Hey everyone…as promised back in Jan here is the Wedding of Andrea & Paul, Rodney and I were really excited to finally cover this awesome wedding that was held at Palm Valley Gardens in Ponte Vedra Beach, ceremony held at the old church of St. Joe’s. Despite the rain, cold, and missing flowers (Yikes!) Rodney and I were able to get some fantastic shots of these two. I knew were were gonna have fun the second we walked into the reception area and Frank Sinatra was playing ….I should also prob mention that Andrea and Paul had 22 total in their wedding party which made for an exciting evening! Take a peak at a few of our favorites and be sure to visit Palm Vally Gardens if you haven’t, its an awesome venue to have your reception at

Until Next Time…Brian

Hey guys…Rodney and I have another fun photo session to share with all of you. Meet Holly, Holly has been a wonderful “Behind the Scenes” contributor to S&R for a little over a year now. We first met Holly last year when we covered the Fashion Cure, which some of you may remember (link here). Holly works for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and any chance she gets, she lets us know when and where an event is taking place….

Well this time Rodney and I got to use Holly as our model, without her clipboard and signature “Holly hip” We were very excited when Holly called us up and told us she was expecting, our immediate thoughts were “We gotta shoot a progression series”. So here are a few sneak peaks at the very beginning of what is sure to be an amazing documentation of Holly’s journey to motherhood. ** Please contact S&R directly for any wagers of boy vs. girl…. **

Until next Time…

Brian

Hey everyone we have got a very cool story for you

The e-mail showed up Thursday evening with the contents simply asking for some wedding details, after Rodney sent the 1st reply with the information requested, we got a reply asking if we were available for Friday night, not even 24 hours away ! Of course Rodney and I checked over our schedules and got back to our soon to be client right away. We knew from the details that followed that this would def be a night to remember

Here’s the set-up…Photographers – Check, Private dinner with Chef – Check, Custom menu – Check,  Amelia Island romantic weekend – Check, Elaborate proposal plan – Check, Getting the girl to say Yes – ….see for your self

Its a YES ! Congratulations to Juan and Kristen ! Juan may just get the award for most romantic guy around but Rodney and I plan on leaving some of the details out when we tell our wives (Don’t want to look bad ). The proposal dinner was at the very cool Salt restaurant inside the Ritz Carlton in Amelia Island. A big thank you goes out to Anastasia for all of her prep work behind the scenes to get Rodney and I up to speed on Juan’s elaborate plan and for showing us the cool inner working of the Ritz! We also want to thank Juan for asking S&R to be apart of this very special moment as well as Kristen for going along with the intrusion of the photographers taking pictures of the food prep for the hotel…never did Rodney and I imagine we would be taking pictures of snap peas !… but as we always say…whatever it takes to get the shot

Until next time…Brian

Hey everyone…We have some cool and fun photos for you guys ! Last weekend Rodney and I met up with Kerry & Jeremy. We first meet the two of them back in mid 2009 and have eagerly been awaiting their engagement session and upcoming wedding. Kerry & Jeremy live in the very scenic area of Downtown Jacksonville and as such we all felt that a fun evening out and about the town would be perfect for our session.

We first started off at Friendship fountain on the riverfront and found some new areas that turned out to be excellent spots for our couple.

After we had some fun at the fountain we decided to head over into the heart of downtown…and of course Rodney and I could not turn down the opportunity to play Frogger, as you will see from the shots below we were all in the middle of the road…but hey as any photog would say…What ever it takes to get the shot

As the night progressed we had a great time and as a result we got some great images ! Enjoy a few more of our favs from Kerry & Jeremy’s engagement session and be sure to come back and check out their upcoming wedding where we will really showcase Jacksonville’s night time skyline !

Until next time…Brian

Hey there everyone…Wow what a month is has been at S&R Photography ! 2010 is only 22 days new and we have been shooting what seems like around the clock!

This past weekend was no exception, Rodney and I had the awesome pleasure of shooting Andrea & Paul’s Engagement session in the always beautiful city of St. Augustine, Fl. Andrea and Paul’s wedding is only a month away so we wanted to go ahead and get their engagement captured. We are really looking forward to their wedding as it will be held in a very beautiful venue here is Jacksonville (Nope..I’m not telling…you’ll have to visit back often to see where:). Enjoy some of our fav’s from Andrea & Paul’s engagement session, they are a fun couple  and were completely relaxed in front of the lens (Even with Rodney making inappropriate jokes…or was that me ?)

Until next Time…Brian 

“It’ll be here before you know it.”

No joke.  At our first consultation with Kim back in August 09, their wedding was barely a blip on our iPhones.  Don’t get me wrong, it was a very important wedding for us (myself especially), but S&R was so busy during those 5 months that we barely saw more than 2 weeks ahead.

Well I did have a baby in November.  So perhaps that’s partly responsible. :-\

Why was the wedding so important?  Well I’ve known Kim since the 2nd grade, and lived down the street (literally) from her for over half my life.  I knew pretty much all of her side of the guest list, not to mention my very own parents were in attendance as well.  3 of my own groomsmen were there (one of which is her brother).  Even my wedding photographer was there.  Oh, and my sister did her makeup.

Crazy, huh?

So yeah, this was important. Kim has been, and will forever be, like my 2nd sister.  And I treated this wedding as such.

This was our first of many 2010 S&R weddings at the beautiful St. Joseph’s Catholic Church.  But hopefully, our last with record low temps.  We did try to get some pics of the guys out front in the cold, but that didn’t last very long.  Did manage some keepers.  Note to self:  buy gloves.

After the ceremony, we successfully beat the limo to the reception at the Renaissance Resort at the World Golf Village in St. Augustine (http://www.worldgolfrenaissance.com/).  A tremendous venue, all of which was decorated to perfection by frequent S&R collaborator Unforgettable Events (http://www.theunforgettableevent.com/).  I got a nice pano shot of the reception hall; too large to post here, though.

But before the bridal party made it’s way inside, Brian and I again tried to get some shots outside.  Seriously: BUY GLOVES.

The temps continued to drop through the night, but we were able to pull Kim and Ben alone outside for some more shots.  Alcohol must have like some kind of miracle warming agent.

A great ceremony; a fantastic reception……and Kim deserved every second of it.  Ben is a lucky man.

Congrats, Mrs. Claus.  Much love

–Rodney

Hey there everyone, we hope you had a wonderful holiday season and a fun farewell to 2009 !

Just prior to the end of 09 Rodney and I got to do one last photo shoot and it was actually cold ?!?! (yes Florida was cold). Meet the Rogan family, no matter how far apart this family is from each other(Fl & Penn), they all came together over the holiday to spend time with one another and squeeze in fun filled family photo session with us crazy guys

We decided to shoot this session in what we feel compliments family photos best, urban, raw, and laid back. It offers up a way to showcase how the Rogan’s are and how much fun they have with one another and as you can tell from the images there are nothing but smiles and laughing during the entire session.

We at S&R also want to thank the Rogan family for teaching us photographers that saying “cheese” is old school and saying “Pickles” is the new school

Until next time…

Hey there everyone..well in keeping up with the Holidays we wanted to post this recent shoot we did with the Woods family (And no there are no golf clubs or crashed SUV’s involved in this story )

Meet Matt, Justina, Rayana, and Elizabeth. I have been friends with this gang for close to ten years now so it was a real pleasure to take theses pictures. Matt and I go way back (remember that time we chased that car…oops wrong spot for this story…) and thru the years I have been there to see him get married to Justina, become a wonderful stepfather, and expand the family by one more. While I was taking these pictures it dawned on me that I have been able to see how much fun and love this family has. We had a ton of laughs and non of which were Justina making fun of me, especially involving the time with the bike and the carpet

Kidding aside, Matt and Justina have two wonderful girls and it was an extreame honor to capture some fun times for them just before the holidays. Here are a few favs from the day..stay tuned because in the next few weeks we will add a part 2 of the Woods family…trust me you wont want to miss it

Until next Time…Brian

Hey there everyone, well as you can see we are adding another awesome blog post, and adding yet another notch in our belt here at S&R. This recent photo shoot that Rodney and I did was a very special one to me because not only is it of my family but I, yes me the crazy awesome photographer was also to be the subject !!…this is uncharted territory…

My wife Casey and I managed to gather up all of our family and persuade (more like arm twisting) them to take part in a family photo session before the holidays. Once we decided to tackle such a monumental feat, I then had to ask Rodney to dig deep down in his heart and take on the most outrageous photo shoot of his career…..Shooting my family…together…in one spot…with no referees !! After a few eye rolls Rodney gladly gave in to my demands (It may have been the free dinner ?!?!) and then he presented me an issue…Who will be his second shooter if I was going to be in the shots??…That’s where you can never have too many Brian’s (or Bryan’s). Our buddy Bryan Follis, or Follis as he is know, is a very big fan of photography and has a really good eye for the like. Unlike Rodney, when I approached Bryan about the shoot he was more than willing (No mention of free dinner needed…). So we figured lets give the rookie a try and see if he can handle his call up to the majors (Go Yankees !)

So there I had it…photo session covered, date, time, and location all set. Now the only snag left….getting everyone to play nice with Rodney and Bryan!

 As you can see the family did very well posing all together but then we also decided to give everyone a little freedom to move around a bit….

All kidding aside I would like to thank both Rodney and Bryan on behalf of my entire Family, we had an amazing time shooting the family session, everyone is still talking about how much fun they had!! The images are absolutely amazing (too many to show here!) and show off what a fun and loving family we have with the Wooten’s and Smith’s (you guys would never know we have a mix of Yankees and Southerners..oh wait was I supposed to have a Y’all in there somewhere ?!?)

Until next time….(and back behind the camera)

Brian

Well we finally did it…..we convinced a bride to participate in the infamous Trash the Dress session!  Well, that’s not entirely true….Kim made it clear from our very first consultation that she wanted a TTD shoot.  So no “convincing” was ever necessary. =P

Now Kim did the smart thing (and Brian and I now suggest this to any TTD potential client), she purchased a dress from a consignment shop specifcally for this shoot.  You hear that, ladies?  This is NOT her actual wedding dress.  Cheating you say?  Bah! Far from it.  We believe the essence of the theme was still captured,  and the juxtaposition of the sub-dominant elements within the contruct of…. 

Who cares?!  The dress was gorgeous, Kim looked great….what more do you need?   And you probably wouldn’t even have noticed if I hadn’t said anything.  So you’re welcome.

Oh, and you gotta give it to her fiancé Ben.  The shoot took nearly the whole day, and he was right there the whole time.  No complaining, no score updates, no “Dude this is weak, I’m leaving..”  Nothing.  Just a great guy with tons of patience.  It may seem like a small thing, but it made our jobs MUCH easier.

Enjoy!

–Rodney