The Hartsbrook School

Taping today at the Hartsbrook School in Hadley, MA. Got a little bit of wet-on-wet watercolor painting in the two kindergarten classrooms. So sweet! Also, some of the kindergarteners were hauling around big wooden boards and things to make slides and pirate ships in their classroom.

Then, off to the eighth grade for a physics class. Learning about water displacement, their challenge was to shape a 8-by-8 inch sheet of aluminum foil so that it could hold the maximum number of pennies while floating in water. Looked like a lot of fun. When I left, one group had reported floating 104 pennies in their boat. Try it at home!

Costofwedding.com

Have you seen this site? You can enter a zip code or city name from anywhere in the country and get a look at the average wedding cost for that area. Here are some I entered:
Hartford—$33,700
Norwalk, CT—$56,740
Boston—$40,900
Springfield, MA—$26,780
Providence—$27,940
Brattleboro—$24,480

Seven Hills Inn

Was at the Seven Hills Inn in Lenox, MA last weekend, a great place for a wedding. I love shooting in the Berkshires, especially as the leaves are changing color. It was a partying/dancing crowd, with some people never leaving the dance floor and many still going strong till the last dance. The Inn has many interesting rooms and a lovely terraced lawn. There are also wooded trails around the property which I didn't get a chance to explore.

The Meeting House

Spent Saturday in Tiverton, RI for Lizzi and Dean's wedding. Their ceremony and reception were at The Meeting House, a simple, farm-style building with a terrific lawn full of wonderful little nooks and some sculpture. It was a very relaxed ceremony, with the officiant in bare feet. Many guests were from the west coast, and there was definitely a California vibe going on. A great atmosphere!

Bridal Show

Sunday I'll be at the Day of Elegance Bridal show at the Garden House at Look Park, in Florence, MA. The show is run by CJC Events. I'm running a special offer during the show: anyone who books with me at the show will get a custom engraved iPod nano pre-loaded with their highlights!

I haven't done a bridal show in a couple of years, so we'll see how it goes.

International Wedding

I was in Connecticut last weekend to shoot an Australian-Canadian wedding. There were a lot of signs around explaining Aussie and Canadian slang, and a lot of national identity jokes, especially between Australians and New Zealanders (apparently they have a very intense rivalry). Well, the location was beautiful, and the activities and decor were masterfully orchestrated by Dixie Todd at Party Resources (in Kent, CT).

Seating cards uniquely displayed.

Ceremony by riverside.

Surprised by the flower girl!

Woo-hoo! New camera

Received our new Canon XH A1 this week, and put it right to work, shooting a video for the Hartsbrook School in Hadley, MA. The A1 is capable of shooting in high definition (HD), but for this project I am using it in standard widescreen mode. After some inital tweaking with the presets, I beginning to get the images close to what I want.

Here are a couple of screen shots from today:
The High School building, Piening Hall.

Two seventh grade boys doing perspective drawing in the shadow of the Mt. Holyoke range.