Kara

I've mentioned my friend Randy Kepple in this blog several times. For the past couple of years we have talked about getting together to shoot. For one reason or another we've never been able to do it until now.

His daughter Kara is a senior in high school this year. She wanted her Dad to do her Senior Portraits and she has such a tight schedule it had to be this past Sunday or else it could potentially have been months before they would have been able to do it again. It just happened to work out that I had free time Sunday so I invited myself along to hold reflectors, snap a few photo's and hang out.

Since Randy made the drive up from Portland I figured his tail was probably pretty numb anyway so I recommended we make the hour + drive to Sedro Woolley, WA to shoot at the abandoned mental hospital/dairy farm/slaughterhouse. I know it sounds creepy and the fact that when we arrived, a blood and guts horror movie was being filmed at the same site complete with brains splattered on a blue lit wall, fake blood everywhere, guns and more didn't necessarily help with the first impression. We had good spots scoped out in Everett so my reputation was on the line by recommending this place :) The truth is, it's a great place to shoot with a very diverse range of locations from dark and grungy with peeling paint and broken brick to tall grass with charming barns.

Kara has clearly spent her entire life in front of her Dad's camera's and even after an unfortunate mishap when she was two that involved a stool, a Hasselblad and gravity she was very comfortable in front of the camera and made an excellent model. It was a great pleasure to watch Randy at work. He is an expert at finding light in any scenario and the light was absolutely beautiful. The apple did not fall far from the tree with Kara as their sense of humor was contagious. It was a great deal of fun as well as educational and I really appreciate the opportunity to participate in the day. Here are a few pics I grabbed.


It was a great treat to watch Randy at work.
You would not believe the size of the spider she had to shoo away for this pose.



Too much fun!
Heading back on our hike we stopped for one last photo.

Andrea and Reid are married!

Friday night on one of the most beautiful days I can recall in recent history, Andrea and Reid were married at one of my favorite venues to photograph a wedding... Newcastle Golf Club. Their event was organized by a stellar coordinator Jenny Harding whom I would recommend to anyone planning a wedding with absolute confidence. The entire wedding day was flawless!

I arrived early to get some detail shots before Andrea got ready. Just to check in I found Andrea upstairs getting her makeup put on. I think she would agree with me when I say she was a little nervous though she was keeping her cool. Years ago, Andrea and her brother Ryan worked with me at McGrath's in Vancouver. We ran into each other at Alex and Trina's wedding last year and they booked me. Even back when she was a teenager working at the FishHouse, Andrea had it going on. She has always struck me as an intelligent, hard working, kind woman with a huge heart. She found her match in Reid has he seems to share the exact same qualities. Her brother Ryan was the same way, hard working, witty, and an all around good guy. Having met their parents tonight I see why. Both families were so much fun to hang around with!

They hired a killer band as well! Maurice the Fish seriously rocked it! I love getting in the middle of the dance floor and shooting wide angle right smack in the middle of all the energy. There was no shortage of energy tonight, let me tell you!

The ceremony took place outside while the sun was setting and it simply couldn't have been more perfect. Here are some photo's from the day...


Getting makeup on.

An awkward moment I stumbled upon before the ceremony ;)






Stunning view, stunning dress, stunning bouquet, stunning bride!
This little flower girl was just too darn cute not to add to the blog.
What a stunning image on these candy bars! :)


Talk about a beautiful sunset.


I love the out of focus shapes of Andrea, Reid and her Father while praying in the background.


What a view!
1st Dance
Andrea and her Dad had some serious moves on the dance floor.
Maurice the Fish...a seriously cool band!
The newlyweds are sent off in style!

Emerald Downs, Tom Skerritt and good times

On Labor Day, Lea, the girls and I drove down to the Emerald Downs race track and we had a great time! I've never been before and I found myself asking why the heck not! The horses are absolutely incredible. My gambling urge got the best of me and I even placed a few bets. I lost all but one bet when I bet on a horse to place either First, Second or Third. I paid $10, the horse came in 3rd and they handed me back $12! Woohoo! If that would have been the only bet I placed I would've been in good shape :) I suppose I should stick to playing poker.

After each race, the winning horse heads to the Winners Circle for a photo-with the owner(s) and family. It's clearly a proud moment for them all to be there. I can only imagine the money, time and commitment required to train a horse to that level. They are so fast!

One race, a horse dominated...I wish I had been paying closer attention because when the horse headed to the winners circle it was greeted by the great actor Tom Skerritt! Picket Fences used to be one of my favorite shows and reading up on his bio for this post I was reminded of how many awesome movies he has starred in. Truly one of my all time favorite actors. It was a great treat seeing him at the track. It's hard to believe he is 75 as he looks like he could be in his 40's!


10 minutes before each race, the bugle is played.
It was so embarrassing..world famous actor Tom Skerritt shouted out in front of the crowd.."Ist that the famous photographer Mat Hayward?! Then he started snapping pics with his I-Phone. The paparazzi never leave me alone I tell ya :)
This guy is 75! Are your kidding me?!?
Aaaaaand they're off!

These horses are seriously ripped!

Intense!
A close finish!

Savannah and Pumpkin (photo's by Lea Hayward :)

As summer is coming to a close for the girls and they're gearing up for school (Savannah is going into 2nd Grade and Sophie will begin Pre-School) Savannah was treated to a week at horse camp. Since she was born, she was destined to be a horse lover. There really was no question about it and it's been confirmed.

Lea has been extremely diligent about getting the girls to swimming lessons a couple times a week, Savannah was in tennis lessons over the summer and now horse camp. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get time away from work to go watch her ride her new equine friend pumpkin so I equipped Lea with a 20D and a 70-200 to see what it was like. I think Lea did a good job getting some nice shots and was even thorough enough to get some cool detail shots. Here are a few...


Leading the Pack!
Savannah and Pumpkin

Don't Fly with Jet Blue!

Randy Kepple is an exceptionally talented photographer based out of Portland, OR/Vancouver, WA. I consider him to be a good friend and his blog is one of my all time favorites. Randy has a natural gift for telling stories through both his photographs and his writing.

Recently he flew to the East Coast to shoot a wedding. On the way back there were some freak storms and flights were cancelled. The way in which he was treated by Jet Blue was unforgivable. Fortunately, Randy has a determined, intelligent and persistent wife who miraculously was able to find him a last minute ticket through Frontier Air who could and should write a book on customer service and out of pity should send a copy to Jet Blue.

I won't do the story justice by trying to retell it here. Instead, I feel compelled to post a link to Randy's blog so you can read it for yourself. Jet Blue sent him a half assed apology basically excusing themselves from any responsibility for their action along with a $75 travel voucher that I hope he will never use. In todays competitive market for travel I am shocked that any airline can stay in business with this type of (lack of) customer service.

Randy's Jet Blue Blog Post

Announcing MHWildlife.com!

Hi Everyone,

I am proud to announce that my new wildlife photography web site is up and running!

Please visit MHWildlife.com and check it out!

I've still got many images to upload so check back every now and then and please send the link to your email buddies!

All the best,

Mat

Day 10: Cats and Carnage in the Crater (Ngorongoro)

Sunday: I slept in until almost 6:30AM! That was nice. Took another hot shower and met Nickson in the dining room for breakfast. Fresh Papaya, Banana, Cereal, Scrambled eggs and bacon. I am loving the fresh fruit here. We made the drive into Ngorongoro Crater which took about an hour from Bouganvillea. We instantly found many Zebra and Wildebeest. The Alkaline Lake smells interesting. There are Pink Flamingo's on it but again we can't get close enough for a detailed shot of them. As I am writing this, about 75 yards away a Black Rhino and her calf are laying down in a field. There or very few of these magnificent beasts left in the wild and here are two of them. Amazing! I am sad to report my binoculars have gone missing. They were on the front seat for our drive yesterday. Now they are gone. I hope they weren't stolen (they were).

-Sitting in the car eating a boxed lunch at a nice park area of the crater. We saw one more Rhino pretty far away. It's awesome to see them. Visited the hippo pool here. It's nice, but my favorite hippo pool was at Serengeti for sure. At this one there were lions sleeping high above the pool on some rocks. So far in my opinion, Ngorongoro Crater is a let-down considering all the hype. Everyone has been saying it is the very best so my expectations were high. It is very nice, but not a mind blower. In my opinion, Tarangiri was the nicest most diverse area of the trip.

-So after lunch we drove on and saw a Serval Cat in the distance hunting. It's a smaller cat and was pretty far off so I didn't get much of a shot. We drove for a couple of hours without seeing much of anything at all. It was quite dull. This was the only drive this entire trip that we've been on in the middle of the afternoon (because you can't exit and enter) I'm glad we didn't do more.

-We came across a flock of Crown Cranes which were really quite extraordinary. Then some Warthogs were in a good spot to get some closeups. Followed by some super-tight Zebra shots. Therer were thousands of Wildebeest and Zebras in the crater. Incomprehensible numbers. I can only imagine what it's like in Kenya at Maasai Mara where the migrating herds are at now. A while later, Nickson got the call I'd been waiting for the entire trip. The Pride of Lions above the Hippo Pool had killed a Zebra! We flipped a U-turn and hauled ass to the hippo pool. There were dozens of cars already there. Apparently the kill occurred about an hour before we arrived. The lions weren't in a very good spot and I could barely make out a patch of black and white (and red) at the bottom of a dip in the ground. The two males were laying down snoozing peacefully. Their faces were covered in blood. One female was eating the zebra. There was a Jackal keeping his distance on one side and a hyena on the other. Both were patiently waiting for their chance to eat as I was (im)patiently waiting for some cars to move to get a better angle for a decent photograph. Finally, the other cars got bored and left. We were able to drive to a much better position. They were still very far away and I was glad I brought the Canon 400mm f/2.8L IS lens. I added the 2X II converter and was shooting 800mm f/5.6. The eating lioness started working hard to get a good chunk of meat and had lifted the Zebra's head up so I could see it better. I fired off a bunch of shots with my fingers crossed hoping some will be good. We stuck around for awhile. It sucked not having the binoculars as they would have come in handy. I sure hope they turn up. We drove a bit further and saw a Lion cub being taunted by a Jackal while his mother stood watch. I took some photo's but they were even further back so I doubt they'll be usable (they weren't).

Driving on, we found a Brown Snake on the side of the road. Further still was a Cheetah wayyy out in the distance. No shot possible. We then came across a beautiful Serval Cat hunting right next to the road giving me a great photo opportunity. We were on our way out at this point and passed a giant herd of Wildebeest. I grabbed some photo's but it will be difficult to represent the magnitude of the herd. The road out of the crater was narrow and consisted of soft red dirt with an precariously steep drop to our immediate right. Treacherous.

Driving to camp we passed a huge elephant on the side of the road. The wide angle shots of the close elephants are some of my favorites I think. We arrived at camp and Swalehh had already set up my tent which was Poa (cool). The bathroom nearest is the nastiest yet. A non-flushing stone toilet with a pile of poo petrified on the rim. Nasty. At another section of camp where there is only 2 tents set up I walked to check out the bathroom and found it immaculate! Private stalls, running water, the works. Awesome!

I walked back to my side of the camp and there was a massive elephant in camp! He was drinking water from the mess tent supply. Soon a crowd gathered snapping photo's. He was very impressive and didn't seem too disturbed by us. It's so funny, I'm now pretty much used to wild animals in camp (easy to say when it's still light out :)

I'm now sitting outside my tent eating popcorn and waiting for dinner and a good nights sleep. I'm ready for the drive back to Arusha, the long flight home and the highly anticipated reunion with my beautiful family.

Dinner was good as usual. Peanut Soup followed by Mbuze Cataliki (Pork Chops..aka Catholic Lamb) and Crepe' Suzette...yum yum.

After dinner, I hiked to the (clean) bathroom in the dark. My flashlight caught the reflection of glowing eyes and there grazing beside me were 7 zebras. Too cool. When done, I tried to see how close I could get but about 15 feet was it before they slowly walked away. The camp is crowded. There are a bunch of giggling teenagers so once again I am grateful for the earplugs :)

I talked to Savannah and Sophie on the phone tonight-I cannot wait to see them!

Good Night.

Halfway down the road into the crater we were greeted by hundreds of zebras.
Running Wildebeest
Profile of a Wildebeest.
A Zebra standing in front of the Pink Flamingo covered lake.
A mother Black Rhino and her calf. Black Rhino's are bordering on extinction in the wild.
Ngorongoro Crater is home to many hippo's.
This Hippo was just showing off :)
The 3rd Black Rhino we saw in one day!

The beautiful Grey Crowned Crane.


It's good to be King of the Crater...
...though sometimes it sucks to be a zebra!
You gotta love Pink Flamingo's!
This snake was slithering in front of us on the road.
This Serval Cat was hunting for mice just next to the road on our way out. The other day I watched a BBC Special created by two people that spent 3 months in Tanzania searching for Serval Cats with no luck until 3 days before the end of their trip! A rare and special find.
I couldn't resist posting two shots of this awesome cat.
A Massive herd of Wildebeest.
This Monkey was one of several smart enough to hang out near the public restroom located next to the road out of Ngorongoro where they successfully beg for food and sometimes steal it from the exiting tourists.
Check out the root system on this tree I spotted on the steep road out of Ngorongoro Crater.
Another awesome elephant seen on the rim of Ngorongoro Crater. It is so cool to be close enough to shoot these guys with a 16-35mm lens.
All I needed was a copy of Popular Photography Mazazine, maybe a soft tune through the sound system and this bathroom would have had all the necessary comforts.
Holy Crap! This was a huge elephant walking into camp!
Turns out he was just a bit thirsty and this was an easier trip than walking down into the crater for a drink.
I wonder what a Health Inspector would have said about the standards of sanitation in the camp kitchen.