Friday, May 27, 2011

Parent Albums

I got these albums in today from Mairen and Jason's wedding at Snowbowl and just had to share. Mairen decided to get both sets of parents a Parent Album, which is a smaller, identical album to their main wedding album. The couple's book is 9.5x13 and the parent album is 8x12. Parents, Grandparents and other special friends and family adore these beautiful albums!


The only difference in a Parent Album to the Wedding Album is the cover. The Parent Album features a dust cover instead of the custom cover. Mairen and Jason went with a brushed metal cover, but other options are available such as silk, leather and acrylic. The Parent Albums come in lots of sizes, so be sure and ask to see some samples!

Thursday, May 26, 2011

The camara that changed my life

The year was 1952, Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected President of the United States, the US had detonated the world's first hydrogen bomb and the Koren conflict was in the forefront of many young men's minds as they signed up for the armed forces. One of those young lads was my father, Thomas Grimes Jr. At a young 18 years of age, he joined the Navy. When I try and imagine what he must have felt like, the emotions consume me. The child of the rural South, the world must have felt so big on the USS Bennington, the air craft carrier that took him nearly around the world.



He told me that on one of his first stops in Europe, he picked up this Agfa Isolette camera. When I looked it up this morning on the internet, I found the original advertisement. It was $57. To us, in 2011, that's about a $500 investment. That was a pretty big purchase for my Dad, and I can see him now agonizing over the decision to buy it or not. I am so glad he did.

Here's a couple of photos taken with this camera in Europe while my father served in the Navy. The one of the left is of my dad, the right is a graveyard in Italy. Dad was really great about describing every photo on the back, but, I'm not so great at reading his writing. I should really take this one home and ask him to translate it :)

I remember as a young child I would look through the photos he took of the strange foreign places he visited. Greece, Italy and the wide, open ocean would stare back at me. I loved looking at the strangely constructed buildings but especially at the faces of the people living there. I almost felt a kinship with the children in the photos, they had, after all, known my father for a moment, even as brief as it must have been.

I used to look at this camera up on the shelf and beg to look through it's viewfinder. On my 9th birthday, I was finally granted the permission. From that time on, this camera was never far from my reach. Although other cameras like the 110, a hand-me-down Polaroid and even my first 35mm came along to entertain me, I always came back to this one. It was solid and it felt, well, professional to me.

I struggled with the manual settings for years, with no internet to help me find a long, lost instruction book. But, eventually, I figured it out. I suspect, it helped me when I finally did get my own professional camera of my own, when I was 25 years old.

Now, 59 years after it left Europe, I still have this camera on my desk. I look at it often, shoot it about once a year, and still think about those European kids in those photos. I wonder how their lives developed, and if some serendipitous purchase of their parents changed their life too?

Perhaps certain series of events in our life are not so random after all.

Baby Marin

Introducing Baby Marin Gewald! I first met Becky & Nick when they hired me to photograph their wedding last summer at the Arboretum in Flagstaff. This year I was honored to shoot their beautiful baby girl!





They are both very happy parents!




Becky had this beautiful quilt made for Marin. It will definitely be something she can treasure forever.




How precious! Marin in daddy's hands.




Congratulations to the Gewald family!

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Liz & Ken - Route 66 Elopement

Liz and Ken are from Boston and had always wanted to fly out west and drive LA to Chicago on Historic Route 66. As they started planning their trip they decided that it would be fantastic to stop and get married on the famous highway and spend their honeymoon driving east.


Flagstaff, Arizona gave them an amazing backdrop for their outdoor elopement and the opportunity to have their ceremony adjacent to Rt.66. Arizona Ministries provided a sweet ceremony that had us all teared up.


We loved the her beautiful green dress that also happens to be Ken's favorite color.


Congratulations you two!

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Lipan Point Grand Canyon Wedding - Emily & Tim

Kristen and I love doing elopements, especially at the Grand Canyon! Tim and Emily road tripped with four family members to Northern Arizona from Oklahoma to have a small intimate wedding at Lipan Point in the Grand Canyon National Park. Emily brought some wedding Voodoo dolls from New Orleans and her grandmother's Bible. Her simple and elegant bouquet was designed by Flagstaff Floral.


Sometimes at weddings, things run behind. I always tell the bride not to worry about it, because, ultimately, the wedding will not occur without her! On this day, Tim's dad, who had the wedding dress, made the wrong turn in the park and was a bit late. So, we had to improvise as to where Emily put her dress on. Luckily, Emily was a great sport and she and her sister used the back of the museum as a dressing room!


Although the couple had intended to get married an hour earlier, this just goes to show that sometimes, mistakes happen to us for a reason. I think the light was just perfect and it really set the romantic mood for the ceremony.


Even though I live only 70 miles from the Grand Canyon, and have been many times, I'm always taken aback as to just how beautiful it is. What a beautiful place to start a life together.


Congratulations to Emily and Tim! We hope you had a fabulous honeymoon and had a safe journey back to Oklahoma!