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Four Months Late

Audrey Violet & Elliott Grey Petersen

Update, Six Months In

So we are now 6 months in with this whole baby making project. The twins are getting big and kicking all the time. We are now knee deep in researching baby products and setting up our gift registry. It’s all very complicated and stressful, then again I’m sure this is the easy part. We know it is a boy and a girl now and are discussing names, but haven’t made any decisions yet. The photos have been fun, trying to figure out a new setup and look each week. If nothing else, it is a good creative exercise and way to pass the time until the twins are actually out and we start photographing them. Photo Set. Let the countdown begin.

Countdown Begins

As I have written everywhere but here, my wife and I are expecting our first kids this May, and the bonus is it’s twins! As we countdown the weeks, I am going to take portraits of Starla each week and document the growing belly. My goal is to use this to experiment with some different techniques and styles so every week is different from the next. Being we are on week 13 and the twins make their debut around week 37-40 I have my work cut out for me. Should be fun though, and once they are born I can turn my attention to photographing them! Here is the album, Twin Watch.

Wedding Photography

I shot my friend Alison’s wedding way back in August and for one reason or another never posted any of the photos. So, anyway here are a small sampling of them that I posted on flickr. It was my first wedding I shot and it was a LOT of work. I couldn’t walk without pain for 3 days from all the running around and getting up and down all night. I really had a good time and am pleased with the results I got, but it was a lot of pressure and I would hesitate to do the same for a crazy bride that wanted everything perfect. Alison was great and very understanding and accommodating to my inexperience! I rented a fancy Canon Speedlite flash and an expensive zoom lens from Adorama to help out on the equipment side, though I still found my Canon 50mm f1.4 to be the star of the show and captured most of my best images. I love that lens.

Back From Europe!

Starla and I in Eze, France

We just got back from our trip to France and Italy. We had a really really good time and had mostly amazing weather the whole time. Paris is as lovely as ever and really is a place I could see myself living. We happened to be there the same weekend as Nuit Blanche which is an amazing annual event where artists take over a bunch of landmarks around the city with light based installations. The whole city seems to come out for this and it lasts all night long. It is very cool and I would recommend trying to see it. Nice and the Côte d’Azur was very beautiful with amazing water and good food. We stayed there 3 nights and one day went out on a little tour of the region taking in Cannes (boring), Antibes (lively, enticing) St Paul de Vence (beautiful little preserved medieval hillside village), Eze (another beautiful little preserved medieval hillside village) and Monaco. Cinque Terre was one of the most stunning places I have ever been and hiking from town to town on the rocky Mediterranean coast is an amazing life experience. We caught 4 of the 5 towns only missing Corniglia. Pisa has a famous leaning tower, a beautiful accompanying church and not a ton else. We were supposed to only stay the night to be close to the airport but due to a flight problem we ended up being there two days. It is only an hour from Florence and it kind of killed me to be so close to such and amazing place but not be able to go to it.

Like usual I got really into taking photographs and ended up with about 1700 of them which i went through every night and edited down to about 350 photos which are up on my flickr account, which you can see here.

My New Summer Home

Thanks to my friend Nick, (who worked with the team that did the enviro) I was able to attend the very first exhibition game to be hosted at Citi Field, the Mets new ballpark. The game was an NCAA matchup between Georgetown and St. John’s. The game itself was also a sidenote to the real reason for going, exploring and seeing the new stadium. Things still seemed to be not quite complete, lots of signage and banners were missing, and most of the concessions only offered limited menus. Despite that I left very happy and charmed by what I encountered. The stadium is almost a complete 180 from Shea and has very open pathways and lots of places to stop and watch the game action while you are away from your seat. The construction is mostly dark gray iron beams very reminiscent of the East River bridges like Manhattan and Queensboro with a red brick exterior. My favorite place is the new Danny Meyer foodcourt behind centerfield. For one, that is where you can get some awesome ballpark food such as Shake Shack, Blue Smoke, and Box Frites, but also it is right behind the giant centerfield scoreboard and standing at the bottom of it offers a very cool sense of scale. So depending on when I get a job and how much I can afford it, I plan on spending a good portion of my summer here. My Flickr photo tour here.

NYC Photos

I have been having fun with my new camera and lens lately, going around town and taking some pictures. Well, actually I have been taking them all within the route from my office to the subway. I also have been shooting in RAW and playing around with Adobe Lightroom lately and really loving that. Doing that makes me really think about each shot and color correct, crop and perfect each individual one. My current project is going back to my pics from Japan and retouching the best of them for a new Redux photo album. Already some of them are looking tons better and I am excited to see how it turns out. NYC Pics

Photo Expedition

My wonderful wife Starla bought me a new 50mm 1.4f lens for Christmas and I am really loving it. I find it hard to go back to my easier and more versitle, but far less quality kit lens that came with the camera. I spent the afternoon of New Years Eve walking around Soho and lower Manhattan with it taking some pictures and exploring a little bit. It was cold and occasionally  snowy, but very fun. Then I met up with Star as she got off work and I looked at more camera stuff at J&R. That is the thing about photography, the more you get into it, the more things there are to buy. The things are never cheap either, lenses, flashes, lights, tripods, newer cameras. It just doesn’t end. 

Flicker Set

King Of The Road

Well I have been back in town for over a week now but here is my official wrap up post. San Francisco was beautiful, and is a place I need to go back and explore more with my wife. I was only there for 2.5 days but I saw a lot in that time. 

After that was the 4,000 mile trek from SF to NYC. We went through 4 time zones and 14 states to get back. Things started dragging at the end, but it was still an awesome time. Sal is all moved back into his old apt in Brooklyn and all is right in the world. Highlights were some amazing Memphis BBQ, Grand Canyon, Route 66, Albuquerque New Mexican food, the Smoky Mountains, and some awesome tunes (we played over 1,000 on the trip). It was also cool to drive through most of the cities mentioned in Wagon Wheel, by OCMS!

Here are links to my flickr.

San Francisco Pics

Road Trip Pics

Back from Boston

I am back from Boston tonight, Suzi and I left Saturday and just got back tonight. It seemed like a really long time to be gone. Anyways, the HOW Conference was amazing and I saw a lot of very inspiring talks and am back tired but very creatively energized. Highlights for me were: Stefan Bucher and John Foster discuss inspiration and creativity, Debbie Millman interviewing Michael Beirut and a creativity workshop with Sam Harrison. Now its time to buckle down and put all these great lessons into action instead of just letting them slip away.

I also got to see the beautiful city of Boston for the first time. I have always wanted to go, but never did. We walked the 2.5 mile Freedom Trail there and back and walked another several miles to a great seafood restaurant on the pier called No Name Restaurant. We also got to see a game at the one and only Fenway Park, which just happened to be one of the best games possible as Jon Lester threw only the 8th no-hitter in Fenway’s almost 100 year history. I put aside my Mets loyalties for the night to cheer on the Sox with all of the very enthusiastic Bostonians.

UPDATE: Pics finally up. WICKED!