Written by Davina Palik. Photographed by Davina Palik & Daniel Kudish.

We recently had the fantastic opportunity to go to Bali to photograph a wedding. We were sandwiched between two wedding weekends in Montreal, so with the crazy travel time (took almost 2 days each way!), we were only able to take a few days there. Still, we managed to get a great feel for the place and had time to lie motionless by the pool for a few dozen hours or so. We were there with our friends Ross and Lesya (it was Ross’s brother’s wedding; photo above is of the two of them), and we had an amazing time double-dating on some delicious dinner dates and sweaty adventures – I must be remembering our 15 km bike ride through the countryside!

The highlight of the trip for us was an early morning visit to a local market. We had spotted it the morning of our bike ride and when we saw the 7am light pouring into the small alleys, crammed with local people picking up fresh food for the day. Needless to say, we knew we had to take a closer look. So on our last day in Bali, we were up at the crack of dawn, cameras in hand, exploring the nooks and crannies of the market. We were the only tourists there, and the locals couldn’t have been happier to see us! Never, in all of our travels, have we encountered friendlier people. They were all smiles, “how are you”s, conversations, and even picture-taking (them of us this time!). They are also such beautiful people to photograph and they love having their picture taken. We got the address of a local family and we can’t wait to send them some prints.

Here are a few of our favorites from the trip:

A lot of things have been happening here while we were on our roadtrip and even more since we’ve come home last week. We’re heading back on the road this week, to Toronto, for a wedding, two engagement shoots, and two 1-on-1 workshops! We’re really excited about starting up the wedding season again, but in the meantime, here’s a little visual recap of what’s been going on:

We started an online Etsy Shop, with our favorite photos from the roadtrip. 8×12 prints are 20$ !

We’ve been working on launching our separate websites, to promote our non-wedding photography (commercial, pets, babies, maternity). Davina’s website should be up in the upcoming weeks.

One of our favorite blogs, Once Wed, posted a little feature on us:

Kristiaan + Lionel’s engagement shoot was featured on a couple of blogs, WedLuxe (below) and and Andre Winfrye Events‘ blog.

Emilia, of our recent Emilia + Bill shoot, writes her own blog Auburn + Ivory. Their shoot also appeared in several other places. First, on Erin Ever After’s blog…

Then on the Project Wedding, One Lovely Day blog and  finally, on the very cool HiFi Weddings blog

Lastly (for the blogs), yesterday morning, a UK blog,  BeyondBeyond posted Tavia + Ruben’s San Diego engagement shoot.

During our trip, we were also lucky enough to have some of our photographer friends do a session with us. First with Sasha of You + We, in SoCal (one of our favorites is below)

And a couple of weeks later, Romin of SaiaWeddings, came down from Seattle with his little family to spend a day with us in the north of California and do a photo session!

There’s lots more going on so we’ll be keeping you up to date very soon!

2 weeks ago, we took off on a 2 month road trip across the USA. We have been trying our best to stay on top of our emails, but if you haven’t heard back from us yet, we’ll get in touch very soon!

In the meantime, here a few photos from the trip, and you can follow us on our roadtrip blog HERE: http://davinaplusdaniel.com/roadtrip

Ever since we came back from our trip to Thailand last winter, we knew that our next big adventure would be a road trip across the USA. After over a year of researching, planning, getting a newer car, and more researching and planning, we are finally in the last 2 weeks before hitting the road! We are setting out on this trip to see everything (or almost) that this country has to offer, meet some amazing people, and of course, take as many pictures as possible.

Although we will be posting a little bit about our trip on this blog, we have started a new one, SO THIS IS THE U.S. EH? where we will be putting up the most photos & up-to-dates. You can also follow us on Twitter @danielkudish @davinapalik or be-friend us on Facebook.

So where exactly are we going? Here’s a list and map of our itinerary. If you are along our route, or somewhere close, and would like to meet up with us for coffee/lunch/supper, or would like a photo session, please get in touch with us!

New York City, Philadelphia, Washington, Nashville, Memphis, New Orleans, San Antonio, Austin, El Paso, Alburquerque, Santa Fe, Taos, The Four Corners, Las Vegas, San Diego, L.A. , San Fransisco, Reno, Salt Late City, Denver, Mt-Rushmore, Kansas City, Chicago, Detroit.

In the meantime, here are some photos from the last 5 days. Warning: this post contains A LOT of photographer name dropping. You have been warned!

Sasha, Ross, and Lesya of Flosites and You + We Photography and me, checking out the blog Flosites created for us. By the way, what do you think? you like?

Sasha and I had a hot pepper eat-off on our first night. He kicked my ass.

The Canon vs. Nikon debate lives on. Here Daniel is getting familiar with the video features on the new Canon 7D.

Vlad, sharing some footage with Stacey Doyle, which he can now use as blackmail. (Check out Vlad’s wedding photos, shot by Ben Chrisman, they are amazing!)

During Mystic, we learned that photographers are pretty good singers too. Karaoke was a huge hit!

Sasha explores the wonders of Nikon, this time he tries out a self portrait:

John Michael Cooper (still can’t believe we got to meet him and his wife Dalisa – they are superstars!) using the computer as a lightbox to look at some negatives.

We were lucky enough to spend much of our time with Dave and Quin of DQ Studios. We were huge fans of their work but we had no idea they would be such great people too! This is what we did the whole time we were together:

Our fellow Montrealers, Tim and Angela, couldn’t resist either

A huge highlight was getting Jerry Ghionis to take a portrait of us (this photo was taken by Angela). Jerry’s a huge name in the world of wedding photography so it was quite an honor!

DQ got a piece of the portrait action too. Daniel took this one!

The day we were supposed to be heading back home, we got a call from Ross who was in New York (waiting to catch his flight back to Moldova where he lives), and he managed to convince us to go and meet up with them. We hung out at Jason Groupp’s studio and later had diner with Angelica Glass (LOVE her!), Southern Weddings’ Lara Casey, Jason Groupp’s Lindsey Thorne, and photographer genius Joey Lawrence, among others. We are still on a cloud from meeting all these people we admire!

This is Lara and Joey:

and Lindsey:

and of course Angelica who is seen here on her trusty iphone (the second most popular photographer’s tool, apparently!)

the end!

When we travel, we love to bring different cameras with us to experiment and switch it up a little bit. Here’s a collection of photos we took over the last few months, in Boston, in NYC, and on our Israel/Jordan trip. These photos were taken on both 120 and 35mm film, with a Holga camera Davina got me for my birthday back in June. For those who don’t know what the Holga is, it’s a VERY cheap (costs about $40) plastic camera, with none of the technology found in a normal camera. The results are always different and interesting – you never know what you’re going to get!

We saw and did so much: a roadtrip in the southern desert of Israel, crazy hikes on the site of Petra in Jordan, floating in the Dead Sea, and exploring the ancient city of Jerusalem. We were traveling with my parents so it was unusual to be sharing our time with two other travelers (we’re used to traveling alone) but it was so great to spend so much time with them – we had a blast!

There’s just so much to say about this trip, but I’ll try to let the photos give you a taste of what it was like instead. We took thousands, but here are just a few of our favorites:

Tel Aviv:

It’s practical to travel with other people; we could set up a shot, get into position, and have them click for us! It was like shooting our own engagement session.

My dad, on our road trip to Jordan. (Daniel was our chauffeur)

It took us a while to realize that this shape was an actual live animal. They have many metal cutouts of animals around the area, so it’s easy to get fooled into thinking they’re real. But then this one actually moved around (we later got to see it up close)

Another “engagement” shot:

We just used a rock and the camera timer for this one (one of my favorites):

On a boat in Eilat:

At long last… Petra!

I love this shot that Daniel captured. It sums up the lack of interest that so many tourists seemed to have with their guide. I just love how everyone has a different agenda!

The local Bedouins were amazing people to photograph, are were very friendly.

A goat at the top of the mountain in Petra. One of my favorite photos of the whole trip!

Back in Israel, at a market in Jerusalem.

At the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem (Daniel’s amazing shots):

One of the highlights for me, floating in the Dead Sea! It’s one of the weirdest/coolest feelings I’ve ever experienced! Notice the salt on the shallow end is actually visible, that’s how concentrated it is.

Our dear blog followers,

We are flying out to Tel Aviv this evening with my parents. We will be visiting Daniel’s mother and then traveling to Eilat, crossing the Jordan border to Petra, and then to Jerusalem. We’re so excited to be traveling again after a long (albeit amazing) wedding-filled summer! You can be sure that we’ll have many photos to share with you upon our return.

In the meantime, feel free to check out my blog, I’ll be discussing some important wedding elements and tips while we’re away (oh, and while you’re there, check out our halloween costumes, i posted a photo on monday!).

Be back soon!

If I look tired on this picture, it’s because I was… from all the shopping…

We met up with Joe (of Mike & Joe) who you might recognize…

…and some of the his friends who were also at the wedding (who have since become our friends!)

We had an amazing time in Thailand! From trekking in the Northern Thai jungle, to spending the day with elephants, to lounging on the beach in the south – it was really a fantastic experience. But 5 weeks is a long, long time and we missed our home, our work, and of course, Coco (our little dog, for those of you who have yet to meet her).

So At First Sight is now back in full swing, as busy as ever. So far we have about 60 weddings scheduled this year, and our first two are this Saturday. We are so ready and anxious to get this season started! We have a few small changes underway that we are looking forward to sharing with you. As you may have noticed, we have reformatted our blog to provide you with larger photos and we will now be offering a slideshow as part of our wedding packages which we will also be sharing with you on the blog. We have prepared a sample using some of our Thailand photos for you to take a look at.

Enjoy!