LOT 24 Studios

So at 4 a.m. we took off for lovely Grand Forks a good five hour drive. Not twenty minutes in my hopes for a view of the sunrise were dashed slightly when we drove into a wall of fog. Despite the inclement weather situation we managed to navigate our way over to Caribou for a caffeine kick. Nothing separates me from my coffee. Nothing.

Then, after hours upon hours…well a few…there it was, glorious early morning sunlight. There’s nothing quite like it, it makes everything glow. And I love things that glow.

We finally reached Grand Forks and I met up with my cousin and the whole wedding party.

Part of the wedding party: Abby the flower girl, she was little and tinkerbelle-ish and all around precious.

There are a couple things you need to know about the beautiful bride, Jackie: 1) She is super sweet and had a great sense of humor about everything (especially me lurking around shooting candid moments), 2) She really should be a model…I mean come on…she makes it look so easy!

All-in-all the day was a success, the wedding was beautiful, I had a great time shooting with Liza and I got the roadtrip experience that I love so much. More photos from Jackie & Anthony’s wedding are coming soon!

It was hot, 96.8 and humid to be exact, the air hit me like a brick wall when we stepped outside to get a better look at the festivities. Finding our place among the crowd, I leaned against the handrail as I tore off another piece of my giant soft pretzel, wiped the large salt granules off and dunked it in the ketchup I had carefully balanced in the pretzel wrapper on my palm.

“They are loading them up.” Matt said, excitedly pointing to the track.

“Would I?!” I said at the time, after all this wasn’t something I could see every day.

We had both been excited about this event since he saw the ad online and promptly picked up the phone and called to see if I would be interested. But now it was hot. And we were tired. And I couldn’t seem to balance my 20lb purse (seriously…there have got to be brick somewhere in there…), my handful of ketchup and my pretzel that was now precariously dangling off my finger.

Just as the heat became almost unbearable, the bell rang and five ungainly camels came bursting out of the gates racing to the finish line. And it was funny and entertaining and everything we had hoped it would be. As Humpty Dumpty and the rest of the even-toed ungulates lumbered to the end of the track we exchanged mutual looks of delight and satisfaction.

Despite the heat, the humidity, my perpetual lack of balance and being sometimes shoulder-to-shoulder with 15,000 other people there were only two words that came to mind: Worth it.

It was Extreme Race Day at Cantebury and that meant that if you wanted to, you could spend your Sunday afternoon watching not only horses race, but also camels and ostriches. How could we ever pass an opportunity like that up? Well that’s simple, we couldn’t. Much like a mailman we wouldn’t let rain or sleet or overwhelming humidity stop us because sometimes you just need to get out and do something new, something different, something like watching awkwardly shaped animals race each other to the finish line.

If you happened to miss it or haven’t yet got a chance to see such a magnificent event check out the grand finale which was, yep, you guessed it…ostrich racing…

Because it’s Monday and everyone can use a little boost from LOT24Studios on Vimeo.

Preview: Kris + Nikki from LOT24Studios on Vimeo.