25 Nov Undoubtedly A Perfect Match – Ross and Alex
Lord Of The Rings, Star Wars, X-Men, and Breaking Bad – what do all of these things have in common? Ross and Alex. Ok, I’ll admit, everyone likes Breaking Bad, but Ross and Alex truly are two sides of the same coin. They both love their fair share of nerdy movies, comics, and games.
Ross has been a close friend for 15+ years now so I have a bit of history with the guy. Through the years, we had more than our fair share of good times (we’ll leave the incriminating details out for, let’s say… the sake of moving this post along), but to paint a good picture, Alice and I have been together for over 3 years now, and every time Ross is around we end up telling a story or two from our younger years and they are always news to her ears. Most of those stories wouldn’t be possible or nearly as entertaining without Ross’ enduring quality of seeking out laughs from his peers. He will do anything, let me repeat that, anything to get the group laughing. You can see how he took a mundane light test shoot I asked him to model for and made it way more fun with a wacky wardrobe by clicking here. To sum it all up, Ross is best described as a “grenade of random,” an explosion looking to create a good time. With Ross, you don’t know exactly what is about to happen but it’s going to make a good story.
So, it takes a special kind of person to handle that much daily random shrapnel. Enter Alex, walking onto the scene and taming the bull (watch this and you’ll get the idea of how this pretty much went down – bull=Ross, Dundee=Alex, and I’m the chick taking photos and murmuring “Jesus” as I watch on in amazement. http://movieclips.com/48Ea-crocodile-dundee-movie-mind-over-matter/). It’s not my business to wonder how or why they work so well together, but they do, and like on a magical level. She gets him like no one I’ve ever seen, and rolls with the grenades with ease. It was clear they had chemistry, but I knew Alex was a perfect match for Ross’ nerdom (movies, video games) when we were swimming last summer and Alex gave us the full, legit history/mythology on how lightsabers work. She can handle the random silliness, they’ve got the chemistry, and can go toe-to-toe on all things sic-fi, yeah… check please.
When I got the engagement call a couple months ago, I can honestly say I’ve never heard that much genuine joy in Ross’ voice before (and we’re talking about someone who I’ve laugh/cried with on dozens of occasions). This was different… a proud happiness, a sense of completeness. Feels cheesy to say that, like that cannot possibly translate so clearly over the phone, but it did. Being best buds, he then said that I can’t photograph the wedding because I was going to be in it. My response, “then I’ll be giving you an early wedding gift with engagement photos.”
We shot these late October and the cold wasted no time showing up early this year. We snuck outside for a couple quick locations and then headed into the studio for more fun. When we got back to the studio, Alex noticed I had Wolverine claws in my prop stash and flipped (it was pretty funny). It helps that I’m kind of a nerd too and have some nerdy props. She is a huge comic book lover, and with claws and comics on-hand, we had our next fun concept!
We told our own little comic book story here with four different cells of action.
- Ross sneaking up on Alex reading her comic.
- Ross surprising with claws extended.
- Alex firing back with her Cyclops eye beam.
- Enjoying their nerdom together (with a little Cyclops drawn heart).
I can’t wait for the wedding to make this awesome love official, and for the many couples hangouts we’ll have in the future with these two! Congrats! The force be with you, it must (sorry bad Yoda joke).