A New Camera, A New Photographer, A Not-so-New Model!

BIG NEWS!

It has come - the time to upgrade to a new camera. It is an exciting time! There is some more news that will be coming along with it (good news of course), but it's not quite at sharable status yet. So stay tuned! But in the meantime, I enjoyed taking my Canon 7D out for a "get to know you date" with my lifetime date (aka wife) to get to know how to use the 7D a little better - and of course enjoy time with my wife. Having my Rebel XTi for 4 1/2 years had me so used to the settings, how to change things quickly and make them the way I wanted, I was so used to the weight and size, and everything changes with the 7D. In order to do the very same things, I had to read the owner's manual...the OWNER'S MANUAL! You think, "Who even reads those anymore??" Well, I read a lot of it. It's very informative and a good reminder of settings, but more importantly I needed to actually LEARN how to change the settings quickly, rather than the slow way which I had figured out easily.

Short story long, here are some photos I took of my beautiful wife Christina - we went down to South Beach Miami (look for my next post) and walked around for the day. It was 95 degrees...and humid of course. So it's not a photographer's dream to be sweaty and trying not to drip all over his camera, nor is it fun for a model who is also sweating. These shots were taken after cooling down for a good half hour or so in a coffee shop, enjoying cold drinks and VERY cold a/c (Florida knows how to keep things cool!), so we weren't too bad by now!

Since we were both pretty unfamiliar with South Beach - as far as finding cool spots to take photos - I tried to keep my eyes peeled for some good ones. I definitely like this one we found (above). This is along the sidewalk that follows the beach - I wouldn't really classify it as a boardwalk. But this short wall added some cool dimension to the photo and elevated my beautiful subject, which also helped remove the people walking and cars behind her.

Here's my new photographer! Christina now tells me this is her camera (the XTi). It mostly is, unless I need a backup! I'm so excited to help teach her how to use it at a more advanced level, since she already knows the basics. She'll be a pro in no time.

I don't think I can pick a favorite between this photo and the first on this post. She is SO beautiful! Stay tuned for a post about South Beach!

Summer Favorite's: Weddings and of course Food, Drinks, and Delicious Desserts

I'm back! It has been over a month since blogging, but at least I can say I am a married blogger now! I will post a photo from the wedding first. We are waiting for the rest of our photos to be finished by our photographer - summer is a busy time for photographers!! Keep an eye on Facebook and joellewattunscripted.squarespace.com for the photos - or just check out Joelle's awesome work in the meantime.

Photo by Joelle Watt

Summer is full of weddings. My WIFE and I moved to Florida, so it is proving difficult to attend most of the weddings we have been invited to. Our friends Josh and Whitney got married last week in DC and this coming weekend our California friends Brycen and Marian are getting married. I am close with Brycen's family and his mom, Terri, let me know that they have somewhere around 400 guests attending. FOUR HUNDRED!!! WOW! If they weren't such a cool family, I would question their sanity. Clearly they have plenty of friends and family, but Chrissie and I really wish we could go! Especially since her parents randomly decided to vacation in San Luis Obispo this week for a few days. I love California...surprise!

We also have my brother's wedding coming up one month from today - well, it's on the 13th, not on a Wednesday haha - so we will be heading up to good ol' Long Island for that...we are excited for our first visit with my family and hometown as husband and wife. Here are Katie and Kyle...

Photo by www.NYOccasion.com

Speaking of California, as I often enjoy reminiscing of California, here are some photos for my official SUMMER post. Since food is a favorite thing to enjoy over the summer, and pretty much all year long, I am posting a few photos I took at the San Luis Obispo (SLO) Farmer's Market, which is on Higuera St. in San Luis Obispo, CA every Thursday evening/night. It was one of my favorite things to do when I lived in the area. I'm posting photos of vegetables since one of the photos later will make you think my wife and I only eat the "food of the month" for July...

So slat-blinds are pretty ugly. And when you are renting your apartment, there is really nothing you can do about it. However, I realized that they make this shot of the wine bottle and glasses of wine look really cool. Taking pictures of liquids will usually make whatever is behind it look cool, but I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. The perfectionist in me wants to retake the shot with equal amounts of wine in the glasses...oh well. The photo of the bottle of beer is actually from a while ago when I was on my friends sailboat in Massachusetts. I had my long 75-300mm lens on and saw this beer further up on the boat and it made a cool photo - very summer-ry!

Iced tea is delicious. If you know my family - especially my parents and grandparents - iced tea is a staple drink when going out for lunch or dinner. One of them will ALWAYS ask the following question, "Is the iced tea freshly brewed?" Many of you are thinking "Who are these people? who cares if it's freshly brewed?!" I can defend them saying that mixed iced tea or drinks like "Brisk" are an abomination to true iced tea. If you are from the south, you will say "How could it not be fresh? Everyone has fresh sweet tea...even fast food chains." All that to say, iced tea is a staple summer drink, and if you live in Florida I can vouch for the Publix Deli: Sweet Iced Tea. It is delicious...and when they are buy one get one free I usually buy 4 and that lasts us until the next sale (They cost about $1.40 per gallon when on sale). And by "us," it is mostly just me drinking a lot of iced tea! Oh, and I like to add fresh lemon.

Ok, now on to the good stuff. In the Becker household, we love desserts. Both of our families also love desserts. Christina made these delicious caramel layered fudge brownies the other day. I will probably enjoy the last little sliver sometime today, since looking at this photo and talking about desserts make me want to eat it. I told Chrissie she needed to leave a middle piece so that I could take a fancy photo of her delicious brownies...she cooperated so I have this delicious looking photo...

Also, my sister-in-law and famous blogger, Lauren (of Health on the Run), informed me that July is "National Ice Cream Month." So in honor of it being July we have 6 cartons of ice cream in our freezer. Now you say "But Brett, you said you just found out, right?" Well you are correct, so we actually already had that many in our freezer, but now we have an excuse...right?! Either way, we love our ice cream, so I had to take a photo to prove it...it's all because of sales at the grocery store and being smart-couponers! Flavors inside: S'mores (Edy's), Cookie Dough (Edy's), Cookies & Cream (Publix Brand), Mint Chocolate Chip (Publix Brand), Dulce de Leche (Publix Brand), and Mocking Island Fudge Ice Cream (Publix Brand). Now, you'd think that store brand ice cream isn't good, right? WRONG! It is delicious.

Happy summer - I'll have plenty more photos coming soon and will be better about posting...promise!

Weekend Wedding: Palm City, Florida

This past weekend I went up to and stayed on Hutchinson Island (Fort Pierce Vero Beach Palm City area) for my cousins wedding. My cousin and his wife live in Illinois, but his parents live in Palm City now - and work as the pastor and pastor's wife at a Presbyterian Church there. Anyways, that is where they got married and why they chose Florida - not just for the warm weather! Though that would also make sense, it is slowly getting warmer and warmer and more and more humid. So I can imagine that summer weddings are not quite as popular as in my native Northeastern culture in New York and the surrounding areas. It was a little rainy for their special day, but since it was an indoor wedding, it didn't put too much of a damper on things. I hadn't seen my cousin for years, so it was fun to catch up with him and also to see Angie again - I had met her probably once before.

As always, it was great to see family and this was the first wedding that my fiance and I were able to attend together as an engaged couple and will also be the last one since we are getting married in just ONE short month! How exciting!

Here are some photos from the wedding - I will post at least one more time with reception photos and the like....

They had the flower girl pulling a wagon with two babies
in it - they were very cute and managed to stay happy the whole time!

He caught me taking a photo!

__________

Top Left: Beautiful bride, Angie, walking down the aisle with her father

Top Right: Reverend Anderson during the service

Bottom Left: My Aunt Robin being ushered to her seat (mother of the groom)

Bottom Right: Officially husband and wife!

__________

So the order is more how I liked it and
not chronological! But the photo
above is during their vows...

They chose to have rose pedals thrown as they made their way to their car - after talking with Christina, we definitely both like the rose pedal idea but will probably go with something like bubbles if we have something at all. It's a little different since we don't have to drive anywhere for our reception! Side note on what to throw at the bride and groom as they exit...bird seed, rice, and any other small projectile seems like such a terrible idea when there is a bride involved. It is easy for the groom (usually) to get something out of his hair or brushed off his tuxedo or suit, but for a bride it proves much more difficult. Maybe some people just really want to feed birds? And yes, I am aware that rice is "so out" since it can injure birds.

It is much more fun to go to a wedding when you have your own wedding coming up. It helps you appreciate all the work even more, and also helps with the final ideas and thoughts about your own wedding. And it's always fun to see people get married!

I will be working on the next post, so stay tuned for some more photos!

A Quick Poll: What time of day was this photo taken?

So if you had to guess, what time do you think the photo below was taken? (you can click to enlarge if you want)

What time of day was the photo taken?