Grant Oakes

A few years ago I had the privilege of meeting Steve Crecelius, a photographer that had a huge reputation in the upper social circles in Colorado.  We quickly became friends, not only because of our shared craft but also our mutual feelings about life, family and ethics.  We both thought out loud how great it would be to be able to work together so we launched a partnership called LuxArt Images, to bring our respective talents and assets in such a way as to cater to clients that want nothing short of the worlds finest.  We made our official debute last night.

Claudia and John’s wedding took place at Three Trees Chapel and this was the first time we photographed there.  Biscuits and Berrys catered it and Xpansion Audio provided the music.  This was Amber Conner’s wedding and I came along to assist.  Claudia’s sister Angie was one of the brides maids and was in the hospital, therefore wasn’t able to attend.  She did get to text message her and share some images from the wedding that she was able to enjoy.  As a symbolic gesture her bouquet was placed on a stand where she would have stood during the service.  To see a short slide show of the wedding click here

My wife’s nephew, Kyle tied the knot today and I photographed it along with a little help from my 14 year old grandson, Tyler.  Stacey and Kyle couldn’t have been happier.  Ceremony was at Orchard Rd Community Center and the reception was at the American Legion Hall.  There’s a beautiful park that we stopped by in between  since the weather was mild for an early February afternoon.  Even my granddaughter, Lauren joined in the dancing.

Linda and I finished training for dialysis on Tuesday and had our first run at home, which didn’t turn out so well.  Twice the vein wound up getting infiltrated and so we had to cut short dialysis after only  15 minutes.  We’ll try again tomorrow.  Hopefully things will go much smoother as time goes on and she can start feeling better.

Wow, what a cool bash the staff at the Hotel Jerome in Aspen threw this evening.  They wanted to have the theme based on the era the hotel was built so everyone came in costume including the staff and supporting vendors. Since I “shoot” people for a living I decided to be a gun slinger.  If you want to see what you missed just Click Here.

Well, we closed out the wedding season with a bang!  Margaret and Andy’s wedding was a grand gala, planned by Meg’s sister, Katie and it was superb!  Both families were fantastic and so warm and caring.  As usual, the staff at the Grand Hyatt was excellent!  Our good friends, Lisa and Henry Mares provided the video services and I had plenty of help with my assistant, Brian Ness backing up our files and building the album we gave the couple at the end of the evening.  The final slide shows how they felt.  My good friend Steve Tinetti was my second shooter along with one of my associate photographers, Amber Conner.  Fastlane Productions provided the lighting and projected our images as a slide show to entertain the guests.  To see the highlights of this final wedding for 2009 click here.

A few months ago I was commissioned to photograph the wedding of Margaret Zarlengo and Andy Schwiesow (coming up next week).  I later learned that Margaret’s family started the Zarlengo Foundation to help fund educational programs for children with learning disabilities, so I volunteered to photograph their annual fund raiser at the Grand Hyatt.  It was absolutely wonderful!  John Ferrugia from Denver’s Channel 7 news was the emcee and Danny Glover was the guest speaker.  He has a special place in his heart for these types of programs, that’s why he was there.  I never would have known it had he not spoken about his own difficulty with learning as a child since he has dyslexia.  The evening wrapped up with a great performance by a band provided by Pro Entertainment.  Below are a few images form last night.

Last night I had the opportunity to photograph the Gino Velardi fashion show that was a fund raiser for Dress For Success, an organization that helps women get established in the workforce with their wardrobe and training.  Jenae Lopez, one of my associate photographers came along to help.  This was my first fashion show style shoot and was challenging with the dark room and contrast with all the spot lights.  Here are a few images.  Enjoy.

It’s been a really great week in New Orleans at the Pictage Partner Conference.  I had the privilege of giving my presentation today and tomorrow morning will be leading a group of 25 photographers to do a creative composition shooting session with 2 models and later in the day photographing families that lost their images during Katrina.  I had the opportunity to hang with some old friends and create a few new ones.  I also got the chance to meet and visit with the new CEO of Pictage, Jim Collins and it’s fun to see someone that’s so passionate about our industry.  Wonderful things are on the horizon for Pictage!

Next May I’ll be conducting a wedding photography workshop (www.artandinspiration.com) in Cancun Mexico at a very cool beach house on Isla Mujeres and Whitney and Mark will be the subject matter.  They came over this evening on their way to fly out of DIA to Wisconsin to visit family and we did a simple engagement session and to finally meet.  They attended Danielle and Ben’s wedding 3 years ago that I photographed and have volunteered to be my next workshop couple.  They are uber excited about their wedding and having 8 photographers documenting it.  This is going to be great!