Yanni's! OPA!

This weekend I went to what is officially my favorite restaurant in Denver. It's a little "Greek Taverna" in Denver off of Monaco and Evans. Yanni's! You'd never guess... this little Greek Restaurant sits in a little strip mall in nowhere in particular.

I found Yannis about 7 or 8 years ago, I suppose... I went out to England to visit my sister Gina, and her hubby Nick. One night we went to a greek restaurant out there, which was pretty much my first taste of real, greek food. I LOVED IT.

Long story short, when I came back, I had a major hankerin' for some really good, authentic greek food. I went to the most reliable source, the Yellow Pages and I suppose I got lucky.

Here's a random shot of a wine glass with a reflection of clouds and peeps at Yanni's.


The first thing I noticed was a guy cruising around, kissing everybody on the cheeks. I thought that was cool. I assumed they were family. I thought that was cool, too. I didn't get a kiss, but I got the best service ever! Yanni, the owner... the guy who was kissing everyone, filled up my glass of Ouzo (WHICH I LOVE) like 10 times while I was there. I was a little nervous about my bar tab, but guess what, the Ouzo is free! But it's not like you should go there and just expect free Ouzo. The Ouzo is a gift, from Yanni himself. You don't order a gift.

Yesterday, Yanni was feeling CRAZY and decided to express himself with some really bold fashion. I thought being Italian made me automatically stylish. Yanni is Greek. There is a difference.

Anyway, I have been going back to that little strip mall greek restaurant ever since and it's a favorite splurge day destination. My favorite is their Pastitsio, which is like a really big hunk of macaroni, beef, spices and who knows what else, but I LOVE IT.

This is not the Pastitsio. It's Veal something-or-other. Jenny ordered it and it was tantalizing. I took a photo of my Pastitsio, but it was after I had already started eating it, so I ruined the photo op. It's why I could never be a food photographer.

If you're in Denver, I HIGHLY recommend Yannis, a Greek Taverna! Best service and food EVER. Oh and I love when I call to see when they close. They just say, "Well how long do you want to stay?". They never rush you out when it's "about that time". I love Yannis!

And so does Walt. He doesn't like Ouzo, so since he wasn't going to drink it, he decided to balance it on his head. I tried to do that, but I have too much hair. ;)

And finally, dessert! This is a caramel thing. It was good. I ordered the greek yogurt with honey and walnuts! Mmmm... once again, I ate that before I thunk to take a photo of it. And my embarrassing moment of the evening: I ordered a greek cafe drink. It's sweet coffee in a teeny tiny mug. At the bottom, there appeared to be mocha! Like chocolate fudge! It was splurge day, so I took a huge spoonful of it... turned out to be coffee grounds. What the heck are those greeks doing, leaving the coffee grounds in the cup! I didn't want to spit it out and offend Jenny's family, so I took a big gulp of water and washed it down. "Poor little fool. I was a fool,I was a fool oh yeahhhh..."

OPA!

"Don't trust anyone under 14,000 feet"

For some of my veteran Peeps, this is a re-run, but I figured, Conan O'Brian (my FAVORITE television personality) does it all the time and people still love him, so I'm going to have a little re-run since I've been a little pressed on time.

ANYWAY… I’ve just planned another trip with Terence, who’s one of my very good friends, for another adventure in the wilderness this year. We’ll be taking three days to head out to the wilderness, deep into the woods, far beyond civilization, and into the land of the bears and rocky mountain bighorns and who knows what else.

Here I am with a bad llama at the trail head. This was taken after our trip.

For some reason, this llama got left behind by his owner. I think he was being a bad llama.
I started looking through the photos from our last escapade. When Terence asks me to go on an adventure with him, I force myself to say “yes” and commit to it. It’s just harder to do this now that I’m a wedding photographer, but it’s also what life is all about. Some of the most valuable moments in my life are on our wilderness adventures, so I found a good week late into the wedding season where I’m not going to be hard pressed to come back from the mtn’s, having to clean up and go straight to a wedding with blistered feet.

Let me tell you a few things about my friend Terence… he’s not what you and I would consider ‘normal’. Terence is a Paramedic here at Denver General Hospital. He sees a lot of crazy stuff, but that’s for another post… in some other blog. Terence enjoys long, painful, arduous treks and prefers to start moving at night. One year he dragged me out on my most brutal trip to try and bag Challenger and Kit Carson (two 14ers) in one day. We started hiking at like, 10 PM and reached the base of Kit Carson at 5 AM. We took a 2 hour COLD nap on a rock, and headed up. That was the only sleep we got, as we finished our trip, returning to our car in the middle of the next night, hiking straight through.

Here's Terence leading me through our trip last summer. It was probably about 5 AM in that photo.

Our bags were covered because of all the thunder storms, and as you can see, we travel light. ;)
He’s a little nicer to me now. Last year we started our hike at like 2AM and reached our camp a little lower. It rained and stormed and I was too afraid to take out my camera for the most part. And it was so bad that I skipped to the section on “Lightning” in my Outdoor Emergency Care book, to pretty much find out that I was just KIND OF screwed. I brought along my OEC book because I was trying to get certified for Ski Patrol, which I wasn’t even guaranteed a spot for, but very hopeful. Anyway, I did get certified and I did work my first year of ski patrol and it was awesome. And now I’ve gotten off track.

Shot from the inside of my tent. Bear Mace, my OEC book, flash cards and gummy treats!

I got a lot of studying in on that trip because of the thunderstorms.
One thing I value from the adventures I’ve been on with Terence is that he pushes me. Not off mountains, and not to where I’m in a life or death situation (I’ve been on one too many of those), but just a teeny tiny bit past my comfort zone. And as a result I have seen some of the most spectacular views in the world that not just anyone gets a chance to see in their lives.

Summit of Mt. Sneffels. It was freezing and I had some good blisters on my feet.

Legs felt like rubber bands. Hurt so good! To give you some interesting perspective,

the solid thing by my left hand is an alpine lake that we would have camped at if it weren't for the thunderstorms. Instead we camped out lower, below the tree line.. Our ending elevation!
I met Terence in college when we both set out to American Adventure Expeditions to become whitewater raft guides. We were rookies together. We became good friends when we were going through a painful and freaky three weeks of training for that job. We have been on a lot of crazy excursions from there on out. Terence is also the person responsible for leading me to 3 Pikes Peak Ascents, which is a RUNNING race from Manitou Springs to the summit of Pikes Peak. About an 8,000 vertical foot gain in 13.6 miles. Oh and one Pikes Peak Marathon, 26 miles (we had to run back down). I did OK, placed in the 400’s of just a little over 800. Terence did awesome and came in like, 82nd place.

Terence running through a field of flowers. Looks like one of those commercials you

see on TV advertising... uh, nevermind.
Anyway, I wasn’t planning on this becoming a tribute to my good friend Terence, but that’s what has become of this post, so here’s to my wing man, Terence. Looking forward to our adventure!

CAFIERO, switching to MAC!

OK my peeps, it’s time. Next week I’m diving head first and not looking back into the Apple store here in Cherry Creek and getting my first Mac in years. I was a mac user about 6 years ago. Bilingual, actually. I had a mac for work and PC for personal use. I preferred the PC and decided to go all PC based. I now have three PC machines, and was convinced that the Apple vs. PC debate was all just a bunch of hype, and there’s no way a Mac can make my image work any better. I still don’t…BUT I am sold on the point that PC’s are just way more susceptible to viruses, and crashing, etc. I have been through hell and back on my PCs over the winter. Two got viruses, one required a new hard drive, the other required a new machine altogether. I usually get top of the line stuff too, and my new PC had issues, and I had to deal with getting a replacement, which was just a MESS!! Oh and by the way, all of my wedding clients were safe because I have three copies of all their images on external drives! I am so smart!

Here it is... I'm going with the BIG 20 inch screen!

Then last week, Jenny and I went into an Apple store and were sold immediately after just 5 minutes or so of seeing an iMac in action.

Why do you care? Well let me tell you what I’ll be able to do with my new 6 Peeps blog! (ahem, I mean ‘iBlog’) ...

Once I switch over to iBlog, I’ll have a fully customizable blog and guess what, now you’ll get to see slideshows… to music! Of every wedding I shoot. My plan is to have slideshows for every wedding I shoot, posted here at 6 Peeps within days of shooting an event. There’s more, but you’ll just have to see.

These commercials are pretty good too. You can tell that Apple has a pretty good marketing department. I hope that my new iMac is as good as they make it sound in the commercials.

These advertisements are funny, they feature the guy who played the cheerleader in Dodgeball! (5 D's of Dodgeball, 'DODGE, DIP, DUCK, DIVE, & DODGE'):

Hank... H-A-N-K, Hank

After looking over my posts and my 6 Peeps weekly announcements, I noticed that my spelling and grammar has gotten lazy! How unprofessional of me!

As a former 5th Grade Spelling Bee champion who made it all the way to the regional competition (finally lost to the word, "physician"), I am sorry to say that I have lost my pride... but I'm going to try to get it again! Announcing new spell-checked 6 Peeps from here on out! Maybe if I start updating my blog during the day when I'm not half-asleep will help.

NOW... sometimes I intentionally mis-spell words, so that doesn't count. Just because it's fun. Sometimes I like to mispronounce words, just to get a reaction. That's fun, too. I like talking to my dad and saying things like, "I'm in the mood for a good expresso"... one time I was telling him a story and I kept saying, "So I says" (blah blah blah), and "THEN I says" (blah blah blah). Or I'll pronounce "groceries" as grosheries". It gets him all fired up. It's funny.

Even with my friends, I'll say something like, "I expecially love this or that" and I watch their faces to see if they caught it or not. You can tell by looking at them. I just want someone to correct me, but no one does!

If anyone knows me, they know I like to get reactions out of people. I like making up far-fetched stories and seeing if I can convince people that they are true. Once I had someone convinced that Ben & Jerry's has a new ice cream called Burrito Supremo and that it's a play off of Taco Bell and that the ice cream is refried bean flavored with swirls of sour cream and cheese pieces. That was fun. :)

Anyway, back to the spelling... spell check and grammar check for now on, people! No more lookin like a horses - - - in public! ;)

(shot from my car window. I just thought it was funny. Hank is so loved that his owner took the time to write his name on his very own trailer!) :)

Ode to my WOMAN...

I just found this shot of my special little lady, Jenny. This was taken at a ski patrol party we had this year. Is she not just the cutest thing ever?

In fact, let me tell you a little more about her. She's my no.1 competitor in Denver, but it's cool, we work together. She's new out here and I really want her to do well, she's crazy talented. As you know, she designed my logo, among help with all sorts of other stuff. She's adding a very nice feminine touch to my packaging and presentation, and every Monday we go on field trips to talk business.

I'm personally a freak when it comes to task management. I have ADD so that's a must for me. I write out all my tasks every morning when I wake up and right before bed. Most girls would think that's wierd, but Jenny supports me so much and has even joined me! We write out our goals every day together and it's so great to have someone in my life who supports me, believes in me, and laughs at my jokes... most of the time!

I finally got to meet her family this last week and they are awesome. Her brother is an extremely passionate chef. It was so fun to watch him work his magic in the kitchen. He's a perfectionist and I'm thinking we'll see him on Food Network some day. Not even kidding. I considered bringing my camera, but you know when you meet the woman's family for the first time, you want to make a good non-paparazzi first impression.

Anyway, this weekend... ON SPLURGE DAY!!! We're taking him and his wife and Walt and Lori, who are close family friends to my personal favorite Greek Restaurant, Yannis. That will be another blog entry for next week! ;)

My New Competition

Recently Gina, my older sister sent in some images that my nephew Jay took with her point and shoot when they went to visit my other sister, Katherine. Jay is I think 5 years old now and Gina, please don't let Jay move in on my territory here in CO or AZ.

Photos by 5 year-old Jay Radovcich:

OK, Jay has a thing for animal butts. I'm going to pretend I didn't notice.

Marlin's Hiney:

Tootse's Hiney:

I love this shot, a little action shot of Tootse, ready to put the smack down on Marlin:

Here's a shot of Jay's foot:

And a close up of Katherine, my younger sister's mouth. Heavy, profound stuff, Jay! To me, this image represents life and society, and ummm... yeah, life and society today.

Way to go JayBird!!!! You're a great photographer and I can't wait for more submissions!!!!

Vintage style couture!

Oh man, I had a great weekend! It started with an absolutely beautiful wedding (see Dan and Marie below), and ended with a good 5 hours of shooting a really nice line of wedding dresses and womens business attire for Stephanie James Courture of Huntington Beach, CA. Remember the pin-up girl photos I posted a while ago? Well this caught the eye of Stephanie and her husband Jim Kennedy, who is one of the photographers I admire most in this business. We met at Becker Photographer's workshop in NYC and have kept in touch since then. In Vegas I saw them again at Becker's shin dig and that's when we decided to make this photo shoot happen.

It was a lot of fun, the weather was GREAT for AZ, and I got to get to know Jim and Stephanie a lot better and they are both awesome people. So many photographers are so caught up in their own positioning, that they sometimes forget what is really important to their clients; great, amazing photography, excellent customer service, and just knowing that their business is really appreciated. Well Jim focuses on all three of these things before himself and it's no surprise that the hundred plus brides who hire him each year absolutely love him. Same with Stephanie, who's also a wedding photographer.

Here's a shot of Jim from yesterday, and his wife Stephanie (I took that photo at Becker's workshop in NYC, she was a model for it!) - she's quite the looker! I gave Jim the ride of his life after the shoot to a place where we could all eat some dinner and download our images. You know I am in AZ at least a couple times a month these days, but when we got in the car my ADD really kicked in full force. I impressed Jim with my cognitive map-reading skills, my ability to drive at night with no headlights, and got a few nervous laughs out of him as I skillfully dodged a median, and crazy drivers who didn't know how to drive. ;) What am I doing as a photographer! I need to become an airline pilot. I told Jim that I started taking flying lessons a while back. I can take off on my own, but I can't land yet. As soon as I learn to land, I am bringing Jim and Stephanie out for a flight, a little adventure tour somewhere cool. And poor Stephanie who had to follow me, was dying for a pit stop. Sorry Stephanie!

And here are just a few shots from my shoot. Jim and I were both shooting and by coincidence he was working more with Jamie, the model they brought out from CA and I worked mostly with Amber, so I'm not playing fav's here, I just happen to have more shots of Amber. They were both just PERFECT for this kind of shoot and worked it very well for the camera! I haven't even seen them all yet, these just stuck out from a very quick scan of the images.

Here's Jamie - this shot probably wouldn't work for Stephanie's use because it doesn't show the whole dress, but it's one of my personal fav's.

Jim already thinks I'm a liar because I convinced him I knew where I was going when I was driving (I really thought I did), and now just yesterday I told him that I no longer do the spot coloring thing, and I went on and on about how it's so over-done, and blah blah blah. And so then I go home and do THIS. How can I ever be trusted! ;)

Jamie, looking very elegant...

Amber, doing what she does best...

Thanks again Jim, Stephnanie, Jamie and Amber and Kelli, the hairdresser who really gave these girls a great look!! I hope we got some keepers here for ya!

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!!!!!

I gotta give a shout to my mom this mother's day! I have to say, she's the hardest working woman I've ever met. Being a single mom with a couple of rugrats like myself is no easy task, even when your son is an absolute ANGEL like myself.

Here's my mom - she kind of looks like Celine Dion, but prettier. In fact, I remember in college, I was taking a spanish class and the Professora was all, "OK CLASS, today we're going to learn how to say the word 'BEAUTIFUL' in Spanish. Ready... 'LINDA'." I was like, "uh, tell me something I DIDNT know. My mom's name is Linda and she just happens to be beautiful. What a crazy coinkidink! My mom has taught me that nothing comes to you for free. You have to work to get things. And the harder you work, the more results you'll see.

Also, my mom gave me my first camera when I was like, 12 years old. It was a Canon AE-1. I loved that camera. She said, "if you can figure it out, it's yours". I wonder where I'd be now if my mom would have never given me that camera. Anyway, thanks mom, I love you and happy mothers day! Since I'm in AZ, I'm bringing you out to PF Changs next week when I get home!

When two Italians Marry...

Last night I photographed a long awaited wedding for Marie and Dan, of Scottsdale, AZ. It was everything I could have ever hoped for as a photographer. But that's no surprise because Marie and Dan are both Italian. Paisanos! I love a good Italian wedding. They were seriously the nicest people EVER.

Victoria Canada, as expected, did an amazing job, keeping things on track, and astounding everyone with her thoughtful decor and surprises throughout the night.

I met Marie at 9:00 AM at Sachi Salon in Scottsdale. It was a very cool place, and everyone there was super nice. They run a solid operation and I could tell that their stylists were top notch.
I love this wide angle shot of the salon. See if you can find Marie! I've been on a ceiling fan kick lately. I don't know why, but I love cool ceiling fans. I'm such a freak! :)

Speaking of freaks, there's that creepy guy again.

Then we were off to the Royal Palms Resort. Holy cow, is that place nice. Nice is an understatement. It's absolutely GORGEOUS (there I am, sounding MetroSexual again). Every time I mentioned to people from AZ that I was off to the Royal Palms and Troon (reception), people whould ooh and ahh. Now I know why!



We got some nice make-up shots and bridal portraits.
Next stop, the church. Beautiful ceremony. The church coordinator had some pretty hefty rules about where I was allowed to shoot. This happens occasionally because there are a lot of low-class photographers out there who don't know a thing about etiquette. They get all up in the faces of the bride and groom during the ceremony and are a total distraction. Therefore it gives the entire business of wedding photography a bad reputation and as a result we are set with very strict rules. Oh well, we still got some awesome shots!





After the wedding, a vintage Bentley was supposed to be awaiting for the drive out to the reception. Despite their good reputation, it turned out to be a no-show. I wish I knew the name of that company so I could EXPOSE them like my man, Tom Martino, but they pretty much didn't show up.

Most brides would FLIP OUT, but not Marie. I ended up their chauffeur for the trip in my Mitsubishi rental compact car! They laughed it off and Dan mentioned that we were just downgrading slightly to a "Mistubentley". He also reminded Marie, "See, I told you we should have rented a Ferrari". :)

Here they are, in the Mitsubentley! That's not so bad, is it?


And much credit again to Victoria Canada, who pulled off a miracle and got an even nicer vintage Rolls Royce to pick them up from the reception at the end of the night.
And finally some more miscellaneous shots.




I also want to make a real point to say THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU to the folks at Troon Golf Course. Anyone in AZ and any GOLFER in the world knows about Troon. It's one of the nicest courses in the US and very expensive if you ever want to hit a round out there. Some of the greats in golfing make it a point to hit up Troon when visiting Scottsdale, which is a golfer's mecca in itself.

But let me tell you a little about the great service and attention I got at Troon. Some of my packages come with a slideshow of the wedding images from the Rehearsal Dinner, Wedding Day Preparation shots, Ceremony shots, and even some shots from the reception. While guests are eating dinner, I'm picking out about 30-50 of my favorite shots, storing them on my iPod and then I plug it in to a TV or flatscreen or projector. Well the TV at Troon was not responding to my iPod. They could tell I was disappointed, so they actually sent someone out to get a new TV! 45 minutes later, they had a new monitor for me! We got it working and next thing you know, Dan and Marie's guests were enjoying my slideshow. They loved it and I got a ton of compliments. It's only fair that I say thanks to everyone at Troon. I have never been so well taken care of as a photographer in my life.

Oh and vendor meals were the most scrumptuous salad and Prime Rib. Awesome! Only at a place like Troon, would a silly ol photographer like me get a meal like this:

Thanks Marie and Dan for having me out to Scottsdale to photograph your wedding. I had a great time!

HOLY GUACAMOLE!

Tonight I went to Los Sombreros (http://www.lossombreros.com) in Scottsdale for Marie and Dan's Rehearsal Dinner. I'm going to post photos of the people in my next post, but for now I just have to talk about the restaurant! (will ya look at that Guac!)

You will never know the suffering I had to endure tonight. All these people eating this amazing looking and smelling mexican food! Marie and Dan are so nice, they kept insisting that I eat and Marie, who is one of the peeps should know from this blog that I am doing the Body for Life and I can only eat whatever I want on Splurge Day. But she insisted anyway. We made a deal and I walked out with enchiladas to go! I'm going to eat em on Sunday!!!! Thanks Marie! Bless her little heart!

Here's Marie holding a bridal gift.

And Dan is happy because he's surrounded by some amazin Mexican Food (and because he's getting married tomorrow!)

Just to show you what was tempting me all night: (Don't worry Dan and Marie, I got some GREAT shots of your guests, even though I was a little distracted).

I don't know what this was called but I want to eat it.

And I want to drink this.

And the people who are responsible for my suffering. The main chef and owner of the restaurant is third from the left. I didn't get his name but he was a REALLY nice guy and the other owner was there too, Juanita!

Chris Bliss, AMAZIN Juggler!

This may seem silly to you but I get really inspired by this juggler. How could anyone take juggling to this level? One word: Passion. This is the most passionate juggler I have ever seen. I think it's important for everyone to have a passion like that in some shape or form. If you have a free second, check this out! video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4776181634656145640

Thanks for sharing, Uncle Sal!