Vail Mountain Wedding Proposal - Eagle's Nest

Another winter season if officially over and done with! With all of the warm weather this winter, there were plenty of gorgeous wedding proposals up on the hill. This one was one for the books though. The poor chap accidentally hopped on the wrong gondola! With lots of stealthy text messages, some creative story telling to keep it credible and a few deep breaths, he made up to Eagle's Nest. To top it all off, an unsuspecting tourist nearly walked into the shot, but with a few hand gestures and loud whispers, he got the message and I got the shots! Now bring on the sunshine and wedding season.

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Vail and Beaver Creek Engagement Photos

We're into the last week of the ski season and what a season it's been.  By far, this has been the warmest winter I've ever had in my last 13 years living here.  There's no snow  left on the ground around town, which seems a bit crazy now that I'm posting these photos and they weren't taken that long ago!

We started this session in Beaver Creek and then made our way over to little park in West Vail.  Both locations worked great and the weather was extremely cooperative (even though these Florida natives were a little cold by the end).  I did a shoot a few days later with a large family at the same park and they were constantly shaking the snow out of their hair, and the visibility was really low. 

These are some of my favorites from this wonderful engagement session! 

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Vail Photographer - Special Photo Recreation

This photo shoot was little different to my usual line of work.  In typical fashion, it included family, but that's about where the similarities run out.  As a special gift to their father for his 90th birthday, Emily and Sheila asked me to help them recreate a photo from 50+ years ago, where they were decked out in their finest for church in Texas.

So much time and effort went into getting all of this together.  The ladies spent countless hours online, hunting around on eBay and Etsy to find everything from the hats, to the wigs and the dresses.  They even made sure to have the right amount of domes on the handbag, thanks to a few carefully placed thumbtacks!  The biggest laughs from the shoot came from the footwear.  The patent leather Mary Janes were tap shoes, so there was much fun and giggling as I was trying to position them, as they tapped around outside!

We paid close attention to making sure their hands were positioned right and just the right amount of skirt was poking through the jacket.  Somehow through all of the laughter, we managed to come up with something that was worthy enough to be a gift for their Dad.  I know for a fact that I have never laughed so hard during a photo shoot.  Kudos to the ladies and thanks for letting me share!

Vail Senior Photos - Matty in Eagle Vail.

I've mentioned it before in other posts, and I'll say it again.  I really enjoy doing high school senior photos.  The clients can take direction and you don't have the pressure that comes with other styles, such as corporate or wedding photography.  It's usually a pretty relaxed and casual atmosphere.

Matty's recent session was no exception.  We had a tight deadline to work with and there was a huge storm rolling in.  It's hard to tell from the photos, but we had a huge plunge in the temperature during the session and it was snowing by the end.  I've done plenty of shoots in the snow, but this was a particularly cold day.  Matty was a total pro though and you can't tell from the photos how cold it really felt.  This was my last shoot before the snow came, so you can see the last of some great fall colors in the background.

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Vail Maternity and Newborn Photos - The Cartin Family

At the start of 2014, I ran a promotion for a maternity and newborn package.  Luckily there seems to have been a bit of a baby boom in our valley lately, and the promotion was a great success.  The Cartin's are one of the lovely families that I was lucky enough to work with.  They both love the outdoors, so we headed to a great spot in East Vail to take some family photos for their maternity session.  As you can see from the foliage, we still had some of the great fall colors in the aspens.  It was a beautiful day and a great way to capture their family dynamic before a special wee man arrived.  Scroll down to see the photos from their newborn session with Stanley.

A few weeks after these photos were taken, Master Stanley arrived and graced us with a wonderful photo session.  This young man didn't make a peep for the entire time I was there.  He slept and let me contort him into lots of different poses.  I joked that I should have taken a video of him, so that I could show it to all of the newborns as a 'how to' video.  He was an absolute delight!

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Vail Newborn Photographer - Baby Lola

I'm trying to start 2015 with a clean slate, so it's going to be a December blitz of blog posts for the next couple of weeks, as I try to finish posting photos from some of my favorite sessions this year.  We'll start with Little Miss Lola.  I had just bought a handful of new backdrops from Bubblegum Backdrops and Lola was kind enough to help me test them out.  Being that I live in a houseful of boys, I always love a good girly fix when I can get one.  Didn't she do a great job?!

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Beaver Creek Chapel Wedding - Jennifer and Scott

I was so excited to shoot Jennifer and Scott's wedding at Beaver Creek this fall. It was nice to get out and do a wedding after a busy fall season of family photos. The architecture of the Beaver Creek Chapel is beautiful, with an intricate wood ceiling that adds interesting lines to low angle photos, and amazing stone work on the exterior.

Jennifer and Scott had a morning ceremony followed by a reception later that evening at The Pines Lodge.  We had bright blue skies that morning, so we spent a lot of time shooting in the shade.  The afternoon was a completely different story and we were lucky to grab some photos of the happy couple before the rain really set in.

Here are a few of my favorite photos from their special day.

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Vail Fall Family Photos

The snow that's starting to settle in marks the end of another great fall/leaf season in the valley.  I got to work with so many wonderful families in lots of great locations, including Vail Mountain, Homestake Creek, Brush Creek, Beaver Creek and East Vail, during the most vibrant time of year in our valley.  The shoots included engagement, maternity and family photos and naturally the kids were more than happy to run and play in the leaves.  My family even managed to get out do our very first  photo shoot too (I know, I know...).  I'll post some of them shortly.  Now it's time to start moving on to Christmas Card photos season.  Here's a mash up of some of my favorites from leaf season.

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Vail Mountain Family Photos - Lena family

When Carol contacted me about taking photos of her family in Vail, she had an idea of what she wanted for the scenery and it included a view of the Gore Range.  There are plenty of great spots that capture the range, but most of them are also completely overpopulated with locals and tourists alike.  People wandering around shopping don't usually make for great backgrounds for portraits, unless you have a ton of time on your hands to Photoshop them out.  I decided we should try something else instead.  Not too many people have had the privilege of driving up Vail Mountain, but given that Russ and I both worked up there, we've done the drive more than a few times.  I knew a spot that was the highest point on the mountain that the public can drive to, and it also had a great view of the Gore Range, so we chose to take the photos there.

I loved the colors that the family chose because they really popped against the greenery.  If anyone is curious about choosing colors for family portraits, I have a great link on Pinterest that shows a few different color combinations that work well.

Here are a few photos from the Lena's Family Portraits on Vail Mountain.

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