Nashville Wedding Photographer Blog of Brian Kaplan Photography

Jonathan and Nicola Teaser 1 | Benton Chapel Wedding

briankaplan — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 02:01:18 +0000

This past weekend was a lovely one indeed. Jonathan and Nicola were married on Vanderbilt’s campus at Benton Chapel. Followed by a dance marathon reception at the cool W. O. Smith Music School. It was a night full of joy, tears and some pretty incredible speeches. I’m pretty sure it will live on in my mind as one of the best nights of speeches at a wedding.

Thank you to the families and friends of Jonathan and Nicola for making their big day so beautiful and fun!

This is only a teaser, so many many more photos to come from this lovely couple.

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Stuffed Peppers with Sausage Recipe

briankaplan — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 01:31:37 +0000

Ok so you’re asking me why put recipes on your photography blog. Well, next to photography, cooking is one of my favorite things to do. And hey, if you’re getting married, one of you should know how to cook. So why not create a new part of my blog that gives you some of my favorite recipes?

My wife, Kristin, is out working a wedding tonight and I am at home by myself. She HATES peppers with a passion, so I decided since she’s not eating to make something I love. My mom made stuffed peppers growing up and I wanted to make something that reminded me of her, and although this is my recipe, it still brings me back to the good ole days…(Love you Mom!)

I have 3 REALLY good recipes for stuffed peppers, my favorite we’ll have to save for another time as it requires ground lamb and raisins and unfortunately finding ground lamb in Nashville is harder than finding a lost contact in a pool. So I decided I would go with a more traditional stuffed pepper recipe that I love and show you that.

First and foremost it is important while you are cooking to have a good beer. I decided this evening that a good Yazoo Hefeweizen was going to be my choice. It is a local Nashville Brewery and unfortunately may be impossible to find in other areas. But it sure is delicious.

Here are the ingredients

6 green bell peppers - I like to have leftovers so I can eat them the day after too.
1 package of italian sausage
1 teaspoon of olive oil
1/2 of a yellow onion chopped
1 can whole peeled tomatoes, chopped
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1/2 cup uncooked rice
1/2 cup water
1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
2 cans condensed tomato soup
water as needed
Salt and Pepper
4 cloves of garlic
1 pinch of nutmeg

Step 1: Get some salted water boiling

Step 2: Remove the stems and seeds from the peppers

Step 3: Add the peppers to the boiling water and blanch them for 5 minutes

Step 4: Drain the peppers and add a pinch of salt inside each one.

Step 5: Chop the onion and Garlic cloves - A secret to not crying while cutting onions is to make sure you have a sip of your beer… It makes you more of a man and you can handle it better.

Step 6: This is the best step I think because it creates what I think heaven smells like. Add the onion/garlic and sausage into a skillet on medium heat with a teaspoon of Olive oil.

Step 7: Let the meat brown and the onions cook… If anyone is in your house right now they are more than likely getting hungry from the scent.

Step 8: Once the meat has browned it is time to add the can of whole tomatos, uncooked rice, Worcestershire sauce, Pinch of Nutmeg, and 1/2 cup of water, turn the heat down to simmer and cover with a lid. This will allow the rice to cook. You will notice it thicken as the rice fluffs up. This will take about 12-15 minutes.

Step 9: Once the rice is cooked and you have a thicker base to work with it is time to take off of the heat, add the cheese and stir.

Step 10: Stuff the peppers with the filling and put in a baking dish.

Step 11: Add a bit of water to the cans of tomato soup so that it is a bit thinner: I added about 1 can of water to the 2 cans of soup.

Step 12: Pour the tomato soup mix over the stuffed peppers.

Step 13: add a bit more cheese to the top of each pepper.

Step 14: Put the baking dish into the oven at 350 degrees for 25 minutes.

Step 15: Plate and serve.

Now I just need to convince my wife that peppers are delicious, and maybe I’ll get to make them for her. Oh well time to eat by myself.

Enjoy!

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Meghan and Daniel Huntsville Alabama Wedding – Teaser 1

briankaplan — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 23:19:16 +0000

Meghan and Daniel were married yesterday in beautiful Huntsville, Alabama. The two are magically in love and are two of the nicest, coolest people you’d ever meet. I am grateful to have been able to shoot these two lovebirds. Many More to come, but here’s a sneak peak at yesterdays wedding fun.

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Richard and Ishita E-session

briankaplan — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 22:59:30 +0000

Last week I had the pleasure of shooting Ishita and Richard here in Nashville. It was officially the earliest in the morning I have ever been up to shoot. But I have to say the light was amazing at 6am, and not a soul was around to bother us.

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A wedding photographer’s view of why Flash websites suck!

briankaplan — Tue, 25 May 2010 22:40:55 +0000

Flash websites were big several years ago in every industry; the need to present your brand in the most stunning way possible and to impress people with your slideshows, music and extreme animation was flourishing. Interestingly enough, back then, standard html sites looked unprofessional and often shouted homemade.

Various services were developed in which utilize a flash templating and proprietary content management systems, in which I think are a great idea, and I too have used them, however, I personally think that the day of flash websites are over.

Today, information is needed quickly and your target audience’s attention span has been shortened to the most extremely limited amount of time. People are used to going to Google and typing in a search phrase and immediately having dozens of options to look through, they click on their best options and if the content doesn’t load or the information is not there, the quickly go back to the list and find what they were looking for.

The problem with flash used for entire websites (for the most part) is that they are built as essentially an entire movie file (swf) or several movie files. This makes a large file in which a user must wait for their browser to load. Then once the file is loaded the content within the file is not crawled or recognized by any search engine. Of course there are techniques used to add content in which will be crawled underneath the flash and there are techniques in which write urls for specific flash pages (swfaddress.) However, the spiders (search engine crawlers) see your flash and either jump over it, or they get blocked.

Additionally with the success of the iPhone and iPad, flash is not supported and more than likely will not ever be supported on these devices and most if not all mobile devices. So it is important to be able to reach those users. Here is a stunning statistic for you, 42% of Americans use a smartphone, 18% of which are on iphones, and guess which age demo has the most users? Yes, 24-35 years old, that is your demographic as a wedding photographer.

There are many ways to build websites for your photography business that are not flash based, or utilize flash in very minimal ways (such as a slideshow or gallery.) Currently my new site (still not 100% finished) was built from scratch utilizing html, css, javascript and php. This enables search engines to crawl the entire site and it’s contents, as well as loads almost instantly, and for the kicker (ALL OF IT LOADS ON IPHONE AND BLACKBERRY.) Additionally for you non technically saavy individuals out there, you can use wordpress and prophoto to create an entire website with slideshow and use wordpress to manage all your content. Lastly, you can do it without having to pay monthly costs for your web content management or hosting, you can do it on your own shared server solution for $5-10 a month.

Well sorry to be so technical today, I just felt I had to vent about Flash websites… If you have any question’s about how to do any of this, feel free to email or let me know.

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Jonathan and Nicola The Raincheck Session

briankaplan — Mon, 24 May 2010 04:43:03 +0000

Jonathan and Nicola are some serious super troopers. Having had to propose to Nicola in the rain, their first e-session get rained on and our rescheduled session have the worst flooding ever in Nashville, these two have seen enough rain. So with today being such a beautiful day, I took them out to get eaten alive by mosquitoes and walk through smelly woods, aren’t I so sweet???

Well I think the bites payed off! Here is a special look at today’s session.

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Flippin Links – to some flippin’ awesome blogs

briankaplan — Mon, 17 May 2010 22:32:34 +0000

I just wanted to post a couple of cool links to some of the blogs I frequent. Some are inspirational, some are informational, and some are heartfelt.

RocknRollbride.com | Grunge DIY to Die For

WedCandy.com | Trendwatch – Fall/Winter Bridal 2010

Offbeatbride.com | New York Hospital Wedding

Simplystunningnashville.com | What you should wear as a wedding guest

Ashleysbrideguide.com | Bridal Jewelry

Alicia and Brent’s Wedding at CJs Off The Square in Franklin, TN Teaser 1

briankaplan — Sat, 08 May 2010 18:50:58 +0000

Alicia and Brent, two of the most amazing people EVER, that’s right I said EVER, were married last night at an amazingly beautiful location (CJ’s Off The Square in Franklin, TN.) The weather was perfect, the guests were amazing, and of course… This bride and groom were phenomenal.

I only have a short time before tonight’s shin-dig Bat Mitzfah, then off to Atlanta with the Wife. But I wanted to post Teaser number 1 for Alicia and Brent before they head off on their honeymoon!

Alicia and Brent, thank you for allowing me to be a part of your big day, enjoy your honeymoon, and sometime when you are back Teaser number 2 will be ready.

Enjoy!!!

ok, I had to put these two adorable little boys into the teaser, I saw them sitting on the bench together and just had to capture them. They are so cute!!

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Cherish your Wedding Day!

briankaplan — Tue, 04 May 2010 15:36:42 +0000

Kristin and I were married in September of 09, it was one of the most beautiful days of my life and I wouldn’t change it in any way, shape or form. However, there is one moment I wish I could change.

My sister’s mother-in-law Judy and her husband Howard drove down from Washington DC to our wedding. I was just about to get photos taken of my wedding party and 2 of my groomsmen were missing for a moment. My mind scattered and I got momentarily flustered with the groomsmen for wandering off. Judy and Howard walked in at that moment and came up to say hello to me…being flustered I wasn’t able to say hello or thanks for coming to them. At the beginning of the reception my niece got tired and Howard and Judy left to watch her. I never got to say thank you in person and felt like I had been rude.

Unfortunately that was the last time I saw Judy. She passed away one week ago unexpectedly.

Here is a photo of Judy from our wedding day… This photo is special because I know that right after this photo was taken she saw her granddaughters as flower girls walk down the aisle.

Emily and Robert were also married in Sept. 09. Emily’s father was sick with a brain degenerative disease and was in a wheelchair. I know that she appreciated every moment of having him at her wedding. And I know to her the photos I took of her father are being cherished. I received word from Emily that her father passed away a couple months ago.

If anyone were the perfect example of being in the moment and understanding how important it is to be alive, to love and cherish the people around you… She is it.

You see, many of us get caught up in the details of our wedding day and trying to make those dreams you’ve had since you were little come true. In all that energy and wasted worry you lose the meaning of what the day truly is about. Enjoy your day to the fullest, let things that don’t go as planned roll off your back. Enjoy the moments you get to spend with those who love you and you love back.

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Engagement Session at Land Between The Lakes -Take 1 -Jonathan and Nicola

briankaplan — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 02:18:58 +0000

Yesterday we went out to Land Between The Lakes for an engagement shoot with Jonathan and Nicola, two amazingly cool people who are getting hitched this August.

UNFORTUNATELY our weather turned for the worst out in Kentucky land and it not only rained but dropped about 20 degrees and was windier than a schooner in a hurricane. SO we are going to do a Take 2 shoot this coming weekend.

But I wanted to share these special photos photos from our day yesterday!

Enjoy!

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