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Colin and I have had a lot of time of reflection lately. We have been discussing what our photography is now, what we offer, and where/what we want our business to be in the future. Because of this, we have completely redone our session fees and wedding packages. Yes, the prices are a bit higher, but with them we are offering so much more than we ever did before – we’re stepping it up a notch. We are even excited about a few extra surprises for our brides and grooms… These new packages and pricing will begin January 1st, 2010.

We wanted to give you time to book at our current price list. We will still be accepting our current prices until the end of the year but not after. So, if you are interested in booking us for wedding photography, engagement photos, bridal portraits, family pictures, a senior session, or anything else you need – contact us soon.

By Colin and Andre’a Feldhaus

matchlessphotography.com

wedding and portrait photographers

We arranged with some our new Spanish friends a couple weeks ago to set aside a day that we could all celebrate Thanksgiving together. Even though we were not in America, we didn’t want to forget this special holiday. So we planned our menu – which was extremely tricky because you can’t get a lot of essential ingredients over here. But we didn’t want to let that stop us… so we did a lot of improvising. Thanksgiving Thursday came and went and it was kinda hard for both Colin and I. It was our second Thanksgiving to miss (from being out of the country), and honestly, we were missing home. No Macy’s parade, no turkey dinner, and not Cowboys game to watch and fall asleep during. But once Saturday morning came, we were too busy cooking to remember being homesick.

To begin with, neither Colin nor I have ever cooked a Thanksgiving meal. We have always celebrated it with our families – and our parents did all the amazing cooking. Last year, we were away and by ourselves, so we bought a rotisserie chicken and had some green beans and mashed potatoes. I think we might have made an apple pie, but that’s about it. So this was a new experience for the two of us. Lets just say we have a new appreciation for all the people who do this back home!! So much goes into the planning, cooking, and timing! It is truly a labor of love. It was interesting to plan what could fit in the oven at one time and how long it needed to cook before we could get it out and put something else in… But then you couldn’t just let anything cook first because when it was taken out of the oven it couldn’t get cold… WOW! All in all, i was seriously amazed that everything turned out! I loved planning everything from the grocery list to the time we needed to put in the chicken. It was so much fun and I was so content being in the kitchen cooking again that thoughts of home were long gone.  So for the menu…

We couldn’t find a turkey so we had to resort to 2 small roast chickens

We couldn’t find marshmallows for candied yams – so we had roast sweet potatoes instead.

Mashed Potatoes, green beans,dressing and stuffing, bread

and even had someone bring some cranberry sauce from the States!

We couldn’t find a lot of the ingredients for any pumpkin dessert, so homemade apple turnovers it was.

I think the meal was a success. There was 10 people there all together. We each went around the table and said something we were thankful for. It was fascinating to see what items of the dinner were a big hit. But most importantly, we were able to share this time with friends. We did have to have the traditional Spanish “coffee time” after the meal. Can’t have a meal in Spain without coffee time. So more chatting, sweets, and coffee were up. There was no american football on – or even spanish football (soccer), but today (sunday) is one of the biggest rival games ever… Barcelona vs. Madrid. So we will get our football fix in, i’m sure.

We hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving and now it’s time to break out the Christmas music!

Here’s Colin’s plate of food.

By Colin and Andre’a Feldhaus

matchlessphotography.com – wedding and portrait photography

A while ago, a good friend of Esteban and Noelia came over to record a couple of songs.  Her name is Ana and she has an amazing voice.  Ana was another one of the people that went to Seattle last December to go to the worship training.  Most of the time while Esteban and Ana were recording, we stayed out of the way.  But Colin had to come in watch some of the time… he just couldn’t stay away!  Music, sound, and recording gear, are more of his passions!  So towards the end of the recording, Colin decided to snap some shots of what they were doing.

By Colin and Andre’a Feldhaus

www.matchlessphotography.com

Human Castles are an event that is only found here in Catalunya (a northeast region of Spain – including Barcelona).  Although just recently, some people from Spain went to Chile and are trying to start it up there.  Other than that -Catalunya is the only place where these human castles take place.  The best team is from Vilafranca – a town 20 minutes from where we are staying.  When we first arrived and toured the town, we saw the square where the human castles take place, but were told the season was over.  The big day or festival when they take place is usually the end of August.  However, we got lucky!  Noelia told us that they were having a tournament with four teams coming to Vilafranca.  So of course we made plans to attend and experience the real Catalan culture!

Each team is extremely large.  They probably have close to 80+ people.  There is always a huge base layer that nobody can really see – but it’s the most important layer and biggest… like a foundation.  From there, people start crawling over the base layer until they reach the middle and start the tower.  It’s really quite fascinating.  There are different types of castles.  They are named first by how many people are in each row, then by how many layers tall they are.   For example, you can have a castle that is 4 of 8.  This means there are four people in each row and it is 8 layers high.  A team wins by getting the most points.  Points are awarded by the difficulty of the castle, if they finish it, and if they can dismount with out falling.  I think there are many other ways to get points, but i don’t know all the rules.  Also, once the team makes it to the 4th layer – there is no turning back.  Up until that point, if they feel like any one of the layers or if the foundation is not good, they can dismount and retry for no penalty.  But once that 4th level is reached, a band begins to play and they must continue.  The band is for the team members on the bottom layers that can’t see the progress of the castle.  They know that when the music starts they have reached the 4th level and the music changes with each level completed.  Pretty good idea!  The castle is complete when someone (usually a ridiculously small child in a helmet) climbs to the top, gets in his/her position, and raises her hand.  If the hand is not raised, the team does not get points for completing the castle.  Then they still have to dismount with out calapsing.  It’s all fairly tricky, but so fun to watch.  You have to be patient though.  Usually it takes about 30 minutes of waiting before you even see people start beginning to build.  It takes so long for the team to get their foundation just the way they want it.  I think we saw 6 castles in 1.5 hours.  This was because while one team was building, the next one was preparing their foundation.  It saved a little time.

Well, here are some pictures.  We got lucky yet again and found out that the Vilafranca team was planning on doing a couple really hard castles… beginning with the 3 of 10!!!  It started off great… but then we saw some of the lower levels begin to wobble.  It’s pretty amazing to see a human castle completely finished, but there’s nothing that compares to a good fall!  (And they know how to fall correctly so nobody gets hurt!… at least that’s what i tell myself.)  So unfortunately, this castle didn’t make it, but it was a great fall!

Next was a red team.  They too started off really well.

You can see the small child with the helmet climbing up to the top.

But they too fell… Just look at the hair of the people on top.

Here’s a photo of another little girl on top.  The castle was complete because she raised her hand!

Here’s a cool story about this castle.  This blue team made there castle and began to dismount.  They were a bit shaky the whole time so everyone thought they would fall.  However, the child on top started to come down and realized the side she had chosen, was not stable.  So she quickly changed sides and continued to come down.  This allowed the team to regain their composure… and therefore, SHE saved the castle!

A couple more photos of the Vilafranca team completing a 2 of 8 castle!  This time they make it up and down… and this one is extremely difficult as you can imagine!

And last but not least, the funniest picture… I’m not sure who I’m more embarrassed for;  the person being grabbed, or the people grabbing.  Either way, I’d say it’s a bit awkward.

by colin and andre’a feldhaus

{matchless}photography

ps. I edited a majority of these pictures with my own custom made “spanish” action.

Freixenet is factory that produces Cava – or Spanish sparkling wine.  It’s actually the 9th largest wine manufacturer in the world.  Since I, Andre’a, am not too fond of wine, I never really learned a whole lot about it.  But i must say, this tour was very interesting.  Noelia and Esteban were nice enough to make reservations for us to go on the English speaking tour so we could actually understand!  We started off watching a 10 minute film of the history of Freixenet, then headed down to the old cellars.  Here, in the old cellars, they actually still do everything by hand.  There’s a lot of turning the bottles – which causes the sediment to collect at the bottom which will need to be removed.  If a machine does this, it can hold 500 bottles and finish in 24 hours.  If it is done by hand, the process will be finished in 21 days.  BIG DIFFERENCE!  In the new cellars of Freixenet, all this is done by the machines.  But here in the old cellars, where the more expensive, nicer aged wines are made, they do everything manually so it’s more “romantic”… as the tour guide said.  So here are some photos from the old cellars.

There were many tunnels to go through… some were quite small.  And the walls were usually lined with cave bottles.

Colin took this photo because of the year… this wine is as old as he is!!

by colin and andre’a feldhaus

{matchless}photography

After we visited the Gaudi buildings, we began to make our way to the Port.  Along the way we took some more pictures.  These first two are of some cool streets that we passed or went through.

Then we saw the statue of Christopher Columbus… the funny thing is, he is pointing the wrong direction.  He’s supposed to be pointing to the Americas, where he discovered, but instead he is pointing in the opposite direction.

We made it to the dock where we ate lunch at a yummy restaurant.  When we were on the dock, there was ceiling that was made of windows.  Apparently it’s the place where everyone takes a photo looking up at your reflection… so of course we did!  Here’s the four of us:  me, colin, Noelia, and Esteban.

And this picture is for our dear mother Judy!  We saw this horse drawn carriage waiting for some tourists to hop in.  The horses were so cute and they were even cuddling!… or at least i think they were…

Finally we ended up back in the Square where the entrance to the train station was.  We had a few minutes before we had to catch our train, so we wondered around the square.  There were a million pigeons, and I think you could purchase bird seed to feed them at one of the stands nearby.  I think they are fed quite often by how many we saw, and they weren’t as scared of humans as most birds would be.  Colin decided to try and trick them.  He didn’t have any food but wanted to see if the birds would land on his hand anyway.  That’s what he is doing in this photo.  Colin actually did trick one bird and it flew on his hand, quickly to find out that he’s been fooled and flew away.  Unfortunately, I was messing with the settings on my camera and missed the action. oops.

by colin and andre’a feldhaus

{matchless}photography

For our first trip into Barcelona, Esteban and Noelia wanted to show us some of Gaudi’s work.  Gaudi was an architect who wasn’t fond of straight lines.  Barcelona is known for is buildings and work around the city.  So for this post, I thought we’d just show you some of his buildings.  We visited 3 and he also has a park that we haven’t seen yet. Hopefully the next time we go into Barcelona, we’ll get to go inside some of these amazing buildings.

This first building we went to is called the Batllo House.  From what I read, the porches were made to resemble a skull and the columns to resemble bones.  Noelia also told me that the whole building resembles a lizard.  You have the porches with they eyes and nose, the roof that looks like it has scales, and on the inside there is a staircase that looks like a tail.  It’s quite amazing and unique.  It’s very interesting because this building and the one next to it (you can see only a small part of it in the first picture)  are both very modern beautiful buildings.  However, this one just stands out so much more because of the different architecture and use of all the curved pieces.

The second building we went to was called La Pedrera.  It is my understanding that there is some apartments in this building.  I can’t imagine what it would cost to live here, but Esteban told us he thinks the apartments across the street that have a view facing this building probably run around 8,000 euros a month!  That’s not a small number!  As you can see in these pictures as well, there isn’t many normal straight lines.  Noelia told us that while this was being built, there was red bars in front of the windows to protect them from vandalization or thieves.  Apparently, Gaudi didn’t like that and came at night to cut the bars.  He shaped them differently so they weren’t straight up and down.  I guess since he’s the architect, he can do what he wants!

The third place we went was the Sagrada Familia.  This is a cathedral that Gaudi designed.  However, Gaudi died and because of space, the plans have had to be revised.  As you can imagine, it has taken someone a long time to study his work and try to redraw part of this cathedral so it still looks like Gaudi’s work.  Because of this reason, the cathedral is still being built.  The parts that are finished are absolutely stunning, and I hear the inside is even more beautiful!  Can’t wait to go inside another time.  This first picture is Colin and I in front of the main entrance.

The back towers and entrance.

The intricate detail is unbelievable!

A closer photo of the detail above the entrance.

Just in case some of you thought we weren’t really doing anything here and just on an extended holiday… here’s some proof.  Here are some pictures from a couple of our video shoots.  One is with Samuel at the monastery and the other is with Pablo at the beach.  Samuel needed some photos for his newsletter, and since Colin was actually working, I got nominate.  I didn’t get very many because we were at the end of our shoot, and accidentally got in some of his video frames… OOPS!  I got the evil glare from Colin… But all in all, the videoing is off to a great start.  We are making tons of progress and we have lots of great help with editing in another language.  Thanks to all our new Spanish friends that are making this whole project happen smoothly!  We could’t do it without you!

This cat was following Samuel around the whole shoot.  It was quite hilarious!  He was constantly scaring it away and a few minutes later would return… so i couldn’t resist taking a photo!

Oops, got in the way of the camera…

I love this picture because it shows the permanent look of confusion on all our faces.  I can just hear the dialog in my head… Pablo “Que?” and Colin “huh?”  HA!  In all honestly, it’s not that bad, but there are times when speaking the same language would be a huge help.  And for some other reason, I end up translating between all the boys… I’m not sure how that works at all because I know the least amount of Spanish!

Colin and Andre’a Feldhaus

{matchless}photography wedding photography

After walking around the town of Roc de San Gaiata (see last post), we took a stroll on the beach.  We walked maybe 3 kilometers and reached the next town, so we turned around and headed back towards the car before it got too dark.  Then Colin decided he’d gone long enough without Mexican food and asked Noelia to take us to the supermarket so he could get the makings for fajitas.  That was an experience in itself for many reasons… like Colin shattering a glass vase, and to colin’s detriment – found no refried beans.  So his Mexican food wasn’t quite up to par, but if you don’ t have the right ingredients, what can you expect.

Enough talk… here are some pictures.

This photo was just funny.  I mean, who wouldn’t take your dog for a little bike ride?!?!

Colin and Andre’a Feldhaus

{matchless}photography wedding photography

One evening Noelia and Pablo took us to the quiet little beach town of San Gaiata.  This is one of Noelia’s favorite places and is also where Esteban proposed to her… so it holds some sentimental value!  First we had a look at the town and the apartments/flats.  Noelia told us that this town resembles what towns in the south of Spain look like.  She said a lot of building are built more square and have a courtyard in the middle for neighbors to talk easier, for having gatherings, and for the children to play.  The buildings were amazing and for a beach town it was surprisingly slow and quiet… a perfect get-away spot.

Colin and Andre’a Feldhaus

{matchless}photography wedding photographers