The noise inside the stadium was deafening.  I mean it actually hurt my ears at some points, especially with the guy next to me blowing into his damn duck call.  And boy was it cold out.  Temperatures in the low 30’s.  With everyone in their seats it wasn’t too bad as all the body heat from the matrix kept it feeling warm.  But at half-time when everyone made their escape to the bathroom or to get more food and drink you could really feel the coldness seep into your core.  I welcomed the return of the matrix.

The game was awesome and just what I expected from two great teams.  It was pretty evenly matched throughout the first three quarters and I am sure the Beavers gave the Ducks quite a scare as they took the lead on several occasions.  But in the fourth quarter the Ducks had some great plays and came out the better team that night.  I can’t imagine the disappointment the OSU team must have felt to have come so far and fought and worked so hard but come up 4 points short (final score was Ducks 37 Beavers 33).  We’ll get ‘em next year Beavers!  Congratulations to the Ducks and their victory to the Rose Bowl.

So we arrived safely at Elk Lake Resort at around 3PM and the wedding ceremony was scheduled for 5PM so we had a few short hours to acclimate and get changed. We met up with family and borrowed their cabin to change into our wedding garb. By this time the jalapenos from lunch were singing a different tune and it was really off key. Needless to say this caused some concern by other family members who wanted to use the bathroom but found it unusable. But let’s not dwell on that one distasteful event. After getting dressed we headed down to where the ceremony was to take place which was right along the lake. There were log seats for everyone and a canopy setup where dinner would be served. We sat and prepared for the bride to arrive.

Finally amidst tears the bride arrived at the altar and the ceremony began.  About 1 minute into the ceremony my youngest son announced in a loud voice “I gotta go poop!!”.  Keep in mind that the altar is quite a distance from the cabins and thus anything that remotely resembles a toilet.  Since I was filming the ceremony my wife took him back to the cabin and ended up missing the entire ceremony.  There were some beautiful moments where the bride and groom shared thoughts poems and quotes with each other and then recited their own vows that each had written.  It was really touching.  It’s always uplifting to see, feel and experience the love between two people and to have those moments amidst the peacefulness of the lake and the beauty of the towering mountains was just a very special moment.

With the ceremony complete the newlyweds invited everyone to enjoy a wonderful dinner.  There was a choice of either prime rib or salmon.  I chose the salmon which was plated with a mix of potatoes, carrots and zucchini.  It was delicious as was the champagne that was flowing as free as a cascading river.  After dinner there was the cake cutting and bouquet toss.  Everyone then went back up to the cabins and changed clothes and prepared for the bonfire and s’mores (Mmmm…).  After some drinks and fun around the fire we all called it a night and retired to the cabin.  The cabin was quite rustic and smelled like you would expect an old cabin to smell.  It has a small living room, 2 very small bedrooms with beds that were apparently built for Santas elves and a cooking area.  I slept very poorly as I kept getting cold and it wasn’t until the morning light was peering through the blinds that I realized the windows were open slightly allowing cold air to seep in all night long.  It was at this time that I also discovered the thermostat for turning on the gas fireplace.  All in all it was a good weekend and a good break from the ordinary.

After checking out of the hotel we decided that it would be best to strap on the ol’ feedbag before heading out to the cabins, so we stopped for lunch at a place called Boston’s. It’s a gourmet pizza joint/ sports bar. The kids ordered pizza, the wife ordered an individual spicy chicken pizza and I ordered fish tacos. But before that came we enjoyed a delicious plate of nachos which was the best plate of nachos I have ever had. The jalapenos on the nachos destroyed my stomach later but looking back I still feel it was worth the suffering. Full from the meal we attempted to navigate our way out of Bend and onto the Cascade Lakes Hwy toward Elk Lake. If you have ever been to Bend you are aware that most of the intersections throughout town are actually round-abouts. Being a newb in town I had no idea how to get to the road we needed so I asked the gas station attendant if he knew. He gave me what seemed at the time fairly simple directions of going straight, turning right a Reed Market and going through and endless number of round-abouts until we were supposed to see a sign for Mt. Bachelor. We did everything as instructed except for the turn to Mt. Bachelor which resulted in us taking a 20 minute drive around Mt. Washington Road, which wasn’t too bad as we got to see a lot of Bend we hadn’t seen before. Finally after completing this large loop and ending up right back where we started we saw a sign for Mt. Bachelor and started the 40 minute drive over to Elk lake. If you have ever had the good fortune of driving this road then you are fully aware of how beautiful this drive is. I’ll conclude Part 2 with a few photos of the beauty of this area. Stay tuned for Part 3 of Wedding Weekend.

We also enjoyed some good margaritas although my 3rd was a bit strong (mainly tequila with a splash of mix).  Lots of good conversations and time spent getting to know the families better.  It was probably one of the more enjoyable evenings I have spent in quite some time.

It was getting late and the next day was the wedding so after saying out good nights we headed back to the hotel and called it a day.  Even the cat was worn out.

I’ve been experimenting with off-camera lighting after purchasing a pair of Cactus V4 wireless flash controllers. This allows me to control both my 580EXII and 430EXII flashes without having to have them on the camera hotshoe. I’ll be writing a review of those shortly.

I’ve also been trying to learn more about Photoshop CS4 and better detailing my workflow and different techniques for really making my photos “pop”! I purchased the book Adobe Photoshop For Photographers by Martin Evening which based on my initial quick review of various sections looks to be the best Photoshop book I have seen so far. I’ll be writing a review of that shortly as well.

Since experimenting with off-camera lighting I realized that I have much to learn about proper exposure and how to best set my camera in different circumstances be it a strong backlight situation or low light. I found a great book called Understanding Exposure (Revised Edition) by Bryan Peterson which I have found to be invaluable in explaining exposure as it relates to aperture, shutterspeed and depth of field. I highly recommend this book to anyone struggling with the relationship between aperature and depth of field and how to shoot in manual mode. I’ll be writing much more on this later.

Finally I attended my sisters wedding in Bend last weekend. The ceremony was held out at Elk Lake in the Oregon Cascades with the backdrop of the evening glow on Elk Lake and Mt. Bachelor in the distance. It was just an incredible time and I have a 2 part post coming up on that.

As time goes on I find myself needing to engage life more and get out there and experience it. It’s a blink of an eye and then we are gone so now is the time to take risks, overcome fear and pursue fully the things we want in life. I’ve got several exciting projects in the works that for the time being will remain under wraps. These are exciting times and I’m looking forward to sharing those with you soon so stay tuned…more to come.