun

We're having so much fun hanging with the Sandersons, the Sherrells, the ,
Marantzes, and Andy & Christine from Bello Photography. We'll post pretty pictures of the place but we just had to share this cute snapshot of the Sandersons showing off our awesome T-shirts. Photo from my treo phone.