So I have some exciting news about moi, for a change.

I'm happy to announce that I'll be having my first overseas exhibition this fall, a show at Le Mémorial de la Shoah, the French Holocaust museum in Paris. Titled "Dans les pas des Disparus," I'll be displaying a collection of photos from Les Disparus, my brother Daniel's bestselling book about our search to unravel a 65-year-old mystery surrounding the murder of my relatives in Poland. Les Disparus (The Lost, here in America) has been a huge success in France, winning the Prix Médicis étranger, the highest literary award for a non-French author. (Previous winners of the prize include Doris Lessing, last year's Nobel Prize laureate for literature, Joseph Heller, Philip Roth and Milan Kundera. Not bad company.)

When I first traveled back to Ukraine with my three siblings in 2001, I thought that I was embarking on a good news story, something that I could easily divorce myself from. Years later, I can't really say that anymore. Though my great-uncle Shmiel Jäger, his wife Ester and their four daughters were murdered long before I was born, I certainly feel very close to all of them now. My middle name is Jaeger, a name I always hated as a kid--David or Marc sounded better at the time--but now I feel incredibly lucky to have been given it.

Obviously I'm happy that the photographs I took on the many trips I made with Daniel--from Australia to Copenhagen to Ukraine--will be seen in a slightly (!) larger format than they originally appeared. I know I've made jokes about how small they were in print, but obviously The Lost is not a picture book. The original intent behind the photographic documentation of the people and places of The Lost was always as an accompanying exhibition.

I will be taking part in a discussion about The Lost and my photographs on Sunday, October 5th. Le Mémorial de la Shoah is located at 17 rue Geoffroy-l’Asnier in the 4th arrondissement. My brother Daniel will be on hand as well. If you're interested, you can go to the museum's web site, here.

Since I led off this post with a photograph I took on our February trip to France, a dusk image shot in front of the Paris Opera House, I'll close with a photograph of an opera house that always conjures much sadder emotions for me. L'viv, a beautiful city in western Ukraine, has its own grand opera house. But as we walked down Prospect Svobody, its main boulevard, on a rainy August day back in 2001, listening to the old-timers sing folk songs and swap stories on park benches, I couldn't help but think of the tens of thousands of Jewish residents who never got the chance to see old age.

Take care,

Matt

Sorry for the delay, gang. I'm a week behind and it's all because of technology. Between changing email servers (and losing thousands of old messages in the process), new phones and hard drive failures, it's been a challenging few days here at Matt Mendelsohn World Headquarters. In the end, everything worked out fine, though I admit there were times I was ready to bite someone's head off.

(Without a doubt, the lowest point came when our new Google Apps email wasn't working and I tried to actually contact a human being at that company. Trust me when I tell you there aren't any human beings who actually work there. Not a one. And if I had to try and guess one more password word puzzle--you know, those twisting teasers like "karpuzziness" and "schnizzleoppittt" that confirm you're not a spammer--I would have really gone off the deep end. It's hard enough to spell schnizzleoppittt when it's displayed straight and proper. But throw in those gyrating letters and my blood pressure starts to rise real fast.)

Anyway, beautiful wedding pictures of beautiful couples always calm me down a bit and so I'm here to show you a few sneak peeks from the wedding last Saturday of Lauren Davis and  Vance Townsend. As had been the case, it was just a glorious day for a wedding and I was happy to be away from my computer!

I met Lauren and Vance through a former wedding couple, Beth and Chris Burger, who were married at St. Matthew's a few years ago. I'll always remember their wedding because it yielded one of my favorite church pictures ever, this overall (left) from the back of the nave. I usually don't like to take too many chances while the vows are going on, but I couldn't resist throwing on my 16mm for just a few moments to get this image. I know Beth and Chris agree.

Well, times flies when you're having fun and I'm happy to report that Chris and Beth have an adorable son, C.J., who was the ring bearer for Vance and Lauren this past week. As I've said many times before, that's one of the great things about weddings: the generational connections that tie one to another.  I love seeing old friends at new weddings, especially when there's a new little one to show off or a former bridesmaid-now-turned-bride.

As usual, I knew things would go smoothly when I got to Lauren's family home to shoot some of the getting ready pictures. Lauren was standing at the door with a big coat hanger attached to her back, delicately propping up her veil. Hanger aside, she looked radiant. The light in the living room was soft and a big classic Bentley was waiting patiently in front of the house.

Things were fun and easy from the start--especially when Lauren noticed that Vance's letter to her had a slight little spelling correction on the envelope. We all laughed at the sweeteness of it. (Vance, I'm not poking fun, I swear. It was really nice. But you will get grief over this for years to come, man!)

From there it was off to Holy Trinity, which, like St. Matthew's, is one of my favorite places to shoot. It's always accessible and bright, and always yields beautiful images. My old buddy Cliff, who I worked with twenty years ago at United Press International, assisted me from the balcony. Afterwards we all jumped in the Bentley and cruised over to the Capitol. It was a tad hot (okay, it was scorching) but we had fun waving back at all those tourists in their Tourmobiles from our Bentley. We even had a chance to hop on over to Union Station to take some pictues in the shade. No matter how many times I go to this one spot, I always have to shake my head and tell myself that we're not in Italy. (Just watch: every photographer will start going over there now and ruin it! It always happens this way.)

And after all that, it was back to the Fairmont, where guests wined and dined themselves for a while and danced and danced for an even longer while. It was really a perfect day and I wish Lauren and Vance the best. To see a mini gallery of their wedding, click here.

As for me, I'm off to Richmond tomorrow to work on an upcoming story. In a few days I'll post again, this time with photos from another great wedding this weekend. And I'll also be able to let you in on a secret that involves, me, my pictures and a certain museum in the City of Light.

Take care,

Matt

We don't get many special bulletins around this joint, so it's with great pleasure that I get to announce the arrival of Azra Bacvic, born July 21 at Sibley Hospital to proud parents Andrea and Djenno Bacvic.

Those of you who read the piece I wrote in the Washington Post last year will remember Djenno for providing a truly touching coda to my story. I wrote, "Just the other day, I received an e-mail from a photographer looking for an internship. His short note almost brought me to tears: “I come from Sarajevo, Bosnia, and my life has put me though many challenges. I am saying this because I have had the chance to see the worst in humans and was lucky enough to survive it. Since then, I have made it my goal to help people record their happiest moments, because those moments are rare and precious, and one never has too many of them.” After I received this email, I hired Djenno as our first official summer intern.

Well, I couldn't be happier to report that Djenno now gets to have one of his own "rare and precious" moments. Azra, whose name in Arabic means "one who levitates," weighed in at 7 lbs. 7 oz. and 20 3/4 inches long. She is cute as can be.

     
And since nothing on The Dark Slide comes without a bit of serendipity, as I've noted many times, I would be remiss if I didn't point out that the birth of little Azra came on the very same day that one of the world's worst mass murderers, Radovan Karadzic, a man responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent Bosnians, was finally apprehended. Djenno said to me a few minutes ago, "I saw my daughter being born--I cut the umbilical cord--and on the same day something I've been praying for since 1995 happened as well. Amazing."

In Belgrade, a very bad man is caught and in Washington, D.C., a very cute girl is born. All in all, a good day, yesterday.

Congratulations, guys!

Matt

p.s. Since Djenno's family is in Bosnia, we've posted a little gallery so they can see Azra. Click here.

We've gone from journalism lows to Aspen highs in the last couple of posts, and today it's back to good old weddings. It's my bread and  butter, after all, and it ensures I get nice emails from my sister, Jennifer.

Last weekend I had the chance to shoot a lovely wedding out in the Virginia countryside. It was held at a local winery, Hillsborough Vineyards, on a spectacular day, one that went from pouring rain in the early morning to just plain gorgeous by the time we got out to Purcellville for the reception. If you're looking at the same photo I am, the one to the right, I don't have to tell you that Meghan Weidl and Felix Candelario had as perfect weather as one could ever hope for on their wedding day. Funny the way things turn out, eh?

The last time I mentioned Meghan and Felix on these pages, we were driving the length of the George Washington Parkway, looking desperately for a redbud tree to use as an engagement portrait backdrop. We found one alright, and I laughed as we tried to make cool pictures, all the while cars zipping past us on the parkway at 50 miles an hour.

This time we didn't have any traffic issues to worry about. Hillsborough Vineyards is tucked away in the rolling hills and provided just a perfect backdrop for a wedding reception. Guests were greeted with glasses of their homegrown wines and platters of cheese  and all was right with the world. And in a nice twist, table centerpieces weren't floral but rather grape. Bowls of grapes, cylinders of grapes. A lot of grapes. And that's the way it should be at a vineyard.

If you read these posts closely, you know that I love brides and grooms who understand the emotion of their big day more than the trappings of that day. Love over tablecloths, basically. Felix and Meghan got that in a big way. It was great to be there when Meghan opened a box containing a bracelet, something Felix knew she had wanted for her wedding day. And to watch Felix break down during his vows. And to watch Meghan tear up as she danced with her dad. Well, you get the point. These guys are very much in love with each other and their families and it all shone through brilliantly.

 

I promised Meghan and Felix that they would be able to sneak a peek at some of their pictures while they were on their honeymoon, and you guys can do the same. To see some more pictures from their wedding, click here.

Take care, guys.

 

 

Matt 

And the Colorado rocky mountain high/I've seen it rainin' fire in the sky.

Okay, I'm not really a John Denver fan, so if this were a Monty Python movie, somebody would be rushing into the frame right now screaming, "Stop that! Stop that!" There will be no singing on this blog.

Nor, apparently, will there be any more serious posts about the death of journalism and dopey interns in Florida who can't resist a chance to write about what they ate for lunch. In general, when I write too many posts that aren't wedding or portrait related, my sister will leave a sarcastic message telling me to get back to the nice pictures of brides. Thanks for the support, Jen.

Actually, I have no problem getting back to the nice pictures, because they're a little bit different this week. As some of you know, I just returned from a wonderful trip to Colorado, where I had the pleasure of photographing my friends Frank and Jessica and their family. And though I've spent time in  Montana and Alaska, Colorado was a new experience for me, one I'll be looking forward to repeating in the future. There was no humidity, the air was fresh and there wasn't a mosquito to be found.

It was quite liberating to go on a portrait shoot like this one, with no agenda other than getting beautiful family pictures over the course of a few days. And, needless to say, it's hard to miss when you have backgrounds like Aspen Mountain or Maroon Bells or, for that matter, the great old wooden bed on the porch. One assumes the pictures will come with the great mountain in the background, but more often than not, they come when the kids are playing in the fountain in the middle of downtown. That's why agendas in the mountains are just plain silly. As Frank and Jessica were telling me, one has to be laid back in Aspen, where the weather can shut the airport down in a heartbeat. And that's just the way we approached this shoot.

I arrived in Aspen via Indpendence Pass, and I'm kind of glad I didn't really read the guide book too carefully before setting out. Me and heights are like oil and water, so it's probably for the best that I didn't know that the altitude of the pass was over 12,000 feet. There was plenty of snow up there and a dearth of guardrails but I did just fine. (No, I was not driving like an old lady. Okay, maybe a little bit.) It really is a spectacular view, the wind whipping around and the temperature a good 20 degrees cooler than the valley. I was expecting the thin air to be more noticeable than it was, though I could feel it on the trail out to the overlook.

Once in Aspen, we just hung around the house. We drove up towards Maroon Bells Lake a few times, watched the kids skateboard and ride bikes, and had an amazing dinner at D19, a restaurant that serves the best "forever braised" pork osso buco I've ever tasted. Pretty much we kept it simple, and that's where good pictures come from.

Anyway, I won't go on too long today, since Sunday's post was a bit of a haul. I do want to take the opportunity to thank Frank and Jessica for their hospitality in Aspen. It was a wonderful first trip to Colorado and I can't wait to return.

 To see a little gallery of pictures from our Aspen photo shoot, which could, I believe, be mistaken for a Ralph Lauren ad campaign, click here.

Take care, and I'll have some pictures from the great wedding I did at Hillsborough Vineyards this past Saturday in a few days. And for those of you who want to start humming some John Denver, you may begin now.

Matt