June | 2014 | toastphotoblog

My daughter Emma is growing up so fast and is now a young woman. She had her prom a few weeks ago and it was quite the photo-op. It was really beautiful to see all the kids dressed up and looking so dashing. Since there was no official photographer I decided to photograph all these pictures with my fancy point and shoot (Canon gx 1), because I didn’t want to draw a lot of attention to myself with my big DSLR. Despite using a point and shoot, the pictures came out great. I was able to shoot RAW, which means the photos retain all their information to make it easier to edit. It was amazing some of the camera hardware that the parents had. There were so many parents taking pictures of their kids posing and hamming it up. It was so funny and such a delight to see.

I’ve been going to Bear Mountain for years, mostly to ride my motorcycle on it’s amazing roads. The first time I went there I couldn’t believe that such a place existed so close to NYC. When Chris, from Double Image, asked me to shoot Rachael and Jimmy’s wedding at the Merry Go Round Pavilion, I thought “Wow this is going to be really cool”. I went there a week ahead to scout for some good backgrounds since this was the first wedding I was shooting there. All the locations had to be close to the hotel, because it was a little wet and muddy and I didn’t want Rachael’s dress to get dirty.

The day of the wedding was very challenging because it was suppose to storm. Luckily, the rain held out and we were able to shoot all the family photos outside. This was also very helpful, because the lighting in the pavilion wasn’t great. Also, since it was just me with no second shooter it was a little challenging to be in the right place at the right time while staying out of the videographers way. It all worked out well in the end and we were really happy with the results. Rachael and Jimmy’s families couldn’t have been nicer to me and it was great to see everyone so happy on their special day.