Subscribe to RSSIts been so long since I blogged I had a hard time remembering the URL to login... then an even tougher time remembering my username and password. I apologize.
Last week I went to New York for a shoot and a few meetings. I absolutely love it there. The city, the weather, and most of all... the people. I hear from a lot of people that Orange County has a community among photographers that doesn't happen in the rest of the country. Every time I'm in New York I'm reminded of how wrong that statement is. I stayed with my good friend and amazing photographer Carlos Andres Varela while I was there and EVERY night he took me out and we had the best time hanging out with our other good photographer friends Mel Barlow, Jason Groupp, Allan Zepeda, Lindsey Thorne, Shelly Kroeger, Angelica Glass and my favorite photo editor Rebecca Crumley. There are awesome photographers and an amazing community in NYC and I'm so happy be a small part of it and to call them my friends.
On to the real reason for the post... On Wednesday I met my new BFFs Brett and Claire in Manhattan last week to shoot some portraits of them. They wanted some shots of their first trip to the city. Brett is an awesome wedding photographer from Oklahoma. Check out his work. We had a blast running around the city on what was the most perfect day I've experienced in a long time.
Ok, on to the images.
We started down in the alleys in China Town.
Then we headed up to SoHo. They wanted some paparazzi style images like these from last time I was in New york.
Then we caught the subway and headed up to Madison Square Park in the Flat Iron District.
We ended the shoot in Central Park.
New York is my favorite place in the world to shoot. I'm going to be back there the first week of May. If anyone else wants a shoot there shoot me an email!
Yesterday I picked up some film I shot at Ilanit and Daniel's wedding a few weeks ago. Man, I'm so in love. They asked if I would shoot a few rolls of black and white which I was more than happy to do! I shot Tri-X 400 and Ilford Delta 3200 which I'm beginning to like even more than T-Max. They chose to see each other before the ceremony so that we could shoot some portraits in the daylight. I shot the first look and a few portraits of Ilanit using the film.
I'll blog the whole wedding soon but I couldn't wait to get the film up.
If I would have shot these in digital this first shot, with here eyes closed, would have gotten thrown out. There's something I love about it though.
I'm determined to get caught up on blogging. If you knew how many weddings and shoots I was behind you'd either laugh or have a new level of respect for me. Probably laugh though. Last New Year's Eve was spent in Atlanta shooting the out-of-control-awesome wedding/vow renewal of Ami and Scott. They had a beautifully intimate celebration and I'm so glad Jessica brought me along!
If you remember from the rehearsal images at Turner Field I shot film that week. It was a lot of fun. I love choosing in the moment whether to shoot in black and white or color. Shooting black and white in camera has always annoyed me in digital. I always wonder if I would have liked the shot better in color so I just don't do it. With film its different, I love black and white film so much I never think that. On to the images.
I love these first few of Ami right after getting dressed.
Scott knows how to work it for the camera too.
A few portraits around the venue. It was COLD that day. Ami was such a trooper!
I love this series right before Ami heads down the aisle!
During the cocktail hour they had blackjack tables set up. So fun!
Ahhhh details. This wedding was FULL of amazing details. The two long tables might have been the best I've ever seen. Just amazing.
I love black and white film so much. It even makes the table shots interesting.
Ami and Scott hired professional dancers to entertain during dinner and to teach the guests during the dancing, it was such a hit.
Ami and her dad. Love his expression.
This little series was during the same day edit the videographers showed. It was awesome and got some great reactions from the couple.
Happy New Year!
This is the longest post ever. Brittany and Taylor are some of my closest friends and I was so honored to have shot their wedding a few weeks ago. I've known Brittany since she was in third or fourth grade so shooting her wedding was a little surreal.
Summer, the bride's sister did all of the florals and really designed the whole wedding. She's incredibly talented and when she has a website up I'll post it up here.
Because the wedding was in December we had a VERY small amount of daylight so I called my friend Brian Khang, who graciously came out to help me shoot the ceremony and reception details. So if you're wondering where all the normal details are, they're right here on his blog.
Here comes the deluge of images.
This is what December in the OC looks like:
Some of Summer's handiwork... I told you she's good.
It makes my job easy when the wedding party looks like this:
The guys were ok too:
The ceremony was held at St. Mark's Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach. It was actually a really cool church, inside and out. Because of the short day we shot all of the portraits there as well and I could have shot there for another couple hours. Really cool place.
I love this image of Britt and her dad right before the walked into the ceremony:
On to the reception!
I love these images of the first dance:
And this might be my favorite dancing shot I've ever taken:
Our good friend Whitney doing her best Beyonce impression:
You might recognize the couple in the middle square here. Its Trever and Brooke. I was a groomsman in their wedding last July. I also shot a few portraits of them. You can see them here. Brooke is Brittany's sister.
I'm bringing back the animated gif. I loved this series so much I had to do it this way!
Sparklers are never a bad way to end the night!
This was actually a little nerve wracking as a photographer. The only light I had was the sparklers and while they put of a good amount of light my shutter speed was still pretty low to freeze any motion. I shot these with the 35 1.4 at f2.0 so that I'd have a little wiggle room with the depth of field and at ISO1600 but my shutter speed was still at about 1/60th of a second... not fast enough for action. Because I shoot RAW I knew I could bring up the exposure a stop and not kill the image so intentionally underexposed the image a stop and shot it at 1/125th which froze a majority of the motion. In fact I actually like the little bit of motion blur there is. It adds to the feeling of movement and excitement in the images... at least for me.
This is one of my favorite images I've ever taken.
Last week Mark Brooke and I went to Atlanta to shoot a wedding with our good friend Jessica Claire. The bride was Ami, of the wedding superblog, Elizabeth Anne Designs. They had the rehearsal dinner at Turner field and being a lifelong Braves fan I couldn't have been happier. We took a couple of hours before the dinner and shot some portraits of the couple around the stadium. It was a blast.
One of the things that made it even more fun for me was shooting film all week. I didn't take out my digital camera once. These images are straight from the camera, nothing was done in photoshop other than resizing them for the web. In reality I would probably do some dodging and burning but there is something about film that makes all of the things I would do to it if it were digital not matter. The lab I got them processed at did some auto corrections on the scans which I'm not super happy with but for the most part I love the way they look and I'll definitely be shooting more film at my own weddings. For those that care, the color film I shot that day was Fuji Pro400H and the black and white was Kodak TMAX3200.
My partners in crime for the week.
It was pretty cool getting to see the World Series trophy. I remember that game like it was yesterday.
This is the bride's dad. I can't tell you how excited he was being there.
This was his view...
Tonight I shot Blake and Krystle's day after session outside Houston. Blake and Krystle eloped a couple of months ago but decided they needed some "wedding pictures". They called me up a few weeks ago and luckily I was open so I flew out here to shoot some images for them. My friends over at Studio563 gave me a little direction on some good spots and we had an awesome time and got some really fun stuff.
After a while they changed in to their normal clothes for a few engagement style images.
The light faded quickly but we got a few off before dark.
Here are a few from the day.
A few weeks ago Jessica Claire called me up and asked if I'd come shoot a wedding with her down at the Montage in Laguna beach. I, of course, accepted and had a blast shooting David and Stephanie's amazing wedding with her. The bride and groom were incredibly in love and so laid back... its always refreshing to be around couples who care less about the wedding than being married. Here are some of my favorites from the day.
L'ezu Atelier and Kate Spade
Square Root handled the florals and did an incredible job.
The adventure has begun... follow along at MAMMOTHMEN.COM
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