We love Erika + Jon and their classic little backyard party. What an incredible day — childhood friends getting married in Erika’s parents backyard in the neighborhood where they both grew up in Durham. They were surrounded by childhood friends from the neighborhood, family, twinkling lights, old babysitters, some egg-laying hens, a dj spinning old vinyl on wind-up phonographs, and just a whole lotta good vibes. Simply perfect.

Thanks to One Red Event for making the day a breeze for us, Durham Catering for the tasting grub, Once in a Blue Moon for the pies (oh, the pies!), Sweet Flamingo for that scary and delicious ham shaped cake, and Michael Cumella for the amazing crank-up phonograph experience. Incredible!

Durham! You did it again. Stay tuned for more from Tommy and Mary….

What a way to start the year! Stay tuned for more…

Are you on tumblr? We are! Follow along with our random slices of life, backroads, riverbends and such at dustin-whitney.tumblr.com and we’ll do the same!

When the wife part of this duo doesn’t have a camera in her hands, she’s usually behind the sewing machine or sketch pad dreaming up new creations for her bridal/garden party dress line. We’ve recently spent quite a bit of time photographing some her newest collections — for more, check out Whitney’s full site at www.whitneydeal.com or for more regular updates follow along with her blog at www.darlingdexter.com!

Erika + Mike’s wedding at MASS MoCA was incredible. If you haven’t been up to North Adams, MA (and all the surrounding environs), then you really owe it to yourself to take a long weekend up there asap. We had such an amazing time. The ceremony was held in the Sol LeWitt Retrospective exhibition galleries and was such an amazing visual treat. Everything was so personal, sacred and funny — no words could do it justice..we hope these images suffice for you (see: photographer). Mike is a graphic designer and was responsible for the table numbers (shapes) and seating chart..favorite of all time! They also made sure to bring along a little birthday cake flavored wedding cake from momofuku milk bar – a particular place we miss quite a bit in NYC. Perfect day.

For this:

Above is the view of my family’s farm in Western NC from our front yard. We were a little hesitant at first (me more so than Whitney to a large degree) to be here, but its really been a cool thing to be back around family and our oldest friends for the first time in many years. We’re pretty good at going with the flow, but I guess we always have a little bit of restlessness/wanderlust when we get too comfortable in any given locale. We like to say we have no plans to stay and no plans to leave! But, really we’re enjoying our time here and learning to be comfortable and settled in that restlessness. We think its always been a strength that keeps us on our toes and inspired.

This place is a bit of a special case too — this was land that belonged to my grandparents and has been in the family for 70 years or more. The photo below is shot from nearly the same spot as the newer one above from probably 40 or so years ago back when this was my grandparents front yard (my grandfather is second from the left in the back with the glasses — those are all his brothers and sisters in his company there).

A couple more — one newer from the late 80′s/early 90′s and one much older. Thats our house in the background there..we’ve updated it quite a bit, stay tuned for more on that….

This is the view from the above carport today — while these photos were from last summer, spring really is coming on strong and early for us down here. Its been really beautiful lately — raised garden beds are being built this week and we haven’t run any heat or air in 2 weeks…just open windows and a cool breeze!

Some of our new neighbors that we’ve been getting pretty attached to:

Whitney in the front yard in one of her dresses….

Lots of beautiful mountains and rivers ready to be tamed this spring and summer….and pools too!

My Mom’s 15 year old border collie who has been around since I was just a middle school punk came to live with us too..Bandi is probably the most loyal and attentive dog on earth. She’s lost her hearing, but she’s a herder..so she seems to respond better to hand signals and body language than any dog I’ve ever met does to voice commands.

And of course, there’s Dexter. He doesn’t really listen either — not for lack of ability though. He’s usually just distracted by getting belly rubs all the time.

Whitney actually has room to spread out a bit and work on developing new lines from the house. But, she’s getting ready to move into a workshop we’ve rented for her in town — 200 bucks a month folks, 1700 square feet. Not sure how our pals up north are going to feel about that price to square footage situation there. Just kidding (sort of), we all know city vs. country is a give and take.

And in general, there’s just a whole lot of peacefulness happening around here..

Oh, and one other little thing. We’re having a baby!

More soon!

– Dustin

Wanna know why Beah + Dan are the greatest? They came all the way from outside Philly to visit us for a little photo session before their wedding later this year. Ok, they came to visit friends also — but made room for us too! So glad they did..whole lotta love folks. Stay tuned for their summer camp wedding….

Recently got to spend an afternoon with Christina + Andrew exploring around the Biltmore grounds in Asheville! Had such an awesome time with these guys — looking forward to their wedding at Claxton Farms later this summer!

We recently gave away a free photo session over at our Facebook page and we were so happy that Karen + John were the lucky folks we got to photograph! We love working with people in the real spaces they inhabit – there’s just this great level of comfort and intimacy that puts everyone at ease. Glad we got to spend a little time with these good peeps at their home and down at the Raleigh Rose Garden. Don’t forget to like us on Facebook, you never know what kind of goodness might pop up over there that doesn’t show up here!