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@stevenvanelk

@stevenvanelk in July 2021

@stevenvanelk

Looking out at the hills leading to the Smoky Mountains with my DJI Mavic Pro. This area is really beautiful this summer.

@stevenvanelk

Testing my flash set up on my wife before the bride and groom do their first dances.

@stevenvanelk

Jenn, my wife, walking in Joshua Tree. This photo was taken by my friend Ulices Del Toro.

@stevenvanelk

Hugging it out with my friend Ulices during our pretend engagement photos. My wife, Jenn, took this photo.

@stevenvanelk

I try to do a few photos of each person on their own while doing engagement photos. Looking back at this shoot I'm realizing I basically had them do the same pose just in different locations. 😅 #Photography

@stevenvanelk

My daughter thought the cat could use another set of ears. The cat was cool with it and wore them around all day.

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Engagement Photos in Lincoln Park Last fall I was in Chicago to do an engagement photo shoot with a couple. We walked around Lincoln Park taking photos and the light was gorgeous. The couple was awesome too. They brought some friends with them who forced them to chug PBRs during the shoot (because they forced their friends to chug PBRs as a way of accepting their invitation to be in the wedding party). I had so much fun shooting these photos. These photos were originally…

@stevenvanelk

This fruited tea gose from Infinitea Ale was surprisingly good. Drank this with my brother and brother-in-law while on vacation. They had a bunch of sour beers they were trying out. I don't usually go for sours, but this trip might have changed me. #Beer

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Goofing around in Joshua tree with my wife. Our friend Ulices del Toro took this photo of me blocking out my wife in the photos and doing my best super star pose. #Photography

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Sometimes the bride and groom exchange gifts before the wedding. It's always a touching moment when they open each other's gifts.

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Pouring a Tiberius Double IPA at Scarlet Lane Brewing Co. #Beer

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Just came across a podcasting website that listed things people were saying about my podcast and also things they were searching for in relation to my podcast. Apparently listeners love, "dustin and steven, saying the things." and they're searching for "find dustin" and "find steven". Which isn't creepy at all, right? Right?! 😅 #Podcast

@stevenvanelk

My wife did this engagement shoot in downtown New York. I'm only a little jealous my wife got to travel for this rooftop engagement session while I had to stay home. Only a little.

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Just about ready to kiss. This photo is from an engagement shoot I did last year at Eagle Creek Park in Indy.

@stevenvanelk

Chicago skyline as seen from the top of the Robey Hotel. It's one of our favorite places to visit in Chicago because of the amazing view of downtown. #Photography

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Inside the Indiana State House. On the third floor it's just beautiful skylights above and lots of natural light.

@stevenvanelk

Had a Triple Chocolate at Books and Brews lady night. Really good beer. Full of chocolatey flavor #Beer

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Bacon, Mac and cheese eggrolls. Those words might not sound appealing together, but this might be the best appetizer I've ever had. #Food

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Trying to propogate my Monstera Deliciosa. Hoping this isn't a huge mistake. #Plants

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Chick peas and couscous with a tomato and cucumber salad and dill sauce drizzled on top. This is what I spent like an hour making tonight. It was pretty good #Food

@stevenvanelk

Sometimes at Books and Brews they give you beer in a mug. I love it. I didn't live this beer though. It was the Ralph Waldo Hopperson and it did not do it for me. #Beer

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At the start of the canal in downtown Indy. Watching the water fall into the canal.

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Setting up the details for flat lays is one area I'm still struggling at with wedding photography. Thus is one of my favorite set ups from last year.

@stevenvanelk

Took the wife out for a brunch date. She got a chicken hash in a tomato sauce while I got what they called a potato waffle with charcuterie and a salad. They were both great. #Food

@stevenvanelk

The cat wouldn't leave my wife alone when she was trying to nap this morning. He kept jumping up on the bed and batting at her feet. This is his face when I pulled my phone out to take a picture of him in the act of annoying my wife.

@stevenvanelk

Made dinner with my wife tonight. Chicken in a buttery apricot sauce with potatoes and green beans. I really love cooking with her. #Food

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Lots of trees and plants surround the entrance to this barn venue where lots of weddings are held near me.

@stevenvanelk

It is my wife's birthday today! Yesterday I took her out for a brunch date. All my plans for today involved our kids, but then my mom asked if she could watch them today. So now I'm scrambling to try to come up with some new ideas for my wife's birthday today since I had already told the kids about our other plans and don't want to disappoint them now by doing that stuff without them. #Photography

@stevenvanelk

Today is my wife's birthday so I took her out for some pho. She got the chicken and I got the brisket. My wife loves pho. This was my first time trying pho. It was really, really good. #Food

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The cat loves sitting on his window perch and watching the birds play outside.

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Got a double Shack burger at shake shack last night. This place is great. #Food

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The bride and groom were getting ready in separate rooms in separate wings of the hotel. We had to shut the curtains so they couldn’t see each other. My wife asked me to park through the curtains to take a few photos of the dress in the window. #Photography

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From a destination wedding in the Dominican Republic. That’s my sister-in-law and new brother-in-law walking along the beach. I did photos and video for their wedding day. It was a little bit exhausting.

@stevenvanelk

Trying out some real estate photography. This is my friend’s dad’s office. He let me shoot his house for practice. It was fun, but a lot of work. Every room I had to do a bunch of photos at different exposure levels and then combine them into hdr photos so that most editing would look properly exposed. I don’t think I ever realized how much work goes into real estate photos.

@stevenvanelk

Shot a wedding over the weekend and they had some delicious cake. Vanilla cake with a buttermilk frosting and raspberry sauce drizzled over the cake. It was great. #Food

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This is the main room in a house I was shooting real estate photos for last year. It's gorgeous. Love how wide open it is.

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From a few years ago, visiting the Hofbrauhaus in Newport, Kentucky. Love this version of the Hofbrauhaus. Been to a few different ones around the US and the Newport one is my favorite. The woman holding the beers in this photo is my wife, Jenn. #Beer

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On a rooftop in downtown Indianapolis on their wedding day. #Photography

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Drinking a dankful IPA with my stepdad before we have dinner. Life is good. #Beer

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Had some excellent fish and chips in St. Joseph, Michigan last month. I want to go back and have more. #Food

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Took my daughter to Ikea. She had to lie down on every bed to test it out. It was adorable. #Parenting

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Sandhill cranes taking flight. I shot this photo in my back yard several years ago and then used an app called tiny planet to collapse the photo in on itself to create this odd look of the birds flying away from a tiny little planet.

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This is my cat Lando. He loves sitting on his window perch and watching the birds outside.

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Parmesan crusted chicken, asparagus, and loaded mashed potatoes with bacon. I made this for my wife. Had to substitute the panko out on the chicken with gluten free bread crumbs because she's not supposed to have gluten anymore.

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Finally posting some photos from a wedding I shot last October. The bride and groom did a Halloween theme complete with a bunch of skeletons of birds and bats and rats.

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Shot glasses in a plank of wood. Never seen an engagement session tradition like this before, but I loved it. House more clients have fun family traditions in the future. #Photography

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Visiting my mom and picked up some pizza and breadsticks from the local pizza shop. The breadsticks are my kids' favorites.

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My cat seems disturbed by me taking his picture. He was asleep until I pulled my camera out. Then he just stared at me with those eyes till I put it away.

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Wedding cake from a Halloween themed wedding I shot last year. Love this cake. #Photography

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Sunset at Coxhall Gardens after an engagement shoot. I usually take off when my clients leave but I stuck around because the sky looked so cool. I just loved the way it was reflecting off the pond.

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Tonight I tried the Warheads Artisanal Brews. They’re supposed to taste like the sour Atomic Warhead candies. They’re alright but a little watery. Thought they’d pack a little more punch. Black cherry was my favorite of the four followed by blue raspberry. Watermelon was the worst. #Beer

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From a recent wedding. The groom has custom made Nikes. He also bought a pair for each one of his groomsmen and for his bride. #Photography

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New leaf sprouting off my Monstera Deliciosa. #Plants

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First thing my daughter does every morning is pick up the cat and throw it over her shoulder. I don’t know how the cat hasn’t clawed her up yet, because that doesn’t look comfortable. They love each other though.

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Went to the Coca-Cola store at Disney Springs and got there around the world tray. It was way too much soda but it was a lot of fun trying all the different flavors from different countries around the world.

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A few years ago we took our son to this garden in Illinois. He ran away from us and when we found him he was sitting here like this. I snapped a picture and then walked up and asked him what he was doing. He said he was just thinking really hard about life. #Photography

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The clock tower in Coxhall Gardens. I was too close to get the whole tower in one shot so I took several photos and stitched them together later in post. I could have walked backwards to get the shot, but I was lazy.

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150 Years of Peach Cobbler. This was a nice sour beer. Bit sweet, but nice. #Beer

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Apparently there’s something wrong with microwaving French fries… I feel like 10 seconds is alright if they aren’t hot, but my wife makes fun of me mercilessly for doing this.

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Sometimes when I shoot weddings downtown, the place with the best light is just a parking lot. In this parking lot the bride and groom were in the shade and then the sunlight was reflecting off a window on the building behind them, which made them look backlit like this. We did a bunch of photos there, but this was one of my favorites. I told them to rock back and forth like they were dancing and then the groom spun the bride so she in turn spun him, which he wasn’t capable…

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Doing some veil shots at a wedding last fall. Loved the way the sun and the shadows looked against the veil in this shot. Also, loved how these two seemed so incredibly into each other during their portraits. We try to make all our couples look like they’re deeply in love, whether they’re feeling it on the day or not. These two just seemed so stress free and really just there for each other on the day. #Photography

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My favorite brewery, Scarlet Lane, has a gastropub. We stopped in tonight. The kids thought everything on the menu was gross so I just got a beer and an appetizer to split with my wife. This is the Dorian coconut stout. It’s brilliant. #Beer

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Walking up the stairs to a new future. This photo was taken during an elopement, during the couple portraits. The couple wanted to do photos on two different levels of the building, and I just ran around the stairs and shot this while the groom was walking back up to the top level to see his bride again.

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My son grabbed my phone to take some pictures of me last night while we were having dinner. Usually when he does this he just takes a bunch of selfies and laughs the whole time, so I was really surprised when I got my phone back and found he’d actually been taking photos of me. #Photography

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Surprised by how good portrait mode is with a cat on my iPhone. This is my cat, Lando. His favorite place in our house is this window perch he can sit on and watch the birds outside. He often starts chattering while he watches them.

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Clouds over the ocean. I shot this a few months ago from the balcony of a condo I was staying at. This is looking out on the Gulf of Mexico from Orange Beach, Alabama.

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Looking down on the Gulf of Mexico from above. Anyone have any idea what's causing that break in the ocean where everything is white? Is it riptide or a place that's shake and causing waves to break it is it fish? Just curious what it might be. #Photography

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Pepperoni pizza from Silver Beach Pizza in St. Joseph, Michigan. My mom loves this place. #Food

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The beach at sunset in Orange Beach, Alabama. This is the furthest I think I've flown my drone it over the ocean. It was a little scary because I started losing the connection and couldn't see the camera for a while until I flew it back toward the beach. But it made it back alright and all is well that ends well, right?

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The cat won't let me play video games. He's demanding I pet him. Everyone I try to raise the controller in my hands to play he jumps on my lap and flicks his tail in my face.

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Holy cow. This beer is absolutely amazing. It's pretty high alcohol by volume, but the flavor is just fantastic. #Beer

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Made breakfast for my wife. Two pieces of toast with fried eggs on top. Guacamole I made in the middle of the toast. Sharp cheddar cheese and bacon bits sprinkled over the top of it all. A strip of bacon on the side. I'd typically make the eggs runny with something like this, but my wife can't eat runny eggs right now on account of her being pregnant. Made a similar plate for myself.

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Mostly empty beach, viewed from above. Usually this beach is full of people day and night. For some reason while I was flying the drone no one was out there though. I'm guessing they were mostly eating dinner. It made the beach seem much more peaceful than usual.

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The way he’s looking up it’s like he thinks I have a test for him or something, but I don’t. Just my phone camera. He’s such a good cat though.

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Bride sitting alone on her wedding day. This was one of those rare moments where the bride just does something that looks picturesque with no guidance at all. We were done with the portraits at this wedding and the bride came inside the building to cool off in the air conditioning. This room didn’t have any chairs, so she just sat on the window sill. Which we loved because it meant we could take some candid photos of the bride relaxing in beautiful light. #Photography

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Sunset over the beach. Love the way this photo turned out. The sunsets in Orange Beach, Alabama are always so beautiful. Glad I was able to get out with the drone and capture this.

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Would you look at this gorgeous new Monstera Deliciosa leaf?! I just love all the fenestrations. These plants are so beautiful. #Plants

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Shoreline viewed from above. This is the shoreline of the beach in Gulf Shores, Alabama. Looking at the ocean from up high is crazy and weird. I didn’t realize there was a sand bar just a little ways out in the water. Standing on the site I could never tell.

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Throwback to a photo of me in college holding my dog Leia. She was a great dog. I miss her.

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This is one of my favorite photos I took this summer. It’s from our vacation in the Smoky Mountains. This is a small town near Pigeon Forge up in the mountains.

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My daughter put a crown on the cat’s head so he could play princess with her. She said the cat looks like King Rapunzel and that she’s the Gato Queen. Lando didn’t wear the crown for very long this time. He wasn’t having it today.

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It’s a bit dark but I didn’t want to turn my flash on and wake her up. My daughter fell asleep in my arms. She starts kindergarten in two weeks. If she’s anything like my son, that means there aren’t many of these moments left. #Parenting

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Road through the woods. This little mountain road lead up to a cabin next to the place we were staying. I loved the way the roads wound around the mountain just to lead to a solitary cabin. The cabin wasn’t great looking though, so I just took a photo of the road.

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Setting sunlight graces the tops of the foothills. Had to do a little photoshopping to get rid of the few cabins on top of the ridges. It’s just so hard to find a place that isn’t crawling with humans in this area, well, at least in the areas where you can fly a drone.

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Distant mountain. Flew the drone up in the smokies and was really taken in by this distant mountain in the foothills. It looks so beautiful out there.

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Lando just relaxing in the window. He’s wondering what I’m doing with a camera so close to him

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Went for a hike at a local park the other day. They had an amazing covered bridge at the park. It has a curb down the center (from when cars used to be able to drive across) and the kids treated it like a balancing beam walking on the curb all the way across the bridge. #Photography

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Found these beers at my local liquor store. They were the last 4 packs of each when I found them. Snatched them up just to make sure I could try them since they’re a limited release. Had no idea the maple barrel qualified was 10% abv and the bourbon barrel no sparse imperial golden was 12% abv. I haven’t been able to finish a can of either beer on my own unless I spaced it out over the course of several hours. They’re both delicious, but a few sips in and I just know…

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This guy doesn’t greet me when I come home and he doesn’t try to crawl up in bed to sleep with me. But he does those things for my wife. Meanwhile, I’m the one who cleans his litter box and feeds him everyday but I get no love.

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Sunset over the ridge. It’s getting dark by the cabins. #Photography

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I don’t know why these leaves turned white. I think my plant might be sick. Not certain how to fix that though. #Plants

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Line of cabins at sunset. This photo was a little difficult to take because the drone had trouble focusing due to the flare from the sun. But after several attempts it finally worked out.

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Finished shooting a wedding last night at Coxhall Gardens and as I was walking away at the end of the night this is what the sky looked like. Just absolutely beautiful.

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The space needle in Gatlinburg at night. I like the lights on this tower. We drive 6 hours down to Gatlinburg and got there at night. The kids got so excited when they saw the tower and knew we were close to the hotel.

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Lando the cat, looking out the window and watching some bunnies run through the yard. #Pets

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He won’t stay still for a photo so the iPhone portrait mode struggles with getting him in focus. #Pets

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Hugging at sunset. This is from an engagement session I did in Coxhall gardens in Carmel. it’s a beautiful little park with bell towers and lots of ducks that swim in the one usually, but today the ducks weren’t in sight. #Photography

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Dancing in front of the pond at sunset. This is from an engagement session I did last year. The sky looked amazing during this session

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From the wedding I shot the other day. They had cans of gumballhead from three Floyd’s but everyone was just drinking Bud light. Well, everyone except me because I was working. I had lots of water though which was a much better choice #Beer

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Made myself a cheeseburger tonight. The burger patty was made by my father-in-law, and I’m not certain what spices and seasoning he mixed with the meat. I added cheese and a little olive oil. I also toasted the bun with a little butter. It was a tasty burger. #Food

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Bride backlit by sun on her wedding day. This was taken right after the ceremony at her elopement with her husband. They got married in their backyard and it was one of the most gorgeous weddings I’ve been to. #Photography

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Saw this stunning Weeping Willow over the weekend. Walked under it’s leaves to escape the sunshine for a bit. I love weeping willows #Plants

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Took our daughter to see some dolphins this summer. She genuinely loves dolphins and whales and sharks. It’s amazing to watch how excited she gets sky time we’re going to a place where we can see them. #Parenting

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This photo is from the spring. We haven’t been sharing this news many places online, because we were waiting for clients to get back with us and let us know they were okay with my wife not being the photographer on their wedding day and us hiring someone else to shoot for them. But it’s finally all sorted, so I can share we’re having another kid and we’re just like 2 months away from meeting her.

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Road to the wedding. I love having the bride flip her dress during bridal portraits. It lets me capture a little motion in the photo.

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Lando likes to watch me walk up and down the stairs. I’m always a little bit afraid he’ll jump on me.

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New episode out now! What do you do about those almost pornographic couple kisses at the wedding? How do you respond to a guest asking for pics 3 days after the wedding? What do you do if your partner gets Covid but you're vaccinated and testing negative? Tap the link below to listen on our site! https://weddinghangover.com/episodes/2021/7/29/ep-184-almost-pornographic-couple-kisses Episode art by everyone's favorite wedding celebrant Josh Withers Weddings. #Podcast