Author: Chris Smith

The weather man was calling for horrible thunderstorms last Saturday. But Melissa & Dave kept thinking positive. And sure enough, it ended up being a (windy) but GORGEOUS day to get married! 🙂

Melissa’s family is from Irmo, while Dave’s is from Wisconsin. She’s a High-School English Teacher, while he’s a Nuclear Engineer teaching Navy Contractors. They met online and are both fun, adventurous, and full of life. Dave proposed under in their bungalow, with the moon overhead, during a trip to Peru!

They held their intimate wedding ceremony in a quiet clearing in a grove of trees at Riverfront Park. Afterwards, their reception was held at the Runaway Bay restaurant, overlooking the park.

I want to give a HUGE thank you to my friend and fellow photographer, Alice Keeney, for referring Melissa & Dave to me. They all do Cross-Fit together.  Alice was kind enough to give them my name when she was booked for their date.  🙂 Voila Events, The Music Maker, and Jim ‘n Nick’s were some of the other folks that help make their Big Day such a success!

Enjoy this slideshow of the story of their day, along with some of my favorites.  Check out the rest of their images at www.chrisandcami.zenfolio.com.  CONGRATULATIONS, Melissa & Dave! You guys are an AMAZING couple!!!

Melissa & Kevin enjoy good food, good wine, and good company. In fact when they were engaged and looking for a wedding photographer in Charleston, they heard our name from Gary & Cheryl Lenoard while on a wine walk. I had photographed both the Leonard’s daughter’s weddings…and it was so nice of them to recommend us. The best part is, the moment Melissa, Kevin, and I met…we KNEW we were a great fit. I love all their ideas and can’t WAIT to be there on their wedding day!!! Anyway, because of their love of wine, they got permission to do their Engagement Session at Irvin-House Vineyards after hours. What a FANTASTIC place to photograph in. We had a blast (in spite of the No-See-ums) and came out with some wonderful photographs. Here are just a few of my favorites!

WHAT IS A NO-SEE-UM?   Family Ceratopogonidae, No-See-ums are tiny biting flies that often live near water.  You often see many of them swarming together in a cloud.  Keep your mouth shut or you might breathe some in or swallow them!  (It won’t hurt you, but it will probably make you cough.)   Biting midges are called no-see-ums because they’re so tiny that it is hard to see ‘um.  No-see-ums are less than ¼ of an inch long.  

WHERE DO NO-SEE-UMS LIVE?  They often stay in shrubs or the thick layer of dead leaves that naturally covers the ground.  Scrubbing your feet around in the leaves is a good way to get them stirred up.  Don’t do it!   Most no-see-ums never fly more than 350 feet from their breeding area, so if they’re bothering you, you might be able to get away from them by moving a few yards

WHY DO NO-SEE-UMS BITE?   Only the females bite and suck blood.  They need the protein in this blood to make their eggs.  No-see-ums will take blood from mammals, birds, and reptiles.  Male no-see-ums are nectar feeders and do not bite.  While the bite is not painful, it becomes very itchy.   Try not to scratch the bites; it makes them itch longer and can make the bites get infected. 

HOW CAN YOU AVOID NO-SEE-UM BITES?  The best way to avoid getting bitten by no-see-ums is to wear insect repellent when you are outside in the spring, summer, and fall.  Also, move quickly away from the areas where they’re swarming.  If you get far enough away, they won’t follow you.

HOW DO YOU AVOID GETTING THEM IN YOUR ENGAGEMENT PORTRAITS?  Here in the Lowcountry, that’s pretty much impossible this time of year if you’re shooting in the evening, at a vineyard, near wetlands, surrounded by bushes and trees, and you have to hold still long enough to get the shot…which is just long enough for them to seek you out and attack! 

HOW DO YOU GET RID OF THEM?  Aside from lots of bug repellent…in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, open the Develop Module and press “Q” to bring up the “No-See-um Remover” tool…also known as the Spot Removal tool.  🙂

I had this AWESOME Engagement Portrait Session with Melissa & Kevin the other day.  By the end of the shoot we were getting attacked pretty hard…even more than usual for this time of year.  And since I often back-light my subjects for a little extra kick, the backlighting makes the No-See-ums stand out even more.  So the Spot Removal tool has become my friend.  Here is an example of how many of those crazy critters I had to take out of a few shots.  Melissa & Kevin were so much fun to work with!  They were such troopers and so adventurous…climbing in trees, sitting on the grass, wading into water…they were willing to try anything to get a great shot!  As a result, we were rewarded with some AWESOME images.  This was the last shot of the day and one of my favorites.  More to come soon…

During the Family Circle Cup, Mike Saia, the Communication Manager for the tournament, organizes a fun competition among all the media folks covering the event.  Most of the photographers, writers, bloggers, announcers, and support staff in the Media Tent are also tennis fans who play on a recreational level.  I didn’t play this year.  It’s always EARLY Saturday morning before the “Real” players go on court.  But I was up so late photographing and editing images Friday night, that I just didn’t have it in me.  So this year I arrived in time to photographed the new Media Tournament Champions, which you can see at https://chrisandcami.com/blog/2011/04/09/family-circle-cup-media-tournaent/.  However, my good friend and colleague, Douglas Cunningham, send me some nice memories he had photographed when Leslie and I won the event a couple years ago.  🙂  Thanks for sharing these, Douglas!

Bethanie Mattek-Sands is pleased to announce Version 2.0 of her website, www.BMattek.com, lovingly called “The Duece”. This will become a true portal for Bethanie. Fans can follow the exploits of the colorful, charismatic player, currently No.41 in singles and No.12 in doubles.  You’ll find some of the images I photographed of Bethanie in her Charity Gallery at http://www.bmattek.com/gallery/charity/assorted-charity-images.

“I’m thrilled with the work done by Elemental Studios and the crafting of this new website,” Mattek-Sands said. “I believe my personality and character shine through in the latest version of BMattek.com. I know my fans and fans of the game of tennis will enjoy the experience of the website and all it has to offer.”

My good friend and fellow photographer, Matthew Glac, invited Robbin Knight and I to join him in photographing the 17th Annual Hootie & the Blowfish Monday after the Masters (MAM) Celebrity Golf Tournament and Concert earlier this week.

Darius Rucker and the gang write: “With your overwhelmin support, our golf tournament, affectionately known as the ‘MAM’, has grown from a day of golf with some of our friends, to the most successful one-day fundraiser in the State of South Carolina. We never imagined selling millions of records just like we never imagined raising millions of dollars for charity and we are extremely proud to share this experience wity Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.”

Here are a few of my favorites from the concert. Many thanks to Matthew for allowing me to join in covering this awesome event!

And now, for something truly hilarious…

I just noticed that another one of my images of World Number 1, Caroline Wozniacki, kissing her new Family Circle Cup Trophy, was used as a headline story at the WTA Tour website: http://www.wtatennis.com/news/20110410/caroline-wozniacki-queen-of-carolina_2256076_2335644.

My portrait of M. Edward Wilson, M.D., the Pierre G. Jenkins Professor and chair at the Storm Eye Institute at MUSC, was used on the cover of the April edition of Ocular Surgery News!  To read the article online, with insights concerning cataract surgery in children, head over to http://www.osnsupersite.com/view.aspx?rid=82047.   To see how the image was created, head over to this post I wrote shortly after the shoot:  https://chrisandcami.com/blog/2011/03/09/lighting-an-environmental-portrait/. 

Elena Vesnina had an AWESOME week at the Family Circle Cup! She made it to the finals of the singles. And although she was denied the opportunity to raise that trophy, she DID take home some doubles hardware!!! Partnering with Sania Mirza, the duo from Russia and India, respectively, defeated Americans (and crowd favorites) Bethanie Matteck-Sands and Meghann Shaughnessy 6-4, 6-4. Here are some of my favorites. Enjoy!

She’s an un-believable embodiment of fierce competition, cunning tactician, power, style, and grace on the tennis court. Caroline Wozniacki is the NEW Family Circle Cup Champion! Defeating Elena Vesnina 6-2, 6-3…the action was way closer than the scores indicate. Here are a ton of pics for you. Enjoy!