Wanamaker Photography

Laurel and Patrick, a young couple from New York, decided to use us for their upcoming wedding in November. Very artistic themselves, they found our work to be exactly what they wanted. After a few meetings with them and their parents, we settled on a date for their engagement session.

They decided on the Gasho House in Central Valley, New York as they have a very nice botanical garden behind the restaurant. As we arrived, however, we were a bit disappointed as there wasn’t as much color as we expected …

Loretta and I scoured the area briefly to get an idea of what was around … and then we began shooting! They were so easy to work with and are extremely photogenic … so we cannot wait for their wedding in November!

Here are a couple of the shots from the session …

Back in May, my baby brother, Robert, had his Senior Prom. I still cannot believe how fast time has gone by! It seems like just yesterday he was in Kindergarten! Anyways, enough looking to the past …

Being the photographer of the family, he asked us to follow him from the Eldred School to the Riverview Inn in Pennsylvania where the dance was being held. I accepted (of course) and decided to treat him like a celebrity that day!

As the time came closer, we kept checking the weather as it was supposed to rain on and off during his entire trip to the dance. As we arrived at the school, things seemed to hold off long enough for us to grab a couple of shots before heading in for the announcement of the couples. So we picked out some locations around the front of the school and grabbed a couple shots before heading in. In this shot, we asked Robert and his date, Katie, for a little attitude …

After the announcement of each couple, we headed back outside and got everything ready to head to our next stop … a local playground. Utilizing the kid that is in all of us, we decided to play on the swings for a bit and grabbed this shot …

After being attacked by the all of the bugs, we decided to head down to the Hawks Nest and test out some shots there. As we headed down along the river, the rain could hold out no more and downpoured on us. Forging ahead, we grabbed our umbrellas and towels and decided to give it a try anyways.

Robert and Katie were already parked further down the Hawks Nest with a heavily modified Subaru WRX. As we closed in on them, the rain began to let up and we setup our shots as quickly as possible. We’d check the traffic and when all seemed clear, Chris would jump out into the middle of the road and grab a few shots before the next car would come along. Here was one of his shots …

As the rain moved in again, we decided to head out and down to the Riverview for his last few shots before dancing the night away! On our way down, the rain let up and the lightbulb went off. We wanted to grab just a few more shots before heading to the dance … so we pulled off the road and headed out onto the bridge between Matamoras, PA and Port Jervis, NY. We grabbed our umbrella just in case that downpour followed us.

We started playing around with some different ideas once we got onto the bridge and captured as many shots as we could before the weather got ugly again. As cars passed by, the passengers kept looking at us trying to figure out what was going on. After capturing these shots, we decided to wrap things up and let Robert and Katie head out to their dance …

After leaving them at the dance, we headed back and literally started working on the images. Playing with them inside of Adobe Lightroom was incredible and everyone loved the shots. Robert and Katie felt like celebrities for the day as they had their own paparazzi following them around!

Now I get to look forward to his graduation!

Carly came to us for one of our Senior Portrait Sessions. Actually, she is one of our Ambassadors for the Eldred High School in New York. With that title comes a free photo session and images to take with her to show off to her classmates. In return, Carly will provide us with the information of other interested Seniors so we can setup their Portrait Sessions as well!

During Carly’s Senior Portrait Session, we took some standard and unique photos indoors and then headed outside while the sun was still strong. I wanted to experiment a little with a prom gown she owned … so we decided to incorporate some images of her trashing her prom dress.

However, before we totally ruined the dress, I took her back to a wooded area that had a couple large boulders … one of which I sat her on. I shot a couple frames before this one and then she just tilted her head and looked right into the lens with her amazing blue eyes … so I snapped this shot and absolutely loved it! (We’ve got more images of Carly coming really soon!)

I shot this with our Canon 20D with the 70-200mm lens at F4 at 1/160 with the ISO all the way down at 100.

Last night we headed up to Kingston, New York for the Section 9 Class D semi-final basketball game between John A Coleman Catholic and Eldred High School. Loretta’s little brother, Robert, was one of the players for the Eldred team.

We arrived a little early so we had time to setup our strobes at the end of the gym. Thankfully, there was a small stage at one end of the court where we could setup everything as there was barely any room behind the hoops. Using some tips given to us by a friend, we set our strobes and cameras to the proper settings and took a couple of test shots of the girls basketball game, which was in the third period when we arrived.

As the game got underway, the points lead bounced back and forth between the two teams until John A Coleman had a series of dead on shots and fouls in their favor. From this moment forward, the points between the teams would be close, but the players for Eldred weren’t able to regain the lead.

Here are a couple shots of both teams in action …

Excited to see some of the shots we got, I immediately downloaded the cards at 11:30PM last night and began browsing through a bunch of the shots. As I viewed the thumbnails, I saw this great shot of a John A Coleman player “attacking” the ball as it bounced off the back board …

 … And this image of a couple players during a foul shot …

I guess thats what “extreme concentration” looks like!

During wrestling season, no matter where you turn, tournaments are always going on somewhere. This past weekend was no different. With the half day Minisink Valley JV Tournament on Saturday and the full day Vernon Team Wrestling Classic on Sunday, it felt like we were completely enveloped in it!

The Minisink Valley Tournament on Saturday saw wrestlers in attendance from a bunch of the local area schools including Warwick, Port Jervis, Washingtonville and Goshen. Loretta provided full coverage of that tournament, getting a bunch of great action shots of the wrestlers doing what they do best!

The Vernon Team Wrestling Classic on Sunday saw even more teams, some local like the Sussex Wantage Wrestling Team and others from much farther away (Philly & South Jersey). I spent the majority of the day shooting the tournament myself and then Loretta joined up just prior to finals to provide some better coverage. I have to say that we saw some unbelievably good matches between the wrestlers! Most of the kids ranged in age between 7yrs and 13yrs and wrestled ten times better than most of the High School guys that we follow! Here are a couple shots from Sunday as well!

Now its time to get ready for the Minisink Valley Invitational next Saturday where we’ll debut our On-Site Printing and Custom Sports Posters! I can see it now … Its going to be a busy week!