Deborah & Olusegun just celebrated their 5th wedding anniversary. Their wedding was the last one I shot in Los Angeles. I had already moved to Atlanta and flew back for their wedding. They had a beautiful ceremony overlooking the ocean at the Korean Bell and waterfront reception at the Ports O’Call Restaurant in San Pedro, CA.

Congratulations Deborah & Olu! I hope you have many more.

I’m back from my mission trip to Haiti and it was an amazing experience. I recommend everyone to visit a third world country at least once. I definitely want to go back. I’m sharing a few photos but the phrase a picture is worth a thousand words seems so inadequate in this case. The photos just can’t compare to seeing, hearing, and feeling it.

I can’t think of any words to describe the ride through Port-Au-Prince. There was so much devastation and so many people out that it was hard to take it all in. The few photos I have are all I could get while riding in the back of a very bumpy van. Oh, and don’t complain about Atlanta traffic. No one stops in Haiti. They just honk their horns and swerve around anything or anyone in the way.

We spent most of our time in Leogane where the epicenter of the earthquake was. Our hotel was a beach front resort by Haitian standards. Ten women in a 2BR/1BA apartment made it a very challenging week. The occasional power & AC outages and cold showers were a minor annoyance compared to the millions of mosquitoes.

Most of our service was spent on vacation bible school and handyman projects at three orphanages. Victory had already funded new buildings for the kids to sleep in so we focused on smaller projects like building seesaws, chalkboards and repairing doors.

The kids in the orphanages are great. They range in age from infants to teenagers. The vacation bible school activities were a welcome break for the school aged kids studying for their finals. Although they don’t speak English, they were very good at communicating that they wanted a snack or they wanted their photo taken.

We also had a unique opportunity to do an outreach and minister to almost 100 prostitutes and pimps. Local churches do not reach out to them but they just want a way out of their lifestyle. This is their only way to support their families. Victory World Church is piloting a program that will allow women to transition from prostitution to owning a street vending business. Many people shared their stories and their were lots of tears, hugs, prayers and smiles. Oh, and a lot of portraits on the beach.

On the last day we went to a small mountain village near the town of Jacmel, about 3 hours away from Port-au-Prince. Here we really got to see how beautiful Haiti is. The village never received any help so we distributed tents and rice at their church. Many of the villagers walk for several miles to attend this church and all of them were there waiting for us to arrive.

And one final thought. If you eat goat, don’t do it. These animals are way too cute to be dinner.

See even more pictures by watching this slideshow documenting my trip.

Destiny and Chase were married at a beautiful Italian villa in the Tuscany Hills neighborhood in Douglasville. Despite the heat, everyone had a good time dancing all night. There were so many spontaneous moments, it was hard to narrow down my favorite few.

Below are some highlights from Elaunda and Chris’s wedding at the Biltmore Ballrooms, one of the premier Atlanta wedding venues. Elaunda began her day at the Hotel Indigo, which has a great lobby for some colorful bridal portraits. Event Design by André Winfrye Events and Floral Design by Your Floral Matters. The gorgeous cake was from Sugarplum Visions and the linens were provided by Ciao Bella Weddings.

I met Erika and Keylan for their engagement portraits at one of my favorite locations, Stone Mountain park. I may seem biased since I live in Stone Mountain but I really like the park because there are so many different settings and locations to shoot. This was the first fishing engagement portraits I’ve done and it was a lot of fun.