Jake & Bridget.

I don't shoot a lot of weddings anymore. There are a lot of reasons for that, not the least of which is the amount of time it takes to do it really well. The actual wedding, while still a lot of work, is really kind of the easy part. Then comes hours in front of a computer processing and sorting images, doing touch ups, ordering prints. It's a lot.

But every once in a while a wedding comes along that's just too interesting to pass up. That's how I ended up in the parking lot at Anglers All at 4:30 a.m. last Friday morning standing next to a man named "Big Jim" when he looked out at the lake and said, "It's a little lumpy out there."

That was accurate; it was lumpy out there. And at 5:10 a.m. we were scooting around the break wall at Second Landing and bashing our way through those exact lumps out to the light at the tip of Long Island for Jake & Bridget's wedding.

It was still cloudy when we left the landing and there was a pretty stiff breeze, but at the island, with the anchor down, and the bride and groom standing on the front deck, the sun poked through the clouds for a perfect dawn wedding followed by a little champagne on the beach. Congratulations, Jake and Bridget, not only on your recent nuptials, but also on having one of the most memorable weddings I've ever shot. Well done.

Special thanks also go out to Katie and Dave Gellatly of Solstice Outdoors for the use of their boat, which, for the record, I have re-christened the H.M.S. Awesome. You'd have been proud of me, Dave; I didn't even crash it into anything. Nothing big, anyway.

 

A New Boat.

"Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats."
-
From The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

A few photos from the launching of new boat by JW Swan Boatworks. Josh and I went down to one of the growing gaps in the ice to give this craft its first taste of the lake. This 14 ft. row boat, built for a customer in Chicago, is based on a classic design for small working boats in Norway. To conserve weight the hull is planked with special mahogany marine plywood rather than solid wood, but sealed with a traditional and non-toxic combination of pine tar and linseed oil, also affectionately known as "boat sauce." Pretty cool to see it slip into the water for the first time. This got me excited for boating season. Now all I need is a boat...

 

Boat Builder.

This, my friends, is JW Swan Boatworks. And that's old JW Swan himself at work right there in the middle of it all (although he prefers to go by Josh). I've done a few shoots for Josh in the past couple years to document projects that he's working on. Always fun to catch up and see what he's doing. Josh never half-asses anything and it shows, he does absolutely beautiful work. These are a few frames from the first shoot in a series of four. The goal is to document his progress on the restoration of a 27ft racing sailboat. Can't wait to stop back in a few weeks for the next shoot and see how much more is done. This boat is going to be amazing when it's finished. Watch for more.