Leslie Rodríguez Photography

Katie and Brian – a post-wedding party!

capturedbyleslie — Mon, 07 May 2012 13:36:52 +0000

Last month I got to photograph something unique to my portfolio – a post-reception reception. It was a little bit like a rehearsal dinner with all of the family and closest friends of the bride and groom, but the people most involved in the wedding (bride, groom, parents of the couple etc.) were probably able to breathe a little easier and kick back a few more drinks because the big day had already successfully passed and now it was time to relax and enjoy. The party took place the night after the wedding at the Corsair Distillery where the Yazoo brewery used to be and it was a blast – the party from the night before obviously hadn’t stopped! Brian, the groom, was from Ireland and he had an impressive amount of guests from Ireland come over to the U.S. for the wedding. Speaking (…writing) as someone who planned a transnational wedding, it is no easy feat to get more than the family over so it was pretty cool to see such a big international contingent. I’m guessing they all made a trip to Broadway at least once during their visit because a handful of the groom’s friends had on cowboy hats and a few had boots – it was pretty awesome! We knew the bride Katie’s side of the family from Andrew and Sara’s wedding last summer, so we knew it was going to be a really fun crowd and we were right! Congratulations Katie and Brian!

Ellen and Kyle!!

capturedbyleslie — Fri, 04 May 2012 13:33:58 +0000

I LOVE THESE TWO. Ok had to get that out there. Ellen and I have been good friends since our sophomore year in college and I am SO happy she and Kyle are tying the knot. They are perfect for each other in every way – you can read about their adorable love story on Pinkbook. I remember in college Ellen and I would go watch Kyle DJ with the Boom Bap in Nashville and it just seemed like deep down they both knew they were meant for each other. Kyle and Ellen are also two of the funniest people Javi and I know – they crack us up and apparently they crack each other up because about 90% of their engagement photos were of the two of them laughing. They get married on June 8 and I can’t WAIT! Below are a few photos from their engagement shoot – we started at Belmont where they met, fell in love and got engaged!

Phi Gamma Delta

capturedbyleslie — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 20:06:44 +0000

A few weeks ago a president of one of the fraternities at Vanderbilt contacted me and asked me to shoot a banquet at Maggiano’s. I thought…well I don’t really know what I thought the banquet was all about but I kind of assumed that the guys would be bringing dates with them. Well, turns out it was a chartering banquet - a banquet to celebrate the official entry of a new fraternity into Vanderbilt’s greek world. This was all very new to me, but I quickly learned that chartering banquets are basically for brothers only so I wound up as one of two women in a room of about 150 people! It was an interesting night, and Javi and I had a good time shooting the various awards, speeches, antics and the charter unveiling. Oh, and we also had an fun time trying to get a Journey siting…turns out the banquet hall next to the Phi Gamma Delta banquet was full of the guests at the Journey keyboard player’s birthday party! Three of the band members were there and we saw them each a few times. It was such a great complement to the occasion…every fraternity party I went to in college blasted Journey at least 3 times a night and everyone would sing along. Same goes for the bars on Demonbreun, which are full of Vanderbilt and Belmont fraternity and sorority members. How fitting, then, that Journey was partying the night away right next door to a fraternity chartering banquet! Sorry, we didn’t get any candids of the band members!

Lulu Mae!

capturedbyleslie — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 12:10:50 +0000

Spring Break 2012 came and went, but this year the highlight for me was an afternoon spent with the band Lulu Mae. I’ve been friends with most of the band members since my freshman year in college – Joel, Ben, Ben’s brother Adam and Adam’s wife Jen all went to Belmont (see the family blog for a little more history). Joel’s wife Sarah went to Vanderbilt and they started dating our freshman year so I’ve known her for a long time too. Their music is uplifting, beautiful and they are without a doubt one of my favorite Nashville bands. This Friday night they have an album release show at Exit/Inn and they’ll be sharing the stage with Action! and Alva Leigh - two more of Nashville’s finest – so definitely check out the details because you really don’t want to miss it!! Their new album “The Mockingbird and the Dogwood Tree” is available for download on iTunes, or you can order the album from their website.

Some of the shots below I’m guessing may be shots that they choose for promotional purposes, but the vast majority of what we came out with in the shoot were photos of the band genuinely having a great time with each other laughing, telling stories and being themselves. So some of these are like outtakes I guess, but I just love the laughter, gestures, facial expressions and overall feel in them and I couldn’t resist putting some up. While I was editing through, the thought that I should have a caption contest popped in my head about a dozen times. I love how this shoot turned out and I have to thank the band for providing me with a great afternoon and a little mini concert to break the monotony of my thesis-filled spring break! And after you look through the photos don’t forget to go to their website and check them out!!

My crazy dogs

capturedbyleslie — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 19:29:33 +0000

So…these photos are of my dogs PLAYING, not really fighting. They actually do love each other and I have about a million photos on my iphone to prove it (and you can see some of those photos if you follow me on twitter – @LRodriguezPhoto). I just have more fun getting my real camera out and taking photos of them when they’re going at each other. Anyway, just wanted to make sure that was clear! They’re really sweet beasts, but they love to go crazy and wrestle on nice days. Luckily for them, we’ve had a ton of nice days the last couple of weeks here in Nashville, so they’ve had a great time frolicking around the backyard. Here are a few favorite photos I took of them last week. You can see more photos from this day here – and read a fun story that Javier wrote to go along with them. Enjoy!

…and just to prove that they really do love each other, I just grabbed my camera and snapped a photo of the two of them chilling on the couch in my office. Chori is giving me the most typical “is this a candid shot? I don’t know whether I’m supposed to smile or keep doing what I’m doing” face. I get that ALL THE TIME from people – and now my doggo. Poor guy is just gonna have to get used to having a lens pointed at him for the rest of his life!

Old shoot, new year

capturedbyleslie — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 17:23:19 +0000

Ohhhh my goodness I haven’t posted on here in such a long time! I had these grand plans of posting some great photos of the family when they were all here at Christmas, but most of them wound up on my family blog and now Christmas is too far away. In fact, it’s practically spring! We’ve got a nice spring downpour going on right now but my windows are open because it’s a sweet 60 degrees, I’ve got plants blooming all around the house and for the most part the weather has been incredible for the last two weeks.

The nice weather brings me to this post that’s long overdue – last fall I took some fun photos of the Vanderbilt Curb scholars at their welcome-back-to-campus event at the Curb Center and then the Dyer Observatory. I meant to post about it but time got away from me, bad weather hit and these photos don’t match winter weather so I decided to hold off. It was a beautiful day and part of my job was to get photos of the new freshman cohort and I loved the way they all turned out. So here are a few photos to hold y’all over til I get a few new spring and summer shoots up!

The first few are from the meet and greet when the new cohort met all the older Curb scholars, the latter few are from the Dyer Observatory. Enjoy!

Whitney, Charles and Jackson!

capturedbyleslie — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 14:24:17 +0000

I’m so excited to finally get little Jackson on the blog! Whitney is a good friend of mine – she’s a PhD student with me in the Sociology department at Vanderbilt, but she’s two years ahead of me in the program. She and her boyfriend Charles welcomed their baby Jackson into the world a little over a year ago (almost a year and a half!) and he’s one of the cutest and most social babies ever. He LOVES to smile, twirl around like he’s dancing and every now and then he’d stare at the camera and smile, then take off like a shot running and laughing in the other direction. I really couldn’t get enough – I could take pictures of this family all day! We spent the afternoon walking around Centennial, taking advantage of the beautiful fall colors and mild temperatures. So fun!

My five favorite Christmas decorations

capturedbyleslie — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 16:13:04 +0000

Javier and I started decorating two weekends ago for Christmas (see my justification for decorating early here) and finished up this past weekend – the finishing touch, icing on the cake etc etc was Javier’s wonderful effort to make our porch look totally beautiful and Christmased-out with lights, lights and more lights.

It’s so much fun for us to decorate our very own house for the first time – and one of my favorite things is to see new decorations mixed in with decorations I’ve had since I was a kid. I think my bedroom growing up was the most decorated room of the house – I had my own box of Christmas decorations I would put up by myself every year. Below are 5 of my favorite Christmas decorations up in my house – a few old and a few new.

I’ve had this nativity scene for as long as I can remember. The little figurines all close up into the barn when I store it – I loved to fit the figures in like puzzle pieces when I was a kid. The first time I went to Chile back in 2008 for Christmas, Javier told me that on Christmas eve we’d go to a service where everyone brings the baby Jesus from the nativity scene at home and holds it up and the priest blesses (all at once) the various baby Jesus figures. So yes, I took this entire nativity scene with me to Chile, and took that tiny baby Jesus to the Christmas eve service. It’s a pretty special decoration!

This is another Christmas decoration I’ve had for a long time – twenty years at least. If you look close where the scepter meets the hand, you can see that it’s held there with hot glue! I LOVED this guy – he always had a prominent spot on the top of my dresser growing up. He’s now on my desk in my home office.

I’m sorry I’m not sorry!! Haha – yes, that is a Harry Potter ornament. My mom bought me a whole set of HP ornaments when I was in high school to go on my tree in my room. The tree is tiny so the ornaments are really small too – this tree is now on top of the filing cabinet next to my desk, with all the Harry Potter ornaments. Love.

My mom and I made about 200 sparkly candles for wedding reception decorations for our Christmas wedding back in 2009. Javier and I got married on Dec. 12 (in Nashville) and Dec. 26 (in Chile). We only used about half of the candles at the reception, so now we have a gigantic box of these candles in the attic that we bring out every year for Christmas. I love them!! They are so beautiful. I have a few photos up on our family blog of me and my mom making them, and a few photos of the candles at the reception so you can see what it looked like.

Definitely the least sentimental of the Christmas decor I’ve already posted, Javi and I bought this little guy at the Bath and Body Works at the Lebanon Outlet mall this year. He’s hanging out in our bathroom, and cracks me up. I love it!

Have you decorated yet?!

Conner, Beth and Brian!

capturedbyleslie — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 13:53:26 +0000

If you’ve been following my blog since the old blogspot days way back when (like, a whole year ago! that was so last decade), you might remember the shoot I did of Beth and her adorable son Conner. It’s been about a year and a half since that day and Conner is now almost three!! The last time I saw him he was swaying back and forth when he was walking, totally unsteady and highly expressive but not talking yet. Now, he’s running around like you’d expect a 3-year-old boy to do, jumping in leaves, laughing and pretty much doing his own thing. He’s so big now and as cute / handsome as ever. It’s so much fun to be able to get photos of kids / families at different stages of their lives – and it’s such an honor to be asked to do photos of a family more than once! Beth is now engaged, and her fiancé Brian came along so they could get some family photos together. We spent a lovely afternoon at Centennial – which happens to be where the first shoot with Conner was back in 2010. Pictured immediately below are a few photos from that original shoot for fun / comparison, then come the new photos from this fall. Enjoy!

Denver ZOMBIE CRAWL!

capturedbyleslie — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 13:26:55 +0000

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Here are a few photos I got at the Denver zombie crawl when Javi and I were with our family in Denver for my cousin’s wedding last weekend. The day of the wedding we were driving out of the downtown area to get to the chapel and on our way out we kept seeing zombies walking down the road. The photo above is the first photo I was able to get from my car window of the zombies. We thought it was a halloween party or something, but when EVERYONE was dressed as a zombie and there was no variety (well, there was alot of variation on the zombie theme but no other costumes to speak of) we figured there was a zombie convention. But who’s ever heard of a zombie convention?! So we asked around and heard about the zombie crawl – and Denver was trying to break a world record with 10,000 zombies! So obviously I couldn’t miss the chance to photograph 10,000 zombies in one place. I don’t know if they reached their goal, but I sure reached mine – I got some pretty fun / terrifying pictures of folks of all ages walking up and down Denver’s downtown center. Javi dropped me off on one street and drove around the block picking me up on the other side – so I literally ran through the crowd snapping photos as I went. I really did have to go as fast as possible, because the zombies didn’t take so well to normally-dressed civilians crashing their parade. They seemed to want their pictures taken, but they also came after me as I took them…so I snapped and ran! haha. It was pretty awesome. Anyone out there dressing like a zombie for halloween?? Here are some ideas for your costume…

seriously though…that little girl!?! The eye just poking out from her hair, the teddy bear, the jerky way she walked…this girl had it down, but to a terrifying level that I don’t think I would have been able to handle at her age!

zombie love.

by far the winners for the scariest get-ups and acting…these girls are zombie pros. I’m sad I didn’t get a goot shot of the girl pushing the carriage – the way she moved made it look like she was possessed. Exorcist-zombie!