Boston & Portland, Oregon Wedding Photographer Alexandra Roberts :: Boston, MA :: Portland, OR » Personal

Wishing you all a merry merry!

Alexandra — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 16:04:03 +0000

That is what my mum used to say, instead of Merry Christmas. Because you never know what people celebrate, perhaps? I never got around to asking her, but that is my best guess. Christmas was her favorite holiday, so much so, that there was always a santa painting on the wall, even in June, and not because she was lazy about taking decorations down.

Hanukkah falls during Christmas this year, and so it’s been fun to join everyone else in the merriment, food making, and cookie baking this year. We celebrated the first night of Hanukkah at a friend’s house with homemade donuts, latkes, kugel, spätzle, ah – it was amazing. I hope everyone has a great time celebrating with friends and family this weekend and next. This year has been so amazing and I am *so* looking forward to what is in store for 2012. Thank you to all of my amazing clients, family and friends who have supported me this year. I wicked love you.

I took these a few weeks ago up at the Fells on chrome and cross processed them. In high school we used to call it “pross crosses” to be funny. Anyway…I have also started to unroll my film a little bit and wave it around in the sun so that a few frames will come out like the last one…all light-leaky.

a little t-max love

Alexandra — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 23:26:21 +0000

It’s snowing in Boston right now (!) and today is the first Saturday since late June that I haven’t had a wedding. It was carefully thought out, and I had been planning on spending today with Danny and Emma since we rarely see each other during the busy wedding season. I, of course, ended up sick and curled up on the couch most of the day. Luckily it was so gross all day that I didn’t feel guilty for not moving and being taken care of.

I got some film scans back recently and loved these two images from the Fells shot on Kodak T-Max 3200. I snapped these a couple weekends ago with my Mamiya 645 & 80mm 2.8 lens. Still loving medium format. Someone asked me recently why I like medium format so much, my answer was just “wapow!”

I hope everyone is having a great weekend! xoxo

The h-moon – Alaska, Banff, Jasper.

Alexandra — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 17:29:44 +0000

I always love asking my couple’s where they plan on honeymooning. As an avid traveller I like to get tips and hear of new places that I must go to! A lot of people opt for a Caribbean vacation or some other beachy place, and some end up going on adventure vacations like we did. I keep telling myself it would be nice to do a “relaxing” vacation because after we get back from ours we never feel rested, because we were go go go the entire time. Someday, maybe when I am 80! Because we were already going to be on the west coast for our Oregon wedding, we decided to venture up to Anchorage and cruise down to Vancouver, then hop a plane to Calgary where we would then drive to Banff, and continue on to Jasper. I had heard that the “only way to see Alaska” was on a cruise. There aren’t roads that go from town to town, so your best bet is to boat it, or fly around on a teeny plane. We actually made that first part of our honeymoon open invite, and had 6 other people with us on the cruise! I am really happy we did that, because it was nice to have other people our age to hang out with and it was just perfect to be with family for the week after our wedding. I had never been on a cruise before, and that one will probably be my last. I couldn’t really handle “cruise culture” as we called it while on the boat. All in all, Alaska was amazing, my favorite parts being Hubbard Glacier and Glacier Bay. It reminded me a lot of Milford Sound in New Zealand which was my favorite place in the world before I went to Glacier Bay. Imagine Milford Sound but with Glaciers and icebergs all around! We went rafting with bald eagles hanging out inches away from us, and kayaking with seals poking their little heads up around our boats – Heaven!

Here are some pictures of our Alaska adventure. I only brought my Mamiya 645 and Kodak Ektar 100 film with me on our honeymoon, and a lot of the time we were too busy watching bears tear salmon apart to carry it around, so there are only a few photos from Alaska.

We spent one night in Vancouver, which is when our real honeymoon began – just the two of us. We *loved* Vancouver, I could definitely live there. Then we were off to Calgary, and ready for our Canadian Rockies adventure! We stayed in Banff for 3 nights at an *awesome* lodge called the Rundlestone, I highly recommend staying there if you make a visit. Banff was cool, and we did a little visit to Lake Louise and Morraine Lake, both gorgeous. There isn’t a lot of good beer in Canada, I found out, but the Banff Ave. Brewing Co. had one yummy IPA. We headed up the Icefields Parkway to stay in Jasper for a few nights – my favorite part. I LOVE JASPER. I can’t even talk about it anymore, it’s too awesome and you must go. Think ski town that is not developed yet. Everything is locally owned, everyone knows everyone, and people take care of each other. We made friends with a waitress at the *best* restaurant in town and ended up going there two nights in a row. Here are some of my favorites from Banff and Jasper:

Friends.

Alexandra — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 14:10:10 +0000

What would we do without them? You had better believe with my wedding just around the corner (10 days, but who is counting?!) I’ve found my “sentimental” side. I wanted to share some photographs that I took of my friend, Meredith a few weeks ago. Every time I go to Maine, I make sure to fit a visit to Mere, Michael, and Orvis into my schedule, even if it’s just for 10 minutes! I just tried to scroll through pages of emails to find out when we first “met”. Sometime in 2009 is all I have! I remember falling in love with her blog back then and my brother, who is in the pet industry, had met Mere before. I think I asked him if he would “hook us up” or something, I can’t remember exactly. Since then, and especially over the last year and a half, she has become one of my closest friends. She’s one of those people that you could call at 3am crying in need of a major vent-session. A keeper. I am so so so excited that next week she will be shooting our wedding out in Oregon!

As much as she dislikes being in front of the camera, she is always there to let me test out rolls of film on her (so nice!). These are taken with my Mamiya 645 80mm 2.8 on Kodak Ektar 100. Love the greens!

Miami on medium format black & white film

Alexandra — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 22:04:49 +0000

You may have noticed my blog posts slowing a bit right now. I apologize! I have been super crazy lately shooting tons of wicked fun weddings while buttoning up all the last minute details for my own wedding! I am scheduling lots of fun blog posts for when I am away but until then enjoy these black and whites from Miami a couple weeks ago. You are probably thinking, “who brings black and white film to Miami?”. I brought 1 roll because I ran out of color just before I left and had planned on picking some up down there, but didn’t want to be completely empty-handed. Do you know what does not exist on South Beach? A camera store that sells 120 film, that’s what. It’s ok though, I really love these. They are a bit eerie, don’t you think? I shot these on Kodak t-max 100 bringing me back to high school developing days, on my new Mamiya 645 afdII that I convinced myself to buy for our honeymoon in Alaska. As it turns out I’ve been shooting a lot with it at weddings and my couples are loving it!

Miami

Alexandra — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 00:09:31 +0000

About a month or so ago, I took a few days off mid-week to visit some family I had not seen in years. It was a gift trip to myself to celebrate going full-time. I hadn’t visited this part of my family since before my mother passed away, and before I left I was actually a little nervous to hang with them without mum and I have no idea why. We had *the best* time! I’ve already booked tickets to see them again in a couple weeks (It’s SO cheap from Boston!) which will be sort of a “shower/bachelorette party/pre-wedding celebration” (we don’t have a wedding party and therefore I planned my own weekend getaway before our wedding!). Miami has some *sick* trees and awesome graffiti walls. Enjoy!

All images are on Kodak Portra 400.

Oregon + film = yumtastic

Alexandra — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 15:29:12 +0000

Time out of the usual programming here. My blogging schedule has been a little out of wack where I’ve been shooting so much and having a blast doing it! I wanted to share some of these Oregon photographs with you today on this dreary Saturday in Boston. A while back, I decided that I wanted to get back into shooting film, the stuff that got me into photography in the first place when I was about 14 years old. Although I don’t have the equiptment that I had then to develop my own and now have to send rolls of film out to have them processed, it is insanely fun nonetheless. It really makes me slow down and concentrate more on composition. I don’t get to look on the back of the camera to make sure my images are coming out correctly, then adjust and keep shooting. With film, you have to get it right the first time or you’ve wasted a snap! When I got my scans back from Richard Photo Lab yesterday I was blown away. Out of the 3 rolls of film, there was one image that didn’t come out and that is because it was an accidental fire. So my lesson learned is slow down. After I picked up film again I have noticed myself taking fewer snaps and putting much more thought into every image. You can see a few wedding images on film on my facebook page. For those of you out there who never learned on film I encourage you to try it out, you won’t be displeased.

A few weeks ago, Danny, my dad and I went to Oregon to visit our wedding venue, which we hadn’t seen before. My dad had never been to Oregon and I loved seeing him soak it all in. It really is one of the most beautiful places in the world. I like to compare it to New Zealand at times, which held that badge of honor for me before I went to Oregon for the first time a few years ago. All of these images were shot with my Nikon F5 on Kodak Portra film (there is a mix of 160NC, 160VC, and 400) Enjoy!

I love this one! Dad and Danny are so little.

PX-70 film from the Impossible Project

Alexandra — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 22:40:09 +0000

I’ve been in love with instant photography since I was little. I have had a little collection of Polaroid cameras that I have been adding to for about 15 years now! I currently have 11 different ones, and most of them take different types of film. I used my very last pack of SX-70 film a few months ago and I ordered some PX-70 film from the Impossible Project to try out in my SX-70. I’ve loved and supported the Impossible Project since well before they had a website with anything other than “this is what we want to do.” written on the homepage. Now they have created their own film for Polaroid cameras in an effort to not allow instant photography to die. It is the combination of nostalgia that I get with their old timey colors, the instant gratification, and the fact that I love seeing “Cambridge, Mass.” on everything is what I love about Polaroids. Driving on Edwin Land Bldv. everyday in Cambridge even makes me smile a little every time.

Here are a couple of images that came out using the Impossible Project’s PX-70 film. They say the colors will get brighter and richer after 24 hours, so I wanted to scan them in immediately, then do another scan tomorrow.

Update: Here is what the PX-70 shots look like 21 hours after printed, what a total difference!

Friends, home, and sleeping in a dog treat factory

Alexandra — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 20:55:02 +0000

It had been a while (months?) since D or I have had a chance to really put the cell phones and email away. D had been on a tight deadline at work for about 3 weeks where he was working 16 hour days and well, you all pretty much know my schedule . I had plans to drive to Maine for a maternity shoot that I had scheduled weeks before hand but I always like to see if D wants to come with me so that we can make a weekend out of it and stay with my brother in the woods and do absolutely nothing. This time, I asked my friend and fellow photographer, Lara and her fiance Peter to join us. We had actually never spent much time together other than the usual weekly drinks or meetups. Luckily for us, they’re as chill as me and D! I have never had a better time with friends on a weekend trip before. Usually there is at least one fight, right? Friends you can travel with are friends for life, in my book.

Did I mention that we stayed at my brother’s dog treat factory? What dog gets to tell their doggie friends at daycare that they spent two nights in a 4000 sqft dog treat factory? I mean cmon, Emma is spoiled! har har. On the way home from Stockton Springs, we stopped by my college professor’s house in Portland for some Ottos Pizza. Mmm.

After the long hike on sear’s island that pup was pooped!

As I get closer to being able to have more free time, I hope to take more of it away from work and focus more on friends, family, and life. All while photographing everything along the way.

a photograph in a zine

Alexandra — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 15:45:52 +0000

It’s 27 degrees here in Boston and we’re getting about an inch of snow per hour and I am happy to report that me and the dog are warm and snuggly in our apartment. This blog hasn’t been updated in a couple weeks, I know…Truth is, there have been some hectic times over here in the Roberts-Robert household. Hectic in a good way though, dare I say *awesome* way. I can’t wait to share it with the world. While you’re all dying to hear what this news is (most of you probably know already ha ha!), I give you some other news: I had a photograph of mine in a magazine! I think that is pretty cool. Minus my stint in the LOLdogs book (can we never mention that again after today? Not my finest hour…) I’ve never seen any of my images published in a real, live, magazine! Whee!

See me there?!

My image is there on the right…the robot cake toppers! This also was taken at the very first wedding I ever shot on my own, also pretty cool.

In other exiciting news, I am a new proud owner of Nikon’s newest prime lens! 35mm 1.4. I am super excited about this focal length. Why Nikon didn’t have one before now, I’ll never understand. I don’t like using zoom lenses too much and 50mm was as wide as I had. The 24mm was *too* wide for me and the 35mm is the sweet spot of perfectness. I am so excited to use it at my first wedding this year! I don’t think any lens could replace the love I feel for my 50mm 1.4, but she (her name is Jellybean) will certainly try! Here are a couple of photographs I took when I got it a couple of days ago. They are of Emma, of course

I hope everyone is staying warm today!

xoxo