“C’mon guys!” is a new Evanism.  When he wants the two of us to do something with him he’s quick to let us know.  Conversely if you need him to do something NOW and you ask nicely you get “not just yet”.  Where he gets this stuff I’ll never know.

Speaking of little’n he’s not very well.  Apparently he burst our crying at the sight of lunch at nursery yesterday.  Diddy had him on the couch under a blanket all afternoon and he went to bed at 6:00pm.  Haven’t heard anything yet today.

Of course he might just be sore at no longer being the youngest in the extended family.  That’s right…I’m a Great Uncle.  “Wow…Great Uncle…you must be old” I hear you say.  Well, considering I became an uncle for the first time at the great age of 6 I don’t really feel that old being a Great Uncle.  William Alexander McCoy joined the family (the son of my neice aka…my sisters youngest daughter) arrived last week.  We’re off to the States next month so no doubt I’ll have a bunch of photos of the wrinkled alien.

I notice a big spike in blog visits on Mondays…I really should get something out to you dedicated folks even when I don’t have a wedding at the weekend.  I do have one this coming weekend so check it out after 1:00pm (ish).

Tennis Elbow — can someone tell me if you can get tennis elbow from playing Wii Sports Tennis?  The advice to stretch before playing is good advice.  I’m partially set up with only a few wires to hide away.  But so far its a great toy.  Tennis and bowling are fab.  Nicola loves the boxing, but generally moreso after a few glasses of wine.  Perhaps I should keep out of town centres on weekends.  I also got Tiger Woods 2008 and Madden 2008 (American Football).  Both are good but a bit more complicated than Wii Sports.  With Madden I looked like I was just attacked by a swarm of bees.  I suspect it will take time.

Below are some bits and pieces from the past few weeks.

Nicola’s favourite past time on our trip away for my birthday

I’ve got wood

Maverick requests a fly by

Those balancing skills from Playball seem to be paying off

At this point it all looks so innocent….

…then suddenly it all went mad!  (taken just before I rolled out of the way)

Its birthday season!  remember…

Ladies and Gentlemen….Captain Alphabet

Not to mention Capt. Alphabets amazing technology

Evan goes portrait

Uncle Duncan was well impressed

I think Evan’s words were “smoulder for me baby!”

Duncan turns the tables with his dead professional kit

“help…save me” cried the prince

This past Sunday was my birthday.  Any hopes of a surprise (say cards, cake, banners etc) were quickly dashed as Evan could hardly contain himself.  I’m not so sure it was because he was excited it was Daddy’s birthday or because he knows that once Daddy’s birthday is out of the way his is next.  Although at one point we were in the car.  My mate Duncan was down to shoot a wedding with me so when conversation started between him and Evan in the backseat of the car it all boiled down to one thing.  “Its my Daddy’s birthday”

Speaking of Duncan and the reason he was down….well, on Friday we shot the wedding of Helen and Jon Day.  Jon is a fellow wedding photographer and between us we came up with the idea of a sequel to last years pairing.  Bloggers might remember Emma and Jim’s wedding last year where Duncan (or The Duncan as I like to call him) and I last worked together.  This year we put a spin on it by saying we would shoot…and Jon could have the dubious task of all the post processing.  Good luck to him I say!

Working with Duncan is such a breeze.  We are on a wavelength that means a) we never get in each others way, b) we see similar things but in different ways and c) we can build on the other’s ideas.  A bit friendly rivalry never hurts and when you get to shoot with someone who’s work you totally admire its all the better.  So today’s blog entry contains a bit more than normal.  Mainly because this will be the sum total of the processing that I will do.  I couldn’t not just have a peek…I’m human after all.

If you’re interested…. Duncan Kerridge and Jon Day

Helen and Jon – Lansdowne Place Hotel, Hove – Friday, February 15 2008

Helen gets the first glimpse of the make up..she’s clearly pleased as the windows instantly steam up!

See…my promise to never show shoes still holds — NOT!

She simply turned, smiled and thank goodness I was there!

Put your fingers to your head and do your best Garth from Wayne’s World….FOXY!

Helen’s Mum

Helen examines from head to toe

Calculated…but not posed.

Knowing I had no where to go I stayed to see what I could get looking down the stairs…not bad.

Duncan took the lead during the ceremony.  I had the back lit point of view.  Silhouettes became the flavour of the hour.

   
The formals done it was time to hit the beach.  But hey, its Hove…parking is a PITA.  Just a little reminder.

This was actually Duncan’s set up…but he had a tighter lens…so I went wide for variety

Jon took his oath of unobtrusiveness a little too far if you ask me!

Nothing special…but you can see them being posed by The D

The florist was amazing and the red background begged for this picture

Helen makes it to #24 on the reasons she married Jon

“Dude…I know you…you work at All American Burger”….”Used to Spicoli, used to”

Helen’s mum’s speech hit a soft spot

Jon swore he wouldn’t touch a camera…but then I offered him my 24 1.4 …  SUCKER!

Can all my top tables have huge red velvet sofas as a backdrop

My…who is that sexy thing in the mirror…2 cameras and a reflector…man he’s good!

After 20 minutes of shooting everyone in good light I had to shoot some into the light…otherwise its just not fair. 
So no great shot just proof you can do it no matter how much it hurts :)

Better as a collage of 4 images…but you’ll get the picture shortly

Down boys, down!

Jon, now with wet ears…yuck!

“I’ve been violated!”

This is the master of video…Leo Ferenc…Jon and Leo work together a lot and take the mickey out of the Reservoir Dogs shot…so Leo decided to torture him!

Helen and Jon had an idea….so off we went………

To the Laundromat!  Yes…a Laundromat.  Jon went for hard man GQ and I got to use my red gels on my flash

but personally I preferred this look of Jon…and the red gelled flash didn’t recycle fast enough giving us a completely different look

Helen was standing there and I just thought “hey, that’s a bit odd”

Returning to the hotel, their smalls clean and dry

The evening’s special guest entertainer…I’ll give you one hint!

“Elvis isn’t dead (repeat x 2)…cause I saw him at Helen and Jon’s wedding” — not quite the Scouting for Girls version

OK…this is technically Duncan’s shot…in fact its going onto his blog.  But when I insisted we used radio triggers to light the evening he was unconvinced.
I kept saying “you get so much more flexibility…you can do crazy things”.  Still doubting me, I gave him free reign…and then he shoots this.  I was the goober
holding the flash.  Surely I get some residuals!

The look of terror kind of reminds you Blair Witch without the snot…

Helen and the girls did a great dance routine for Jon.  The final version of this will most likely be cropped heavily.  But I left in the bit with Duncan holding the light stick

Jazz hands!!!!!

Do tell me.  How do you operate one of these things?  Just when I think I understand how a child works…they go and change the firmware!  Evan’s current bugbear is hands in his pants.  I’m not talking about an occasional jingle but an mad obsession.  Nothing seems to be working at the moment.  Its not so much the hands being there but when you say “take them out or we will take away your puzzle” and he looks at you and tries to do it really quick.  Then the tears…oh the tears.  I despair!

On a positive note he won the Best Effort weekly trophy at Playball.  He takes it everywhere and shows everyone.  Giving it back next week should be fun.  The skills he learns are great and he seems to really enjoy it…even if its at 9:00am on a Saturday morning.  Man its cold!

BTW–I hope you enjoyed it.  British Summer 2008 that is.  I’m sure after a weekend of warm (relatively) sunshine that’s surely it now until October.  It was good whilst it lasted.

After Playball we took to the garden to practice a few more of those ball handling skills.  Doing what I do I grabbed the camera.  Evan being Evan he wanted to take pictures instead.  So we had a little photo session.  The results of which appear below.  Yes…we’re only talking 5 pictures.  A nearly 3 year old’s attention span ain’t that great!

Evan’s choice of subject…his toddler bike

Not quite getting the angle on this one

This one was actually taken by Evan.  He likes flare too I see

The roles reversed

Playball!

Watering the plants…not entirely necessary

The whole manners thing is kicking in — perhaps a little too well.  “Please may I have some Weetabix?”  “Yes, Evan…here you go” “Thank You” — silence — then he says “Now YOU say you’re welcome”  Miss Manners has some competition.

Just under a month until his 3rd birthday.  We’ve hired the village hall and throwing in one of those horrible inflatable slides.  God help us!

Not much to say…got to run.  But I figured my sister might enjoy seeing some photos of E’s latest trick.  Thumbs Up!

“Sweeeeeeet”

“Duuuuuuude”

Evan is nearly 3 (a month to go) and all of his NCT friends are now starting to turn three.  That means parties, parties, parties.  This past weekend it was the mother of all softplays and the sandwiches, cake and ice cream to follow.  Surely it should be the other way around.  You know…run off some of that sugar.

I keep reminding E that my birthday comes first.  He doesn’t seem too happy about that.  Here’s a hint…I won’t be having a party with cake and ice cream.

In May I will have been living in the UK for 13 years.  Whilst my accent still remains (a bit) I’ve become quite Anglicised.  I’ve let a few of those magic Americanisms go.  You know, like free coffee refills and the need to go shopping at 8:30pm on a Tuesday.  But one thing I’ve never let go is American Football…and more importantly the Super Bowl. 

The Super Bowl is an American holiday (almost).  People buy new TVs, invite everyone they know round to watch the game and drink too much beer and eat too many nachos.  Generally the game is over by halftime with the dominant team pile driving their opponents.  The thing is…its about friends and family and a big occasion.  Whilst I might still watch the game that sense of occasion gets lost when I say my goodnights to Nicola and then wait patiently for the start of the UK coverage.  With kickoff at around 11:30pm my time my eyes are already starting to feel heavy before the first ball is thrown.  So beer is really out of the question unless I want to fall asleep by the end of the first possession (football, not demonic).

I called it a night at halftime even though the game was great.  Nicola’s alarm still goes at 6:00am no matter what. 

I’ve managed to catch the rest of the game today.  I reset the commercial skip time on the PVR to 15 seconds.  This generally wipes out the redundant replays between plays and kept things moving along quite nicely.  The finale was sensational.  True grit and gridiron spirit.  I’ll be registering my interest in this year’s Wembley game as well and I’ll be hoping the Redskins can pull their finger out this year.

Perhaps the best part was hearing my name so many times.  “Burress with the catch”, “Touchdown Burress”.  When you have an unusual last name its weird to hear it being used so often.  Sadly, Plaxico and I are most likely not related. 

Right a quick comment about last Friday’s wedding.  Great place…loved the atmosphere and the food looked fantastic.  But as a photographer…dear God…please never make me go back.  I’m quite chuffed with the results considering the environment (photographically).  Nice people – more of a party with a wedding attached.  Great fun!

Caroline and Alex — Rickling Green, Essex — Friday 1st February 2008

I curse myself for swearing to never show another pair of shoes again (Aug 07)

Some clients are just so happy and smiley….

…whilst others can be such a bitch (only kidding Meg)

An old cottage makes for some interesting vantage points.  Caroline through the crack in the door

Does it matter what I write?  I thought not

Silhouette No. 1 — an usher ushering his way to the church

No. 2…Guido…the parking guy!

Yes…that is a donkey and cart!

Last silhouette…not a Shrek in sight!

Ahh…the impromptu receiving line.  I love a good receiving line.  Even at 2 degree C.

My first (and perhaps only) homemade ringflash victims

That light…was a good as it got!

Apparently these three run a business.  No need to ask who the boss is :)

Last week Charlotte gets it…this week its Wilbur

“Mambo Number 5″ — “Trumpets”