July 31, 2009
Sarah looked stunning. Tom cried a lot because Sarah looked so stunning and Sarah wiped away his tears. My heart overflowed with love for them both. It’s nearly 3am and we still have to finish backing up all our photos so I’ll write more about this amazing love story of two of my best friends a different day. More pictures coming very soon!
July 30, 2009
We just purchased our flights within Europe!
Our itinerary is looking like this:
August 21nd: NYC-Geneva
August 22nd-29th: Switzerland
August 30th-September 5: Munich, Germany (we’ll be traveling on land from Geneva to Munich)
September 5th-10th: Dublin, Ireland
September 10th-16th: Paris, France
September 16th-19th: Oslo, Norway
September 19th - ???: Milan, Italy
From there we don’t fly home until October 11th, back out of Geneva. So we’re not sure whether we’ll just travel around Italy for all our remaining time, go back to Switzerland, travel by train elsewhere, who knows. The possibilities are endless!
Hello fans….This is S as you know me, aka Seba.
I’m now officially taking over this blog. We’re going to move all this to www.s.com soon, so be ready when the time comes….!!!
Ok, that’s the news for today. I’m going to sleep now.
Feel free to say goodbye to Kyle in This post…
See you soon on www.s.com
Ps: We made this video so you can see Kyle for the last time xD
Saugatuck from Kyle Hepp on Vimeo.
Song Credit: Somewhere Over the rainbow By Israel Kamakawiwo’ole
July 29, 2009
I saw my BEAUTIFUL friend Julie today and she said, “I need less photos and more Kyle Hepp from your blog.” So I’m going to give that a go right now.
We’re back in the city where I grew up. It has completely changed. They had just built a new mall when I was a junior or senior in high school, but now the entire area around the mall is built up with restaurants and (failing) businesses. There are so many vacant buildings that didn’t use to be empty before. My mom and stepdad had bought a house in a sub development that didn’t have very many finished houses and now the neighborhood looks like a completely new place. We went out to eat with friends and a guy from high school that I wasn’t good friends with, but definitely knew, didn’t even recognize me. Things are different, that’s for sure. And I didn’t expect them to be the same, it’s just a weird feeling.
Basically, I feel like a stranger in the place where I grew up. It’s been two or three years since I’ve been here last and I no longer have my roots planted down in Grandville. Aside from a few close friends whom we’ve been reconnecting with, most people that I hung out with in high school are really acquaintances now since we’ve lost touch. Most people who don’t much about my day to day life see seem to be really impressed with what Seba and I do for a living.
“WOW. People fly you in to photograph their wedding?!?”
or
“NO WAY!!! You live in South America? How cool!”
Stuff like that. But I have told my friends, “If you saw the hotels that I stay in when I travel for weddings, or if you knew how hectic and stressful it was and how much work traveling for a wedding entails, you might not think that I had such a cool job.”
Of course I am incredibly grateful for the opportunities that photography entails, but I promise, it’s really not as glamorous as it’s cracked up to be. Ditto that for living in Chile. If people only knew that I am just as completely fascinated by their lives and that any life in the U.S. sounds just as exotic to me as mine does to theirs.
For everyone’s who is concerned that we’ve abandoned our dog, don’t worry. She’s staying with my in-laws. At first Seba’s mom said, “No dogs on the bed or in the bed…EVER!” Papito is now sleeping underneath the covers with her head on the pillow. And pretty much running the house. 
Since she lived with us in that house for a while I feel like she knows that it’s a safe and good place for her, and plus Seba and his dad have the same voice so I think that’s comforting for her too. But really, she’s just a happy, low-stress kind of puppy. If anyone is feeding her and giving her love and attention, she’s happy. She’s not the kind of dog that refuses to eat when her owners leave. But, being away from her is the hardest part of this trip. I miss Papito so much, even though we’ve been webcamming with her.
And since I feel like I’m cheating on Chile when I write about other countries, I was kind of thinking about doing a group blog next week. Would anybody be interested in writing about the biggest reverse culture shock they experience when they go back to their country of origen?
July 28, 2009
Rock N’ Roll Bride is one of my favorite blogs to stalk for wedding inspiration. I love seeing when other photogs are doing things that are a little different and crazy. So I am super excited because I am featured on their website today!!! Check it out and leave me and Sarah and Pipe some love if you are so inclined!
Apparently Sarah and Pipe are pretty much awesome. End of story.
July 27, 2009
I am not even close to done with editing these since we just did the session tonight, but I am so loving my new tilt/shift lens that I wanted to quick share one photo! I have to admit that this session had actually slipped my mind. Well, I was really pumped to photograph Jessie and Jim, since we all go way back (yeah cheerleading! yeah band camp!), but I just thought their session was sometime later in August, OOPS! Good thing I got my act together in time 
July 26, 2009
This was such a fun session to shoot, in part because we are good friends with Sarah and Pipe, in part because they are hilarious together, and in part because Sarah herself is really interested in photography, so she had scoped out the neighborhood for cool places so we had a ton of good backdrops to work with.
Just looking at these pictures makes me miss my Santiago friends! But, right now I’m really enjoying catching up with old friends…and I know soon enough we’ll be back in Chile….and photographing Sarah and Pipe’s wedding!
S. put me on his shoulders so I could get the photo below. Thanks honey, for being the world’s greatest second shooter/stool!
Thank you for dressing to match the neighborhood, Sarah
Always have to shoot a couple half face shots, that’s just how I roll.
Big thanks to R. Restaurante for allowing us to come inside and take these pictures. The old bar was so cool looking that I was dying to shoot in front of it but didn’t have high hopes when we went in to ask the waiter since most 99% of all places say no. But, I promised the waiter a link and lots of gringo eyes viewing his website so in the end they succumbed to my bribery. I’m hard to resist.
Seba took this photo and I freaking love it.
And these last couple shots are my favorites. Normally when I’m going through photos I find a clear cut favorite shot that I fall in love with. But this time, I couldn’t choose. So they all win.
J’adore. Dang, I need to learn how to say that in the plural so I can say J’adore them both…anyone speak French?
July 25, 2009
This vacation has been fun so far, but I have to admit, I’m exhausted! I’ve only been home long enough to download my photos onto the computer, grab a new memory card and run out the door again. Speaking of running out the door, I’m off to my friend’s bachelorette party now!
This morning we were went to an art fair in Saugatuck, MI to meet a friend of my mom’s (who sometimes stops by the blog, hi Julie!)
We didn’t take many exciting pictures of the actual fair but just carried our camera around with our new lenses all day so we could play.
Hope you’re all having a good weekend so far!
July 24, 2009
Holy hell, I just made the biggest impulse buy of my life! We were planning on purchasing only the 35mm 1.4L OR the 50mm 1.2L. Guess who got both.
Plus, a bunch of stuff that we’ve been ordering over the past couple months and shipping to my mom’s house has all arrived, so we opened everything up and laid it out on the table to assess. And holy hell again, we now have a LOT of gear:
Anyone who knows me knows that I’m not actually a gear head at all. I hear people say you need a good camera and good lenses before you start shooting weddings, but my first couple of weddings that I did with a Canon Rebel XT (a $400 dollar camera) and a 50mm 1.8 lens (a $50 dollar lens) I am just as proud of as the ones I’ve done with my Canon 5d Mark II (a $3,000 dollar camera) and a 50mm 1.4 (a $400 dollar lens). Now, hopefully I’ve improved as a photographer in composition and technique, and of course having better equipment makes my job much easier. But, I’m not advocating running out and buying yourself a load of gear in hopes that that will help you have a successful business. I genuinely don’t think that how expensive your camera is has anything to do with how good you are at shooting weddings.
That being said, I am unbelievably excited to use my new lenses and equipment to hopefully be able to create lots of amazing images. Just for fun, I took another picture of the same set up with my new 24mm tilt shift. LOVE.
For those of you who are gear heads, here’s a list of what we’re now shooting with.
2 5d Mark II camera bodies
1 40d as a backup camera body
Backup batteries
1 50mm 1.2L
1 50mm 1.4
1 24mm tilt shift
1 20mm 2.8
1 35mm 1.4
1 85mm 1.8
1 17-40mm 4.0L
1 580ex flash
1 540ez flash
Cactus wireless triggers/receivers
Hot shoe to pc adapter
2 Manfrotto tripods
Manfrotto superclamp
1 umbrella
10 4 gb CF cards
2 8 gb CF cards
Also included in the photo:
My new HP computer, which is already enabling to post process photos at a much quicker pace.
3 external hard drives where we back up all client photos.
200 Moo business cards
1 Sandisk card reader
1 new iPod Touch because my last one got smashed when I got smashed in the accident:
Eeeeeeeeeeejole, that’s a lot of expensive crap. Our running total of money spent on the business is now up to $15k but I think (thank goodness!!!), we’re about done spending. Sure, there will always be repairs and equipment replacement that we’ll have to do, but the major investment is hopefully done. By the end of this summer we will hopefully have paid off everything we have (or basically paid our personal account back with our business money) and hopefully next year we can start to make a profit. What I’m saying here is, people, pleeeeeeeeeease keep hiring me!
It always makes me laugh when people in Chile say things like, “Wow, you must make a lot of money charging those prices!” Ummmm….yeaaaaaaaaaaaah right Those people clearly aren’t photographers who know how much decent equipment will run you!
And for those of you who aren’t photographers, here are a couple pictures of Chicago that S. snapped while he was out on an architectural tour of the city by boat (I was shopping for a dress for my friend’s wedding next week, WOOHOO!!!).
The LAN Chile flight from Santiago to Miami was smooth as a baby’s butt. We had virtually no turbulence and upon arrival the landing was so gentle, I hadn’t even realized we had hit the ground — I was still bracing myself for it.
But, two minutes later, wow did it ever hit me hard that we were in the U.S. The pilot announced that we had landed and that everyone was to remain seated and buckled until the aircraft had come to a complete stop. I, of course, immediately unbuckled my seat belt.
The click of the metal of my seat belt sounded throughout the plane…a solitary noise. I peeked up and a flight attendant was glaring at me. I clicked it back on.
After we arrived at our gate and the captain turned off the fasten seat belt sign only then could the universal noise of seat belt unbuckling be heard.
Then after our second flight, in Chicago, once we were safely landed and unbuckled, we all got up and filed out in the most orderly fashion I have EVER seen. Not one passenger out of place, the first rows stood and left and then the next and then the next, the line behind them always stopping to let out those whose turn it was. We eventually got off the plane, shopped on Michigan Ave., drove home and met some of my siblings’ new boyfriends and girlfriends. We shook hands.
Yes, that is the difference between a flight within in Chile and a flight in the U.S. Chileans are rule breakers and Gringos are goody-goody-two-shoes. When that flight attendant threatened me with her eyes YOU BETTER BELIEVE I put that seat belt back on as fast as my little hands could buckle it. Because, dear lord only knows what would happen to me if the big bad stewardess got mad. At The End of World most of the time the pilot will say the obligatory, “Please keep your seat belt on until we come to a complete stop,” but even HE sounds like he doesn’t believe himself. Before the words are out of his mouth, people are unbuckled.
Chile is often chaos. Chileans don’t necessarily walk off a flight without stopping to let anyone off because they are too rude to notice that the folks in row 16 haven’t been able to get out yet as everyone pushes past them. They do it because that simply how things are often done in Chile. Other bloggers have written about this same subject before — orderly lines aren’t a Chilean forte. And that’s fine — it’s nothing more than a cultural difference. Gringos aren’t always orderly, nor are Chileans always chaotic, but I’ll tell you one thing — on the way off the plane in Chicago, S. and I both stared at each other with our mouths agape and then began laughing uncontrollably. We couldn’t even comprehend all the crazy organizational skills of the gringos.
And when we got to Grandville and met my sister’s boyfriend and my brother’s girlfriend we had to shake both their hands. It was icky. I wanted to do the cheek kiss like in Chile, but that would’ve been snooty. People in the Midwest don’t do that. But a hand shake seemed so far away, so distant, while a hug would’ve been awkwardly intimate. The U.S. and Chile — too much personal space versus not enough personal space.
All those differences feel so incredibly foreign yet so familiar at the same time.
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- Push has got to be one of the saddest books I've ever read. I want to cry.
- Is the air bad today or is it just me? I can barely breathe up in here!
- @emilyinchile, not a particularly good one, I have to admit. now working on the Photoshop edits of your pics :)
- @jmphotographic, thank you so much! and thanks to @rocknrollbride for featuring Emily's wedding!
- @suzydarko, I love you too! a couple months and I'll have a temporary respite on solid ground in the good old U.S. of A!
- Finished the Raw edits of @emilyinchile's photos. Celebrating with a new episode of Gossip Girl. I know she approves :)
