As I write this post I’m thinking back to Peggy and Price’s wedding where Christina, my assistant back then, was being hit on by two different groomsmen and she had a guy calling her on the phone named “Garcia”. This former wasn’t unusual. She seemed to get hit on by VERY eligible groomsmen with clockwork regularity but the stalker guy (whom she had barely met) calling and leaving multiple messages on her phone was different. Kinda creepy, yeah, but different.

But I guess it’s not surprising that Garcia… er, Mike, kept calling because anyone who knows Christina knows that there’s no man on this planet that deserves her. See, I’ve known her since she was 12 years old and we all thought she was going to become a nun. No, really, a nun. Her oldest sister is a nun. She has two brothers who are priests. So it’s not so far fetched as it may seem in this crazy world we live in.

But now she’s all grown up and getting hitched… and I couldn’t be happier to be shooting their wedding in a couple months. It means that she’ll be back in Atlanta full-time and she can start assisting me again. Yeah, and I’m happy for Christina and Mike too. (You’re laughing right? That was a joke.)

Okay, enough about me — Christina and Mike:

Ben Vigil, shooting saints…

Sometimes it really important to double-check just to make sure…

:)

Chris and Katie Torres and I just landed at TPA for the ImagingUSA for the next few days (they’re waiting for luggage). They shot a wedding with me this afternoon and we caught a flight out of Atlanta this evening. We’re all jazzed to be here with so many other amazing photographers and I can’t wait to show you some images from today’s wedding with Lauren and Matt.

Talk to you soon!

Ben

This year I managed to attend exactly one Christmas party. This has been an extremely busy season for me (probably the busiest so far) and it was a nice little foray into peace for an evening. Unfortunately Maria wasn’t able to go with me and that was a HUGE bummer — she missed an evening with very kind friends.

Andrew and Rachel from LaCour and Chris and Katie from 6 of Four Creations planned a little holiday gathering around the winter solstice at Andrew and Rachel’s place. They’ve already blogged about it so I won’t go into details but Rachel and Katie went all out with the decor and theme for the evening.

Here’s the lay of the land from (I think) Andrew.

Katie and Rachel worked so hard and they had NO IDEA how much I love fresh green beans. I could’ve died when I saw this…

Chris Torres doing what he does best…

Below: That’s Chris over there in the corner in my shot!

Am I the only one that finds humor in this shot of Mark and Erin Adams?

Not sure who took these last two images…

Ben Vigil

I think we spent about 45 minutes total. With as busy as families are these days, we had been juggling a few dates but carved out a few minutes over the weekend to grab some beautiful images of the family.
My friend Huy Cat came along for lighting support (the truth is, I told him if he came and held a reflector for me, I’d let him hold my new Canon 1D Mark III camera for a few seconds) and we had a great time. It’s quite the challenge getting 6 kids and two adults to all look the same way at the same time, much less take a picture of it.

Ahhh… such is the life I lead. But I love it. I love it because I can’t wait for them to see all their images!

We tried to do a family pyramid, which quickly turned into this:

But 27 seconds later we were here:

I don’t want to spoil the surprise too much, but here’s one more of mom and dad…

Ben Vigil, photographing saints

I’m starting to loose track of how many years I’ve shot the Stewarts. The first time I took their Christmas pictures they caused a little bit of a stir with all her friends when they received her Christmas cards. So now every year I have to live up to the pressure of knowing that all her (and our) friends will be wondering “what the picture will look like this year!”

I literally think about it all year long.

Mom loves black & white so I go there as much as possible when I am processing them. This one is too normal for a Christmas card so I’m safe posting it on the blog.

This think this is my favorite of the kiddos.

[ This is where the image I think she’s going to use for the Christmas card goes… but nobody’s allowed to see it yet. ]

And one last shot of mom…

Ben Vigil

Last week Bold American Catering hired me to come out and shoot details at a wedding at the Callanwolde Fine Arts Center for which they were hired to do event design and catering. Being one of my favorite vendors, I was happy to help them out. Steve and Stacy and Todd and the whole staff are fantastic at what they do. I am always amazed at the level of effort they put into every tiny detail. I won’t say much more, just enjoy…

Remember that attention to detail that I mentioned? Here’s the front of the program, hand made on real fabric, next to Steve’s (the Creative Director) tie, which he picked out especially to match the motif used throughout the wedding on the custom made runners (see above), the china, the programs, etc.. Okay, so he’s a little embarrassed now.

Ben Vigil, High-end Boutique Weddings

Over the summer there was this little blog game going around the internet where photographers were “tagging” each other and posting 8 things about themselves that most people don’t know. Well, Ruth Rackley tagged me a while back so here goes…

1: I know the day that I was conceived. It was in a hotel in downtown Atlanta in August of 1969. That’s all I’m saying.

2: I happen to know that there is a little girl named Mary that tells her mom that my site is her favorite. Every time I post on my blog or add to the gallery, I think about her and ask myself if it’s good for a 9 or 10 year old girl to see what I am going post. The answer is usually very clear.

3: I love cheese. Any kind. Oh, and fruity girlie drinks like frozen margaritas and long island iced teas.

4: You’ll never hear the words “say cheese” come from my lips at your wedding.

5: I lived in Hollyweird, CA for two years where I attended Musicians Institute. I wanted to be like Eddie Van Halen. But then I realized that most rock musicians live off their girlfriends and hand out flyers 27-30 days of the month (and therefore work at Kinko’s) so they can earn enough money to PAY a club to let them play. And they usually have more girlfriends per annum than gigs. I still play guitar some and love bands like xxxxx and xxxxxx xxxxx (SEE: #2). Besides have you seen Eddie lately?

6: I love woodworking. I rarely have time to do it and when I do, I usually take shortcuts because I don’t have enough time to do it right. But I come up with something cool every now and then.

7: I’ve seen the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice at least 20 times. Maria has seen it more.

8: I was almost a priest. I did a little soul searching and even met with the vocations director for the Archdiocese of Atlanta, but after more than a little grace from God I discovered that I didn’t have a vocation to the priesthood. For years I sat in the pew thinking, “*I* could give a better homily than this!” I have a great interest in apologetics and imagined myself up there giving these amazing sermons. So for a long time I thought I had a vocation, but in the end I finally realized that I was just full of pride and really conceited.

Ben

Pure Fashion has been getting a fair amount of press lately and I’m sure the escapades of the likes of Britney and Paris are simply adding credence to the cause of promoting modesty in clothing styles and fashion in general. Every year (several times a years actually) I help out Pure Fashion covering their events, doing headshots and each year it culminates with a huge fashion show for teens. It’s a full-scale production with 60-80 models and attracts in the neighborhood of 1,800-2,500 guests. TOP NOTCH production. Seriously. Brenda Sharman, former Ms. Georgia, Supermom of three, and the National Director of Pure Fashion, is going to be on the Dr Phil show in a few weeks.

Anyway, the July 23, 2007 edition of Newsweek ran a story about the modesty movement and ran one of my images from the Pure Fashion Show in Atlanta in April. I’m so glad they picked Margo who is an eleventh grader at a local Catholic school and has been involved with Pure Fashion in Atlanta for a few years now. Her parents had absolutely no idea the image was running and were completely blown away when they saw their daughters full-page image in Newsweek. They must be proud.

Ben, Pure Fashion Imagery