Blog Masonry – Page 14 – Hazel Photo Weddings

Reconstructionist Jewish Wedding – Commander’s Mansion

Reconstructionist Jewish Wedding – Commander’s Mansion – Alex & Adam

Alex and Adam held their wedding on a pleasant cloudy June day at the Commander’s Mansion in Watertown, Massachusetts. The Commanders Mansion is a stately old building dating back to 1865. The history of the building is not without minor controversy, and is certainly worth a read. Take a look at that light filtering in through the old glass windows, that, my friend, is a photographer’s dream. The ketubah signing, in particular, shows off the charm of the building.

Rabbi Alex Weissman and Rabbi Adam Lavitt are both, well, rabbis, so, as you can imagine, the day’s ceremonial bits were very well orchestrated. This was to be expected, but still, the eloquent and heartfelt words of their friends and family during their tisches, and Rabbi Jacob Staub‘s words as he officiated under the chuppah, were overwhelmingly moving.

What I couldn’t have seen coming, was that Adam and Alex would be so delightfully, infectiously, playful. This made our portrait session a total pleasure. The duality of attending to the spiritual realm with intelligence and intention, while holding deep reserves of playfulness, was brought to light metaphorically in their dress. Both wore a harmonious and subtle blazer-shirt-tie-pocket square combo, that matched their boutonnières to a T, but down below, they wore silver and gold Chuck Taylors!

One of my favorite moments of the day happened during a toast Alex’s mother gave. She quoted at length from a beautiful poem, and not until she was through, did she reveal that she was quoting Rabbi Adam Lavitt, her new son in law. I leave you with the poem:

Ma’ariv

By Rabbi Adam Lavitt

This is balance:

The world is entirely consumed by darkness,

then brimming with light.

The seasons approach one after the other,

bring unbearable heat, bitter cold and everything

in between. Joy fades. Loss

makes space for growth and new life.

Balance is not a perfect blend

of extremes. It is something that takes place

inside a larger system. It is a perspective,

an awareness that makes space for us

to fully experience winter and then spring,

light and then darkness.

Darkness and then light.

Life of all Worlds, thank you

for giving us the strength

to allow our world, our heart,

to be big enough for it all.

Venue : Comander’s Mansion

Catering: Cuisine ChezVous

Officiant : Jacob Staub

Florals : Celebrated Flower

DJ : DJ Red Dawn

East Bay Regional Parks Botanic Garden Wedding Berkeley CA

East Bay Regional Parks Botanic Garden Wedding Berkeley, CA

Eli and Tobie were married in a shady grove of towering redwood trees in the East Bay Regional Parks Botanic Garden in Berkeley, California. They are both super charismatic, and they were great in front of the camera. When the connection between a couple is electric, like it is between Eli and Tobie, my job is easy.

Yes, Eli and Tobie’s wedding was overflowing with glorious colorful outfits, but Tobie’s pants — come on! They brought a burst of color to every image he was in. Tobie’s parents constructed a freestanding chuppah that looked like an erector set in the best possible way. There is one image of Tobie’s dad seeming to summon the chuppah from the earth. Poems were read, songs were sung, Eli’s family staged a production of the Owl and the Pussycat, replete with costumes and props. Eli is a talented musician, namely a singer songwriter. Throughout the ceremony and toasts, there were references to songs Eli had written, including a love song he wrote when he was first falling in love with Tobie. At the reception, guests were served the fanciest, most delicious, vegan barbecue you might ever encounter, especially that chimichurri sauce, yum! It was a typical Bay Area day, sunny and hot in the middle, cloudy and windy in the afternoon. I loved how one couple grabbed their travel quilt and got cozy.

Vegan Catering by It’s From the Garden

Art Museum Wedding

Art Museum Wedding – Nathan and Jeannette

Nathan and Jeannette held their wedding at the Decordova Art Museum. This was certainly apt as Jeannette is a talented artist. Meaningful details revealed themselves at every corner as the day unfolded. I will try to list them, but I know there are many that will elude me… I feel as if I got to know the two better through the intelligence of the decisions they made in planning their wedding. They met when they were teachers, so their wedding favor was a triad of pencils inscribed with a quiet and gorgeous fragment form a Walt Whitman poem, “There we two, content, happy in being together, speaking little, perhaps not a word.” On the wedding altar was placed a table occupied by a bonsai tree into which Nathan had poured his attention and love for more than a decade, and succulents belonging to Jeannette’s mother. Nathan’s father donned three outfits as the day progressed, a suit for getting ready, his vestments to officiate the wedding, and a tux to celebrate. Not only did Nathan’s mother make the cake, and enough ice cream cake to feed all the wedding guests, but she commissioned a sculptor to make a cake-topper depicting Nathan and Jeannette’s three dogs. The florals were exquisite, almost avant-garde in places, perfect for an art museum wedding. Jeannette’s dress was at the same time elegant and sculptural. There were many moments where it inflected the art on the museum walls. Thanks again, Jeannette and Nathan, for having me make art about your wedding!

printed pencil wedding favors

Venue : deCordova Art Museum
Dress : Amsale
Florist : Hanaya Floral Design
Makeup : Christie Torres
DJ and/or band : Fine Tune Entertainment, Joe Kaszuba
Cake : Rachel Coppersmith
Catering : Swartz Catering
Invitations : DWRI Letterpress

Classic Church and Topsail Tent Wedding – Jocelyn and Tom

The story of how it came to be that I photographed Jocelyn and Tom’s wedding is on the complicated side of things. Jocelyn reached out to see if I was available to photograph her wedding on the Sunday of Memorial Day. She is an incredible storyteller, and went into detail in her initial query about the history of her grandma and grandpa’s house where the reception would be held. The house actually had it’s 300th birthday this year. There was a fabled apple tree, apple pies, peach jam, and a grapevine Robert Frost had written a poem about. Jocelyn and Tom were high school sweethearts at Exeter where they both rowed on the crew team. Very sad for me! I was booked Sunday, but I was available Saturday, so I cheekily suggested they change the date of the wedding to Saturday.

By mere chance, or some celestial tinkering, Jocelyn and Tom changed their wedding date to Saturday, and booked me as their photographer! I anticipated the wedding with excitement all year long, and when it finally came to pass, it did not disappoint.

The wedding was a classic. It started in the Exeter church, and ended with joyous dancing under a topsail tent. The thing that struck me most about their wedding was how right it felt. They were surrounded by family and friends who could see with great clarity how happy Jocelyn and Tom made each other and what an incredible match the two made. Each, in their own right, is a force to be reckoned with, but together, they are indomitable. Woe to anyone who should impede their path. They had their first look on a worn marble staircase at Phillips Exeter Academy where they had first met and forged their connection. I made couples portraits of the two down at the Exeter Boathouse, the site of their first date! I could go on and on about the wonders of their wedding… Thank you again for being so lovely to work with, Jocelyn and Tom.

Many many thanks to the talented Cara Brostrom for coming on as a 2nd photographer.

Sitting Bride Groom Portrait San Francisco Wedding Photographer

Bride’s Dress: Amsale from The White Gown

Groom’s suit: Custom made by the Black Lapel

Florist: Cymbidium Floral

DJ and/or band: DJ Jodi Entertainment

Catering: Stone Oven Catering and Las Olas

Invitations: Crane & Co

Road trip across the USA black and white photos

Road Trip Across the USA Black and White Photos

My wife, Adeline, and I moved from Cambridge, MA to San Francisco, CA in June of 2017. We packed most of our worldly belongings into vaguely ominous padlocked metal boxes, left them under the care of some shipping company in the Boston suburbs, and crossed our fingers that they would be waiting for us when we arrived in the Bay Area 18 days later by road. Yes, by road, thus a road trip across the USA! This was my first time driving all the way across the USA from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. If you know me, you know that I had to make it a bit more complicated by flying back East from Denver to photograph a pair of weddings in the middle of our road trip, but I rejoined Adeline in Denver, and the point is, I’m going with “legitimate cross country road trip” on this one.

I made these black and white photos of our road trip across the USA during the segment that included Boston, Massachusetts, Buffalo, New York, Niagara Falls, New York, Ailsa Craig, Canada, Detroit, Michigan, Dune Acres, Indiana, Lee Center, Illinois, Dubuque, Iowa (more on that later,) Badlands, South Dakota, and Laramie, Wyoming.

When I was growing up, my family wasn’t much for road tripping. To be honest, our vacations that were not built around visiting family, were countable on one hand, nay, one finger. It was a lovely train ride up to Montauk from NYC, and we saw whales spout! I don’t want to mislead you though, our family is far flung, and we certainly had adventures: barefoot photo ops on snowy fields on Mount Ranier, alligator sightings in the Florida Everglades, encounters with bioluminescent algae in Nova Scotia… etc. More road trip photos to come and more stories about childhood family vacations.

How to Cut a Pineapple the Right Way

I cut a pineapple this afternoon. I used a chef’s knife and the light of midday California sun streaming in through my window. At first it was hard for me to remember how exactly one goes about cutting a pineapple. It sure is strangely complex for a mere fruit. Was there a right way to cut a pineapple? Let’s be honest, I don’t know that I cut a pineapple at any point in the last decade. I certainly cut a pineapple in the late nineties, so there’s that. As I thought about it further, I found distinct memories of helping my mother to cut a pineapple in our kitchen on 7th Avenue in Park Slope… so this is probably an eighties memory from before we moved to Sunset Park.

How to cut a pineapple the right way

It came to me little by little.

1) Cut off the spiky dinosaur flower from the head of the pineapple.
2) Cut away the bottom so you have a flat surface to work with.
3) Cut all that greenish armor away from the sides.
4) Use the tip of the knife to extract the spiky bits that seem like they might be unpleasant in the mouth. It’s probably better to use a paring knife, but I just kept on with the chef’s knife.
5) Cut the flesh away from the core.
6) Cut the flesh into bite-size chunks.

I also remembered that it felt wrong to cut away and discard the core. Pineapples are so precious! (the necklace label on mine read “Golden Queen” or somesuch.) We always ate the core anyway. It’s one of those things that is still too tasty to throw in the trash, but you would never serve to guests.

I can’t tell you why I remember exactly how to cut a pineapple the right way after all these years, but I sure do love that sour golden fruit, and I can still feel the shape of my pucker as I write this.

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