 Nicole & Sam got married last month at The Parker in Palm Springs. We also shot their engagement session down in Solana Beach last fall (view their engagement photos here). Sam and Nicole had SO many beautiful moments at their wedding and clearly have a love for each other that is beyond understanding. It was a beautiful wedding…
 A CRAZY IDEA: This story began almost two years ago when I was approached by Justin Reimer (founder of The Elisha Foundation), and Kevin Padgett (our Team Leader) with the idea of trekking to Mt. Everest Base Camp. However, the idea was bigger than just a group of friends going on an adventure. This adventure had…
Show 16 comments Absolutely the coolest story I have ever heard about accomplishing an awesome goal. I’m proud of Eli! I’m inspired by him! Cheers to all of you! What a inspiring trip that your team made. Love reading your blog and loved the photos. Inspirational doesn’t seem to do this story enough. It’s breathtaking. Even down to the last bbq chip. Thank you for sharing this! I knew you would be writing this when you got home and I just couldn’t wait to read it. Your story moved me to tears! I am so very proud of this team! You all have inspired me and my family (especially Eli)! Amazing story and pictures!!!Thanks for sharing! My boys absolutely loved this story. I read through the whole thing with them as an end cap to our studies on China, Nepal and India. They loved hearing about Eli more than anything else and had so many questions. What a joy to hear their little hearts as they spoke of how proud of Eli they are. The best was watching their faces melt into laughter over the pringles interlude. What a courageous and joyful young man. We are all so glad to have “met” him through this great adventure. The photos are over the top beautiful!! The story, the photos, what an amazing journey and you captured it beautifully! Every photo is creative and captures the spirit of the adventure. Well done Gary! beautiful. inspirational. thanks for telling such an amazing story through images. i have a million questions that i’ll have to save for a real life conversation!!! Truly amazing story and incredible photographs! This journal and pictures are fantastic, awesome, and exciting!!! Thank you so very, very much for all the work that you put into this, either with photography, fund raising, writing this story and last but not least, leaving your sweet family at home and trekking this sensational trail! Only God could create such beauty in His world! I will just soak up the pictures, not dream of of actually doing the same thing! As his grandparents, we could not be prouder of Eli and what he worked hard to accomplish. As for Justin, we are just as proud of him too. Who knew this strong willed child who drove his mother to distraction (or insanity at times!) would be used by the Lord to spread His Gospel in such an unique way! We can’t wait to see how this impacts people from all over the world! We have been amazed at how far reaching this story has been. That is truly a God-thing! And now this will continue to bring awareness to those who God has especially created, who bring such love and light into our lives. Thank you and God bless you! Lynda dude…!!! So proud of you guys. Beautiful story, in words, photos and heart. I couldn’t love this story any more than I do. You inspire me. Eli inspires me. Lovely! this is a beautiful story. :):):) Beautiful!!! I’m with Jenna! Totally teary-eyed over here. What you all did was so inspiring. I am so blessed to know you … To know such giving & loving people. Plus, you went on one of the coolest adventures of all time!!! Sending lots of love from Oregon. Wow! How incredibly inspiring. Beautiful story accompanied by stunning images. Well done to the entire team and way to go Eli!!!!! Favorite blog post ever. I cried and cried again. What an incredible inspiration this young man is, what an awesome adventure and what stellar photographs! So glad you were there to capture it all. These images make me feel like I was there with you guys (without being butt-cold or exhausted).  As I mentioned in the post about our hot air balloon ride, I (Courtney) get/arrange adventures for Gary for any gift-giving occasion instead of buying him things so I knew that I had to do something BIG for his 30th birthday which was at the end of January. My solution was a road trip of epic family-style…
Show 3 comments AWESOME!!!! Love Jo & her dresses. :) What an amazing trip! Dude, What an epic road trip! So many good pictures and I’m sure even greater times. Love the B+W shot of Courtney and Charlotte it sure does just capture the soul of your guys’ trip. Gary: that backcountry snowboarding is definitely something I can be jealous of, along with seeing those elk! Wow those photos are amazing!!!  Well folks… We’ve got some big news. I (Courtney) have been trying to figure out how to make this sound less random, but I finally just figured that it IS pretty random, so I should probably just spit it out. Here it goes: I wrote a children’s book. And it’s being published :) Since I…
Show 9 comments What a wonderful idea. I can’t wait! It’s so difficult to navigate a conversation with a young child about children who live other places and do not have the things that we have in the USA, in a way that they understand and have true compassion to fuel their hearts to make a difference! Thank you for going for it! So thrilled for you!!!!! This is so awesome and I can’t wait to read it with my kiddos!!! Congratulations Courtney, praying God will use your book to change lives and that you will be richly blessed for your efforts. Very excited for you! I love how you took on the challenge. Will buy as soon as it is on the market. Awesome. This is awesome Courtney! Fantastic idea too. I hate that bubble, I see it too in Adam’s kids and we try to tell them about how lucky they are but I feel it’s losing battle until I get them on a plane and actually SHOW them. This is perfect for young kids, a positive way to start them off thinking about others. Good Job Courtney! Courtney! This is so freakin’ cool! I”m so excited to read this to Carter and our one on the way! Beyond stoked for you! I can’t wait to buy it and use it in my classroom. I am always searching for books on topics about changing the worlds and making a difference. Can’t wait for it! Congratulations, Courtney! That is so so rad! I will have to get your book when it comes out and read it to Elijah :) xoxo Courtney girl I’m so Proud of you!…You listened to that voice nagging inside you,made it happen, and now the blessings come! I cant wait for the book tour in Maui! ;)  It’s no secret that we love adventure. But what you may not know is that we are both terrible gift-givers. And it doesn’t help that Gary is impossible to buy for. So instead of buying Gary gifts for holidays and birthdays, I buy him adventures or experiences. There are several reasons why this is awesome: We don’t need…
no comments  We hung out with Nicole and Sam for an afternoon in Solana beach. They were hoping for sunny, beachy weather and instead they got a gray day with drizzly rain. It could have been a huge bummer if they had let it get them down but they remained happy, positive and up for anything. Not…
no comments  Meet Elisha Reimer (above right). A vibrant teenager from Bend, OR who is the eldest of 5 kids, loves sports and the great outdoors, and has Down Syndrome. In March, I (Gary) will have the honor of joining Eli, his father Justin, and a team of supporters in Nepal as we climb to the Base…
Show 68 comments I think this web site contains some rattling wonderful information for everyone. “The fewer the words, the better the prayer.” by Martin Luther. Christine Otte – $75. So excited to play a little part in this! We just donated $350 for a portrait session with the amazing Gary and Courtney!! Wow wow wow! Thank you everyone!!! Absolutely amazing. We can’t ever thank you all enough for all your generosity and support with this entire project! If you’d still like to give, please do, we’ll need all money we can get for this cause and every penny will still go straight towards our efforts in Ukraine. Hi! We donated $40. We are so happy to be a part of this!! Good luck, safe travels, and can’t wait to see any pics from the adventure!!! :) Love, Love you two! Dont think of this as a donation of a C-Note, think of it as keeping me from buying a bunch of dirty chocolate. Bring us back some pink snow, Brooklyn says its better then yellow. Jah Bless! Craig, got it :) Awesome man. Really appreciate it! Mis-type // section 3 not 2… Craig Flood // $75.00 Thanks guys! Donation amount: $20 Donation amount: $50!!! Wow, thank you Jacob + Christin!!! So excited to hang and photograph your beautiful mugs :) THANK YOU for this opportunity to give!!! You are amazing!! We are crossing our fingers that there’s still a photo session with Gary + Courtney available! LOVE this cause. $25- It isn’t much, but this wonderful cause is close to our hearts! My late aunt had disabilities and she was one of my favorite people on this planet! Praying for Gods blessings on this amazing adventure!! =] Mahalo Woodard family! Love you guys. Thank you for the support :) Your donation has been TRIPLE MATCHED. Making it $450, what what!?! Donation amount :$150. Love you guys, Love your passion and LOVE that you share your lives, love and passion!!! Thanks ladies!!! All your donations have been TRIPLED!!! Totaling $465 in donations. Thank you SO MUCH :) Donation amount $30 Donation amount: $100 Donation Amount: $25 Thanks so much everyone!!! Nadine, you’re $150 donation has officially been TRIPLE MATCHED making it a total of $450. So rad :) Donation amount: $350 – for Adam & Shawna’s portrait session! Donation amount: $150 Donation amount: $500 Thank you so much Jennifer (and Carly & Amos). Ya’ll are AMAZING! Jennie! Awesome. THANK YOU! Donated $75. Image #27 please :) Jennifer Preskey Right on Matt & Maisha. Mahalo!!! Donation amount: $200 You guys are awesome!!! Woohoo!! Thank you Coetzee family! Looking forward to it!! THANK YOU Billie & Scott! Holla! Your donation has been matched :) Hope our $50 helps you make your goal!!! xoxo Alright Coetzee Fam :) Mahalo!!! Donation amount: $350 – for Nate & Jenna’s Portrait Session Megan! Thank you SO MUCH :) $50…option B please! Good luck and praying for a safe trip!! Donated Amount: $350 for a portrait session with Gary & Courtney Donation Amount: $825 in matching funds so far!!! Thank you everyone! Any donation makes a HUGE difference! WOW! So rad. Thank you Judy!!! Donation amount $350 – for a portrait session for mathieu photography :) Boatloads of prayer! God is going to do amazing things! Rafidah! Thank you so much! You’re gonna love that print! We can’t wait to get ours too! Sara & Rocky – no way! Unreal :) THANK YOU!!! We want our big ol’ faces in a photo with you! Better pic a pretty one of us too! :) $50 – option 1 please :) thanks! J&R, so rad! :) We couldn’t pick a favorite so we decided to do 2 donations of $75. :) Numeros 14 & 30, please! Super excited to have the beauteous works from The Image Is Found and Sara & Rocky on our walls! Mahalo Ajja :) Donated $50!!!! Can’t wait to see the pictures and hear about this really awesome trip!!!! Thanks MISTY :) Ben is so great! Glad you snagged that! Donation amount: $30 The Thrash Family is excited to support such a great cause, and are looking forward to having an opportunity to have a photo shoot with Benjamin Edwards! Donation Amount $50 Yeah Michelle! Thank you so much! We cannot wait to shoot with you!! Marc, THANK YOU :) You got it! $50, Wish I could join you but I can’t so go take me a fantastically fantastic picture please! Nate & Jenna!!!!!! YES! Thank you. Your donation is matched!!! $150 matching donation. Thanks for organizing this G&C. You guys rock our socks off! Thanks for your support James! Come join us in Nepal :) Donation amount: $100 – This is awesome. I wish I could sign up for the trek. I love the Khumbu region of Nepal! I would like image #1. Thanks Sean!!! It’s much appreciated!!! Right on! Thank you Michelle, Jennifer and Tara, so RAD. A HUGE SHOUT-OUT to photographers Anjuli, Sara & Rocky and Stone – you all amazingly generous!!! We’re over 10% there!!! Donation amount: $75 – Sarah and I would like #32 please. Thanks for doing this for an awesome cause! Donation amount: $350 for Stone Crandall Portrait Session! woo hoo! Donation amount: $350 – for Anjuli’s Portrait Session Donation amount: $350 – for Sara & Rocky’s Portrait Session  Shawna and Adam are crazy awesome. And their wedding followed suit. We met Adam and Shawna about a year ago. They live in San Diego and are also wedding photographers who found us while planning their Vermont barn wedding. We got together with them to chat about both shooting their wedding and about potentially hiring…
Show 4 comments love..Love…LOVE all of it! BEAUTIFUL!!!!! (Site working now! Yes!) These are so flippen epic guys! Well done! Absolutely amazing photos! Thanks for sharing. I seriously love your work! You guys are hands down my favorite photographers that we’re friends with from Oceanside, CA! But in all seriousness, I freakin’ love the way you take pictures. Capturing the bestest of moments. Well done friends, well done!  We had the awesome pleasure of traveling to Italy to shoot Shawna & Adam’s destination wedding in a small town in the Tuscan countryside (view their wedding blog post here). So we wanted to show you a few behind the scenes images and some fun travel images of our journey through Italy. We flew into…
Show 1 comment Your life looks fun! Love all these shots! Miss you guys  There’s something about destination weddings, and the people who host them, that we just love. I’m not sure if it’s the fact that they are prioritizing the people they are closest to, or if it’s just the crazy amounts of fun that always takes place at the wedding…but whatever it is, we love it. Last…
no comments  We decided to fly the family down to Cabo a week before one of our destination weddings and party it up family-style! We met up with Gary’s parents for what would be a very memorable and perfect little family trip (and a really fun and beautiful wedding as well – view Cleo & Jeremy’s wedding)….
Show 1 comment These photos of Cabo are incredible! It looks like you had a really wonderful family vacation. So wonderful that you were able to capture these memories on film so that you’ll never forget the great Cabo getaway you had!  Well, let’s start with the obvious. This wedding was freakin’ beautiful. I mean, It doesn’t get much better than Colorado in the fall…Unless, of course, you add Sarah and Sean to the mix and have them get married. Oh, and have it take place at a gorgeous mountain venue with epic views and fall colors….
Show 3 comments Never seen such amazing wedding pictures! I’m blown away.. LOVE. LOVE the B&Ws with the horses :-D  Kendra & Rodney’s wedding hit the perfect note of rustic sophistication and was a ideal fit for their venue – a beautiful canyon just north of Santa Barbara, CA called El Capitan. The location was a dream, the bridal party and guests were super fun, and Kendra & Rodney were a complete joy to photograph. We…
no comments  We just returned from a whirlwind trip to Italy where we had the absolute honor of photographing Shawna & Adam’s destination wedding in a small town in Tuscany called Poppi. These two are so amazing…we don’t even have words for how rad they are and how honored we felt to be a part of their…
Show 4 comments seriously guys… A CASTLE?!?!?!?! KILLER :) Beautiful, simply beautiful. Just as we remember it. These are unbelievable. Thanks for sharing. That looks so fun!  We just got back from an epic little trip to Colorado for a recent wedding (teasers below). We’re nearing the end of our crazy wedding season and decided to go out with a bang… We’ve got three destination weddings in the next month: The first is next week in Boston, followed immediately by a wedding…
Show 1 comment that there is real perdy :) no but really, so awesome!  We love to travel. And we have 2 small children. Travel and children generally do not go hand in hand and we get a lot of shocked expressions when we tell people how much we travel with our kids. By the time Joelle was 6 months old she had been on 28 planes and qualified…
Show 12 comments Lots of great, honest info here! We’re in the same stage of life, full-time wedding photographers, with two littles. We’ve held back on the travel a bit in the past few years, but we’re re-inspired again. :) Great tips and tricks! Emma had been on over 30 flights by the time she was 2 so we totally relate :) Sadly we also relate to the no naps portion of it all. It makes for lots of fun memories and conversations down the road when you can turn to each other and say “Remember that time in _________ when the kids ________? Wasn’t that awesome!” Beautiful photos guys. We also travel with our kids and would love to connect with you. TONS of awesome moments, but the pics of Charles on the back of the stroller, plus the last shot, melt my heart! Way to go team Christenson ;) Keep on keepin’ on. I freaking love this. Some awesome laughing out loud-ness and the last photo totally made me cry! You guys are such amazing parents and your girls will always cherish these memories! LOVE, LOVE, LOVE! you guys make me excited when that time comes for me!!!! what a fun little family :) What an awesome post guys! Well done that was a great montage of photos Gary! FUN!!! I love you guys and the amazing parents that you are… thank you for sharing all of your life, the ups and the downs… So good to see it can be done! Love this post! You two amaze me! I’d say your girls are mighty blessed! love you guys :) :) :)  There are so many reasons why we love Oregon. It’s where we spent the first 3 years of our marriage, had our first child and is home to most of Gary’s family. But on top of all the personal meaning, we also love that people in Oregon seem to care less about the “fluff” that…
Show 4 comments I am very biased being the Father of the Bride but Courtney was the most beautiful bride as captured in the photos above. This was one of the best parties I have been at in my life! I am IN LOVE with her dress. Absolute perfection. And their house is adorable!!! Beautiful pictures, as always. :) Really beautiful work guys. Super awesome wedding, too. Beautiful photos. That is one BRAVE bride walking with a coke in her hand…..  I vividly remember the first phone conversation I had with Whitney last December. She was going into her last semester of college in Colorado getting a double major in Photography and Graphic Design and Sage (her [then] fiance) had just started Veterinarian school in the Mid West. She said she was excited when she found…
Show 3 comments It’s not pretty there at all…. Love this! https://vimeo.com/48117048 Nice G&C! Almost finished with the film… Will let you know when it’s done. Love the Airstream shots.  Meet Laura & Tim. We had the pleasure of connecting with these two at the beach for their engagement session. Here’s just a few of our favorite images from our time spent together – two images from Courtney’s camera, and two images from Gary’s camera… betcha can’t guess who’s is who’s ;) Enjoy.
no comments  Sondra and Mark: These two Crack. Us. Up. They are silly, funny, smart, goofy and completely unapologetically themselves. We had a tremendous time with them and really couldn’t have asked for anything more. They had such fun ideas for our portrait time together: held chickens, had a sword fight with their ceremony decor, and then…
Show 1 comment WOW! What a fun party!!! And honestly that dress.. oh that dress! A favorite wedding dress for sure. The skeleton of it in those first pictures is so pretty too! I love it all, you guys!  [Images by Gary & Courtney, words by Courtney] “Your wedding day goes by so fast, you probably won’t even remember it”… they say that cliches are cliches for a reason, but this is one that I happen to disagree with. Now don’t get me wrong: Wedding days DO fly by. Minutes seem like seconds and…
Show 4 comments Totally awesome moments. You two are so talented. And I love Bryce’s laugh. So full of joy. :) YOU GUYS!!! You are just too amazing… These are amazing.. Made me tear up a little actually!! You guys are amazing! SO true and that is what makes you guys BRILLIANT!  Wedding days are emotional and being given the opportunity to capture those emotions with our cameras never ceases to amaze us. We feel honored to witness and capture those moments every single time. Though I disagree with people who tell you that you’re going to forget your wedding day, I do agree that sometimes we…
no comments  It was such a pleasure to have Karen and Eli take us around their home city (they live and work in downtown LA) and capture their lovely interactions in a such a beautiful spot. Thanks for being yourselves in front our camera, and thanks for introducing us to a truly rad part of Los Angeles!…
Show 2 comments Love this so much!! Love these guys!!  We wanted to give you some quick insight into what’s been goin’ on around here lately (besides lots-o-photography – we’re deeeeeeep into the raddest wedding season we’ve ever had the privilege of working)… so, here’s a bunch of Instagram images from our fancy pants phones. This is what life at The Christenson household typically looks like. Enjoy!…
Show 1 comment You guys are so fun. Love this!  There’s jut something about this wedding season. So far we’ve wished we could be BFFs with every single couple we’ve had the pleasure of shooting. Mary and Joe are no exception. They’re rad. The kind of people we love to be around: fun, adventurous, kind, globally minded and full of joy. They once took a…
Show 5 comments Castle Green in Pasadena Very nice pictures G&C! Definitely a fav from you guys! Killed it! there’s something so california about this wedding… the light, the warmth, the PURE GANGSTA. well done, friends, well done. Oh my oh my! Amazing work you guys!! |
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