The CD release part was held at Brocach Irish Pub right on the Capitol Square in Madison.  It is one heck of an awesome place with great atmosphere and really fantastic corned beef.

The Disclosures entertained the crowd with by playing the entire CD start to finish.  They were introduced by Chris’ youngest daughter, who did a bang up job.  The duo then proceeded to tell the stories behind their songs and rock the crowd.  I’m a bit biased, but these guys are fantastic and are only going to get better!  Since the CD release party, the guys have received all sorts of industry and mainstream media coverage and are getting alot of traction.  Very exciting stuff!

Enough gushing…here are some photos from the evening!

Oh, and inside the Capitol was insane.  People had been camping in the Rotunda for days…and it smelled like it.

One of the highlights of my time there was getting onto the roof garden of my company’s building and creating a huge panoramic photo of the square.  I have turned this photograph into a fine art print that is absolutely beautiful at 16″ x 24″. 

Clicking on this image will take you to my website where you can order a copy!

Madison is awesome for so many reasons, not the least of which is there is always something interesting to see!

Fight the Power!

Jill and Chris Sneak Peek!
Jill and Chris are Engaged!

I finally finished editing photos from Jill and Chris’ wedding and it has been a joy.  The event was fantastic and I think the photos turned out really well.  Let’s start from the beginning…

Chris and Jill chose Cranky Al’s in Wauwatosa for their rehearsal dinner.  Cranky Al’s is an amazing little place.  In the morning it’s a bakery and coffee shop and in the evening it adds fantastic pizza to the menu.  Nothing like topping off a pizza dinner with and awesome donut or cupcake!  I can’t say enough about Cranky Al’s, although Al himself was in a pretty good mood that night.

The bulk of the wedding party stayed at the Intercontinental Hotel Milwaukee in downtown Milwaukee. It was an extremely nice hotel with some of the most interesting modern design and decoration I’ve seen. I did some scouting for locations for photos on Saturday morning and determined that I could shoot in that location for hours and not get bored. Unfortunately Saturday morning was pretty tight, but the family formal photos went off without a hitch and the couple had a lovely and quiet place to meet each other.

The wedding ceremony and reception was held at the Lake Park Bistro right on the shore of Lake Michigan. The Bistro is a wonderful little French restaurant with beautiful light fixtures, copper accents and a knockout dining room overlooking the lake.

The Ceremony was highlighted by a beautiful wedding party, a string trio that accompanied Jill’s niece in singing Ave Maria, some very funny and heart-felt vows and a unity candle that just wouldn’t cooperate.

The Lake Park Bistro really showed their stuff with the reception lunch.  Wild mushroom soup, coq au vin, beef tenderloin and pasta, followed by an apple tart…Sacrebleu!

Toward the end of the afternoon, I was able to steal Chris and Jill away and  I dragged them out into the 20 degree day for some portraits in the snow.  It was totally worth it!

Again, it was a fantastic event and I am so pleased that Jill and Chris chose me to document their day. Everything about it, from start to finish, showed their personalities and their lives together. The food was delicious, the settings were beautiful and people were delightful! Congratulations!

Rehearsal Dinner – Cranky Al’s Bakery Cafe and Pizza
Host Hotel – Intercontinental Milwaukee Hotel
Wedding Venue - Lake Park Bistro

This adapter gets the remote trigger out of the way and has a passthrough to allow use of a tripod or my usual Black Rapid strap.  Check it out!

Hope this helps!

There will be a much longer post discussing the entire event coming up soon, but I wanted to put a few sneak peeks up as soon as possible!  Like I said the wedding was beautiful and I’m going to have a very tough time narrowing down the images.  It’s a good problem to have, though!

Much more to come!

The only problem with their relationship is one of small mammals, mainly badgers and gophers.  You see, Chris is from Minnesota and is a Gopher, while Jill is a Badger from UW.  That may seem like the end of the relationship, but they make it work

For their engagement session a few months ago, which was really just an excuse to hang out with them and have dinner and some drinks, we went to where they met:  the Harley Davidson Museum in Milwaukee.  It’s a great place with grounds that are really beautiful, and we took full advantage of it.  We made a big circle of the place and took photos until it was too dark to see through the viewfinder!

Jill and Chris were very good sports about all of the situations and poses I put them in, and I think the photos turned out really well.  On to the pictures!

Even though the wedding is in Wisconsin in January, I am really looking forward to it!  It promises to be a really wonderful event with lots of really fun people.  More to come next week!

Tyler at 5 Days Old

Tyler at 1 year old!

Such a Cutie!

Tyler and his Siblings

UPDATE: I just got a christmas card from the family using these photos and it is absolutely fantastic. I really liked the photos before, but now I absolutely LOVE them. So Cool!

Jimmy is very involved in the arts at his high school (very much like I was).  He is in the band and the drama department and we got pretty good access to the school because of this.  It was really fun shooting in the theater, the band room and the halls.  Then we moved on to an area in downtown Liberal with a great alleyway (photographers are weird sometimes) and a fountain.

Jimmy has got alot of irons in the fire between all of his extra-curricular stuff and just finishing up school.  He’s got a ton of potential and I wish him the best!  Thanks to Jimmy and Kay for letting me document a small part of Jimmy’s life!  Now on to some pics!

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

As part of my base package for wedding coverage, I provide you with a ’slideshow DVD’. This DVD is formatted for a DVD player and contains all of the final retouched photos and video clips captured during the event edited together and set to music. This DVD is designed, very much like the album, to tell the story of your day and give you a feeling of what it was like to be there.

The DVD can range in running time depending on the length of the event and the number of photos that are chosen. The DVD is then custom labeled, printed and packaged in a keep-case.

Here are some images showing a previous wedding DVD. This wedding had an ‘old Hollywood’ theme. The event was even held in an old theatre so I tried to go all out with the DVD and case and make it look as much like a commercial release as possible.

Enjoy the photos and if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact me! 719-287-3469 or me@dustinstone.com.

We then headed over to the Printers Union Home, where we were asked to leave.  Who knew you needed permission when the sign out front says ‘Open to the Public’.  Oh well.  We moved over to the downtown area to the roof of a little used parking garage.

Here are a few of the photos from the shoot!

As part of the session, Julia ordered an album which is a fantastic way to have a copy of every photo in a format that you cherish for the rest of your life.  You may not be able to easily look at jpg files from a disk in 30 years, but the book will always be there.  Ok, end of rant! 

Here’s the book! Click on the image below to turn pages.

Thanks to Julia for hanging out with me. I had a great time!