It came, it came!

Ahhhh, the joys of shopping for tax-deductible toys. :-) My Canon 50mm 1.2 has arrived, and it's beautiful (and fits in my bag, which is amazing)!!

Of course I had to test it out IMMEDIATELY and who else was there but the one and only Tico a.k.a Mr. Fluffernutter. He was quite a good subject! He even posed himself (i love tico).

The magic about this lens is the 1.2 aperture which gives me amazingly shallow depth of field.

Shallow depth of field, I'm beginning to realize, is becoming a trademark of mine. I just love the way it gives such feeling to an image having what is most important in focus and everything else just fades away. Plus this kind of lens helps me not use a flash in low-light situations, which is perfect because I love natural light...like the light coming in from my office window in these pictures.

And it also looks good when playing with some textures, like this picture of the fluff-man.

Hmmmm....what will my next toy be?!?!! Haha...I already ordered it...only Rob and Darren know what it is!!! :-0

~Vj

Long Branch Lacrosse

I love photographing sports. When I was in high school, I used to photograph the basketball team and did have this one good shot that I really liked (even though I look at it now and notice the horrid lighting).

It's been a while since I've photographed high school sports and my friend Kyleigh Dooley plays lacrosse for Long Branch High School. So, I went down to Point Pleasant for their last game and had some fun. :-)



Click on the first image to go to the SmugMug gallery to view them all, but here are my favs. :-)

Sarah and Stephen's Engagement Session

When I first met Sarah and Stephen at the Starbucks in the Jersey Garden's Mall. I just knew that we would mesh. The two of them had such obvious chemistry between them and they were just so much fun to hang out with. Sunday's engagement session proved true to what I saw in them as we (and by we I'm adding in Tang, JonJon and Veena, all members of their bridal party who assisted by driving, filming and helping out) headed to New York City with Sarah and Stephen in a tux and gown!

When Sarah and Stephen first mentioned their idea for the engagement session, I was totally psyched. Besides the fact that I love shooting in the city, I had the chance to shoot a bride in a dress that she didn't care about getting dirty! So it was like a mini trash-the-dress as well!

There were a ton of just fun pictures so in addition to the slide show there are some behind-the-scenes photos with Elmo, getting arrested and even some of me crawling in the streets (thanks Veena)! Just click on the image to bring up a new window to see the pictures up close. JonJon is to follow soon with his video footage that we're all looking forward to seeing.

EnJOY!

Pictures can be ordered at http://www.vanessajoy.smugmug.com/.

Smores!!!!

Have I mentioned I love the summer yet?!?!

Along with some fantastic patio furniture (not pictured here, haha, those are my kitchen chairs) that Rob talked the manager down 30% on the price (yessssss!!!), I knew that a firepit was a necessity in life if you have a back "yard". Can anyone say SMORES!!!!!! Even Tico liked it! :-)

Emily and Dae

I had the opportunity to work with Andres Valenzuela last Saturday in upstate NJ at Emily and Dae's wedding. Being a second shooter is always fun because its easier to spot all of the little details and moments that are happening away from the center of the action. It also lets me be a bit adventurous and sneakily climb on things too! Well not only did I get to do that, but I also caught some really great shots of Andres with one of the flower girls, Sophia. Sooooo adorable!! His fiancee, Kim, is going to love these pictures.
:-)

Fun fact! this picture of me being Spidy was taken at the park that Rob Adams and I shot Sarah and George's engagement pictures earlier that week. While Dae and I were waiting in the car during a lull before the ceremony, we were going over possible areas to photograph their park session in. Ironically, we happened to be pretty much right across the street from The Palisades Park that I was at on Wednesday, so I suggested it and we ended up going there. It's such a great place to photograph in! Thanks so much Sarah and George for introducing me to this great park!!

As always, enjoy the slide show!!!

(If you're viewing this in Facebook, please click on view original post to see the slide show)

~Vj

Bridesmaids Dresses!!

So one of the fun bridal tasks if bridemaids dresses and with 11 bridesmaids and a flower girl, I decided to go with black and let the girls pretty much pick whichever dress they'd like. 6 of us were able to make it to David's Bridal to try on dresses (I have 3 who are out of state so David's Bridal is definitely the way to go) and we did have fun even though there was a laughable amount of disorganization.

I have to say, it was really a fun time watching all my girls try on dresses; they all looked so beautiful! Ok...maybe hot is a better word since they did all look pretty caliente but I thought beautiful would be more 'wedding' word. I can't wait until December 27th when I see them all dolled up and together!!!

Thanks so much to Darren who is not only letting his daughter, Olivia, be my flower girl, but also photographed all of this fun (and even blogged about it here)!!

City of Hope and Kay Unger

City of Hope is an amazing organization and "is recognized worldwide for its compassionate patient care, innovative science and translational research, which rapidly turns laboratory breakthroughs into promising new therapies."

I was fortunate enough to be a part of an event hosted by the City of Hope to honor Hoda Kotb and Kay honor who were receiving prestigious Spirit of Life® awards at this “Woman of the Year” luncheon. Among them, I also got to see “Today Show” news anchor and “Dateline NBC” anchor Ann Curry, Tim Gunn, co-host of “Project Runway” and “Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style,”, “Today Show” co-anchor Natalie Morelas, "Today Show" consumer correspondent Janice Lieberman, “Today Show” national correspondent Amy Robach, actress Alexandra Leighton, Dina and Caroline Manzo from “The Real Housewives of New Jersey” and news anchor Rosanna Scotto. It was quite a crowd...not to mention being in the presence of the fine artwork of Kay Unger, Prada, Jimmy Choo and Valentino just to name a few!!

This show is to The Ting Tings...which, when I heard them play on New Years after the ball dropped, I have to admit I totally hated them. But after hearing it on Monday during the show, I really couldn't get them out of my head...so I just had to use "That's Not My Name" on here!

EnJoy!

(Don't forget, if you're on facebook you have to click view original post to see the show!)
Pictures can be ordered at http://www.vanessajoy.smugmug.com/.

I Love My Brides

My brides are great. I love when brides look past the "client-vendor relationship" and we become friends. I've had this happen a few times over the years and I just want to express how awesome it is!

Danielle, whose wedding I'm shooting in October, and I went out for some Starbucks about a month back and she was such a great help to me finding bridesmaids dresses and apparently we're good luck for each other because she was able to pull together some details for her wedding later that night as well! We had talked about some more important things like preparing for marriage more than preparing for a wedding and mentioned this book, Saving Your Marriage Before it Starts. Rob and I are doing this book together, so I thought I'd surprise Danielle and send it to her (btw, Amazon Rocks). I got this great letter in reply!

A few years ago, I had another bride who was just so thrilled with her album that she bought John Heyn and I champagne! Well, I was single at the time (although I had already met Rob!), and I decided that I wasn't going to pop the champagne until I got engaged. Well, I got engaged and Rob and I went out to dinner a little later and did just that!

Most recently though, Sarah and Stephen, who I'm photographing this August, send me their contract with a surprise in it! The Shakira Oral Fixation Tour CD! Sarah and I are both tri-lingual, one of our common languages being Spanish and we both love Shakira. So she was thoughtful enough to send me the CD and it's been in my car ever since!!

Really now...does a "job" get any better than this??

Paybacks!

You may remember me talking about the various painting parties involved in getting my house in order (if not click here). Well, it was time for some paybacks!

Trish recently bought a home and she helped me tons with mine so Rob and I took a trip over to her painting party to help out. Thanks to my dad, who among his musical talents is also an amazing painter, I was able to help out with the edging the most, which is quite difficult and tedious! But it was a ton of fun helping out and I really couldn't resist writing on the wall! haha, it's the inner child in me. :-)

Sarah and George's Engagement Session

Rob Adams and I had a blast two days ago photographing AND filming Sarah and George in the New Jersey Palisades Park in Fort Lee. This is a new (among quite a few) venture that Rob and I are working on and so far it's really fun! Rob and I are working on the video early next week and it'll be a video/photo combination that'll be really cool. But in the meantime, here are some of my favs from the shoot!











Pictures can be ordered at http://www.vanessajoy.smugmug.com/.