COASTLINE STUDIOS REFLECTIONS

I had the pleasure of taking pictures of Mindy & Harry on July 6th in here in Grand Haven, Mi … and managed to snap some of my favorite shots of the summer thus far.  Both Mindy and Harry were an absolute joy to work with, and seemed to literally fall into poses and “cute moments” all the time naturally. 

One of the areas I’ve been stretching myself in is the bridal portrait.  While I am confident in getting candid moments, and the standard posed shot with flowers, lately I’ve wanted to do more.  Not every wedding allows for such opportunities, but this one did and I was very happy to have captured the bride and groom in new ways from anything I’d done before.  Below are some of my favorite shots from the wedding.

This first one was taken in the room where the reception was about 20 minutes before all the guests arrived.  There was this huge mesh type screen over the room’s large windows, and the lighting was hard to pass up.  I took multiple shots of the bride and groom in this space, but these were a few highlights.

Sometimes I’ll think of a concept in my head days before a wedding, or on the drive to the wedding.  The shot below was one of my latest ideas…

Just a great shot here.  Love the color, her expression and most of all Mindy’s eyes in the picture below.

I like how the lens flair’s point right at the bride in the shot below.  A leading line of sorts.

A fun candid shot at the end of the wedding.

Can you say fairy tale wedding location?  Looks like its right out of Lord of the Rings or something! 

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I have been fortunate enough to have a lot of my 2007 weddings be outdoors.  In Michigan, summers can be pretty humid and unpleasant… but without fail each weekend I’ve had an outdoor wedding this summer has managed to be the most beautiful day you could ask for.  Blue skies, cool breeze and a perfect 70-80 degree’s outside without the sticky humidity. 

Shooting outdoors is not without its challenges.  The hardest thing to work with outside is lighting.  With the sun being so bright, you have to use a flash when taking formals and put the sun behind the subject as a back light.  The tricky part is that you need to be somewhat close to your subject in order for the flash to fire bright enough to compete with the sun.  This can make group shots a challenge since you have to stand farther back to get everyone in the shot.  Of course this also means the flash is firing at full power each time…. so even with an external battery pack, I still have to pace my shooting more than I’d like to allow the flash to recharge (usually 3 or 4 seconds with a quantum battery pack). 

You also are a bit blind when shooting outdoors as you can’t really get a good sense of how you are doing using the LCD screen on the camera.  The sun is so bright that seeing if your flash fired bright enough or if your exposure if correnct is very difficult.  It’s as close to shooting film as you can get I guess… Meaning you are shooting… and hoping it will turn out in the end… just like the old days! : ) 

On the flip-side, shooting outdoors means your shots will always have enough light, and you’ll be able to shoot at high shutter speeds to stop the action, and use low ISO settings which means sharper images.  And since the background is so far away from the subject, you get fantastic depth of field.  And the COLORS are always amazing. 

Aimee and Todd completed their amazing outdoor wedding with a fantastic location in Muskegon, MI at this old theater.  They really played up the theater theme and had everyone get tickets from the ticket counter in order t get into the theater for dinner.  Even the toasts were done up with an old fashioned red curtain backdrop and a spotlight on the speaker. Super cool!  Here are a few quick shots from the theater that I liked.

To see more of Aimee and Todd’s wedding, check out thier wedding on Pictage using this link: www.pictage.com/278205

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