Finally the weather is starting to come around!  I normally claim September 15 – October 31 as my absolute favorite time of year here in the Midwest but, this year, I think we got off to an early start!  Coming off of recent weddings where we endured heat indexes of 100+ it was such a wonderful feeling to have an outdoor ceremony yesterday with weather that stayed in the 70′s all afternoon.

Congratulations to Jennifer & Eli!

Just one I wanted to share from Jenna & Jon’s session.

You may be wondering why images are missing from some of my recent posts (to be fixed soon).

In a nutshell, my server was compromised (hacked) and all of my domains had some sort of shenanigans going on.  I have spent quite a bit of time going through all of my domains on the server to weed out suspicious files placed there by unknown cyber-bastards bad guys.  Every time this site is compromised (3 times in the past week and 5 times during the month of August) I have to completely rebuild it.  The process of re-building the jeffwros.com site takes way too much time out of my day(s) considering all of the work I need to get done for my clients.

If you should find this site down again please know that I am still here.  I have a plan B in the works which will be time-consuming and tedious but, unfortunately, necessary.  In the short term, should this site again be compromised, I will not re-build the blog until “Plan B” is in place.  In the meantime I will have something much simpler in place at jeffwros.com so nobody thinks I’ve gone anywhere (rumors can be murder in this town).

Thank you for visiting!

Updated: 9/9 @ 1:50 AM

NOTE:  If you are waiting for your DVD-ROM with hi-resolution files I will be sending those out in Thursday’s mail via USPS.  I’ve got 5 packages going out and am looking forward to my clients having their images!  Thank you!

Ashlee & Mike: Online gallery up Thursday morning.  Disc shipping.

Molly & Michael: ETA: 9/11:  Cull & process started.

Grooms Family: ETA: 9/12:  Some culling done.

Rachael & Todd: ETA: 9/17:  Some culling done.

Jennifer & Eli: ETA: 9/20:  Wedding on 9/4!

On August 31 I will be handing off my official duties at SK Model Management in order to focus on wedding photography as well as some new endeavors.   After careful consideration I came to the realization that these new projects would make it impossible for me to continue to offer the kind of time or flexibility the team at SK Model Management needs from their in-house studio photographer.

I am thankful to have worked with the team at SK and look forward to the occasional collaboration with them in the future!  In the meantime, I am looking forward to one last busy month at the studio with the crew as we continue to create exceptional images for SK’s clients.

One of the benefits I look forward to by leaving the studio is the ability to concentrate on my wedding photography work.  I am looking forward to sharing one other “big” announcement around the middle of August so “stay tuned”!

The YouTube video, below, was created during last night’s performance. Enjoy!

Original Post - I am really looking forward to seeing my cousin, Doug, as well as a group of very familiar faces when Portland Cello Project comes to town for a show this Saturday (July 31) at Mojo’s inside the River Music Experience in Downtown Davenport!  Since the winter of 2008 when I spent almost 3 weeks photographing Portland Cello Project I have developed an appreciation for these musicians.

Yes, the fact that my cousin is involved perhaps makes it more interesting to me, personally, but I’d like to think that had I been exposed to PCP any other way I would still be fascinated by the talent and musicianship (is that a word?) contained within the collaboration of these fine northwestern cellists.

They are touring the Midwest (and cities along the way) in support of their latest release: Thousand Words.  The track featured on the slideshow video (not the YouTube video), below, is “Halo” (yes, the video game) and can be found on “Thousand Words” which should be for sale at the show this Saturday.  While I have never played Halo I still have a healthy respect for a group of musicians who spend hours upon hours creating the arrangements and rehearsing a composition for the cello derived from a video game theme!  The gamer in me would love to hear their rendition of “Killzone 2″ but I digress!

Anyway, the show this Saturday is family friendly and all ages are welcome.  While I will be on location photographing Leigh & Kevin’s wedding I hope you can make it to the show.  There is no cover although I understand that donations are gladly accepted.  Again, it’s this Saturday, July 31,  7-9:PM at Mojo’s inside the River Music Experience, Davenport, Iowa.

About the video:  I admit that it was rather hastily created using images which appeared in my original online presentation back when Photo Uncommon was online to showcase my documentary work (before the current site).  Sadly, I have not created a new place to collect and showcase these images.  Perhaps someday.  Perhaps!

It has been a challenging week with shoots in the 90+ weather we’ve been having here in the Quad Cities.  Wednesday’s session with Katie (photos coming soon) was especially tough as the humidity combined with the temperature to create a “feels like” temperature of around 105 degrees.  Yesterday’s session, with Destiny, was a notch better with much less humidity.

Thanks for looking!

I just wrapped up work on a reception I recently photographed and thought, what the heck, why not share a self-portrait I made that evening!

About the photo:  During the dinner hour I usually do not photograph guests eating as it often tends to make people a bit self-conscious.  Also, photos of people “mid-chew” rarely yield keepers for the custom flush mount wedding book many of my clients order!

Instead, I tend to lay low and work to find “detail shots” to create.  The photo, above, was created when I was photographing the gift table at the Quad Cities’ own St. Ambrose University (Rogalski Center) in beautiful Davenport, Iowa.  When I ran across this rather festive mirror I initially had a tough time finding a good angle until I thought, ah ha!  Don’t hide the camera …feature it!

Hey, it’s 4th of July …I figured a “fun” post was in order for the day!  Happy Birthday USA!