Final Notice: Blog is moving

I have loved using Blogspot over the past few months and give it excellent ratings for performance. But being the creative guy I am I needed to be able to customize my blog a little more, and have decided to move it back to my personal website. All past blogs are at the new location so please update all your bookmarks, web links, and RSS feeds to the new site. I just posted about my new banner photo so feel free to comment on that! As of now, this site will no longer be updated.
The new site: http://www.lukasvandyke.com/blog/

The Zervis Family

I was out of town last weekend and got a little behind on some photos. But that said, I had a GREAT time last week hanging out with the Zervis family. It was a ton of fun. Their kids were a little shy with me at first, but once we got to know each other a little bit they were really into it and all over the place. We started off with a few photos in the studio and then walked across the street and hung out at the park for awhile. I enjoyed hanging out with the kids because it reminded me of me and my siblings when I was there age! I think we got a few pretty cool images as well as a good number of super goofy faces. =)

Aaron Wishart

The other night I was just leaving a shoot in Sherman Oaks and I looked down and was surprised by the txt message which I received. Two weeks after I was born my parents moved to a new city and within a few months I met my friend Aaron Wishart. We have a lot of stories to tell about the childhood adventures we had up until I was 7 years old. I will refrain from telling them right now, but if you are interested you can ask me in person.

When I was 7 my family moved to California and Aaron stayed in Minnesota. Six years later when I was 13 I flew out to visit him for a weekend, another six years later when I was 19 he drove out to where I was living and we went to a music festival, six more years later when I was 25 we had dinner in Venice Los Angeles. So last week when he txt’d me from LAX needing a ride it was a welcome surprise. At the time I was only 20 min from LAX, so I jetted over there and picked him up. He hadn’t seen my sister in 15 years, so we headed over to her place and had a lot of fun catching up till late into the night.

And as an added bonus (some of you will understand this) Aaron owns a Mac book Pro. It’s funny how our friendship which started over 25 years ago still feels as comfortable as it did then. And even funnier that we both work with computers, both love adventures, and both own Internet capable PDA’s and Mac book Pros. This, however, is just a small coincidence compared to some of the other un related stories I can tell.

Thanks for the txt Aaron, it was fun!

Joel and Jenna

I love the beach and usually jump at any chance to go, so when Jenna asked me to do her engagement photos there I was thrilled. 9:00am this morning in the midst of a lot of fog we met at the Starbucks on the Pacific Coast highway and headed to my favorite beach. I had so much fun creating images and hanging out with Joel and Jenna that it brightened my whole day. We got to try a few new poses and ideas I had wanted to do at the beach and I think they came out really well! The one small bummer was that my new camera broke. But I think it’s a Canon issue which from what I have found out they will fix for free. I had to make a quick run back to my car to get my other camera, but it proves that having back-ups of all my equipment is the way to go.

Jenna and Joel, thanks for the fun time, and I think we will all enjoy the images for years to come!

Stephen Schutt

Two nights ago my friend and former co-worker Stephen Schutt flew in from Tirana Albania. For the last year Stephen has been working at the Lincoln Center doing web programming and network administration. He was such an asset for their organization in the last year that they have asked him to stay for at least another year and continue with his current responsibilities. Now he has the daunting task of raising support for the entire year in the next five weeks. As little a token as it might be I offered to photograph him and make a prayer card. If you click the photo below I made it large enough to print if you are interested.

If you would like to get on Stephens email list for regular updates you can email him at stephen.schutt@gmail.com. If you do so be sure to tell him I said hi!

Daniel and Ally

As you may have read in a previous post, last weekend I was second shooter for Matt Floreen at Daniel and Ally’s wedding in Portland. I just need to say that the whole thing was a great experience! The wedding took place at a country club out in the woods near the little town of Lake Oswego. The ceremony was in the rose garden outside, and the reception was in a big permanent tent right outside the club. We spent a couple hours and went all over the club getting some incredible images. It took a little longer then we sometimes spend on photos, but I think it was worth it for the result. I’m a photographer so of course I could shoot all day and love it, so for me it’s even better when the bride and groom are just as into the creation of beautiful images. The ceremony was beautiful and even began with a gospel message. The food was excellent, and the dancing was a blast! But I think the best part was all the friendly people I got to interact with. Everyone was just a lot of fun.

Below are a few of my favorite images out of the ones I took. You will need to check Matt’s site for all of his and the rest of mine.

Stephen and Lisa

Stephen and Lisa are such a sweet couple. I enjoyed this wedding because everyone was so comfortable, laid back, and the whole thing was so Christ centered. For the photos we went a historical park a few miles away which offered a nice place for some fun images. The photos were followed by a very nice ceremony, and then dinner, coffee, and cake. I think the highlight of the wedding for me was the toasts. Stephens’s younger brother was the best man, and he related how much Stephen had shown an interest in him when he was in High School and Stephen has already gone off to college. Also when Lisa’s dad got up you could tell from the way he spoke that he was very happy with the man Lisa had chosen to marry. Stephen and Lisa seem like the kind of couple who will be devoted to serving each other. I think I even overheard that they were headed for the medical mission field. Over all it was a fun day. Check my site in the coming few days for the rest of the photos.