Ok, Image of the Week is back, baby! I’ve been deep in album production for clients from the past two years and was reminded of this image, one of my favorites from last year. I work for you, my client. To not just fulfill your expectations and satisfy preconceived ideas about your wedding photography and what you expect to see but I also work for me, always working for something more. Getting beyond the known or expected is one of the truly satisfying parts of being a professional artist. If you’re a wedding photographer in Philly, even for just a minute, you’ll likely take the classic picture of a couple on Broad Street in from of City Hall. It can be a fun and Phillycentric way to celebrate your wedding. Passing motorists honk, this past Sat. a pedestrian, looking like he just left the gym, had to snap the couple with his iPhone. On this particular June evening, it was raining softly. Just enough to get the streets a bit wet but not enough to ruin the evening. So Kathy, John and I ran out to get our requisite images of them on the median. Then while running back in as the rain picked up, I kept shooting, as one must always do, and grabbed this impressionistic take on the scene. It’s one of the wondrous surprises that gets discovered after the shoot, sitting at the editing station. I love the blur, the colors, the contrast of Kathy’s dress against the street, the oncoming bus. If you love it too, let me know. Call me and I’ll break the mold for your wedding!
image of the week | breaking tradition on broad street
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Getting Ready ain’t just about the makeup | NYC Wedding Prep
I’m going to be direct and to the point. Pictures during the Getting Ready portion of the day are not just about hair and makeup. It’s about the anticipation, the build-up and excitement of the day. I love the unguarded moment, it will never get old nor will I ever tire of seeing these pictures years later.
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When it’s not about the Bride
One of the best ways to judge a person’s character is to look around and see how others feel about them. Kali surrounded herself at the Bellevue Park Hyatt in downtown Philly with many friends and family as she got ready for her wedding to Vince in 2008. Kali and Vince are a comfortable couple to be around and it showed in the reaction of their friends to their wedding day. I really dig this picture because of all the difference faces telling the same story as they react to Kali in her dress. Each bridesmaid is looking at a different part of Kali and their reactions are just as varied. It’s a subtle image and doesn’t smack you over the head but rather it lingers and builds with significance the longer you spend time with it. So sit back and enjoy!
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Joy Joy Joy Joy Joy
Janine is one of those brides that really really makes me enjoy being a wedding photographer. Janine and Scott and I first met when my wife Caroline and I had literally just moved to Philly. Janine and Scott weren’t shy about letting me know what was important to them in their photography Collection. We talked a lot and they were clear and focused on what they wanted and didn’t want and we found a scenario that worked great for them and me. It’s my belief that the more I get to talk with clients in the early part of the relationship when we’re hammering out details and budget the easier and smoother the process is from start to finish. They know they’re getting an open forum to air their hopes and dreams for their photography and I get a chance to know them and am able to cater my coverage and Collection details to them. Janine and Scott asked lots of questions and never hesitated to call with thoughts and ideas as the day approached.
Once the day got here, all of that dialogue came back to help us out when navigating the major force of change on the day, Hurricane Hanna moved through town with high winds and tons of rain. The alarms were going off in the hotel so we had to move the finalizing of getting ready over to the Knowlton Mansion in Northeast Philly. The rain put an end to their hopes of an outdoor, garden style wedding to the indoor location. One of the best pieces of advice when it comes to the day of the wedding is to sit back and relax because no matter what happens on this day, you are still married at the end. I like to say that anything that happens on your wedding day is good luck. And without missing a beat, Janine and Scott moved forward with their day that was capped off with an awesome night of dancing, tons of smiling and everyone was basking in the blow of Scott and Janine’s quite obvious joy and love for each other.
It’s not hard, I think, to just love this picture for it’s simple elements of Janine surrounded by Scott and her friends in an abundant moment of joy and exhilaration. The lighting, the kind I bring with me to every wedding, focuses your attention on Janine without overpowering or changing the feel of the room. I want my light to accentuate the mood of the event, not overwhelm or change the feel of the day. It takes extra special care and craft to make sure this is done well but to me it’s worth the effort to set up multiple lights to get a bold and exciting look to the images that one on-camera strobe gives.
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Little church, big moment
One of the standard pieces of photographing a wedding is getting an overall scene setter of any important place. It’s not a priority for everyone but when it is, I work to make sure to make it is the best it can be. I could have easily just grabbed an image of the building and moved on. But when Christine, her bridesmaids and her father, were waiting outside the little Zion Lutheran Church in Oldwick, NJ, I saw an opportunity to at least put some scale into the image and show them on this day, at that place. A pretty simple approach. Being ready for unexpected moments is part of the DNA of a good storytelling photographer. There’s no way to entirely predict every possible moment but you can put yourself in a place to be ready when and if the unexpected pops up. So you wait. You get into position and wait. And sometimes keep waiting. There was no way to know that the high-five was coming but once it did this went from a simple document of a place to an image that is raised to the level of truly special and storytelling. It’s that fine sliver of what makes the difference between a nice image and an image with a spark that continues to be satisfying over time. The high-five was, as it turns out, a classic part of their father–daughter relationship and it carried right on through to the wedding day. They even high-fived after the ceremony as Christine and Nick made their way down the aisle.
It’s these kinds of slivers of moments that makes being a documentary style photographer fun and exciting. You never know when you’re going to be given a gift like this. The spark of this moment continues to stand out not just in my memory of making it but also continues to make me smile, several years later.
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Min Jung and Steve’s Emotional Moment
This marks the Images of the Week Inaugural post. I could tell you that I spent all kinds of time agonizing over the image I wanted to use to kick this off but I’ll be honest and say that it took little to no time at all. I was working on album images for Min Jung and Steve’s wedding from May 2009 and came across this frame that they had selected. It was one of my favorites at the time but looking at it now I find myself really moved by the moment here as Min Jung moves to comfort Steve, overcome with emotion after seeing her for the first time on their wedding day. They arranged to see each other before the ceremony and this was the moment after their initial hugs and surprise upon first seeing each other. There’s something different and unexpected, in a way, about the story captured in this image. It’s not just a picture of a tear or someone crying but you see in their body language so much of their story. He’s holding himself together, staying strong but not a statue and she’s overcome with his reaction and is tenderly moving in to comfort him and share in this moment together. To me this says a lot about the two of them and how they interact and feel about each other. Much more than just an scrunched up, red-cheeked, teary-eyed face.
When I was in grad school, the first assignment of the first class of the photojournalism sequence was called Honest Emotion. The basis of the assignment, and the class as a whole, was that each assignment was part of the building blocks of telling stories with pictures, the first and most powerful being Honest Emotion. It’s pretty self-evident. And nearly 20 years later, capturing an image of Honest Emotion continues to trump all else in what I do. It’s the highest level of what makes pictures of real lives matter. It’s deceptively simple yet powerful and touching.
- kitty
truly beautiful
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dig it.