We are pleased to announce that our wedding calendar for the 2010 season is now full and we are happily accepting reservations for 2011. Thank you to all of the wonderful couples who have entrusted us with documenting their special day. Wishing you all much love, laughter, and all things happy.

Christine & Andy

Andy & I had a blast photographing Osterville wedding planner Desiree Spinner this past Sunday. When Desiree first asked us about doing a session together, she said she was a little nervous because she doesn’t like the way she looks in photos. We think she is completely bananas! And, if you saw yesterday’s photos, you know what I’m talking about.

After having some fun getting photos of Desiree with the lemonade stand, as styled by the talented Jillian Clark of 100 Layer Cake, we decided to take the party to the railroad tracks.

Last year, Andy & I found this super cute loveseat at an estate sale. It’s been sitting in our office just begging to be used. We’ve got big ideas for it. But, for now, we thought it would fit in nicely with the vintage feel of Jillian’s vision for Desiree’s session. And, it did.

We decided to put the love-seat on the railroad tracks…fortunately, the tracks here on the Cape don’t exactly get London-like traffic.

Come on… Is that cute or what? And, how serendipitous that the love-seat fit perfectly between the tracks!

With a new, more subtle, sultry look by make up artist Katrina Hess, Desiree looked stunning!!!

Ga ga gorgeous!

Lovin’ the warm late afternoon sun….Desiree is completely glowing…

Hello Miss Thang!!!

Just love her beaming expression in this next one! Can you tell we were having a blast?

This could be my favorite portrait of the session. I love the more candid shot of Desiree with the cupcakes from yesterday’s post, because more natural photos are what we love most. But, Desiree just looks so serene, confident and so totally beautiful in this next shot. I’m crazy about it! And that light…..perfection!

Add a little sun flare and a smokin’ hot expression and……voila…..Supah-staaah!

Continuing on, our last stop in the day was this super cute farm stand. It made for the perfect backdrop to once again tie in the lemonade stand theme.

I keep saying “gorgeous” a lot….but come on….not photogenic, seriously? Desiree, you’re cuckoo!

Lemon-rific!

When she laughs it’s hard not to join her!! Love this next one of Desiree…who wouldn’t want this fun little bundle of energy as their wedding planner?

Adding a little bam-factor in this next one. Hola senorita! Que guapa!

Simply beautiful….

I’ll say it again, Desiree, you are wonderful and working with you is not only super fun and super easy, it’s a total pleasure! You’ve got great style and merged with Jillian’s fantastic aesthetic, you two gave us so much good stuff to work with, Andy & I didn’t want the day to end! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

Big love, Christine & Andy xoxo

This past weekend we had the pleasure of photographing Cape Cod’s newest sensation…wedding planner Desiree Spinner of Desiree Spinner Events. We first met up with Desiree and the fabulous team she assembled for dinner on Saturday night at Five Bays Bistro in Osterville. Joining us were Desiree’s super sweet hubby, Craig, and fabulous assistants, Sara & Kaleigh and Kaleigh’s adorable hubby-to-be, Josh. Also joining us for dinner was with the uber stylish Jillian Clark of 100 Layer Cake, who’d come up from NY with her husband & photographer, Scott, to help bring Desiree’s vision for her shoot to life.

After a wonderful night of yummy food, good wine and excellent conversation, we met up with the team the following afternoon for the shoot. It was an all day affair and Andy & I had a blast. The first part of the shoot involved setting up a deliciously sweet lemonade stand.

Some details….you know how we looove the details!

I just loved all the vintage touches Jillian brought with her, namely the super cute mutli-colored tin and these adorable yellow glasses. And, can we talk about the hot pink striped straws?

Lemonade never looked so good.

Love the blue Ball jars!

And these super cute straw tags Jillian made…

Wearing a foxy white dress and too-cute-for-words apron from Anthropologie, with make up by the talented Katrina Hess, Desiree was delightful. We all kept joking about how if hers was a real lemonade stand she would have sold out instantly looking as good as she did. Check her out…

Seriously adorable…

If life hands you lemons, make lemonade!

A cheeky little look…

Gorgeous…

The light in this next one makes me giddy! I just love the natural hair light being provided by the sun poking through the trees. And, that expression…..momma mia!

Jillian brought along some clippings from the super sweet banner she made for the table and Desiree had a little fun with them. I love this series.

Is that a lemonade stand you’d want to visit, or what?

Some more details, including lemon cupcakes by Delicious Desserts…

Stay tuned as we’ll be posting the next two parts of our session with Desiree tomorrow. Till then, big BIG thanks to Desiree for trusting us to capture portraits for your new website. Stay tuned people, it’s due to launch very soon and should be amazing! We have loved working with you, Des, and can’t wait to do it again very soon! Thank you too Jillian & Scott for making our job not only a cinch, but a total pleasure! Jillian, we love your style and hope we get to work with you again on another project! Sara & Kaleigh…we wish we could clone you and bring you to Team Bello! Love and hugs all around! Chris & Andy xo

Last weekend, Andy & I left Cape Cod for a weekend in the Berkshires. It was partly a celebration of the 15th Anniversary of our first meeting. But, it was also a chance to steal away for some inspiration before the rush of the wedding season descends upon us.

We stayed at this super cute boutique hotel called The Porches, which is leading a revitalization movement in the quaint town of North Adams, home to MOCA (the Museum of Contemporary Art) and one of the reasons we chose to visit the Berkshires.

MOCA…

The museum is exhibiting works by Sol Lewitt, whose approach to art very much reminds me of my super talented husband. Why? Well, Andy is one of those ridiculously gifted people who somehow maximizes the use of his brain by using both sides equally well. You probably didn’t know this about him, but Andy has a Master’s degree in statistics. What? I know; it’s crazy, but true.

Andy at his very core is a left-brain person…aka logical, smarty pants. Yet, and I hate to admit this seeing as though I am more right-brained by nature, but when it comes to thinking creatively and outside the box, I think Andy is the truly gifted one in our team. In the past 10 years, he has tapped into his right brain and well, there’s just no stopping him.

Although I never met him, I have no doubt Sol Lewitt was also one of those left-brain/right-brain geniuses. His artwork takes really simple, logical math-based ideas and pushes the limits to produce some really cool artwork. His work is definitely worth a look. And, if you go to MOCA to see the exhibit, take the tour. Just seeing the work, without some of the background on who Sol Lewitt was won’t allow you to appreciate the exhibit in quite the same way.

Here a woman studies one of the pieces in the exhibit.

Me checking out Sol’s work. Photography actually uses a lot of math principals as well…you might not think so, but it does, and seeing math principals spelled out in a different medium in Sol’s drawings was really inspiring.

The museum was also hosting an exhibit called Material World, which features work by seven artists who created site-specific installations for the museum’s large open spaces in the second and third floor galleries. My favorite was a piece by Tobias Putrih, which was inspired in part by the nearby Hoosac Tunnel. Tobias used what looked like clear fishing wire and pointed spot lights to create a reflective sculpture that invited the spectator to walk down a sort of tunnel of light. As photographers, we’re always looking for the best light and with my new D3S….it was a blast photographing this exhibit. I wasn’t the only one trying to capture the light…

Here a visitor to the museum walks down the virtual tunnel…

Check out my honey and what my new camera can do in low light….loving this camera!

These images were all shot at ISO 1250 (hallelujah!!) F2.8 at 1/60sec. using my D3S and my 28-70 lens.

I love this perspective…

Here’s what Andy was capturing…

A man and his mother experience the tunnel effect. I don’t know why I love this next one so much. I think it’s the opposing energy of the man, his body facing the strings of light as he’s about to move back into the center of it, and the light itself, being forced in the opposite direction by the strings.

Equally as interesting and as cool a use of light was Alyson Shotz’s exhibit which had tiny cylindrical glass beads strung on wire, with hand-cut magnifying glass. Very cool! Andy & my styles are very similar, but subtly different. See for yourself…the first two photographs are my perspective and the second two are Andy’s.

Andy’s perspective…

This next exhibit was a joint collaboration created by Wade Kavanaugh & Stephen B. Nguyen. Again, the piece was created specifically for MOCA’s space. Using thousands of feet of paper, which they variously stack, roll, twist, and drape, they re-created a decaying, old forest. It was like a trip to wonderland that began even in the staircase on the way up to the exhibit…

So cool, right? I just hope they used recycled paper!

Our hotel…

Tulips lined the walkways around the hotel…there is no greater inspiration than that provided by Mother Nature!

The next day we headed into the super cute college town, Williamstown, for a visit to the Clark Art Institute, which is and of itself a work of art.

Here is an oil painting by American John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) called Smoke of Ambergris, which struck us as a beautiful utilization of light and shadow.

This next painting by the Italian artist, Giovanni Boldini (1842-1931), entitled, The Return of the Fishing Boats, was about 4″h x 7″w and the detail was incredible!

It was a great weekend of art & inspiration. I think Andy & I preferred MOCA’s art over Clark’s, which was mainly just oil paintings. Do you have a preference?

This weekend, we hope to take some of the inspiration we garnered from our trip to the Berkshires and put it to good use as we photograph Cape Cod wedding planner extraordinaire, Desiree Spinner, of DSE events. Stay tuned! And, as always, thank you for keeping tabs on us! xo Chris & Andy

To wrap up our final post on our 3-week trip to Panama, we thought we’d end with a little slideshow highlighting some of our favorite moments. A couple of weeks ago, I watched the season finale of Ugly Betty, which I love, and the song that capped off the show and the series was Macy Gray’s new single. I’ve been listening to it non-stop since the show and it seemed the perfect soundtrack to our trip.

Enjoy! Click to see our first, second or most recent posts on Panama. And, as always, thank you for your love and support! If you like what you see here on our blog, we hope you leave us some love. Your comments always bring such joy to our hearts.  Peace! Chris & Andy xo

After exploring Panama’s cities and mountains, Andy & I were ready for some beach time. The guide books talked about Bocas del Toro, a group of six densely forested islands, as being Panama’s principal tourist draw card. This made us a little trepidatious about going there, since we prefer to visit less visited places. But, we ventured to Bocas anyway.

There are some gorgeous places to stay on the less inhabited of the six islands, but we were saving our splurge for San Blas, so we stayed on the main island, Isla Colon, where accommodations were more reasonable, but still overpriced for what they offered.

And, while Bocas wasn’t really our scene, we had a couple of fabulously languorous beach days both on Colon and on the smaller, less inhabited Isla Bastimento, a five minute boat ride away. This next photo was taken at Red Frog Beach, on Bastimento, which has one of the nicer beaches in the archipelago. The beach had tons of tourists later in the day…we got there early to soak in the natural beauty…

We visited Playa Estrellas, Starfish Beach, on our second day in Bocas. It wasn’t a particularly fabulous beach. It was good for children, since it was shallow and very calm, with tons of starfish everywhere. But, there wasn’t much of a shore line for parking your butt. It didn’t really make sense to spend too much time at this beach as there wasn’t much to do or see, so visitors came and left relatively quickly. The woman in the photo had biked all the way from town, which took her 4 hours over muddy, unpaved roads. I’d guess she was in her 60s…a total rockstar in my book!

We made the most of our time at Starfish beach, then walked back about a mile to where the bus dropped us off to do some more chillin’. There by a beach-side restaurant, we spent the rest of the day, playing cards and swinging in hammocks till the last bus of the day came to pick us up. In this next photo a bunch of sea birds sun themselves on pilings just off shore. We tried taking the photo from shore, but it was a much better perspective wading in up to our waist. We’ll do anything for a good photo.

Our visit to Panama ended with 4 heavenly days in San Blas, an archipelago of some 365 islands off the north coast of the Isthmus, east of the Panama Canal. Home to the Kuna Indians, the islands, some of which are no bigger than 30 feet in diameter, are part of the comarca Kuna Yala, along the Caribbean coast of Panama. Most of the Kuna island dwellers live on just a few of the islands, though several, like Isla Pelicano seen below, have one house made from bamboo and palms, that is inhabited by a single Kuna family. Like many visitors to San Blas, we flew from Panama City to the Kuna Yala captial of El Porvenir on the mainland, then took a short boat ride to the island of Whichub Wala, the most densely populated of the islands. Home to some 400 Kuna, you can easily walk from one end of the island to the other in less than three minutes. The Kuna rely heavily on tourism, fishing and the exportation of coconuts, lobsters and plantains to survive. Being so densely populated and having plumbing only in the hotels for tourists (although the piping goes directly into the ocean), the water around the island is too polluted for visitors to swim. So, our hotel guide, Orlando, took us and other hotel guests on daily boat trips to visit some of the less or not at all inhabited islands in the Kuna Yala. Isla Pelicano was our favorite island (seen below) so we spent a couple of days here, chillin’ under palm trees, snorkeling, reading and just enjoying the incredible views and the crazy aqua-colored water.

Below a Kuna woman looks out her window. Most of the houses not directly over the water were made entirely out of bamboo and palm. But, the hotels and those houses that were over the water, like the one below, used wooden frames and corrugated steel for the roof.

San Blas is an absolutely stunning region of the world, with pristine uninhabited islands and water like none we’ve seen before. But, with a growing reliance on tourism, there are new problems, namely with waste disposal. It was hard to see discarded plastic, aluminum beer cans, and other waste used as a sort of erosion control on the perimeter of the more inhabited islands, especially for a people who, at least from what we could understand, have a faith/culture that seem to feel a real connection with Mother Earth.

The few hotels on the island of Wichub Wala did have toilets that flushed, but they flushed right out into the ocean and locals use these outhouses, which were nothing more than a hole in the floor surrounded by four walls.

Fishing is a big activity for the men. And, many of the boats they use are made from hollowed out trees. The boats are simultaneously beautiful and perfectly functional.

The Kuna used to wear few clothes and decorated their bodies with colorful designs. When encouraged to wear clothing by missionaries who visited the islands, they followed their body painting designs in their Molas, which are worn by traditional women in their clothing and are a big item to sell to tourists. The good ones, like these below, are hand made and feature more traditional designs. They’re gorgeous and incredibly intricate.

In addition to wearing molas sewn into their tops, the more traditional Kuna women, like this woman below,  also wear rows of beads tied together in patterns on their legs. The bright colors are beautiful and pop against the blue background that constantly surrounds the islands. Below a Kuna woman and her granddaughter watch, with a puppy at their feet, as a boat of young men cast their nets for fish. I love this photo, even with the contrast of the expensive catamaran anchored in the background. The islands, with their natural beauty and the protection they provide from the open ocean, attract hundreds of boaters who drop anchor for weeks, months and sometimes years.

The contrast of old and new in the Kuna Yala is at once arresting and beautiful. Below western clothes hang on a clothesline as the evening sun warms the bamboo house.

This was the smallest island we saw, big enough for just one house. The truly amazing thing about this scene is the woman, who is the cousin of our guide, Orlando, came out of her palm and corrugated steel house carrying a purse and wearing modern clothes. Orlando picked her up to take her to the mainland, about a 45 minute boat ride away, to do some shopping. Can you imagine living here?

The Kuna Yala was exactly the break from modern day reality we needed and the perfect ending to a fabulous vacation. We absolutely loved Panama and will be posting a slideshow highlighting more picture perfect moments from our super fun trip tomorrow. Stay tuned! Chris & Andy xo

To follow up where we left off with our vacation recap yesterday, here is the route we followed during our 23 days in Panama:

After the first two days in Panama City, we took a quick 12-seater flight to the country’s second largest city, David, where we spent the next two days & nights doing a lot of sweating, walking, drinking bottled water, and more sweating. We spent one afternoon wading near a waterfall and met this super sweet girl, who told us she was an Olympic swimmer for Panama and won the silver metal at the last Olympic games…or at least that’s what we think she told us…our Spanish is not brilliant.

Days 5 thru 10 - We started Day 5 by boarding an old yellow school bus for a trip to the mountain village of Boquete, near Volcan Baru. We loved it here and stayed for 6 nights, exploring nearby villages on foot and via scooter. We tried our hands at rock climbing, hiked in the lush mountain forest in search of the illusive Quetzal, sipped coffee at a coffee plantation, and swam in a rock-lined river.

Day 11 thru 13 - We had to take the bus back to David to catch another bus north to the Caribbean town of Bocas del Toro, where we spent 3 nights checking out some of the local beaches. We snorkled, swung in hammocks, saw the native red frogs and even a lounging sloth.

Day 14 thru 16 - Day 14 began with a flight back to Panama City and a 4-hour bus to the sleepy mountain town of El Valle, where we spent three days playing a lot of cards, soaking in mud baths and hiking along waterfalls. We also met a very interesting herbalist, Frank Gruber, creator of the rather infamous Gruber’s Jungle Oil. Created from a blend of herbs he found in the El Valle forest, his jungle oil is meant to repel all kinds of biting insects and even eliminate the sting if you did get bit. It could also be used as a sunscreen, although I didn’t quite understand how that worked, given that it was primarily made from oil. Frank also said it could cure several types of skin cancer and reduce the poison of a viper bite. And amazingly it could also cure acne and be used as a deodorant. Frank generously gave us a bottle, which we haven’t really put to the test yet. But, it was so cool talking to Frank. He was such an interesting person with some fabulous life experiences to share. We could have talked with him for days.

Day 17 - We took an afternoon bus back to Panama City, where we stayed the night before flying to the remote and native Kuna Yala-owned islands of San Blas.

Days 18 thru 21- Sunrise flight to the islands of San Blas, where we spent four heavenly nights on the 400-person island of Wichub Wala. Every day we took a boat ride to explore one of the San Blas’ 365+ islands. We only visited a handful, but it was blissful. We’d park our butts under a palm tree and just wile away the day with some swimming & snorkeling, reading, cards, and a whole lot of nothing.

Day 22 - Flight back to Panama City for a little souvenir shopping, a dip in the hotel’s roof deck pool and another belly filling meal of meat, rice and beans before heading home on Day 23.

Here’s a map outlining our route:

David was still a city, though not nearly as big as Panama City, so mostly we just walked around and ate. Boquete was one of our favorite places. The climate is much cooler because of it’s mountainous location and there was more to see and do there, even if that meant just sitting in the plaza people watching, as this young boy in the next photo is doing….two seconds later he was texting on his cell phone. Crazy, right?

Coffee is a big industry in Panama and Boquete is one of the largest producers. This next photo was of what we thought was a coffee processing plant. Looks like they dry roast in the sun…

I ended up with a pretty uncomfortable stomach bug and was in some serious need of relief, so we popped in the Clinica Valle Boquete. As awful as I felt, it ended up being a really cool experience. It cost me $5 to see the doctor and get a prescription of antibiotics. The doctor didn’t speak English, but he was wonderfully patient with me and spoke very slowly, enunciating really clearly. I actually felt like I could speak Spanish. As strange as it sounds, my visit to the clinic was a highlight. Plus, it’s always good to see how other people live in a very day-to-day way and while our health care system is no doubt in need of some serious reform, we are blessed to live in a country with state of the art medical facilities. It’s always good to be reminded of that. We took this next shot for a giggle the day after I started feeling better….

Andy spent an afternoon in a rock climbing lesson one day. I still wasn’t 100%, so I didn’t take a lesson. But, our instructor, Cesar, was super passionate about the sport and encouraged me to give it a go. So, in shoes way too big for me, I scurried right up the climb just to the left of where Andy is in this next photo. That was the beginner’s route and the first one Andy did too. The one Andy is on in the photo below is his third trip up. It was a more intermediate climb. We both really enjoyed our time on the rock and are really excited about trying it again.

Just passing time….

Willy the toucan, resident at Pension Topas, where we stayed in Boquete. Every morning began with “Hola, Willy,” as we walked past his cage. It’s just amazing all the beauty that is in nature. His colors were spectacular.

These little munchkins were the children of a guest at the pension and the dog belonged to the pension owners. Kind of a fun perspective…

One afternoon we hiked up into the hills of the town, where many of the native people live. Boquete is beautiful, but the disparity between the haves and the have nots is upsetting. There are many US transplants living in Boquete, in what would be million dollar homes in the states, while the people of the Ngobe Bugle tribe live in ramshackle houses on the perimeter of the coffee plantations. They wash in the river and get paid very little for the back-breaking work of picking coffee, not to mention their exposure to pesticides working in the fields. They don’t own cars and have to walk great distances to get into town to buy food and supplies. Some speak Spanish, but they also have their own native language. We wished we could have spent some time with a family. Here a family crosses the man-made river bridge to make the long trek down the hills into town.

A little boy plays outside his house.

These little girls saw us walking up the hill and were excited to make contact. This shot pulls at my heartstrings. With laundry drying on the barbed wire fence and the girls in their traditional native dress grabbing on the fence with their little fingers, they are still filled with the happy innocence that is childhood.

The girls and two boys we assumed were their brothers ran out to the street to see us. They saw our cameras and wanted a photo, so we grabbed a couple. I loved the first one we took, where they all looked so serious. Andy grabbed the second photo, which I LOVE, where I’m showing the kids what they look like in the photos. I tried asking their parents, who were outside doing chores, if they had an address so we could send them copies of the photos. But, I don’t think they understood us, and honestly, I doubt they had a mailing address. We tried finding a place to print photos in town, but couldn’t find anywhere. Such a bummer.

This young woman washes her clothes in the river.

High in the hills of Boquete, near the start of Los Quetzales trail, the temperature dropped and we were nearly in the clouds, with a rain-like mist that gave such a lushness to the surroundings. It was beautiful!

Later in the trip, we visited Los Pozos Termales, or thermal pools, on the edge of town in El Valle. Our $1 admission let us cover our faces in therapeutic mud, then soak in mineral baths before rinsing off in the outdoor shower. With sunburns from our stay on the beaches of Bocas del Toro, the mud and minerals felt great.

Tomorrow we’ll be posting photos from our stay on the islands of San Blas and the beaches of Bocas del Toro. Stay tuned. Chris & Andy xo

Travel is something Andy & I are both extremely passionate about. Not surprisingly, our relationship began while we were each traveling in Spain. Travel is the thing that seems to magically transport us back to the easy-breezy lifestyle we had when we first met nearly 15 years ago. We were young and free of responsibilities and expectations. Life was an open book and our experiences filled the pages with adventure.

There is something about traveling to new places, meeting new people, eating new foods and experiencing new cultures that makes us truly come alive. Maybe it’s just the way we travel. My sister thinks we’re crazy. She’s a five-star hotel kind of girl and me, well, don’t get me wrong, I like down comforters, fluffy robes and chocolates on my pillow as much as the next girl. But, for me and Andy, stepping completely out of our comfort zone and taking away the creature comforts we’re used to has a way of putting life squarely into perspective.

Here in the US, we’re constantly bombarded with messages telling us we how important it is to be number one, to accumulate lots of stuff, and that to be successful and happy you not only have to keep up with the Jones, but beat them down on your way up. The kind of traveling we like to do peels all that clutter away and brings us back to basics, reminding us of what is truly important in life — love, laughter, health, happiness, family, friends and basic human interaction. The rest is all just stuff.

It’s been a few years since Andy & I took a long vacation. We’ve been super busy and taking a big chunk of time off just wasn’t in the cards. But, this year, we made the commitment to ourselves and to each other to get away for three weeks and give our batteries a much-needed recharge.

Destination…Panama.

Panama was chosen without much forethought. In the throws of a miserable February winter, desperate to get away…somewhere, anywhere, Andy asked me what I was looking for in a vacation. We went to Nicaragua three years ago and we both absolutely loved it there. So, I said I’d like an experience  similar to that. I didn’t want anywhere too touristy, somewhere that had cute towns to leisurely stroll through, jungles to explore and beaches for doing lots of nothing. I love trying to speak Spanish…emphasis on trying…so I told him I’d also like to go somewhere where Spanish is spoken.

With that, Andy headed off to Borders to do some research and called me back a few hours later. “How do you feel about Panama?” he asked. “Panama? Sounds great!” I said, without knowing much of anything about Panama. But, with it’s close proximity to Nicaragua and precisely because I didn’t know much about it, it sounded like the perfect destination for our adventure.

And, that was it…vacation planned. We booked our tickets, and our first night’s accommodation in Panama City and figured we’d use the guide books Andy got at Borders to map out a rough itinerary before we left on March 1. Then, just let our instinct be our guide.

We spent our first two nights at a hostel in Panama City. Hostels have changed a lot since we first met at Hostel del Pilar, in Marbella, Spain…or at least the people who visit them have changed. When we began traveling, there was no internet…God, that makes us sound ancient. Backpackers didn’t carry laptops, cellphone or wireless USB modems. They didn’t check facebook several times a day, tweet regularly or make movies of their adventures to post on their personal websites.

Back when we first got bit by the bug, you traveled to get away; to leave all things familiar behind and open yourself up to new experiences. If you needed to reach someone or had something to say, you bought a payphone card or sent a postcard.

Today, the new generation of backpackers seem to spend more time chatting about what they’re doing than actually going out and doing. It was very strange to us. We were there to unplug and get away. I admit, we did Skype with family at home to let them know we were okay. We even checked Bello e-mail a couple of times just to make sure all was well. But, for us, the joy in getting away is to disconnect as much as possible so that we are completely in the moment, enjoying the experience as it happens.

And enjoy the experience we did! Although we had a few bumps in the road, including two trips to Health Clinics for a seriously dodgy stomach and sun-stroke, Panama was exactly the experience we were hoping for — a perfect mix of adventure, culture and relaxation.

Here are some highlights from our fabulous Panamanian Adventure. Enjoy!

As I mentioned, the hostel in Panama City wasn’t the best. Our room was a 8′ x 8′ blue box with dirty walls, a super uncomfortable double bed, tiny window and an old AC unit that only went on from 9PM - 9AM. And, it was HOT…crazy hot, especially coming from winter temperatures. This first photo is a sort of self portrait I took our first morning in Panama City. I remember laying in bed, sweating my tootsies off, thinking about the crappy room and how the scene, with the thin sheets and dirty walls felt like something out of an insane asylum. It’s kind of dark spirited for the start of our post, but it makes me smile because at the time Andy & I were wondering if we’d made a big mistake with Panama and if we should leave, go home, go back to Nicaragua…what?

It all turned out fine and as it happens, we loved Panama. After the self portrait, we headed out to see the Canal at the Miraflores locks, which was very cool. The Canal is quite a marvel of human engineering. There are three separate locks, but the government is in the process of expanding at least one of the locks and I think I may have heard talk of adding another at a new location.

During our few days in the city there was a constant queue of ships of all sizes waiting to pass through the Canal. During our trip to the Canal Visitors’ Center, there was a giant freighter carrying some sort of explosive hazardous materials from Hong Kong on it’s way through the lock. Inspectors check the ship as it passes through the Canal and emergency personnel could be seen on stand by just in case. It was a little freaky, but surprisingly efficient. It takes about 8 hours for a ship to pass through the series of three locks transiting from the Pacific to Caribbean.

I think the guys in the next photo were Panamanian inspectors…they don’t look terribly busy inspecting, but with 8 hours to pass through the locks, I guess they had lots of time to take a break and wave to onlookers.

The next day we walked around Casco Viejo, or old town, and this next photo is a view of Panama City from Casco Viejo. We were surprised at how many skyscrapers there were in the city. We were told the majority are apartments and many are actually vacant…yet construction continues. It was really hot and humid in the city and thick smog hung in the air. Sunken ships left abandoned complete the scene.

In a slightly different direction from the same perspective…

This next photo is one of those moments you just live for when traveling….

Like the gates of an abandoned heaven…

These were just a few of our photos from the big city. We’ll be posting more tomorrow from our visit to the mountainous regions of Panama. And then some more later in the week from our visit to the coast. And, we’ll wrap up with a slideshow. Thanks for visiting! And as always, please feel free to leave a comment or spread the love. Chris & Andy xo

It was just before 5PM when the doorbell finally rang. I nearly fell down the stairs in my excitement to get to the door. I knew it could be only one man….Bob, our trusty UPS delivery man. I’d been waiting for Bob all day. In his big brown truck, driving around his Cape Cod route, Bob carried with him my much-anticipated new camera…Nikon’s super fly D3S digital SLR.

Sensing my excitement, Bob asked if the box he was delivering was a new camera. To which I immediately replied, “Yes! I’ve been so excited all day for it to arrive.” “I thought so, since you had to sign for it,” he said. Bob is so cool.

After signing, my hands a little shaky from all the excitement…or perhaps from my sprint down the stairs…I bid farewell to Bob and dashed back up to the office to tear open my treasure box. Taaaa Daaaaa!

Andy is one of those people who likes to take his time opening presents. He slowly removes each piece of tape, one at a time, careful not to rip the wrapping paper. Then, ever so slowly, he unfolds the creases to reveal the contents. Sometimes I wonder if he does this just because he knows it drives me crazy. You see, I am a shredder. I’ve always been one of those people who tackles a present with wild abandon, ripping off paper, popping off bows, and throwing the scraps over my shoulder to see what’s inside.

But, this was different. I found myself taking Andy’s slow approach. I was quick to find a pair of scissors, but that’s where the quick ended. Slowly and precisely, I sliced the brown B&H packaging tape from each side of the box, then sliced along the top center. I sat there for a few seconds, wanting to savor the moment before I peeled the box flaps open. Once opened, all I could see was a pile of white packing popcorn.

“It’s in there,” I thought to myself. My innate tendencies were to dump everything out into the middle of the office floor, until my treasure tumbled out. But, I held back. Instead, I moved a few of the popcorn pieces around, revealing what I thought was the top of the camera box…turns out it was the bottom. There on the golden box, in big black letters, I caught my first glimpse.

The excitement was now growing to a fever pitch, so I dug my hands in and found the bottom of the box, pulling it out, popcorn spilling out all over the couch. But, I didn’t care. My new toy was really here. I opened the box and had to step back to take in the view. So much to go through…

But a lover of instructions I am not. I would rather get right to it. Pressing buttons. Turning dials. I would rather do than read. So, I quickly moved the top layer of stuff to the side.

And, then I found her…quietly waiting for me in the bottom of the box, beckoning me to touch her rugged, yet, precisely constructed, sexy magnesium alloy body. Isn’t she beautiful?

And check out that backside? Wooooo hoooo!

Like my D300, the D3S has a gorgeous 3-inch super-density 921,000-dot LCD monitor. I admit, I was a bit hesitant to move up to this camera model because it’s so big! With the built in vertical grip, the camera is about 6″wx6″hx3.5″d and weighs nearly 3lbs. That may not sound like much, but once you add some of the lenses we use on this puppy, the weight and size add up fast. I was considering getting the new D700 instead. But, as it turned out the weight difference between the two cameras was minimal. And, as soon as I picked her up in the store, I knew this was it. It just felt right. She fit…..we fit. And, so it was meant to be.

But, what really drew me to the D3S is it’s amazing ISO capabilities. The D3S’s standard ISO sensitivity ranges from 100 to a stunning 12,800. As if that wasn’t enough, the D3S has three expanded ISO options that can take the ISO up to a shocking 102,400.

For the non-photographers out there, this basically means I can shoot in very little ambient light without using flash. Yes, it’s super grainy at those mega high levels. But, right now, I rarely take my D300 above 1000 ISO because the noise is too much. Knowing, I can easily shoot at 6400 ISO with less noise than the D300 produces at 1000 ISO makes me giddy. This summer I will find myself with boundless new creative options and I am super stoked!

Like the camera itself, the battery for the D3S is on the large size. But, sometimes bigger is better. This puppy has a battery life of approximately 4,200 shots per charge. Thank you Nikon!

It doesn’t have the pop up flash my D300 has, which was good to use as a trigger for off camera flash set ups. I’m not sure why Nikon eliminated that cool feature in it’s pro level cameras.

That said, there are so many other features that more than make up for the lack of built in flash. Did I mention the dual card slots or the super high flash sync speed? What about the full frame sensor, which now brings all of my lenses back to the 1:1 ratio? That could take some getting used to, but I’m ready. Oh, and the coup de grace of the D3S is the new video feature! And, it produces freaking gorgeous video!Ohhh, the places we will go! I did find a few things I wasn’t sure how it all works. So, it looks like I need to go read the instructions after all.

Chris xo

I can still remember my first crush. I was in the third grade and his name was Mark P., an identical twin with lovely curly orangey-red hair, a face full of freckles and kind eyes. Mark’s brother, Michael, was the more outgoing of the two. A class clown prone to pranks, Michael would often convince his brother to take his seat in the other third grade class until the teachers finally noticed the switch a roo. Mark was quiet and shy and I never understood why the teachers couldn’t instantly tell them apart.

My crush on Mark never went anywhere and by the end of coed baseball later that summer, I had a new crush. I think it’s safe to assume that most childhood crushes don’t last very long. But, sometimes they do….Sometimes they go the distance, as is the case with our super cuties Rachel & Paul, whose third grade crush eventually led them to want to say, “I do!”

Paul told us that despite his affections for Rachel, it took her a while to notice him. “She didn’t have time for me back then,” he said. “We didn’t really become friends until the late high school years.”

A high school trip to Italy firmly established their friendship. But, still no romance. Rachel had a boyfriend. The friendship continued to grow after graduation, even when Paul moved to New York. After college, Rachel began visiting Paul in the big city. “We even took a trip to Iceland together..but no real romance yet,” Paul said.

Rachel moved to New York and soon their relationship also moved to the next level. Still, things didn’t immediately stick in the ‘I’m stuck on you!’ kind of way. As is often the case in life, the timing just wasn’t right. So our love birds separated for a while.

It didn’t take very long to realize they were better together than they were apart. “And we never want to be apart again,” they told us.

We had the pleasure of spending the day with Paul & Rachel recently when we got together for their Bello love session. We still find it hard to believe anyone follows this blog with regularity, but for the one or two of you who do, we’re sure you’ve been anxiously awaiting more photos after a long winter of album designing & production and not much image-making. So, without further ado…it is with great pleasure that we invite you to meet Rachel & Paul:

As is sometimes the case, our love session was the first time we met Rachel & Paul in person. We’d had several wonderful conversation over the phone, but because they live in NYC and Paul travels a lot for work, we didn’t get to meet before they decided they wanted us to be a part of their Cape Cod wedding.

In our early conversations, we learned that one of the things Rachel & Paul share a passion for is traveling, something for which Andy & I also have a great deal of passion. So, we took them to a little airfield to play amid the brightly colored biplanes. Right away, we knew we were going to have fun spending time with these two sweeties!

It’s always a little nerve-wracking for our couples when they first get in front of our cameras. I mean, how often in life do you have two people running around watching your every move, sticking cameras in your face and asking you to snuggle up with your honey? It can be intimidating, but these two seemed completely comfortable with each other and with us. And, that’s when the magic happens…

Awww….

Getting cozy…

Normally, my favorite photos are when our couples are smiling and enjoying themselves in a way that is easy to see. When we’re editing and I see moments we capture of our couples in the middle of huge grins, I can’t help but smile myself. But, sometimes those quiet moments, where you can see that a couple is so comfortable in each others presence that there’s nowhere else they’d rather be, can just take my breath away, like this next photo. (Paul, I knew as soon as we met you that you were full of crap when you said you don’t take a good picture….now we have proof…seriously, Calvin wants his model back!!!)

Here’s a perfect example of my favorite kind of photo…..come on, how can you not smile looking at these two?

Thankfully, we had the perfect April day for photos when we got together. Spring carries a crispness to the light that I just love…

Love this one…

A different perspective…

Another smile-inducing moment…

Paul+Rachel=love

We decided to hit a couple of other locations to mix things up and I love the classic clapboard background for these next few…

I’m a big fan of this kind of perspective…

Poor Rachel was getting chilly toward the end of our session as the sun was heading down for the day. But, sometimes the cold makes our couples snuggle even more tightly, and the results….lovely!

Getting really chilly now….but ooooh, how I love the way Rachel is holding her hands in this next one. It’s so perfectly feminine. Love it!

The Sandwich boardwalk is a great place for a walk on a crisp April day…

I thought I’d try something different with this next image. The first is enhanced using our classic bello look. But, with all of the old brown beach grass not yet having given way to the green lush beach grass that the next month will bring, I thought the image called for a more vintage worn sort of look. Which do you prefer?

This…

Or this…

This post is the first of many soon to come. We thank you our faithful blog readers & comment leavers (Candice…we love you!) for bearing with us as we got our ducks in a row this winter and took a little break from blogging. Rest assured, we’re back now and this season promises to be a fabulous one. We hope you stay with us on this journey…and as always, please leave us some love. It makes us sooo happy!

Big thanks to Rachel and Paul for trusting us to document this incredible time in your lives. Thank you for a wonderful afternoon, for all the great chats in between and for opening your hearts to us. We look forward to getting to know you both even better over the coming year and to being there with you when you, after years of waiting, finally say, “I do!” With love & hugs, Chris & Andy xoxo

I freely admit that we have been a tad neglectful of our blog these past few weeks…okay, month and a half. But, we’ve had good reason. In addition to taking a much-needed three-week vacation, (Yes, that’s right, three weeks of doing a whole lotta nothing…hallelujah!) we’ve been working our butts off to get all of the albums for this year’s clients done and out the door before our first wedding of the season in May.

It sounds like it wouldn’t be such a hard thing to do. But, we’re persnickety. Very persnickety. We want our albums to be perfect for our wonderful couples and perfect requires a heavy investment of time. We do enhancements and apply minor, and sometimes major, retouching to every image that goes into our albums to give them our signature look. And, with 35+ albums, each album having 20-42 pages with 20 -100 images and each image edit taking anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes, that adds up to A LOT of time spent in front of the computer.

So, with lots of busy work to do and little time for photographing, we haven’t been very good about our regular blog posts. We were reminded of that today with a very funny e-mail from one of our grooms, Sean, whose wedding we photographed four years ago and with whom we’ve kept in regular contact.

Here’s one of our favorite photos/moments from Sean & Whitney’s wedding at The Dennis Inn. It’s a photo of Sean as he watches Whitney walk down the aisle to become his wife. The excitement on his face in that moment was contagious!

We enjoyed Sean’s message so much, we thought it the perfect post to kick off a series of posts we’re working on uploading very soon…including some photos from our fabulous 3-week Panamanian vacation. Stay tuned!

In the meantime, here’s Sean’s e-mail:

Big thanks to Sean and all of our “faithful followers” who have been patiently awaiting a new post. More to follow soon…we promise! Love & hugs, Christine & Andy