Preserving the day: photos and video

We couldn't be more excited about the team we have lined up to capture our wedding. The three people we have -- one photographer and two videographers -- are extremely good at what they do. And more importantly, they're friends. A brief warning: a lot of crowing about these three is about to follow. It's all deserved. I know it's a bit much for one blog post, but please indulge me, just this once.

Having Julio, Aaron and Kim shooting our wedding is akin to having Mikhail Baryshnikov choreograph our first dance. It's almost too much to ask.

All three are multimedia journalists whom I admire, and each will go ridiculously far in this industry. If I get to cross paths with any of them in a newsroom in the future, I'll know I'm in a good place.

Photos: Julio


I just literally spent 40 minutes trying to find a great picture to use here -- one that would capture just who Julio is. I went with the one of Julio.

Julio just started a job with the Houston Chronicle, and was an intern with The Associated Press in Chicago the same summer I was in Los Angeles. We met in New York and have kept in touch ever since, because we were pretty much buddies after talking to each other for more than 3 minutes. If we lived in the same neighborhood, I have no doubt whatsoever that we would kick it constantly.

It was important to me that we get a good photojournalist for the wedding, and he's the only person I asked. Sure, we'll have a few of the stock photos that tradition dictates you get, but with Julio there, I'm going to get to see the wedding the way everyone else experienced it.

The guy can shoot anything and make it look stunning, from portraits to sports.

Here is a slideshow of his work. He recently put up his Best of 2007, and all I can say is I wish I were this talented. For more, check out his Web site. The only way I can describe the photos is to say that they remind me how remarkable the ordinary world is.



I can't help myself so I'm going to add one more. This one doesn't have music.



Video: Kim and Aaron

Kim, Aaron and I went to graduate school together at UC Berkeley and graduated in the same class. What that would have been like without them there, I'm not sure. And I don't think I would want to know. Let's start with Kim.

Kim and I were in the same trench from the start: the journalism basics class that was taught by the most notoriously tough teacher in school. It was no joke -- we had a 2,000-word profile due the first Monday morning class at 6:30 a.m. Kim's subject? Me. She talked to Maryté, my parents, my friend Ryan and God knows who else. There were rumors going around that she was trying to get ahold of the teacher who ran my high school newspaper. Naturally, I felt that when school started our relationship was a little lopsided; not in a bad way, I just felt like she knew so much more about me. I'm glad it's evened out since.

If I were teaching journalism to newbies, Kim is who I'd bring in as a real-world example of what a journalist should be. She's got the reporting and storytelling savvy of a newspaper veteran and the technical skills of an engineer. She's sought-after as one of the up-and-coming multimedia journalists around, and would probably beat me out for any job if we both applied for it. Good thing we both already have pretty good ones! :P She's currently finishing a job at the San Diego Union Tribune and heading to Washington D.C. to work for NPR starting in March. They're lucky to have her, and I'm excited to see what she churns out there.

I wish I could embed something for her, but the best I can do is a link. You need to watch this story she did for the PBS show Frontline/World. It's about a couple going through an arranged marriage in Pakistan. If Kim can shoot someone's wedding all the way across the world, something tells me she'll be fine in Santa Barbara.

* * *

Sure, Aaron's got a job working at KTVU, the Fox affiliate in the Bay Area that boasts the top-rated primetime newscast in the country (at least according to their own intro that ran the whole time I grew up). Yeah, he's worked for Brian Ross' ABC News investigative unit. And yes, he was interviewed in-studio by Anderson Cooper for his special that ran on CNN: Waging Peace, a report from Djibouti in a series about U.S. military bases abroad.

But what Aaron and I will always share is the memory of a dream assignment few journalists will ever experience: reporting from a country so small that chances are we'll go through the rest of our lives without encountering anyone who's ever been there.

Aaron invited me to come to Kiribati with him to do sound on a documentary about global warming. To answer the next natural question: Kiribati is a small nation made up of coral atolls in the Pacific ocean, about midway between Hawaii and Fiji. Scattered dots on a globe.

What we got out of the trip was a half-hour doc, a nine-minute TV piece on a different subject and a radio piece. Plus the endless stories to accompany our adventures over there. Looking back on it all, it was pretty fucking insane. Boats, motorbikes without helmets, scuba diving, and a gnarly swim in the world's dirtiest water. All stories for another time, another place.

Here's a picture of us with the president that we took after our private interview with him.



I've produced hours of television with the guy. Who better to ask to shoot the wedding? The guy is insanely creative... or creatively insane. Whatever it is, it's good for us.

For good measure, here's a piece that came together for us totally on the island. My assignment was to find something there to do a TV story about. We were pretty happy with the result. One quick note: There's something weird about YouTube that wouldn't let me put up the video in its natural 16x9. So that's why it looks stretched. But yeah, the raw version looks pretty damn good on a TV.



So Julio, Kim and Aaron, I'm sure I'll say it plenty of times between now and when we see the finished stuff, but thank you so much. You're doing us a great honor by being there on our special day. It'll be great to see you all -- instruments in hand -- again.

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