It’s already been a month since this awesome couple was married in beautiful Las Vegas. How time flies!

Like I mentioned before, this wedding was so amazing it made it my first ever truly positive trip to Vegas. And what made it so? Essentially, this awesome couple, that’s what.

The New York New York hotel (I was right next to the roller coaster listening to people scream! hahaha!), the Loews hotel with crickets chirping at night as I overlooked Lake Las Vegas, the awesome guests, the touching ceremony, all the fun everyone had, the partying; everything stemmed from just these two.

John, Amy, if you guys are reading this, I can’t thank you enough for taking such great care of me during my stay, and more than anything, for allowing me to be part of the truly beautiful celebration of your union.

Meichelle is an awesome model. Her online portfolio shows a variety of work, the majority of which leans towards really high-fashion stuff. She does have the figure and a fantastic look to do just that, but I felt that she had a really great “girl-nextdoor” look too, so I went with a more casual approach.

So we went to a little park close to my house. Nothing fancy, but I’d never shot a model there with snow on the ground, and I figured her blue eyes would really pop there.

This is exactly the shot I was after:

Then she put some glasses on. I’ve never done this with glasses before, but I figured “Hey, why not include myself in this shot?”

And then… we decided to do something stupid.

There was a relatively large basin-like area next to where we’d been shooting, normally just a giant patch of grass, but at that particular time of the year, it was half-covered in snow.

And that’s an important distinction; half-covered. Because the part that wasn’t covered in snow was covered in knee-deep water.

That’s where we wanted to go.

What?! It looked cool!!

So we started heading down. Not thinking much about how we’d get there, we went through the grassy area to get to the mini-lake. It looked dry enough when we started down that path, but before we knew it, we were navigating through ankle-deep water, little streams of water running through here and there, trying to step on the tiny little patches of grass that were poking out of the water. It wasn’t any use, our feet were soaked. And the cold… Oh man, it was cold.

And the whole time, I’m thinking “Is this really going to be worth it?” Because honestly, I wasn’t even sure when we first looked out to the water. I mean the water looked cool, but would it work with a model in it? Not to mention that since we came so unprepared, I wasn’t expecting to have much time to find my groove and get what I wanted before we both froze to death. Meichelle especially.

We stopped in a little patch of snow just off the side of the mini-lake, I made sure I was fully ready to shoot as soon as she was out in the water, and off she went. She didn’t go too far, but who could blame her?

This isn’t a particularly strong picture, but I just had to show the bravery.

And this is my favorite of the ones we shot. I’m still not sure that it was worth it to be honest. It sure was fun, but I’m not too crazy about the shot itself.

And then we went back to finish the shoot:

Day 72/365

My son doesn’t clean up his Lego blocks too well…

Day 73/365

The stack of padded enveloppes that are ready to go out to my models:

And here’s one I shot on New Year’s Eve. This was shot at a great lookout point in Salt Lake called Ensign Peak. Little piece of advice though, if you ever plan on going up there… You won’t see much of any fireworks and you’ll get a parking fine between the hours of 10pm and 6am. Happy New Year!

And here’s a few I took after purposefully walking outside in a snow storm. I believe the word you’re looking for is “insane”. The first couple of shots have a painterly feel to them for me. The way the snow blurs.

This is the closest shot I have to showing you just how hard that snow was blowing. I couldn’t see a thing.