I am desperately in love with people in love and I want to photograph this phenomenon in every form. I am a documentarian of the nuance, essence, and the perfectly positioned spontaneous moments that describe what deep love makes people. I also love my Husband, my cats, a bunny, dresses from Anthropologie and the summertime. I so very long for a Bulldog, and eventually, perhaps, some wide open spaces... maybe a chicken coop. And some pigs. But for now I'll have to do with my struggling-to-live garden of herbs on my too shady porch. Mojitos, I say - before the mint goes bad!
I'm a photographer of people who love each other very, very much. I live in NYC. In this, my first year of business I've booked over 30 weddings all around the world, here in my home town, and also in California, Florida, Jamaica, Venezuela and Nigeria (just to name a few places). My images have been described as emotional, magical, and powerful, which is nice, cause that's how I feel about the people I get photograph. I will travel anywhere to watch beautiful love happening. (can you tell?).
Many things. Thank you for being here.
For all photo inquiries, email me at contact{at}punambean.com. For all other inquiries or comments, email me at weddings{at}punambean.com
I thought I’d change things up a bit for the new year, and hence the brackets.
Yay! It was such a pleasure to meet Deryn and Tony today and frolic in my home town. These two light each other up, and my job was easy. I can’t wait to shoot their wedding at a torpedo factory in Alexandria! I hope you both had a safe trip home!
I’d never photographed a city hall wedding until today. It was really amazing to sit in that room where you wait to get married… it’s not like any other municipal building waiting room you might ever find yourself in. Everyone is joyous, and there’s all sorts of people, from sweat pants to tiaras, making a bond of magnitude in their own ways, and in their own volumes.
Amy and David chose New York as their marrying place, and New Year’s weekend at their date (they met at a New Years party seven years ago!). They came down from Toronto with a small group of family and friends.
Thanks so much for letting me be a part of your day guys! Congratulations!
I can’t believe sometimes, how amazing 2009 is shaping up to be. And busy. Very very busy. And it is on that note that I say, we are only booking 12 more weddings for next year. And according to last year, all or most of those spots should be snatched up by March (just as a heads up - it’s booking season! Time to get cracking on picking your photographer!).
If I’m booked for your date, let me know and I’ll send you a list of my favorite local and non-local but willing to travel photographers who are awesome.
Here’s when I’m not available:
| January 2 | NYC City Hall Wedding |
| January 28,29 | Charleston, SC speaking at Step Up with Shane Snider |
| January 31 | NYC Engagement Party |
| February 14-19 | WPPI Las Vegas |
| March 16th - 22 | Nigeria Wedding |
| March 28th | Alexandria, VA Wedding |
| April 28 - May 3 | St. Maarten Wedding |
| May 24th | Long Island Wedding |
| June 6 | NYC Wedding |
| June 13th | Tarrytown, NY Wedding |
| June 21 - 24 (tentative) | Grand Cayman |
| July 12th | I actually get to be a guest at a wedding!! woo hoo! |
| August 15th | Queens, NY Wedding |
| August 22nd | DC Weddingl |
| September 5th (tentative) | Bethlehem, PA Wedding |
| September 11th - 13th | Adirondack Wedding |
| September 18-21 | Big Island, Hawai’i Wedding |
| September 23rd - 29th | Loire Valley, France Wedding |
| October 3rd | Jersey City, NJ Wedding |
| November 13th | NYC Wedding |
Notice the new “availability.” link at the top. This schedule will be updated on that page from now on as weddings are booked. Yay!
Tiffany and Jared’s gorgeous Jamaica wedding was featured on the Southern Weddings Magazine Blog! This is one of my favorite wedding blogs, and I’m so excited to have my work featured!
I had such a blast with this wonderful family! Ania and Chris got married last year in Poland, where most of Ania’s family is from. The day was so busy that they didn’t get a chance to grab some photos of their families, and so Ania’s Chrismas gift to Chris’ parents was this family session! We arranged everything over email, so I really had no idea to expect as I waited for them in front of The Boathouse in Central Park. The Shahadi’s had so much wonderful personality, and were so impeccably dressed! And to boot, Lauren (the youngin’) apparently has an obsession for Idina Menzel, which by itself is kind of random, but I happened to have been obsessed with her when I was Lauren’s age too!
When I was in high school, a freshmen, I was a bit of a weirdo circus act. I was a theatre kid and obsessed with Rent (the musical), and I would loudly belt from my podium at lunchtime the Over the Moon monologue from Rent - originally done by Idina Menzel! Every single day. I drove everyone near me crazy. I was actually really excited to meet a fellow fan, though I’ve really pushed my love for Rent down deep to make room for other things, like Husbone and photography, and my kitties. It made me happy to reminisce.
Also, Chris works as a diplomat, and he and Ania are moving to Vienna next month. It was really lovely to take part in this wonderful gift before they leave for a while. But I hear Vienna is unbelievably beautiful!
Anyway, here are a few shots from this lovely and lively family!
Yes. I am from California… and so East Coast beaches seem a little strange to me. Many of them are not swimmer friendly, and often times, they are way over crowded in the summer, when they are. I come from a place where you can go to the beach any time of the year. The Beach is my preferred siesta place, in which to celebrate friends and various holidays, especially New Years. And so, this Christmas in Plymouth, we found our selves at the beach… but it was so cold I could only snap a couple of photos before I felt so cold it seemed as though all the warmth had gone from the world. I had a large black shawl wrapped around my head like a bedoiun, with freezer burn creeping into my brain through the freezing wind in my ears.
Everyone else seemed cold, but they took it in stride. I was having a rough time. But then, I saw Ruby. What jubilation, the dog, and the beach. it was maybe 2 degrees with the wind chill, and here was the happiest creature I ever saw, jumping into the arctic waters as if she needed to cool off, basking in the freezing wind like she was getting a tan. Oh Ruby. Many things, but at the beach? She warmed my Christmas.
I hope all your Christmases, Hanukkahs, Kwanzaas or general Snowy or Rainy Holi or un-Holi-days were warm with family and friends, and perhaps some jubilant animals!
Husbone thinks his workmanship looks like bird poop, but I think it’s perfect. I am thankful for you, bones. Thank you for my ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins just how I like it, and for my Garden in which to grow various herbs and things. I love you.
It was a nice time on the road, and for a while. After a long 3 week journey through Southern countries and Southern states, I am very very happy to be home, and to find out that I’ve been selected to be a blogger on Wedding Bee PRO! I am so excited! And in that thread, and with wedding season having winded down already, I’ll be posting a lot more about how I run my shop, how I edit my photos, what equipment I use, etc. Please leave a note in the comments if you’d like me to expound upon anything in particular!
Spontaneous as I have the tendency to be, I decided yesterday that I’m going to California tomorrow. Anyone want to hang out with me!!? I’ll be in the LA area from the 17th to the 19th. Email me at weddings at punambean.com if you want to be friends! Woo hoo!
And so yes, it was a nice time on the road. It’s just so much story to tell it all here, so I thought we could take a small tour through the cool things that happened in the past few weeks.
First, a small trip to Parque Zoologico y Botanico Bararida (the zoo!). Husbone and I had a nice morning off, and decided to spend some big bucks (75 cents!) to enjoy an afternoon at the zoo (also, our special place!). In our travels, we met many iguanas who roam the zoo at their leisure, a one handed chimp, some friendly tapiers who taught us about the unwritten zoo policy that seems to indicate that the animals are often fed scraps from the hands of patrons.
I purchased for my mouth, an empanada. It was a bit greasy for my taste, but in the spirit of tyring not to be wasteful, I held on to it. Little did I know that upon my approach to the tapiers that they would smell with their huge squishy noses my giant greasy empanada and come by to make friends and offer their noses for us to pet. We had our little camera, as we a little bit nervous about carrying around expensive gear.
And patrons feeding the elephant! The zookeepers were behind those bushes and didn’t seem to mind that this young man wanted to say hi to the elephant.
As much as I might like to show the goofy pictures we got of many zoo residents, most of them are a little… umm… well…
In the course of my time at the zoo, an iguana peed on my head from a tree, a llama sneezed in my eyeballs from three inches away, and a parrot pooped on my foot. A successful day at the zoo, I say!
And a nice Gentlemen show in the nice town of York, South Carolina - my first time to the state, and I was very warmed by the wonderful people there who were the first to wish us a Happy Anniversary come midnight! Husbone looks so dapper in his 1929 suit of knickers!
I think that covers it!
This post is special for my Husbone, and also, a little Husbone and Poo Venezuela adventure. Eventually, this will include a very adventurous trip to Zoologico Bararida, but for the time being, I wanted to say what an amazing time we had at La Posada del Encanto (The Enchanted Inn). It was just SO gorgeous, that we decided to do a Husbone and Poo session via our timer, and later in the Jungle, a bit of help from Jay. Jennifer hooked us up with the place, as it goes around there, everybody knows everybody, and Jennifer knew the owner. He used to be in the Navy, and collected flower seeds from all over the world and planted them on his little piece of this vast mountain. The rooms were gorgeous, perched aside the hilltop. This was the view in the mornings, complete with much mooing.
Husbone inspects a (stray?) Kitty. 
Oh Husbone. I am grateful for these three years, and four and a half. You make me a better person every time I see you, which makes me glad I see you a lot.
Love,
Wifey
Venezuela is beautiful, and so are Jennifer and Jay. The sister of the owner of the Inn we stayed at, Posada del Encanto (The Enchanted Inn), was amazing, and took us for an amazing ride through the high mountains, where the woods became the jungle, and the jungle became something like what I imagine the Amazon to be, though we were about 12 hours north of the Amazon. It was such a cool feeling to be in a place where native monkeys lived. We didn’t see any of them there, but the jungles there were really wild. And the fog rolled in like a flood as the sun fell away, occasionally poking through the thick tangles of ferns and fast moving low clouds. It was amazing. Amazing amazing. To have the opportunity to set their love against this ancient backdrop left me bewildered at what an amazing opportunity it has been to spend time with these wonderful people, in this wonderful and warm country where everybody seems to know everybody. More on that later.
