Posted by: ROB View More: TRAVEL PHOTOS San Francisco has always been a place we have wanted to go. It has always been an intriguing city to me from the hippie vibe it has to the history behind Alcatraz, to the Golden Gate Bridge and of course (and maybe most importantly) the food. This city has certainly lived up to the hype. The architecture was incredible, the food (oh the food) was unbelievable, and the energy of this city definitely makes us want to go back many more times. We really enjoyed exploring the sights, driving on the crazy hills and letting ourselves get immersed in the culture and energy. Here are just some of our many many photos from San Francisco and Half Moon Bay.

We LOVED the fog over the Golden Gate Bridge early in the morning, it made for such a moody feel.

Ok so let me explain. We really enjoy watching the show "No Reservations" with Anthony Bourdain on the Travel Channel. He seems so down-to-earth and we really like the way that he goes to places off the tourist path. We watched the San Francisco episode right before we left and thought it would be fun to hit up some of the places that Anthony Bourdain went. The first place was a coffee house / radio station. Their specialty is a Maple Bacon Latte, yes you heard right, BACON latte. He talked about it on the show so of course I had to order one.

Here it is in all of its glory, bacon fat and bits all mixed into a incredibly strong cup of coffee and the craziest thing was that it was surprisingly good.

Kathleen waiting for me to finish my bacon coffee. :)

We really loved all of the artful graffiti through the city. It gives the city a very fun feel.

Of course we had to hit up some of the touristy areas...

From the top of Lombard street, there were really great views of the Bay Bridge and the city.

I have to say, I was obsessed with all of the hills of this city, more to come later on in this post.

We headed down by the water...

...and although did not make it out to the island, had pretty cool views of Alcatraz.

We headed over to Haight Street where our friends Vicki & Erik suggested we go for some really delicious Thai food. The neighborhood was a lot of fun and to be honest we could have stayed there all day just photographing the area.

Doesn't this bring back memories of Full House... HA!

We headed over to a very random area to get this shot of the bridge. We had to climb to get it and Im not sure if we were supposed to be there but hey, all for the photo!

Double Double Animal Style anyone? :)

China Town in San Francisco was SO much fun to photograph... especially with the D3s! :)

We went over the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito, this is San Francisco from across the water.

When we got back into San Francisco, we we up to the hills so I could photograph the how steep and crazy they actually are. These roads were really something to drive on, both up an down.

How much fun is this one! :)

After leaving San Francisco we spent a couple nights in the town of Half Moon Bay. On our way we found this beach surrounded by cliffs off of the PCH. It was about 150 steps down but totally worth it.

We saw this sign on the way back up. Look past the graffati and stickers and take a close look at the picture telling you what to do... seriously where are you going to go in a place where you are surrounded by mountains and not much else.

The view from our hotel.

Sunset over the water our last night in Half Moon Bay.

Posted by: ROB View More: FEATURES & PRESS Today we are very excited to share that our work from Candice and Michael's Wedding last August was just featured in the most recent edition of Brides Connecticut Magazine. They put together a beautiful two-page spread showing off some of Candice and Michael's details and moments from their really incredible wedding day. Brides Connecticut Magazine is now on stands, if you are planning for your wedding we definitely suggest picking up a copy! We are also very excited to share that Kathleen and I were featured on a huge two-page ad in Professional Photographer Magazine (by Professional Photographers of America) for our insanely awesome event hosing and printing company; Collages.net. Our good friends Vicki & Erik took the photo of us that Collages.net used for their ad which has become one of our absolute favorite images that we have been in. We have been partners with Collages.net since 2006 and love their extremely high level of service and personal attention. We truly feel honored to be working with them. Ok enough of me talking, you can check out our features below. We hope that you are having a wonderful week. Remember to check back often as we have plenty of great things coming up to share with you all!! :)

Posted by: ROB View More: TRAVEL PHOTOS Every couple of weeks we have lunch with a few photographer friends of ours including Robert Norman, Vicki & Erik Souza and Robin Dini. We always look forward to these afternoons where we can step away from the computer and enjoy a little time with the people that have become our community. We talk about everything from what we are all doing in all of our businesses and what is new in our lives in general. We encourage each other, support each other and push each other to take the next step, try harder or whatever the case may be. At our last lunch just a week ago Robin brought up how much she loves our travel photos and that we should not only post more on our blog but also sell framed prints or canvases of them so that they can be enjoyed. Robin is an incredibly positive person and so encouraging and we were so incredibly touched by her truly kind words. We are very lucky to have her as a friend. So... first and foremost we put together a small post of photos from Florence which was the next stop of our Italy trip in April of this year. In addition if you haven't seen the photos we posted from Venice (also from this year) please click HERE. Venice is seriously an amazing city filled with so many textures, details and visual interest. Don't forget you can also click the view more TRAVEL PHOTOS link above and see photos from all of our travels including Paris, California, a ghost town in Nevada and of course Italy. Be on the lookout for our shots from Rome as well coming up soon! If you are interested in prints or canvases of any of our travel photos just let us know by sending us an e-mail at info@robertandkathleen.com. We will do all the work including the framing so all you need to do is have a hammer, nail and wall to put it on! :) We are considering putting up a space on the web where you can all view and get prints of anything you would like. In the meantime we really hope you enjoy these shots from Florence. We were only their for a short period of time but were able to really get a great feel for what this city has to offer.

Posted by: ROB View More: FILM People often ask us about our workflow, about how we technically do things and often tell us to share more of those types of things on our blog. I thought that it would be really fun to do just that. Today I will be talking about the film workflow process and what it takes to get to a high quality image from film. We of course will probably be doing many posts like this about all kinds of topics so if you want to hear about something specific, let us know so we can write about it! Today we had lunch at our place with our good friends Vicki & Erik Souza and Robin Dini. Robin has one of the cutest little baby boys and of course he also joined us all for the afternoon. His name is Harrison and he just turned 27 weeks. I told Robin that I wanted to take some film portraits of him just for fun (I am always itching to photograph something or someone with film). I took out a roll of medium format film and loaded it up into the Hasselblad and started shooting. After I quickly made my way through a roll of film (which is only 12 exposures) I thought that it would be interesting to share not only the images of Harrison that I captured but also the process (from start to finish) that goes into getting to a complete image when shooting with film. So here it goes! You can read step-by-step under each image below. And when you get to the bottom you will get to see some of the incredibly cute images of Harrison that I captured today. Hope you enjoy!!

I absolutely love the look and feel of film but even more so I love the thought process that goes into shooting with film. You can't simply shoot and hope for a good photo because there is no immediate feedback, there is no screen on the back of the camera. It really slows you down, forces you to think about the composition, about the subject and truly makes you to think about what settings to choose to shoot with. One camera that is truly a favorite to shoot with (for me) is the Hasselblad 500C/M. It is a completely manual camera, you set everything right on the lens. There is no auto-focus either. This camera certainly makes you work for your photo but the outcome is something really beautiful.

My lens of choice while using this camera is the 80mm f/2.8. It is a great portrait lens and produces really sharp images and beautiful bokeh (the blur in the background). Notice all of the manual settings on the lens. There is no electronics at all.

Our personal favorite film is by far Fuji Color Pro 400H film. It produces incredibly gorgeous skin tones and colors and has a subtle contrast which suits our style very well. We also use Kodak and Ilford black & white films. If you are interested in shooting film, these and many other types of films are all available at B&H Photo.

Once we shoot a roll of film we have it developed at a local camera store. Although I used to develop film during my darkroom days in college, it is definetely a tedious process that is quite time consuming. Plus the developing chemicals leave you with quite a headache. Most color films (even pro films) can be developed in about an hour at most professional photo stores. At our store we simply have them develop it, we do not have them make prints or scan them. In addition we tell them not to cut the negatives and to leave them in the original strip. This way we can have complete control over image quality in order to produce the highest quality photo.

So what exactly is medium format film? Well, very simply stated the actual film is much larger than 35mm film which most of us are used to. In addition the image you get when you shoot with medium format is square as opposed to either horizontal or vertical. The square image (in my opinion is really great. It actually makes the shooting process nice in the sense that you don't have to think about what type of photo you want (horizontal or vertical). The benefit of having larger film is the ability to produce much larger enlargements compared to 35mm film. Medium format film and now medium format digital is used heavily in commercial and portrait work such as what you may see on the pages of high fashion magazines. This is not to say the 35 mm format isn't also used in those areas as well.

Once we get the developed film back from our photo processor, I cut the negatives into sets of 4 images each. Medium format film comes in either 120 which is 12 exposures (photos) per roll or 220 with is 24 exposures per roll. Cutting them down to sets of 4 just makes it easier to handle and easier to store. This is truly based on personal preference.

Once the negatives are all cut, it is time for the scanning process to begin. This is truly a tedious process but I like the feeling of putting work into something. It makes you appreciate the finished product that much more. We use a good (but not very expensive) flatbed scanner that has inserts which allow the scanning of 35mm and medium format negatives as well as good old fashion slides. There are certainly much more expensive scanners on the market that go much faster and can scan many more images at a time but for now we are happy with this one. It does a great job and capturing accurate colors from the negative and removing any dust spots that may have appeared on the image. For those of you who are interested the scanner model that we have, it is the Epson V500.

I scan each image from the negative at 300DPI (or pixels per inch) which produces (as you see) a very large file size. It also allows us to make large enlargements if we so choose. Of course we can always scan the negative at much higher DPI if we so choose.

Once the photo is scanned we bring into Photoshop. I usually scan a little outside the image showing the black from the negative. Once in Photoshop I crop the black out of the image and of course remove any spots or blemishes that may be on the image. I don't do many (if any) adjustments to the image as I want to retain the look and feel of the film that I chose to use.

The final and complete image!! This was Harrison just today. He is such a fun baby to photograph and I love how the window light really brought out his eyes. I hope you enjoyed learning a little about the background work that goes into creating a film based image. Please e-mail or leave a comment with any questions you may have I would love to answer them. In the meantime here are a couple more images of Harrison from this afternoon. Enjoy!

Posted by: ROB & KATHLEEN View More: ANNIVERSARY SESSIONS Note: Kathleen (as always) write the stories (top) and Rob does the narrating under each photograph. Since we photograph all of our weddings and sessions together we find that it is very important to also blog together. It is especially important for us to point this out for this particular blog post. So without further ado, we hope you enjoy Amy & Tom's Anniversary Session Photos! As a kid, he loved putting on shows. He would write a play, cast it with his younger brother and sister, enlist his older brother to help with the backstage dealings and then direct and act in it himself. He would invite all of their parent's guests to come and watch the show, conveniently staged in the garage. When the performance was over, there was nothing but big smiles and loud cheering filling the room. And there he was beaming in the center of it all - he had found what he was meant to do. So it was no surprise to any of us when he went to college and spent more time in the theater than anywhere else, building and designing theater sets. It was there he met the woman that would become his wife. They were both part of a comedy improv group and if I had my guess, one of the first things that drew him to her (besides being gorgeous) was her sense of humor. She has a dry wit - when she comes out with something funny it catches you completely off guard and cracks you up. I would guess it was probably much the same for her, his sense of humor must have drew her in. He has a bit more of slap-stick physical humor, causing more than his fair share of spit takes. Together, they make the perfect team. My parents have this saying that when you meet the person that you want to spend your life with you start to act like you did when you were the happiest as a child. So when it came time to propose, no one was surprised that he decided to put on a bit of a show. He had found the love of his life, he wanted to shout it from the rooftops and if that wouldn't be possible - the middle of NYC would have to do. He planned it all out - he would invite family and friends, travel into the city, row a boat out into the middle of Central Park and then ask her to marry him. In an ever romantic gesture, he rowed the boat right under the prettiest tree her could find, took out the ring and popped the question. Of course she said yes. When the proposal was over, there were nothing but big smiles and loud cheering coming from the nearby boats. And there he was beaming - he had found who he was meant to love. AMY & TOM I must say that I do happen to know a bit more about this couple since Tom happens to be my brother. [To clarify, I have three brothers - Bill, Tom, and Michael (who actually just got married this past weekend, stay tuned for that blog post soon).] Tom married Amy seven years ago, in a wedding ceremony totally fitting of the two of them. It took place in the very same black box theater where they met. Tom designed and built the theater set, they wrote the ceremony together. At the end of it all, they surprised us all when ribbons dropped down from the ceiling as they shared the first kiss as husband and wife. Hard to believe that was over seven years ago. Since that day they have built an amazing life together and had the most adorable little girl, who just happened to have inherited a perfect blend of both of their sense of humor. How someone can have a bit of dry wit and a clear understanding of slap-stick humor at age two I couldn't tell you, but she quite definitely does. Her parents have taught her well. She will no doubt be putting on shows of her own someday soon. Last week Tom and Amy dropped that adorable little girl with my parents for the day so they could sneak off to the city once again. This time Rob and I were there to capture it all - their anniversary session. We had a fantastic time with them both - we always love spending time with them and getting to combine that with photography was even better. When the session was over there was only one way to wrap up the day - with a Broadway show.

We started with Amy & Tom's session by strolling through one of our favorite parts of Central Park... The Mall. It is a beautiful, tree-lined walkway and has such a nice feel. This is my shot...

...and this is Kathleen's view a moment later. I really love how the trees look in black and white.

This part of the park has so many benches and places to go. We really love the emotion between Amy & Tom is this one.

There is often a saxophone player or some musician in The Mall area and that was true the day we were there as well. There is nothing like a little music in the park. Vicki, we posted this one just for you!! :)

The way that Amy & Tom smile when they look at each other is really wonderful.

The textures around the park are so awesome. This one is my view...

...and this is Kathleen's of the same moment.

I went to the top of the bridge so I could get some shots looking down at the stairs. Here is a nice wide view...

...and then one a little closer.

I shot through some of the architecture of the bridge. You can only imagine the weird looks I was getting from people passing by, they must have thought I was crazy.

Kathleen capture this photo from below while I was still up on the bridge. I love how the stairs look as they lead up to Tom & Amy.

Every time that Kathleen and I have ever tried to photograph underneath this bridge in this part of the park it has been under some kind of construction. We were overjoyed to find out that there was no construction that day. We spent a lot of time under there and probably could have spent even longer. The lighting, the architectural detail and of course Amy & Tom all made for some really wonderful photos.

We absolutely LOVE how Amy looks in this photo and how Tom is blurred out in the foreground.

Kathleen captured the one on the left and I captured the one on the right. Their smiles made us so happy.

We had them take a seat for a couple minutes so we could take in all of the surroundings.

Amy & Tom jumped up for a quick kiss.

The rows or arches and lighting under here makes this part of the park really one of our absolute favorite places to photograph.

Of course we had to take the opportunity to create a silhouette.

How perfect is this?! While we were in the middle of photographing Tom & Amy, a man with a cello setup and played some really wonderful music. The acoustics there were incredible.

I love love LOVE the emotion in this photo. This is my view...

...and this is Kathleen's view at the same moment.

Kathleen also captured this one.

Before heading out to the row boats I captured a quick and relaxed portrait of Amy & Tom.

The row boats were definitely an experience but totally worth it. Kathleen rowed the boat (how awesome is she!!) while I got some fun ones of Tom & Amy in front of us.

Tom lead us over to the exact spot that he proposed to Amy 9 years ago. While on our way we stopped to take a break and enjoy the beautiful surroundings.

We did make it to the spot where they got engaged. It was really special to be there and we let Tom & Amy have a moment while we photographed them from a distance.

On our way back to the boathouse, Amy & Tom stopped for a kiss. We love all the buildings behind them. Amy & Tom, we seriously had an incredible day with you two. It is always fun to photograph people as in love as the two of you but even more special to us that you are family. Thank you for bringing us to your engagement spot and of course for such an awesome day. We love you guys!! ~Rob & Kathleen~