I spent the past week in New Jersey with my cousins, aunts, and uncles to attend my cousin Nerissa’s wedding. Here are some family pictures I took over the weekend. I am so glad that I have a large family to visit and spend quality time with. Hopefully we can get a family reunion going, but until then, I can’t wait for the next Martin family wedding!
Dean
Two weekends ago I drove down to Champaign to shoot my photog-friend Mike‘s wedding alongside the always stupendous Nicholas Mulka. I’ve had a few weddings under my belt, the biggest one thus far being the Berg wedding I shot during the summer. I’ve come to really enjoy shooting weddings, but if I could, I’d do without the little moments of frenzy that pop up now and then. Especially those involving rogue strobes.
Some more obsessively long narrative, some photo notes (sorry non-photonerds), and a gallery after the break…
Continue reading 'Mike and Elise’s Wedding' ...Mike and Elise’s Wedding
Two weeks ago I shot the wedding of Melanie Palmer and Jason Berg at the Elmhurst Art Museum in Elmhurst, Illinois with Brad. The day started out at the Berg household, where I followed Jason and family through the ritual of getting dressed and preparing for the ceremony. Back at the Art Museum (which by the way was designed by the amazing architect Mies van der Rohe) I set up for posed and strobed photos using my new Alien Bee and Pocketwizard combo. The ceremony was held outside the museum, adjacent to a local park. This was nice change of pace from the morning indoor church weddings I’ve been accustomed to shooting. Contrary to the weather forecasts for the day, it did not rain, but instead it was a very nice-looking, but SCORCHING HOT day outside. The reception included the usual wedding fanfare, but the museum setting, music, and celebration made everything super fun. Overall it was one of the most fun weddings I’ve had the pleasure to shoot thus far.
Photo notes: I feel like I’ve been out of practice for a while and missed some detail shots, wasn’t as quick to snap some moments, and spent a lot of time mucking around with my flash settings (I should have shot at a lower ISO, put my flash on manual, and just nuked the nice white ceilings since I had lots of extra batteries; I also should have used a 1/2 CTO gel — stupid tungsten house lights) but it was a great time and good re-learning experience nevertheless. I feel like Brad got better shots than I did but then again he had a very pretty bride to focus on at the beginning of the day. :P
After I shot Adam and Laura’s proposal they told me they were interested in doing an engagement session during thanksgiving break. I was very happy to oblige! :-)
He and Laura had a ton of great ideas for photo locations, so I drove out to Marengo / Belvidere and worked my magic for a few hours. Luckily the weather improved from a cloudy and rainy Thanksgiving week to sunny and mild during the weekend. It started to get cold during magic hour, but Adam and Laura were troopers — and we got to take most of the photos we had planned out. Thanks guys!
Everyone’s getting married! Another one of the brothers from my fraternity, Matt (who graduated a little while back), came down from Chicago to propose to his girlfriend at the spot by an illiosk on the quad that they used to meet at after class. Scottie let me know about it the night before and thought that it would be a cool idea to creep on them through my lens like I did with Adam. However, we had no idea when they were coming or how they were going to be positioned. Nonetheless, it was still a really neat little moment to see from 50 yards away. I wish I had been creeping from a closer spot, and at a better angle, but such is life.
