NEWNESS!!!!

HOORAY! I am now officially just Neal Slimick! Come check out the new site and blog. I'll be updating the blog in the coming weeks and will hopefully not fall off the map again. I'll be giving you my best effort to keep up to date with new shoots and information.

Be Well,

Neal

Freezing

After being down south for nearly 13 years I feel I've become a little soft. But you know what 18 degrees is 18 degrees no matter where you live. It is freaking COLD! I got to the office this morning and enjoyed watching the geese skate around on the ice covered pond out back. There guys will hung out on the ice until it gets thin enough to break...then, they'll just sit there in their own little pools of freezing cold water...crazy Canadians.

Happy Hollidays!

Happy Thursday everyone! I hope you all are well. It’s been a while since my last post. The end of 09’ has proven to be a crazy time. Getting all of the last jobs out the door before the holiday as well as figuring out fatherhood times 2 has forced me to put my humble little blog on the back burner.

The good news is it’s almost Christmas which means I get a week and some change to hang out with my totally rad family and eat ungodly amounts of food! Before I head out I wanted to post some Christmas pictures from the office. We had a typical “ugly sweater” day and everyone came through for sure! I hope you enjoy the pictures and have a very merry Christmas and safe New Year.

I promise I’ll be writing and posting more in the new year. I am super excited about getting some new albums and brag books in, in the next month to show you all! I’m sure you’ll love them.

It’s a shame sheep had to get shaved for some of these:

Crazyness

Hey peoples. I just wanted to let you know that I will be back in action in the next few weeks. I have TOTALLY been neglecting my blog due to our new addition to the family. Please forgive me. If your craving some pictures of little Jonah check out our family blog HERE.

peace

-Neal

New Edition

Remember the band New Edition? Well this is so much more rad than the band. My wife and I welcomed our second child, Jonah Michael Slimick into the world November 1 at 8:59 PM. Both he and Meghan are doing GREAT. It was truly an amazing experience to see him born. Why you ask? Because he was born at home, in our living room. Does that make us a bunch of hippies? Maybe. But to be completely honest it was a MUCH better experience than being at the hospital. Of course it's easy for me to say because I had a much easier job than Meghan, but she will tell you the same thing. I'll be filling you all in in the coming days and weeks when I catch up on sleep and can find some more words. Until then if you could pray for restful sleep and energy for Meghan we would greatly appreciate it.

5 years, a cold and some pumpkins

This weekend Meghan and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary. I guess 5 years doesn't sound like a long time but we have had a jammed packed few years. Two houses and working on 2 kids. I wouldn't trade it for the world.

Meghan and I were going to drop Sophie off at my parents house so we could have some time alone and go out to eat. I was SO looking forward to this weekend, not only because I LOVE to eat but I was looking forward to spending some quality time with my lovely wife and was going to be able to sleep in without a crazy little almost 3 year old waking us up at 5:45 in the morning.

So in typical Slimick fashion, what can go wrong WILL go wrong! Friday morning I woke up with a sore throat. No big deal, I'll take it easy and it'll go away, right? WRONG. Saturday I woke up with a Barry White voice a pretty intense cold and a fever. No bueno. But I did my best to make the most of the day...bring on the medication. Meghan and I decided to keep Sophie home with us and make our yearly trip to the pumpkin patch.

It wasn't a quiet day home with my sweetie and a nice dinner but this is what family is all about. Getting out and having a blast.

We have very few pictures with the whole family for two reasons. 1. not too many people know how to use my "big" camera and 2. I don't always like the idea of a complete stranger holding a few thousand dollars of camera.....so I always pick the slowest looking person.

Sophie was so pumped on all of the pumpkins!

"1 for me and 1 for the baby"

Engagement Session

Last week I had the awesome experience to shoot Haley, Marcos, Carley and Keyes...and the dogs! These guys all have the sweetest spirits and were a true pleasure to shoot.

A few days out from the shoot I was checking the weather and saw nothing but clouds and lightning...not good. So after some pretty intense prayers, Saturday rolled around and what did we get? A beautiful day! It was a pretty wet morning but the sun poked through and dried everything out just in time for the shoot. Here are a few favs from the evening.

Photo Of The Day - My Family

So, this is “us”. Me, Meghan+baby and our fist little blessing, Sophie. When I pulled into the driveway the other afternoon Meghan and Sophie were “chalking” as Sophie calls it, and Meghan had created this masterpiece. Ever since I shot this picture I cant stop looking at it! SO, I thought I would throw it up and let you all enjoy it as well! This is my family.

Photo Of The Day - Miss Sophie

Lunch Time

God is always watching






One part of the amazingly talented Calnin Brothers


Part two of the Calnin Brothers

Fun Of The Day

OK So I have been crazy busy today and have yet to take a SINGLE picture. So to take the place of a pic here is a video passed onto me from my co-worker Blake.

Enj01

Neurosonics Audiomedical Labs Inc. from Chris Cairns on Vimeo.

Fun Day Monday

Monday...monday...monday. What a day. I had a blast this weekend shooting a wedding at Daniel Stowe Botanical Gardens in Belmont NC and now...Monday. My monitor is covered with post-it notes of what I have to do this week and right now all I want to do is edit pictures. What gets me through my Mondays? Great music and interesting web sites. Check it out:

Music:

Caia, Olafur Arnalds, Pogo, Crystal Castles, Johann Johnnsson. Very good chill out ambient music.

Sites:
People of Walmart – Holy cow! This is Walmart’s finest at their finest!
Gizmodo – I’m a complete nerd and like to keep up on everything tech and some things not so tech
Lifehacker – se nerd note above
Failblog – Similar to People of Walmart


So I have also realized that I have yet to really write about myself on the blog. I think I’ll start changing that starting today. I’ll do my best to throw out a few interesting facts about me every day.

Fact #1 – I’m married to the love of my life, Meghan. She holds down the most important job in the family as stay at home mommy. To all of you stay at home moms out there my prayers go out to you all daily. Meghan is also, hands down the most selfless person I have known and will probably ever know. All the more reason I fall in love with her more each day.

Fact #2 – I have a watch addiction...so I have no reason to be late.

Well I hope the rest of YOUR Monday is great.

Photo Of The Day - Wedding Weekend

I had the amazing opportunity this weekend to second shoot a wedding with Anna Hollingsworth at Daniel Stowe Botanical Gardens. Even though it was humid enough to drink the air the bride and groom were a blast!

Photo Of The Day - Finger Boards

Dang! I got stuck in slack mode for the past few days! It has been crazy busy at the office and home so I'm having to dip into the archives.

When things slow down you'll hopefully be seeing more flash photography shots. I just got a 60" umbrella and stand, so I'm going to take flash to the next level...even if it's only a few steps up. I have a lot to learn about flash photography. Especially after watching the OneLight Workshop DVD's. If you're a photographer and interested in lighting check them out. They are worth every penny.


So we have been CRAZY busy at the office but in our spare time enjoy a little finger boarding....well most everyone enjoys it, I have yet to learn how they exactly work....one day...

Photo Of The Day - The Eric

Photo Of The Day - HDR

A few weeks back we took a trip up to Smith Mountain Lake in Virginia for my grandfathers 80th birthday. I finally got around to editing some of the pictures down. These two I was fairly happy with.

Process: 3 shots were taken using exposure bracketing. 1 shot normal exposure, 1 shot over, 1 shot under. Both were hand held. Processed in Photomatix.

Photo Of The Day - The Kendra