I'm Back from Writer's Block

Well it has been quite a while since my last post. I will admit, I have been distracted lately. Not because of the economy, or the journalism industry or even because of some new camera toy. On March 7th, 2009, I married my love. Her name was CassAndra Dutton. I have been dating her since college. And now we will share our lives together. I am very happy. I haven't talked much about her on this site because it was to mainly focus on my photography work. But now that I have pictures from the wedding, I can post them.

Almond blossoms were blooming outside the Neighborhood Church where Cassie and I married. (photo by Bill Husa)

The wedding was wonderful, but a lot of planning. I had to take time away from this blog to focus on getting the plans done for the wedding. And I am glad I did. The wedding went perfect according to all of our guests. I want to thank them all for making that day very special for the both of us.

There was a lot of planning from the flowers, to the ceremony site, to the drink and food, oh yeah, and what about the photographer? I couldn't possibly take my own wedding pictures? I had ran into an old wedding photographer friend Jacquie Van Tichelt who I asked if she could take our wedding pictures. She was wonderful in accepting my request. She did a really great job.

But I just can't go a day without taking pictures, can I? Yes, I did it. I took a photograph of our own wedding. But before you scold me, I did set the camera up on a remote timer that I started two hours before the wedding. This meant that I would not have to worry about the camera at all during the wedding. At first I thought about putting a pocketwizard in my pocket to fire a remote camera, but then realized Cassie might notice every time I put my hand in my pocket to take a picture. I didn't know how I was going to take pictures of my own wedding, but then I realized a way that I could take pictures without "taking pictures" during the ceremony. I decided to connect an intervalometer up to the camera and place it in a secured location. I set the timer to go off every five seconds taking a picture until the card ran out. I set the timer to go off 15 minutes before the ceremony started. And then like Ron Popeil, I"Set it and forget it". Wow, did I just quote an infomerical? Anyway, it worked. I forgot to expose for the center stage, so we a a little overexposed, but it wasn't something that I was going to worry about. I think overall the picture is something that can be used for memories. And besides, who can say they photographed their own wedding. Although I don't know who would gloat about photographing their own wedding either. I also was able to use the images for a photo sequence of the whole wedding.

A remote camera set up in the balcony captures the wedding ceremony. (Jason Halley/Pro Pixelographer)



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Cassie surrounded by her bridesmaids Caylan, Kim, Michelle, Alysha, and Toni. (photo by Jacquie Van Tichelt)

Jason the groom surrounded by his groomsmen Matt, Matt, Sean, Aveed, Steve, and ring bearer nephew Cameron. (photo by Jacquie Van Tichelt)

My beautiful bride, CassAndra. (photo by Jacquie Van Tichelt)

I also had a second shooter there. Bill Husa popped from the crowd to snap several pictures...well several isn't really the word. He snapped a ton of pictures, draining two batteries. These pictures combined with full coverage from an excellent videographer captured the whole night for us. And what a night it was.

I place the ring on her hand during the ceremony. (photo by Jacquie Van Tichelt)

We walk out of the church as the new Mr. and Mrs. Halley. (photo by Jacquie Van Tichelt)

Yeah, I am pretty lucky. (photo by Jacquie Van Tichelt)

The wedding was great. When it started I was only focused on one thing, my bride, that I didn't even know who was watching the ceremony. It seemed to go real fast and before you know it, we were married. After the wedding we had to help clean up the church for services the next day. This causes us a little delay (about an hour) on getting to the reception. We thought that we would be bad hosts making everyone wait. To our surprise, everyone was very comfortable and in high spirits. Everyone continued to enjoy themselves and knew nothing of the delay. The night turned out to be very special. Our first dance was very memorable.

Dancing begins and continues well into the night. (photo by Bill Husa)

My groomsmen Matt and Sean acted as Timon and Pumba in our first dance that was choreographed to Lion King's "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" . (photo by Bill Husa)

Showing those Lion teeth during our first dance. (photo by Bill Husa)

Yum, cutting the cake made by my brother. (photo by Bill Husa)

Cassie and I had wanted to do something very special for the first dance. We had many discussions about starting our song, then switching into a funny routine and musical number. But with our busy schedules and chaotic planning, the agenda didn't just quite match up. Until the night before when we decided to cut into our song with the Lion King's "Can You Feel The Love Tonight". The night before I edited the music and created a video for it. I gave it to Cassie and the day of the wedding I was creating the costumes for the dance. It was very last minute but very great. Everyone loved it.

This is Cassie's favorite (she likes the tight grip on me). (photo by Jacquie Van Tichelt)

After a little more dancing and fun the night was ending and everything was great. Even the fact that Cassie and I left early to not clean up. With all this planning and enjoying the married life, this blog has been put on hold. I kept saying I need to start it up again, I should do it now. But as anything I need to make sure I have plenty of time to devote to it. So now as we begin our lives together, I continue to catalog my photographic journey. We will be having a honeymoon in Hawaii, so that should bring back some exciting pictures for the blog. But from now on, I should not have a writer's block anymore.