Fire!

I know I haven't been posting much the last few weeks and that is mainly because I've been incredibly preoccupied with this fire. A lot of you have probably heard by now, but if you hadn't, we had a little fire at Verité about two weeks ago. Everything and everybody is fine- it was super small- but even as small as it was, dealing with the aftermath has been such an ordeal.
It was an electrical fire in the back wall of our space, which is actually the wall that houses Dilek Sezen, who we sublet to. Basically we started smelling something funny one evening and after following our noses around for a while, we found the source. Luckily Tutt was there and knew what to do and what to look for, and when to say, "holy sh*t! Call 911". So 6 fire trucks, 20 firefighters, 2 hours, some sledgehammers, and a chainsaw later, we were left with a giant hole in our back wall, high blood pressure, and a very very grateful attitude.
Here is a little video that one of Dilek's friends took in the middle of the excitement:


So anyway, work was pretty counterproductive for a while since we had to take all our computers home and our studio smelled like a BBQ pit for the past two weeks. Apologies to everyone who is having to wait longer than expected for their pictures or orders- and thank you again for your patience!



This is the piece of plastic the worker put up to "keep the rats out". Ewwe. Pretty sure a rat could figure out to go through the part that wasn't covered all the way, but luckily we haven't seen any of these choice creatures wandering around our studio.




Things are finally on the up and up now, at least as far as our space is concerned. The wall has been patched up, we've employed about 15 air fresheners, and our studio is coming back together. Unfortunately, Dilek's space still needs some work, but hopefully she'll also be ready to reopen soon.

Alyson and Nick at The Palace hotel - part II {wedding photography}

And here's some shots from the second half of our day with Alyson and Nick. After leaving Nick's Crispy Tacos, we headed back to the Palace Hotel for their beautiful reception with lots of Greek Dancing and 80s Rockin'!

Alyson and Nick at the Greek Orthodox Church {wedding photography}

Alyson and Nick have a typical "boy meets girl in a NY Kinkos when girl-in-a-hurry asks perfect-stranger-of-a-boy to help her with the printer; boy takes mental note of girl's employer as he sees it on the resume he's helping her print; the next day he GUESSES her email based on the math of her name plus workplace, and asks her to dinner" story. It was quite a chance meeting, but clearly meant to be, as three years later here they are getting married in SF. And Maria and I were the lucky photogs.

























Based on their history, we had to do our photo shoot at no place other than Kinkos, of course!




And after that, we were going to head to the bridge for some shots, but the fog was coming in so thick, there would have been no bridge in the pictures. So we decided that the best alternative would obviously be . . . tacos. We went over to Nick's Crispy Tacos on Polk and Broadway, and what a better option that ended up to be! Aside from filling some very empty stomachs with tasty food, Maria and I were stoked when we walked in- the place is amazing, and so unexpected!! And for a couple whose story is anything but typical, this somewhat unconventional spot for wedding photos was perfect!




And there's so much more still to share- I'll post some of their beautiful reception at the Palace Hotel soon!

Golden Biscuit {dog photography}

This Hunk-O'-Hunk-O'-Burning-Love is Biscuit, and he really is just as lovable and snugglable as he looks. I was smitten from the moment Sandra brought him to our planning session.















Sandra and Gary live downtown by the ball park and that's where they take Biscuit for walks. It's quite appropriate really, as Biscuit is a very focused athlete- when it's game time, he NEVER takes his eye off the ball!

Finn on the way {maternity photography}

Back in September I asked Liz and Jeremy if I could do a maternity photo shoot of them, so here are some of my faves from what we did back when Liz was (I think) about 30 weeks. Finn was born 5 days ago on November 9th and there are no pictures of the real deal yet, but Shawn and I went to go meet him for the first time a few nights ago and I'm in love. He's a million times better on the outside :)

Ok, back to our shoot: Liz is a runner and she continued to run through her entire pregnancy (seriously, I think she all but ran to the hospital on Monday to deliver), so we thought it would be fun to get some shots of them running. This sight, Liz running with her 8-month prego belly, made so many passers-by offer up huge smiles! I would pass by Liz and Jeremy running sometimes and it was indeed quite an endearing image! (I tried to make that read as if you might think I was out running too, but yeah, in most of these sightings, I was in my car :)). So here they are, Runners McMillan, in the ever-so-beautiful Golden Gate Park.









So one of the big reasons I wanted to do this shoot was because Jeremy is a surfer and I just had this idea, although very vague, in my head of doing something that felt very warm and windy and sandy. Unfortunately, it didn't turn out exactly as I was hoping. I didn't mean I wanted it to actually be that windy and sandy, I just wanted it to feel that way. But the wind and sand showed up with force, and the warmth was nowhere to be found, so we cut the shoot pretty short as it was way way way too cold, even for an over-heated pregnant lady.



















Then we headed back to Liz and Jeremy's place and went up to their roof right after dusk to take a few more.





And since I'm here, I figure I'll add these ones of Liz's baby shower a few weeks later.









Becca had us do the baby food taste-testing game, and most people did like Courtney here, with a little dab of food that they barely touched to their tongue. It wasn't until I heard people laughing at me that I realized I was apparently the only one who used the opportunity to get in a late lunch. I guess I was dishing up my samples by pretty big spoonfuls, but whatever- I'm just saying- there's nothing that bad about pureed spinach and plums!


This was a pretty great moment. Emily and other fellow Impalas got Liz this running stroller, which is apparently like the Ferrari of strollers.


Heather made Finn this quilt done in all surf and beach patches- it was quite sweet.


And Betsy and Steve made Finn this onsie with the face of Mark Occhilupo on it.


The boys came later and you can see Jeremy was pretty happy about that.


Anyway, that's all of Liz's belly for a while, but I'm sure I'll have some great ones of Finn here soon.