Grant Oakes

Yesterday I received an email from Shannon Good, a fellow photographer and soon to be bride that I will be photographing in the Bahamas next year.  She informed me that my Blog is being stalked by the Blog Stalkerrazzi.  Sure enough, there I was on the August 5th post as the photographer of the day.  I talked to the Blog Stalkerrazzi herself and found her to be quite charming.  She is planning for her own wedding in Kenya, her homeland, and while doing research for photographers appears to have become addicted to imagery.  She then started her Blog about photographers Blogs and has become a very good critic having listed some very noteable talent on her site.  For her wedding she has commissioned Andrea Carlyle from South Africa.  Andrea also attended a Shoot With Beckstead workshop in November of last year.  Congrats Blog Stalkerrazzi!

This morning I had the privilege of photographing Brian Olsen as he performed his unique action portrait paintings for a small captive audience. Afterward he had the kids do some paint flinging too and I had paint on me and my gear. Check out the slide show by clicking here.

In February I photographed the wedding of Dr’s Sunil Nayak and Rebecca John at the Ritz Carlton Bachelor Gulch (see post at http://grantoakes.com/blog/#rebecca).  It was a small, intimate wedding for immediate family only but they had a regular reception bash August 9th at the Hyatt DTC and they invited me as a guest.  I was asked not to bring my camera but that’s like asking a fish not to swim.  Here are a few images.

Neil’s father is a rather quiet man and surprised them when he asked to toast the couple.

I think they did it again just for the cake.

They wanted an image of the three of us.  I don’t remember who claims copyright for this.

First dance, or is it the 2nd?

Doctor Nayak getting down.

There is something each and every one of us can do, volunteer a little bit of our time or a small amount of money to a good charitable organization.  This evening I had the privilege of photographing a fund raising event for the second year in a row for Modest Needs, a foundation that helps people who have hit upon hard times and bridges the gap that enables them to get back on their feet.  The event was held at the Loews Denver Hotel in Glendale.  The founder, Dr Keith Taylor was present along with Ellen, the GM for the hotel.

Yesterday UPS delivered a package of August issues of Studio Photography magazines hot off the press, and I was wondering why they came that way.  When I opened it I saw the article I wrote about websites and marketing.  The issue should be out within another week or so.

I’ll be photographing Stephanie and Eric’s wedding in October and when she asked me if I would be willing to do an engagement session for her I said “why not?”.  I hadn’t met Eric yet and it was a perfect opportunity to get to know the other half of this romance.  Eric is into fast cars so we hit it off just fine.  I can’t wait to photograph their wedding!

Another wedding reception at the Brown Palace and this one was coordinated by the wonderful Walli Richardson.  One of the first things I noticed about Sarah was her stunning eyes and Michael told me the same.  I also learned a few weeks ago that he is a Cancer survivor and that really came close to home because my wife is battling Colon Cancer herself.  Click Here to see the highlights of their wedding.

Wow, did I make a mistake last night!  I had a display at the Ritz-Carlton Denver for an uber cool wedding showcase called Down The Aisle and didn’t bring my camera.  My old friend Travis was kind enough to share a few of his images with me so I could put it on my Blog page.  This was the brain child idea of Liz Konecny of E-Events and Kristy Chenell, the sales and catering manager at this exclusive new property.  Austin Scarlett was on hand to draw attention to his line of wedding dress designs he has created for Kenneth Pool. The program was simply off the charts!  Judge for yourself.

It’s official, we now have 2 completely new websites!  www.grantoakes.com is strictly for weddings and www.goimages.com is for everything.  To go along with the new sites is a new logo as part of a total rebrand.  The old logo is about 12 years old and I felt it was time to update it.