Tech Question: Website Monitoring

Hope everyone had a great weekend!! Is Tuesday too late to ask about people's weekend? =) We hosted my aunt and uncle from Toronto for a few days -- we hadn't seen them in more than 5 years, so I put down the computers and enjoyed a little break to spend some quality time with them. It was a great time, and I'm sure we'll blog some photos before too long on Addie & Storie's blog.

Hey, I have a quick question to put out there to see if I can get any recommendations from any of you. Our current website host has been having some reliability/downtime issues. Another photographer (thanks, Joy!) let us know this morning that it appeared to be down again, and sure enough our host had made a change and crashed our website. Argh! This is happening way too often for my peace of mind (5 times this year so far!).

So, two things.

1. Please let me know if you ever see our site down! I'd be really grateful. It's not hard to get back up if I just call them and let them know that they must have made some critical error recently. But if we don't hear or know that it's down, it's possible it could stay that way for a few hours and that's not good. Not good at all... Which brings me to my 2nd point/question,

2. Do you know of a good way to monitor a site and receive notifications of downtime/inaccessibility? There seem to be a plethora of programs out there offering site monitoring for a fee, so any recommendations to help narrow them down would be appreciated!

Happy Tuesday!


** EDITED 8/1/08 **

Okay, I found a couple of solutions! Hyperspin.com is now checking my site and sending me free reports, plus I found a Shareware program called "The Informant" which will monitor several sites for me as well, but only runs on my computer, whenever I'm online. So, between the two, I think we're covered for now. 100% uptime reported for the last couple of days, which is a relief.

Amanda & Nathan

This may be our longest post ever! We had so many great photos from Amanda & Nathan's wedding that I had a hard time narrowing it down to blog just a few, so grab some popcorn or a cuppa (coffee) and enjoy!

I met Nathan & Amanda for the first time down in Plano for their rehearsal. Amanda is a friend of another one of our brides (remember Rachel's wedding at the Chesapeake Boat House?) and of Benj Heard, so we knew she'd be great to work with despite not being able to meet with her and her fiancee in person ahead of time.

A lot of our couples have us photograph the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner because there are so many great moments to be captured when you have family and friends from out of town, all together for dinner, toasting, etc. It also gives me a chance to meet the VIPs for the weding day and gives everyone else a chance to get more comfortable with me so they're not so stiff and unnatural on the wedding day. =)

Rehearsal dinner was catered at the Plano Station, a convenient place for some night-time shots by the station and tracks.




Fast forward one day and we're getting ready for the wedding!







What an elegant dress!



I loved the simple, elegant decor.




Happy moments... Captured seconds after they escaped to a room at the back of the church.


There was no lack of attitude, which made for fun times and lots of fun photos. =)


The groom gave each of the groomsmen a ring, which is one of the most unique groomsmen gifts I've ever seen. It made for a fun detail shot - I really love getting the detail shots!




One of the sweetest getaway cars of all time... a Rousch Mustang! I think you guys made that car look good that day. =)


And finally off to the reception at Los Rios Country Club. There was a little bit of fog rolling in and the lighting was really awesome for some wedding party shots just off the fairway.



You've got to love long hallways. Any time I see a nice long corridor like this I get just a little bit excited. =)


I stole the bride and groom away from the reception for just a minute or two to take advantage of the beautiful light as the sun was setting. Thanks for being game for anything, you two!

The first dance

I just love the emotion of the photo above, and how they're hands are interlocked behind Amanda's back.



Being from Virginia, and close to the beach, the cakes were decorated with shells and what looked like sand (brown sugar, I'm sure). So unique and impressive!

Amanda dances with her father

And then the party kicks into high gear!





Before we knew it, it was time for the bubble blowing and grand departure.





The engine roared to life and they were off! I think everyone held their breath and listened just to be sure they didn't hear any sounds of a screeching tires or crunching metal as they tore out of the parking lot and on down the road. =)

Laci & Sean's Wedding, part 2

I'm back from visiting my brother Sean in California. We had such a great time! It was the first-ever Sangree father/sons trip for us.

Dad met me in Dallas and we flew together out to the Fresno/Yosemite airport. I think we had more fun on that flight than anyone else on the airplane. Neither of us is into crossword puzzles, so when we ran out of in-flight magazine Sudoku puzzles, we were both laughing as we turned to the crossword puzzle and started filling it in. I actually got a few right, but we quickly lost interest and just decided to try to fill it all in, which turned out to be much more fun after all. =)

Somehow, after staying up all night packing and tying up loose ends, I forgot to pack the trusty Canon SD800IS point-and-shoot camera. What a bummer! We were in some of the most beautiful country in Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks and with only my cell phone camera! Actually, Sean brought his waterproof point-and-shoot so we did get some shots better than my camera phone. Now, if he will just email some to me, I'll post them!

And now for some photos! Here are some favorites from Laci and Sean's wedding at Walnut Creek Chapel.


The dressing room had some great light for this closeup while she was getting ready.


The bride looking stunning and taking advantage of the great light outside.


The groom and his men, of course. =)





Just as the ceremony started, the sun started shining through the big windows at the back of the church, making for some great, dramatic lighting! I love this one of the flower girls.


And then heaven opened and Laci entered! =) At least that's what Sean must have been thinking when he saw this...


Fast forward 20 minutes and it's party time! Actually, I stole them for a few minutes to get some great photos outside while the sun was setting.





The bride's dance with her father. I just love capturing these moments of expressed emotion!


The groom's dance with his mother.



Then Pistol Pete showed up and cut a rug! That cowboy can dance!





This moment cracked me up. No sooner did he catch the garter, but he ran into the crowd and gave his girlfriend a big old kiss! =) Style points for wearing it on his head, of course.


While the happy couple roams the reception hall greeting guests, It's fun to capture detail shots like these. The dress was beautiful!


Sean & Laci were dancing and I just happened to capture this moment when another guest's camera flash went off, providing some cool lighting from behind them.


Congrats, Sean & Laci! It was a pleasure and an honor to capture the details, moments and emotion from your big day in photos!

Now it's off to bed! 2:40AM and we have a big day tomorrow... Driving up to Tulsa to photography a newborn baby for our good friends David and Alyson Frederick. Congrats guys! Can't wait to meet Alayna!

The Blog is Back!

Our blog was temporarily down today (I'm not sure for how long) due to masses of folks checking out Wes & Serena's wedding photos. Over 1 million people visited in the last day and it overloaded our hosting servers.

Okay, that's just a joke. Blogger had some kind of issue that corrupted the main page so I had to republish it. A HUGE thank you to Wes Anderson for letting me know the blog was down!!! I don't check our own site or blog regularly, so I'd have never known without being told. We're always grateful to be notified if you see that something's not working properly or if we need to correct a typo or something.

I'm visiting my brother for a few days and we had a great time at Yosemite yesterday. Can you believe that between the three of us (Dad, Sean and I) none of us had a camera better than our cell phones? =) So, I grabbed a few images on my cell phone to share. They're not very good and they certainly don't do justice to the place, but it was too beautiful to not try. =)

(pardon the cell phone photo quality - and I don't have Photoshop with me, either! =)

These were both taken on our hike up to the top of Vernal Falls. The view was breathtaking!

Have a fun and safe Independence Day!

Laci & Sean's Wedding, part 1

I'm just uploading Laci & Sean's wedding photos and I have just a couple of minutes to share a crazy one-in-a-million shot that I somehow lucked out and got. (Part 2 is yet to come, with some faves from the wedding.)

Laci & Sean are big OSU fans and somehow pulled some strings and got Pistol Pete there for the reception! If you've ever been near Pistol Pete, he's got a huge, loud gun that he loves to shoot and in that reception hall, the sound seemed to multiply. I just about jumped out of my skin at his first shot! Anyway, it was at least a 6-shooter, so he had some fun firing the big pistol at appropriate times during the OSU fight song and I managed to catch one of his shots at the exact split-second that he fired! How cool is this? (I darkened the rest of the shot, because they were all singing the fight song and looked really serious. =)


Here it is magnified... You can see sparks coming out from the back of the gun even!


I didn't photoshop this image to enhance anything about the gun, just standard color-correction and some sharpening. Isn't that wild?! I think my ears rang for a half hour after that show. =)

It's been great to start catching back up on blogging and to be catching up slowly on our weddings. Laci & Sean, we sure appreciate your patience as we caught up and I think you'll find that it was worth the wait! =)