Introducing, Chelsea and Wade :)

I just love love.

I love how patient it is. It's kindness. How it keeps to record of wrongs. Its soft kisses on her cheek. Its supportiveness, its leadership and service. How it's not self seeking. The way it opens car doors and removes hats when a lady enters a room. How it always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres.

How it never fails...

Meet Chelsea and Wade. They are love. Young, innocent, sweet, and crazy in love. I'm very much looking forward to their June wedding. Their HOT June wedding, mind you. Grand Junction, CO here we come! :) We had a grand time walking around the city streets of Denver. Chelsea and Wade were so low-key, so trusting, and so peaceful, yet playful, with each other. See for yourself...

These first four are my favorites... they're so soft, sweet, and tender. *sigh*

Who says you can't dance in the street? I'm all about the living room dances. :) A quick stop at Starbucks. Playful souls... Warning.. frolicking on train tracks is frowned upon!Love these colors... love Chelsea's sweet face.

'Tis the Season!

Okay. It's official. I have some of the cutest nieces and nephews EVER. Of all time. Check out these kids. Yesterday, we shot my sister's Christmas card pictures down at the old railroad tracks in Cañon City where I grew up. I spent many of my childhood days playing on these tracks and underneath this bridge swimming in the creek. Not to mention, our dad was an engineer for the railroad whose trains crossed these tracks hundreds of times! My dad used to stop at this crossing, pick up my brother Kevin and I, and drive us through town. Meanwhile, my mother would hop in the truck to meet us at the other end of town where Dad would drop us off. :) What a cool story, huh? It was really cool to shoot these pictures here, even if the location had no significance to the kids... the rest of the family gets it. Kinda adds a whole new dimension to the phrase "family photos," huh?

My favorite from the whole reel... I affectionately call this one "The Professor."

Amber and Levi - Wet Your Whistle

So I just decided, the "teaser" posts, where I just blog just a couple images, are going to be called "Wet Your Whistle" (WYW) posts, because I always say that when emailing people: "Check the blog! There are few images there to wet your whistle." So this officially marks the start of the Wet Your Whistle posts. :)

Levi and Amber were married on November 8th at the beautiful Peaceful Valley Boyscout Camp in Elbert, Colorado. Their country wedding was absolutely gorgeous. We couldn't have asked for a more perfect day. The lighting, clouds, temperature were all perfect-o! You know, this is Jesie's little brother we're talking about, right? I will post more about their wedding day on the actual wedding post. However, here are just a few images to wet your whistle. Originally, I planned on posting about 3 images, but I just couldn't resist posting a few more of my favorite getting ready shots. Amber's dress was i-n-c-r-e-d-i-b-l-e.

Linkages Workplace Consulting

Mary Lynn Pulley is an organizational communication consultant and president of Linkages Workplace Consulting. I'm doing a complete revamp of her current web site: linkages.com and to complement her the site, all the photography will be done by yours truly. Not only are we photographing HER, but we're also doing a few abstract shots of books that she's written to accompany the web site. I was honored with doing some casual, yet professional head shots of her and also some lighthearted shots of her beautiful dog, Sage! I wish you could meet Sage, she is sooo sweet and obedient! I'm not the BIGGEST dog person in the world, but I would take a dog like Sage any day of the week. :)

A Very Special Engagement

So I had an engagement session two weeks ago, and had to call a fill-in assistant. Normally, Jesie is right there reflecting light, fixing hair, holding cellphones and lip gloss, and dorkin' around so people laugh... but this time she was out bein' a bum... NOT showing up for work... getting HER engagement pictures done! Ahhh! I know, I cried too... it's so wild when someone so close to home gets engaged. At least for me it is.

Miss Jesie was proposed to on the evening of Monday, October 20th in a beautiful foggy field on the outskirts of town. The story is beautiful.. perhaps she'd consider posting it here?

You've actually met Jesie and Brandon before on a post I did back in April. Click here to view a different side of Jes and Brandon.. a little more "rockstar" you might say. :)

The Today Show!

Why hello friends! Greetings and happy post election day. (I recommend you read the post below this one or else you'll have no idea what the following post is about. :))

So yes, many of you have inquired about my Today Show appearance. Ahem... well, not an actual "appearance" but my 10 seconds of accumulative fame as the camera panned the frozen-to-the-core audience. Friday morning, my good friend, Jake, and I rolled out of bed at 3:30 AM, grabbed a cab, and through our tired, bloodshot eyes stood in aw of a fairytale wonderland that was the Today Show set. At 4:30 am and were the first people to arrive on scene. No one joined us for a good 15 or 20 minutes. This gave us ample time to scope out the audience area and find the best place for the most camera time. Us photographers, we like to scope things out. ;)

We met a lot of great folks, saw a ton of incredible costumes — my favorite was the "live" photo booth/filmstrip girl. Did any of you see her? She stood next to me for a bit while they did a spot on her. We happened to be standing in a popular spot, good for filming (go figure, Miss Photographer picking out the best location..) so every time they wanted to film someone's costume they made them stand by us... which in turn pushed us back — but got us camera time! ;) We were only second tier for a few minutes and then we were back to the front row, against the railing.

I'm proud to say that Matt Lauer stood about two feet from me... I about fainted. hehe Al Roker and Merideth Viera were also present throughout the morning. And many of you did write in and win a free portrait shoot! Yay! Thanks for the participation, that was fun! If it weren't for Tivo, none of you would've won. ;) So congratulations to you faithful René Tate Photography fans!

Here are a few images from the frigid morning, including one from the NBC website and my mother's television set. ;)

If you go to Today's website, click the "halloween" link and view the photo album, we're the first picture listed. Now, please, no making fun of my little pose for the camera. haha I saw the Nikon D3 pointed in our direction and elbowed Jake. It's like the photo was taken just for us!

My sweet faithful mother watched Today for about three hours... when I didn't believe her dedication, she emailed me this screenshot. Looking through the window.. see the chairs? That's where they interview the famous people. This is in a building just right by Rockefeller Plaza. We stood riiiight behind that tree stump. Trust me, it was the best place. Normally, they don't have the set barricaded with trees, but due to the holiday, the set was jazzed up. We could watch what was happening inside as these TV monitors showed everything that was televised. In this photo, Matt and Merideth are getting last minute powder and lipstick applied. Under that "one way" street sign is where the line formed to enter the audience section.There's the man of the hour! What a thrill. :) I really enjoyed seeing how the whole production was put on. I dig the behind the scenes action of plays, concerts, you name. I like knowing how things work! Thanks to everyone who tuned in! We sure had a fun time. Not sure if it's something I'd do again... but it was worth freezing our tails off. :) Congratulations to the free portrait session winners!