Summer - Wedding Season

With Summer being a rather beautiful time of year, it seems only natural that people decide to get married during the Summer months. Two weeks ago, I spent a Friday afternoon and evening helping Blake Dieringer shoot a wedding of a friend from high school. It was a lot of fun seeing old friends, some of whom I have not seen since high school. It was wild!

The ceremony and reception were both held at Valle Vista Country Club in Greenwood, IN. I have been to Valle Vista several times for banquets and receptions, but I have never be apart of a wedding on site. It can be a rather stressful experience for those involved. For the guests, I am sure that it seems like everything is running seamlessly, but that is not exactly the case. Blake and I rarely knew what was going on more than a few steps up the road. To make things even more enjoyable, we had a wedding planner who could be a little mean keeping everyone on the same page. I was just glad that I was able to keep a fairly cool head and take some lovely photos. I am sharing a few here. Check out the proofs page for more!

Well, back to laundry and organizing things, so I can race off to Indiana tomorrow and help Blake with another wedding!

Southeastway Park Crit and Fountain Square

This past weekend, Kari and I spent part of our time at a cycling race for me and some nice couple time walking around Fountain Square. I also spent some time shooting at a wedding with Blake Dieringer, but that post will come later.

Back to our story, Kari and I jumped in the car Saturday morning to head back up to Indy to return my rental equipment and spend some time together before we had to go babysitting. Following a leisurely warm-up ride, Kari and I cleaned up and headed down to Fountain Square to walk around and take photos. Blake mentioned that there was a really cool location that we should check out, so that was our goal. I believe that we found it. It is a nice little community nestled close to downtown.



After spending a night babysitting her younger siblings, Kari and I woke up early to head out to the race. While I was getting prepared and racing, Kari was completely responsible for any of the photos taken. I believe she did a great job!

Update

First off, it has been a long time since I last posted some photos to this blog. I got a little behind with graduate school and all of the events that I've been fortunate enough to participate in. In the last few months, Kari and I went to the Indianapolis Zoo, walked around Downtown Indy, went to the Milwaukee Air Show among other things to take pictures of. On top of that, I have been helping a couple friends shoot some weddings. This update will have a couple pictures from the weddings as well as the random adventures that Kari and I have gone on.


Blake has been kind enough to continue to let me help him shoot weddings with him. We shot one in February and July and have two more coming up this month. I have definitely learned a lot from each experience and continue to see my craft growing. It is rather exciting and I find myself becoming more addicted to helping it grow!


In the interim, Kari and I went to the Indianapolis Zoo. It was an absolutely gorgeous day, albeit a little on the warm side. We enjoyed walking casually around for a few hours and taking tons of photos of the animals.

The goal for the day was to catch the Indy 500 parade, but we got to town a little late. Following our excursion around the Zoo, Kari and I set off for the Canal and walked around Downtown on our way to find some dinner. The evening was capped off by enjoying some time with friends at Scotty's before heading back to our car and then back down to Bloomington.


During one of Kari's visits to Milwaukee, the Milwaukee Air Show was occurring. We went down Lake Michigan and found a great spot on a pier for viewing the spectacle. Some friends joined us for a fun day in the sun watching the action in the skies.


Finally, I helped another friend, Rasheed, shoot a wedding for some mutual friends in the Chicagoland area. It was a blast and yet another great experience. I can feel that all of the experience helping others shoot a wedding is preparing me well for my first. I am feeling more confident that I am getting the shots and capturing the moments of the couple's special day.


I am sure there are adventures that I am missing and that I did not fully give the detail that each of these events deserve. I will try harder to reduce the time between posts to be able to do justice to how cool our adventures are.

Practice with Kari

Kari asked me a while ago if she could learn how to use my camera, so I have slowly been showing her how to shoot with my camera in manual. While I am by no means an expert and have a lot to learn myself, I have a basic understanding of how to take a decent picture. With the start of my company, I have a goal of using her as my second shooter, so I do not have to hire someone outside of the family. I know you're next question. Are you engaged yet? That seems to be a fairly frequent question of late. The answer is no. We are not engaged yet, and I do not plan on asking her for a while.

Ok back to the story. Kari and I woke up feeling a little less than energetic, so we scrapped our plans of hitting the rock climbing gym in favor of driving around and exploring the Bloomington and surrounding areas taking pictures. It was an awesome day. Despite being a little gloomy out, we ended up with some really cool pictures. It was also a great bonding experience experimenting with my camera. I'll post a few of our pictures here with more in the Nature Portfolio on my site. I hope you like them.

X-it Youth

Leading into the the 50th Anniversary Celebration, I was asked to take some photos of the X-it Youth Group for use on their website. Since that time, I have been Photography Master has been added to my current duties with the you: security, usher getter, and media helper. I'm looking forward to it. It is a great chance to practice my craft and provide the youth an opportunity to grab some photos of themselves. Here are a few with more up on my site and Facebook.

Dunst 50th Wedding Anniversary

This past weekend I had the pleasure of not only meeting some of Kari's extended family but taking part in celebrating Kari's grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary. I had an absolute blast! I have only known of a few couples to make it 50 years of marriage, but I have never experienced the celebration with a couple reaching that milestone first hand. In a society where people marry and divorce out of convenience, it was inspiring and motivating to see a marriage prosper. I only hope and pray that I can be as good a husband as I watched Kari's grandfather be for his wife. As the photographer for the event, I was trying to capture as much of the festivities as possible. I am including a few of my favorites with more posted in my portfolio. Enjoy!

Time to Catch Up

It has been almost 2 months since my last post. Let me just say that a lot has happened the past couple months. First off, I started a photography company, Stengel Photography, LLC. I am still trying to find my niche, so I do not have a specialty and would be very interested in taking photos for your special occasion. I never realized how much paperwork and headache there could be in the process. Thanks to my accountant and people able to answer questions within each agency I had to deal with, it remained a fairly smooth process.

The first photo shoot I completed after turning professional was for Kari's family. We had a blast going to a local playground to take their family portraits. There are some really cute shots. Kids, while challenging, can be so much fun to work with. They definitely made my job of capturing natural and fun expressions easier.

I found myself in Atlanta for Thanksgiving visiting my sister and brother-in-law. We explored in a local nature preserve (more photos to come from that) and enjoyed an awesome dinner over at the Nacke's on Thanksgiving day. I was only planning on taking family portraits for my family; however, I ended up getting recruited taking the family photos for the rest of the families there as well. It was a blast and led to some great photos.

Following my return from Atlanta, my roommate, Matt, and I continued our sneaky ways to help him make the final preparations for his big day. On November 30th, he proposed to his now fiancee, Sarah. I was there to take photos to record the day for them. It was absolute privilege! I look forward to helping them take some more staged photos to add to their live action shots!

December led to another new experience for myself and my company. I assisted another great photographer, Blake Dieringer, with a wedding. I had never shot photos for a wedding before. Saying that I learned a lot would be an understatement. It was an awesome experience to take photos throughout the day. The shots look great too!

The last update I want to briefly touch upon is our most recent excursion down to check out the Cursed Pyramid Ruins. I know what you are thinking. What are the Cursed Pyramid Ruins? Or perhaps, why were you guys in Egypt? Great questions! The Cursed Pyramid Ruins are located halfway between Bloomington and Bedford in Indiana. Along the way, we found some great icicles hanging off of the rocks that I-37 cut through as it traverses south. They were absolutely massive! We had to stop and take a few pictures.

Needmore, IN, is a really small town with a single road leading off of I-37. We were fortunate that we did not zip right through the uncontrolled intersection. The road snaked through this small Indiana town until it reached a dead end at one of the largest limestone quarries I have ever seen. It was gigantic! With the Cursed Pyramid Ruins being an abandoned attraction, there is no address or landmark to go off of to find it. We wandered around the area for as long as we could handle the cold without finding the ruins. While we were bummed, our journey was not a complete loss. We found a really cool cemetery completely surrounded by the limestone quarry that provided some awesome photo opportunities. We also decided to come back on a warmer day and hike around more to find the ruins. We know they are out there somewhere!