Creativity

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Spokane Wedding Photographer: Amber + Alex Engagements

Wednesday, August 18th, 2010

**For the best viewing experience, open up the first photo & use the left & right arrow keys on your keyboard to navigate through the photos.**

Amber & Alex got to participate in one of my favorite activities recently for their engagement photos. I call it the “jump in the car & drive in that direction” photo shoot. To be honest we knew we were heading in the direction of Liberty Lake, but beyond that, we didn’t know where we were going. I really love the excitement of looking for a spot to shoot when it’s somewhere I’ve never been before. Fortunately we found some incredible locations that I’m sure I’ll be going back to regularly.

First off, I have the best clients. I don’t know why I’m so lucky. I love hanging out with these couples & getting to know them. Amber & Alex were no exception. We were laughing the whole time & I can’t wait to shoot their wedding!

This photo shoot had it’s share of wildlife. First there were some deer running around us while I took the photo on the walking bridge. Then we got to watch the osprey hunt over the lake. Then a dragonfly landed on Amber’s shoulder. Then we made our way to the ‘forest’ & there were bats, owls, & mosquitoes. I didn’t do so well with the mosquitoes—not sure where the bats were on that one. Then while editing photos I saw an eyeball of something reflecting back at me. Not sure what it was, but it was some kind of animal watching us (you can see the orange dot in the last photo about 150 pixels to the right of Alex’s shoulder). Creepy.

For photographers: The forest shots were shot with 2 lights, an AB800 8′ up at camera right & a Nikon SB600 at 3′ about 25′ behind A & A pointing at the trees. Some adjustments made in LR. None in Photoshop. The best thing is that the final photos look exactly how they looked in my head.

Posted in Creativity, Engagement, For Photographers, Portraits, spokane | 20 Responses »
Tags: animals, awesomeness, Creativity, engagement photos, forest, lake, love, reflection, shadow, strobist

Sometimes perfection isn’t the goal

Tuesday, May 26th, 2009

Generally I’m a perfectionist when it comes to photography. I need to have low noise, a perfect exposure, precise depth of field, extra sharp focus, balanced composition, and true color.

Sometimes though, it’s nice to switch it up.

These were still taken with my Olympus DSLR and macro lens but the photo I took was looking down at the viewfinder of my 1950s Kodak Duaflex II camera (Through the Viewfinder or TTV photography) that I bought on eBay for $1. There’s something to be said for a photo that’s imperfect in the right ways. There is extreme blurring and imperfect vignetting around the edges. The color is a little off. There are specs of who knows what in the middle of the photo and lots around the corners. Sometimes it’s tough to get the horizon line straight. Yet, with all of those things, a beautiful picture is still possible.

Art isn’t necessarily about perfection . It’s about a feeling or moment. And that can be a lot easier to catch with TTV photos. Sure I can take any perfect photo and muck it up in Photoshop. Add a border, give it some dust and texture, desaturate the colors, blur the edges. And at times I’ll do any of those things to a picture. Still, there is a certain sterility to those images. But there is something to be said for the unpredictability that can come from changing things up.

It can be tricky to get things just right on these pictures because I’m holding and trying to line up 2 cameras with a cardboard tube between them and attempting to compose the shot backwards (the viewfinder shows the image in the lens backwards). But I really like these so I’m sure I’ll get better every time I drag out the Kodak.

Click the thumbnails to see larger.