I was just doing some late night editing when I happened upon this photo of a hawk that we took during an outdoor wedding this summer. I had to post it because I couldn’t stop looking at it.

I got to go shooting with my friend Jimmy a few weeks ago. Not click-click shooting… bang-bang shooting! I forgot what that felt like.. almost as good of a rush as skydiving and definitely at par with surfing. Here’s a few clicks:

I have this totes-awesome habit of taking a picture of my hand in order to check skin tone and exposure instead of looking at the light meter like a sane person. Haha… yeah, and so thought it might be fun to post a few…. These are just from the last 6 months. Enjoy.

Bored? No problem. We have the cure: Here are a few challenges for you:

1. Can you spot a shot from the Puerto Vallarta wedding we shot?
2. Come up with the best hand puns ever, and put it in the comments.
3. Two of these hands are not mine, but actually belong to a 2nd shooter who shares my habit (and therefore validates its use!). Which ones are not mine?

Winner of any of the above challenges get’s a high five from the left hand (pictured above).

Every year or so we redo our website or blog a few times – haha… Dara thinks I’m crazy, but I can’t help it. As an x-web designer, I admit that I’m never satisfied with any design or layout for longer than 6 months, and so this time I wanted to make sure that our site was built on a flexible CMS that we could make changes to a lot easier in the future.

Alan Dowling from Immersus Media did an amazing job fusing our website and blog together into exactly what we needed: a simple and functional site with just a few bells and whistles. We’re stoked, and I hope you guys like it too If you’re wondering about the bells and whistles, most of it is on our backend, but go play with the contact page for a sec – cool stuff!

If you need a website, you have got to hire this guy – seriously. Alan is one of those unique kind of web designers that can code and design AND answer your emails promptly AND do it all without making you defer your student loans.

My brother Garret is THE best film guy you’ve n/ever seen. When I watch his videos, I grip on to the closest thing to me and crush it in excitement. A couple weeks ago, Garret came up from LA to hang out a little bit.

We went on the walk that we always take, but brought Dara, Aliyah, Devan and of course our cameras.

We’re hoping that he works his magic sometime soon (AHEM!), so that we can have a new little video for you guys to go with the new website that we’re brewing up. Until then, this should show you how cool Garret is:

Garret = Best video/motion/editor/brother of all time

Garret = Only bearded man who can rock a pair of clear frame glasses.

Here is Aliyah and a spider that she found:

Here is a video Garret made last time we went on that same walk:

Photo Grapher. from After Black Hammer on Vimeo.

Wow… we have been shooting a lot lately – so much to post!

Before all of that though, check out this new song that I just heard by Andrew Peterson. This song totally just opened my eyes to Austin and I’s marriage and reawakened my heart:

… and as the blog title says, this would be AN AMAZING song for a first dance. Even better than that John Mayer one!

Love,
Dara

To all you friends and family out there, I’m sorry if you didn’t know this already!  We recently passed the “it’s safe to tell everyone” phase and so we’re telling you all now – We’re pregnant!

Man, only God could have timed it so perfect: We’re due right around Christmas – which coincidentally is the slowest time of year for us wedding photographers. Yeya! We can’t wait to be a family of four!

We won’t find out if the baby is a girl or boy for a few more weeks, but we’ll know soon enough!  Good stuff, eh?! This pic was taken when we were up in Canada a few months back.  Dara is actually pregnant in this picture, but we didn’t know yet Chee hee!

Love ya,

A&D

I (Austin) met up with about 5 other photographers out in the desert recently to shoot a music video for a rap that my friends Edmund and Geoff laid down called “Professionals.”  Haha – it was a blast!

Basically, we dressed up dooshy style, made fun of ourselves, and threw lyrics, cameras, and kicks around until the sun went down.

Check out a few behind-the-scene shots I took and stay tuned to see the video… which will most likely be an entertaining mix of awesomeness and embarrassment!  HAHAHAH!

Side note: every photo below links to the respective photographer’s website or blog.  Check them out and leave them some comment love!

Thanks Michael Gaddie for directing!

Okay, now back to some actual work

*** Update ***

A couple weeks ago, Austin mentioned making a rap video out in the desert with a bunch of other photographers – well, it’s finally done! Check it out

Nice work boys! This is hilarious… Did you see Austin in the background? That’s my man!

Video Credits:
Starring: Edmund Prieto, Geoff Duncan, Morgan Taylor, Danny Cruz, Austin Curtis, Miriam
Directed by: Michael Gaddie, Edmund Prieto
Filmed by: Michael Gaddie, Austin Curtis

xoxo,

Dara

We’ve photographed a lot of weddings, but we’ve never seen a ceremony like this before. If you want a wedding entrance like this, we need to meet up!

Thank you to Jill & Kevin Kheinz for putting this on youtube! Make sure you give them some comment love here. Oh – and thanks Kenny for the link!

I was just telling Dara that even though we’ve got SOOO many engagements and weddings to blog about (going back about 6 months), all I want to do is post the random photos we’ve been taking in between.  Yes, all those client photos are done – but narrowing them down for a blog entry is somehow such a mighty task!  We’ve got to start doing that while editing them…

So, in the spirit of posting whatever I feel like (haHA!), here are a few photos I took the other night of my homie Roy on the drums: