And Now, The End Is Here

I published my very first blog post on March 4, 2007. I featured photos of my brother and his crew, Zehara, a belly dancer who works with snakes, and my wonderful and talented friend, Krista Baroni. It's been a pretty amazing 5 years, but I've finally made the switch to a more personalized blog. It's been a long time coming, but I couldn't bear leaving this one behind. It has served me, and my business, well!

From here on out, you can see my posts at www.megbelangerweddings.com/blog.

Thank you!!

And since no post is the same without a photo, here's one from my trip to Iceland this past fall!

Hamersley's Bistro: Blue Green Colors Flashin'

*There aren't a lot of songs out there with vegetables in the lyrics, so instead I've used a lyric from the song that I was craving today, "Silver Springs" by Fleetwood Mac. The Mac is back.

As part of the Boston Homegrown book, I got to meet and photograph chefs all over the greater Boston area. Some of them were flying under the radar to the uninitiated, but there were a fair amount who were "famous" - well-established chefs whose names I had heard of before my foodie transformation. Gordon Hamersley is one of those chefs. He's been running Hamersley's Bistro in Boston's South End for over twenty years! That's extraordinary! Despite being a big deal, he was so generous with his time and his knowledge. I can not emphasize enough how much it meant to me when these super-busy chefs were enthusiastic about our book and willing to spend time and enthusiasm teaching me the ways of the food/restaurant world. Honestly. I was looking through these photos today and thought they deserved to be blogged! So, here are some photos of the food at Hamersley's Bistro!







A couple of photos of Chef Hamersley.





This is a really cool video by Robin Berghaus for Bostonia, Boston University's alumni magazine. The reason I'm posting it is because the video also features Ellery of Blue Heron Farm. Blue Heron Farm, in Lincoln, MA, is the profiled supplier that is partnered with Hamersley's Bistro in the book!

Happy spring, everyone! I hope everyone is out there getting their all-natural sunshiny vitamin D these days1

Amy & George, Bryant Park: I Promise From The Heart

Amy and George got married this past summer in New York City. Although not my first Manhattan-based couple, it was my first Manhattan wedding, and the reception was be at the legendary Bryant Park (clearly I watch too much Project Runway). I met Amy and George through Katie & Ryan, so I already knew how much fun they could be at a wedding! They did not disappoint! There were so many wonderful little details to their day. They included all of their nieces and nephews in the wedding, so they were surrounded by adorable flower girls and ring bearers (as well as one beautiful junior bridesmaid). The favors were bottles of hot sauce with a label that said "You're Hot, Call Me," which is apparently the note Amy left on George's car when they first met. How great is that story?



Amy's gorgeous dress is from Vera Wang. Swoon. The shoes were Manolo Blahnik, so I was in fashion heaven!


The handsome groom. This looks like a photo taken straight out of a movie! I love it! Taken, of course, by my talented second shooter, Allana Taranto.


A few photos from the ceremony. Amy shared an emotional moment with her father before she walked down the aisle.




Since we were in NYC, Allana & I had to hop in a cab to get down to our portrait location. We met up with the bride and groom and the rest of their wedding party at the Flatiron Building and used the sidewalk space out front for our portraits. We were even able to see the Empire State Building in some of our shots! It was so very romantically New York City!






The reception was held at the Bryant Park Grill which was amazing! The cocktail hour was out on the roof and the reception was in the main dining area.




The cake was made by the sugar Sweet sunshine Bakery in the Bowery.


And the dancing! Oh was there ever dancing! Bud Maltin Metropolitan Music provided the night's soundtrack and Amy and George's wedding guests danced all night. George's nieces and nephews even put together a performance of a Justin Bieber song. It doesn't get any cuter than that! And there's always lots of singing into spoons. One of these days I'll have to find out how that started, but for now I'm just happy with all of the awesome photos it gets me!






Amy and George, thank you so much for including us in your wedding day! We had so much fun! And I know that honeymoon was well deserved! I always love a good reason to get down to New York City - adventure abounds down there!

Hollywood History: The Days Go By So Fast

Back to Los Angeles...now where were we?
Life in Los Angeles was a pretty big adjustment for a girl who had spent her whole life in the Northeast. I was lucky, though; being in school gave me a built-in way to meet new people, to have new experiences, and to basically make the transition easier. That being said, it was a personal photography project that really made me feel more at home. It gave me a purpose. I fell head over heels in love with the history of "Hollywood." I had always loved it from afar, but there it was, right in front of me. I could smell it, taste it, and feel it. What was left of it anyway. See, in my humble opinion, Los Angeles has a lot of history for a city that's so relatively young. Unfortunately, it failed to recognize that unique history. When you grown up in a city like Boston, every other building has a plaque and is a historical landmark. Not so in Los Angeles. I made it my mission to treasure hunt around the city, searching out historical buildings and locations, and then photograph them. Sometimes the buildings no longer existed, so I photographed a parking lot or a mini-mall. Most of the movie palaces downtown were now evangelical churches or swap meets and were in states of disrepair. Very few buildings still retained their original grandeur. I did so much research! Each location had its own index card with fun facts and figures and up in the corner I listed the Thomas Guide coordinates so I could find it (this is before GPS - people in LA couldn't live without their Thomas Guides). In the end, I created an amazing book that I still continue to photograph for when I visit LA. I even still travel with my index cards.

The Los Angeles Theater opened in 1931 with the premiere of Charlie Chaplin's City Lights. It has a six-story lobby and could hold 2050 people.


The Bradbury Building was built in 1893 and seems to be one of the only downtown buildings Los Angeles felt was worthy of preserving. You can see it all the time in current movies. For instance, it just showed up in The Artist.




This what truly broke my heart. The following photos are of The Ambassador Hotel. It opened in 1921 and was demolished in 2006. Howard Hughes and Jean Harlow lived there. Marilyn Monroe got her start at the modeling agency located inside the hotel. The hotel hosted six Academy Awards shows. F. Scott Fitzgerald stayed there. Presidents Hoover, Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon stayed there. Kruschev even stayed there. And let's not forget the Cocoanut Grove! Bing Crosby, Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, and even Barbra Streisand all performed at the Cocoanut Grove. The hotel was also where Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated after giving his victory speech in the California primary in 1968. And with a few swings of the wrecking ball, all of that is gone. I'm convinced that one day, Los Angeles will open some sort of Ambassador tribute hotel, maybe at Disney California. A total slap in the face if you ask me!













I've mentioned a lot of this before in earlier posts, like HERE and HERE. I'm definitely passionate about my Hollywood history! Once I get started, it's hard to stop me. But hey, a little passion never hurt anyone! For whatever reason, I've just been thinking about it lately. My time in Los Angeles, photographing on film sets and around the city, played a pivotal role in my becoming a photographer. I know I've shared some LA photos before, but I thought it would be fun to share a few of my 35mm photos. And there are plenty more where these came from!

PS- Do you like the layer of smog hanging over the city in that first photo?!

Newborn Photography: We've Been That Way Since Birth

Just a little sneak peek...
Welcome to the world, Baby Girl!

Old Film Photos: Got This Dance That's More Than Real

A lot of people ask me how I got started in photography (a natural question, of course). I've always loved taking photos and I grew up with a photo-taking father, but I never even considered creating a life out of photography. Don't get me wrong - I also never considered a career in anything useful, either. In college, I majored in American Studies and minored in Creative Writing: Poetry. That's right - I'm a poet by trade. During my American Studies coursework, I discovered that I could be a student of movies. Of radio. Of TV. Of culture. With a little help from some amazing Colby professors, I turned my American Studies major into a study of pop culture. It was awesome. So much of what I learned is actually directly applicable to my everyday life and how I read and process the world around me. However, this was not going to get me a job. At least not in any direct way. What it did, though, was get me into one of the best film schools in the country. Ta-dah! I studied silent movies, World Cinema, documentaries, feminist theory, Westerns, and pretty much everything under the sun. Birth of a Nation to Maid in Manhattan.

In addition to my nerdy film classes, I was also required to take a semester of production. Groan. Never had I actually wanted to make movies, but here I was, forced to make 4 short films over the course of a semester, plus take classes in acting, directing, cinematography, and sound. There was a long-standing history of friction between the School of Production and the School of Critical Studies that existed not just between students, but was even perpetuated by faculty (I may have written a nasty letter to my sound professor, Tom Holman). In a typical production class, there would be a couple of crit studies students and then a boatload of production students. I was totally outnumbered. I lucked into an awesome group of people, though, and we made some great movies together. One of these days, maybe I'll screen my directing debut, "Bedlam," the story of a reluctant bed on moving day (this is the kind of movie one makes when they have two days and one of them is moving day).

However, as much as I didn't want to be a production student, I still LOVED being on set. We would do exercises where we had to recreate scenes from movies and students would have different roles. We actually shot scenes from Thelma & Louise in the actual motel they filmed in! I would be a boom operator one day and the director the next. I always brought my camera to set, though. I loved grabbing all of the behind-the-scenes photos, capturing my friends working hard. And back then, it was all on film. Eventually, I was hired to do the still photography on a production student's thesis film. My first official photography job. I loved having the midnight call time and having the opportunity to watch all the pieces come together. It was amazing. It was then that I knew that I wanted to be a photographer.

Our scene from Thelma & Louise.




Our scene from The Accused.


Some photos from Streakers.






And a friend of mine working on her short film.


So, this was the start of it all! While I'm feeling inspired, and more than a little nostalgic, I'm also going to try to post some old film photos from a personal project I started in Los Angeles. Hopefully that will keep me up-to-date with my blogging! Of course I still have plenty of weddings and food photos and family sessions I can post, too. Never a dull moment!

Chocolate Cake: You're My Favorite Work of Art

So, all of this food photography occasionally prompts ME to actually cook something. On this occasion, I BAKED. Now, as I've mentioned before, I'm much more of a "let's throw everything in this one pan with some olive oil and call it dinner" kind of girl. My dinners are usually delicious, but they're not very intricate and nor are they very photogenic. This time around, I opted for something that was a little bit of both! I got the recipe from Smitten Kitchen, a wonderful food blog. Every time I end up on that site, I leave with a recipe I want to try out! This time around I made Everyday Chocolate Cake.









I took these photos a couple of weeks ago, so the Valentine's decor was a lot more appropriate. Overall, I'd say the cake came out pretty well! It was really dense, so you definitely want a glass of milk to go along with it. Or maybe a dollop of whipped cream (which I don't eat). I was just happy it looked pretty! I made Doug take most of it to work with him so we didn't sit at home and eat it all by ourselves and he told me it was a big hit (although I suppose he could have been lying - how would I know?). It definitely wasn't perfect (yet), but I'd say it was pretty good for someone in the habit of eyeballing food measurements!