Mahsa and Peyman: Married January 17th, 2021

Foreward

As I’ve mentioned in all of my posts lately, I am currently working my way though a backlog of photoshoots I have already completed and delivered, but have been behind in sharing my most recent work online.  Mahsa and Peyman’s Bridal Portrait Session is one such photoshoot; it was completed and delivered on time, this past Spring, but I was onto photographing and editing more photoshoots before getting the chance to share Mahsa and Peyman’s session.

Mahsa and Peyman: Married

Mahsa and Peyman, like so many of the couples I’ve met in the last year and a half, had their wedding plans shifted by COVID-19.  We first spoke in the Fall of 2020, with hopes of phogoraphing their engagement and later wedding, but the pandemic made having the wedding they wanted impossible, so rather than put love on hold, Mahsa and Peyman tied the knot on January 17th, 2021, with plans to hold celebrate their wedding in style with their family and loved ones at a later date once the pandemic has settled down.  Unfortunately their small ceremony didn’t allow a photographer to be present due to safety protocols, so in lieu of this, to celebrate their new marriage, we captured Bridal Portraits this Spring with Mahsa in her wedding gown and Peyman in his Tuxedo.

Mahsa’s bouquet and Peyman’s boutonnière matched the Spring colors of the botanical gardens’ cherry blossoms and lilac trees.  At an overlook in the garden, we made sure to capture their Kaleh Ghand, sugar cones rubbed together during the Sofreh Aghd to shower the newlyweds with sweetness, imparting blessings from one generation to the next.  Mahsa and Peyman were naturals in front of the camera; every moment you could see the love in their eyes as Mahsa’s playfulness and Peyman’s affectionate veneration perfectly matched and balanced one another.

Behind the Scenes

As a photographer, my goal is to do “anything to get the shot.” Oftentimes this means getting into the right spot for the moment, but sometimes that means getting into an awkward or difficult spot for a few moments. Today’s spot was down low, to include the beautiful Spring flowers in the foreground for a few portraits.

Katie's Cars and Coffee: April 28th, 2018

It's been almost two years since I visited Katie's (though I thought I went last Summer, however don't have any pictures from it).  It was nice to get out to a car show again; I went to the Ferrari Club of America Spring Thaw last week, but Katie's has offerings from every make, model, era, and style, so I find it more enjoyable.

A friend of mine is borrowing a tilt-shift lens for fun to learn how they work, so this time I brought along my under-loved TS-E 90mm f/2.8; Canon's first tilt-shift lens ever, first introduced in 1991, and the world's first telephoto length 35mm tilt-shift lens - at 90mm, this lens is designed for tabletop product photography, such as foods, but I've found use for it as a portrait lens, and in my wedding photography for capturing wedding rings.  As it turns out, the lens my friend was borrowing was Nikon's 28mm f/3.5 PC, which only features a shift adjustment; no tilt - the PC stands for Perspective Correction.  Perspective adjustments via shift are useful for architectural photography; any focus plane effects you see in the photos below are tilt only, as I don't have use for shift in these types of images, plus the effect of shift on this focal length has very few useful applications.

The RTR Mustang was a spot I almost missed.

The heavily modified 350Z got a lot of attention.  While it's not my taste, it was well built.  I gathered that this is an example build for a local performance garage (there was a matching Ford truck also at the show).

Algonkian Regional Park

After Katie's, we met up with Imran and decided to go to Algonkian Regional Park to at least enjoy some of the nice weather, and play with the 28mm f/3.5 PC (Great Falls was too packed).  I still have not been hiking since reconstructive knee surgery in October, and this was also a good warm-up / test, since Algonkian is just a simple dirt path.  There happened to be a 50 mile / 50K / 10K / 5K race sponsored by The North Face going on while we were there, and the thought of such a distance alone makes my knee ache.  I had pushed myself running a 5K the day before (my limit right now seems to be two 5Ks per week), so my knee was already hurting before we even got there.  Though for day-to-day I am 100%, athletically my knee is still recovering.

2018 Ferrari Club of America Spring Thaw

Spring has sprung (hopefully for good; no more freak April snow events please!) and that means cars and coffee events are about to pick up.  Kicking things off for the year is the Ferrari Club of America's Spring Thaw; a chance to get the cars hidden away in the garage over Winter out and stretch their legs some.

The Testarossa was one of the cars that got me into cars; as a child, I had a 1:18 size red Testarossa toy car - this is my earliest memory of a specific childhood toy.

The Ferrari Testarossa is one of the most iconic cars for both Italian sports cars and the 80s as a decade.  Although it wasn't the only Ferrari in the show, many people remember the Testarossa from Miami Vice (although I am slightly too young to fall into this demographic).

Like most cars, the Testarossa underwent updates every few years; these small incremental changes can drastically change the value and desirability of a given example.  The very first Testarossas only had one mirror (distinctively mounted on the driver's side roofline), but this changed to a standard two-mirror design a few years into production.

The 512TR was the first major update to the Testarossa, and is often the most sought after model of Testarossa due to the increased power output and usability upgrades, such as improved clutch and shifter engagements.  The 512TR can readily be identified by spotting the facelift front foglights, updated wheels design, and black engine cover / third brake light (US spec).  You can see some of these design differences between the standard Testarossa and the 512TR, including the changes to its flat-12 engine, with the two versions parked side-by-side below.

(I still have never seen an F512M (the Testarossa's final version) in person.)

I am by no means a die-hard Ferrari fan-boy, but the 599 with its flying buttresses has also always been a favorite; it's a direct successor to another favorite of mine, the 550 Maranello, and going back a few more generations, the Testarossa again (I like grand tourers, if you haven't figured this out yet).  Originally an aesthetic feature with the bonus of aerodynamics, the flying buttress introduced by the 599's design is now an element included in almost all modern supercars, such as the new Ford GT, BMW i8, and numerous McLarens, to name a few.

Of course the F40 is another icon of racing history; I arrived past the start time and missed a second F40 parked next to it.

Fun fact; even though there were almost 10,000 Testarossas produced and only 1,315 F40s, I have seen more F40s in my lifetime than Testarossas.

Like most kids, I had an F40 Hot Wheels as a kid.

Somehow a few other cars made it into the Ferrari show; a Maserati GranTurismo, a Porsche 911 GT2, a McLaren MP4-12C Spider, and a... Miata?

Proof nature says it's Spring:

Adrianna: GMU Class of 2017

It's right around the corner!  Adrianna, a dear friend, hiking buddy, and sushi aficionado, is graduating from George Mason University with a degree in Microbiology this May!  Here she is looking cute in this plaid wrap that makes me think of places closer to the West coast.  I'm proud of ya girl!

Sarah and Brigham: Married

Sarah and Brigham were married on a lovely May morning - this was the first Spring wedding I've ever shot at the Washington, DC LDS Temple, and I have to say that it was the most beautiful I have ever seen the Temple, between the bountiful tulips and the perfect gold morning light shining through the freshly blossoming trees.

Since there was plenty of time before their wedding, Sarah wanted to surprise Brigham in her dress, and capture his reaction to his first look at her.