As a few of you know, I was one of the kids from my generation who was messing with the first incarnations of a home computer. My first computer was the Vic-20. I think I bought it for $75 with  the Vic-20, tape drive, and 300 baud modem. The Vic-20 was made by Commodore and had a minuscule amount of memory but, was really a fun computer for a 6th grader. I remember loggin on to Bulletin boards, making games in Basic, and enjoying the heck out of the little computer. It was about the end 1994 when the internet made it's stamp on our society. Netscape released a browser and 14,400 modems were cutting edge. For me, cutting edge was a Power Macintosh 7100/80 A/V with a 14,400 modem.

I remember the first incarnations of Netscape and the first sites to get published. Life on the web was pretty mundane but, evolution persisted. I recently checked out a site recently called Internet Archive. I checked it out due to my curiosity of the differences in www.whitehouse.gov from circa 1999 with Bill and Al to W and Dick in 2004 to Barrack and Joe in 2009. Wow! What a road of change our ol'whitehouse.gov has gone through. I've even heard that the last election would have been significantly different if the internet and youtube didn't play such a huge role in getting out the message.

Whatever your persuassion or political alignment I think we need to realize that change is inevitable. The lawmakers of the world certainly impact us in our growth, family values, and financial well being but, as with life we march on. Hopefully we'll look back 10 years from now and realize that we've come a long way. I believe progress is inevitable. It may not change at the pace we want or change in the direction we want but, it will certainly change.

P.S.

I'm not sure of many of you caught the online town hall meeting today but, it was pretty cool. I'm a big believer in streaming content and it's pretty exciting to me to see it embraced by the president's office. From what I hear Macon Phillips is the man bringing this to reality. I must give him some serious kudos for the development, implementation, and production of this new medium for the white house. Anyone want to take a guess on how much online content we'll see from this administration?

WELLS — The Coastal House is teaming with Weddings Made Easy and a team of local professionals to offer 'The Wedding Wish," a presentation to one couple of a once-in-a-lifetime wedding.

One lucky couple will win their dream wedding simply by completing their "wish application" and submitting it to the "Wedding Wish Team." This team will select the top three wishes to tell their story at a reception at the Coastal House where the lucky couple will be announced and will begin planning their wedding created and provided by a group of wedding sponsors.

Wishes will be granted for the couple with the most compelling story. The deadline for entries is May 15.

Their wedding will include a wedding ceremony and reception at the Coastal House, bridal floral arrangements by Calluna, bridal gowns from Bridals by Sandy, tuxedos from Tuxedos on Broadway, invitations by Village Paperie, table decorations by Beach Grass, bridal make-up at Cottage Breeze Day Spa, bridal hair design at Studio 41, bridal jewelry from Arbitrage, bridal lingerie from Victorian Affair, a one-of-a-kind cake from Let Them Eat Cake, photography by Double-Take Photography, limousine transportation from Maine Limousine, the lively music of the popular band Shadowplay, and a honeymoon suite at the Kennebunkport Inn. The package is valued at over $25,000.

Couples are invited to visit the Wedding Wish Web page at The Coastal House at www.thecoastalhouse.com or www.weddingsmadeeasy.tv for application details.

I saw this overview of the 5d Mark II on Canon's Professional Network site today. It's a great resource to understand the major improvements in the Canon 5 line.

My personal view is that the camera simply rocks!

Canon Professional Network - EOS 5D Mark II Masterclass:

EOS 5D Mark II Masterclass 15:38 David Newton examines the key features of this groundbreaking camera that shoots stills and full HD video.

EOS 5D Mark II – David Newton, CPN’s Technical Editor, explains the major features and technologies in this 21.1 megapixel full frame SLR.

Here's the link to the page: EOS 5D Mark II Masterclass

Last weekend a local group of wedding and portrait photographers known as Shootstyle had a shoot at the Renaissance Hotel in Providence, RI. The Renaissance Hotel used to be the Masonic Temple sorta. It was never officially finished and workers for the Masons walked off the job in 1928. The story is here. Inside was pretty sweet and since I'm a long time Rhode Islandah and former Providence resident, I was very intrigued to see it was finally open for business.

You might be wondering about Shootstyle? We're a group of photographers that share the same deep passion for photography that strive to create imagery that's highly exceptional, visual stimulating, and most importantly memorable. This shoot consisted of Jamie Wexler, Earl Christie, Michelle Turner, Alicia Williams , Stacey Doyle and myself. I drove down in the morning with a major storm baring down on us. Threatening 9-15 inches of snow or so. Yeah.. Nice! I crossed my fingers, packed the Smart car and headed down to Providence. We photographed some beautiful creations from dress designer Julia Anne Ebel, of Celtic Dragon Dress Designs. Many thanks to makeup artist extraordinaire, Jenny DiMucci, who made our models look sweet!

And a most gracious thanks to our two very patient and beautiful models, Brittany and Kate. They put up with our many locations and shooting environments to allow us to shoot for most of the day. Thank you very, very much!

First off is Brittany

I'll give ya 10 bucks if you find the blue wall at the Renaissance Hotel

Here's Stacey and Alicia shooting away.

and here's Kate

BTW this room we shot Kate in is so amazingly cool. I would completely love to hang there and enjoy some friends, food and drinks.
It was real posh with swanky mood lighting. I think it was called the Temple room and it's a restaurant at the Renaissance Hotel.

The next set of images are categorized as boudoir. I haven't provided this type of coverage for my clients....yet. I'd like to put together some boudoir photography packages this year to start offering them in 2010. These type of shots most interest me in the mystery of the subject to a certain degree. I know it may be hard to believe but, I find more interest in images if I'm left questioning or just taking time to follow the lines in an image. Some images are about lighting, some are about textures, and others are about curves. Blah.. blahh.. blahh... okay here's the images.

Be very careful from here down if your at work.. NSFW!

The next set of images are sort of a tribute to the Travel Shovel Project. It was started by Joel and Rita Wiebner in PA. They bought a shovel off of John Michael Cooper at a DWF Convention shoot for like 5 bucks. They then sent it around the world to photographers that would shoot it in their own style. The shovel made it to Boston and we had some serious fun. The article was picked up by a trade magazine, Rangefinder, and was published last year with some of my images. Pretty Sweet! Seriously.. Woot Woot! Anyways, last year JMC and Dalisa came out to the studio to host their Very Alt F tour. It was awesome.. wicked pissah awesome.

At the close of his seminar.. about 5 minutes before John and Dalisa were going to leave under very cloudy and immanent down pour conditions I asked for a picture. I wanted to shoot John and Dalisa with a distant cousin to the shovel. John and Dalisa obliged. I whipped off about 20 quick frames, asked them to sign it, and led them to the highway. Since then I've had the shovel in the studio and decided to bring it to the shoot for fun. I mean, I know a shovel isn't to fun or interesting but, hey theres some history here. I might as well pay some tribute to the crazy fun people who put some thought into makin some very creative images.

Here's a shovel shoot with a bit of zing...

I have a few more that I may add in time and some video from the shoot to. I have some wedding stuff to work on first though. Check back in a week or so.