Weddings/Engagements

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Oh man what a busy past month it has been! On August 21st, I ran my first solo wedding shoot for Debbie & Rich. They were a great couple to work with, and had a really beautiful wedding at Avon Gardens. Although beautiful, the weather was very fickle, but we made out with the best we could! Fortunately, there were no hiccups for the ceremony and reception!

Check out the set here!

Two days later, I had the pleasure of doing Adrianna’s senior pictures (which I’m sure most of you have seen by now). We started off in middle of nowhere, somewhere near Roachdale, IN. She wasn’t interested in any traditional posed shots, but her father really wanted her with his Harley and Pontiac Firehawk. I’m glad we were asked to do them, ’cause they sure worked out well. Her dad made the suggestion to do a burnout with her on the roof! That sure wasn’t my idea. Fortunately nobody died. Then we moved on to her cousin’s house where they had soybean and corn fields. This is where we got all the really dramatic field/sky pictures. Then it was onward to downtown Indianapolis. The rest is history. Nothing makes me happier than when someone comes to me and says “I want pictures that are unique. I want something different, and modern, and I want you to experiment.” It’s pretty much the opposite of a Bridezilla or other type of control freak, and really sets me up for my best work.

I had a few weeks without any bookings, which allowed me to really focus heavily on getting those two gigs taken care of. In that time I took a series of self-portraits which were pretty cool if I do say so myself!

Now, this past weekend was another busy busy busy one! Friday evening, I went out to the annual St. Malachy Country Fair and shot for Phillip Steven & The Open Road. They are a country/rock style band and are really some serious players. I took advantage of the carnival rides and did some atmospheric shots, too. Then on Saturday, at the same location it was Big Daddy Caddy. There was a HUGE turnout, and some kids even got to get up and play, so lots of great shot opportunities. I knew I shouldn’t have handed my friend my camera when I went up to play Tambourine… You may get to see those pictures later.

THEN, Sunday I drove up to Aurora, Illinois (3 hours) and did senior pictures for my cousin Alex. She’s a spunky little hipster senior, and just like Adrianna the month before, wanted more urban, model-esque pictures with a nice dose of experimentation. I got some fantastic shots out of the day from the Aurora/Naperville area. The weather was horribly overcast the whole day, and just when magic hour approached, it became one of the most beautiful magic hours I’ve had the chance to shoot. It presented me with my personal favorites from the shoot, which are the ones in the field where I mostly shot into the sun, producing a very classic, mysterious haze with tasty lens flare. Don’t tell anyone but being so close to Chicago, it was hard to find large open fields and we had to go on private property for some ultra-rich folk.

On Tuesday, I went to see the brilliant Porcupine Tree in concert. I’ve been in touch with the band’s manager over the past several months, and I should have a photo pass to their next concert in Chicago early next year. That’ll be crazy exciting. If you haven’t heard of them, definitely check them out. They’ve got something for everyone. Imagine Pink Floyd had they grown up listening to Pink Floyd, Yes, Stone Temple Pilots, and Metallica.

Coming up in October thus far are another senior picture shoot and an engagement session.  Can’t wait!

So um. Uh. It sure has been a while since I last updated. Quite a bit has happened since then, so let’s get reacquainted!  First thing’s first.  I just completed major site updates, as you may have noticed.  I hope you guys like the black theme with my modernized logo.  The old logo shall remain for my more classic branding jobs (like weddings and such)… so I have named them (very unoriginally) the MODERN and the CLASSIC.  I removed the gallery access from the menu and added a direct code input to the top right of every page.  I also added a page with general pricing information titled “Investment.”  I also added a direct contact form on the contact page, updated the homepage slideshow, and fixed some bugs in the shopping cart.

Alright, well without further adieu, a brief rundown of the summer… with one example from each major shoot!

May: I did Kala and Kevin’s engagement set. Really sweet couple, and they should be getting married next year. I also went to the Indy 500 again, but didn’t really come away with any images I liked. I really need some different lenses for that.

June: This month got a little busier! Shot a live show at the Slippery Noodle for Travis Feaster of the W.T. Feaster Band. Seriously, amazing. You should seriously check them out. They just got off a European tour last month. Also photographed a birthday party for the cutest one-year-old ever to have been born. Towards the end of the month I attended the craziest country wedding ever witnessed, down in Seymour, Indiana. While I wasn’t the hired photographer, I did get some pretty interesting shots! Closing out the month was the Fisher’s Freedom Festival, and of course our favorite Big Daddy Caddy was the featured band. I really love concerts like this because there’s so much great energy to capture!

July: July started off with a very nasty Independence Day, but I did get some rainy rooftop pictures. For the longest time I had wanted to try smoke photography, so I did. We went to the Cairo Cafe and celebrated a birthday. To round things out for July, I was hired to shoot some photos of Stacy at the Noodle. She’s a great blues singer, and I hope to hear here again when she’s in town next! I also took some new pictures at Life Church in Avon.  Mandy was on the worship team this particular week, and she looked and sounded great!

August: Looking back, August was a month where I feel I really began to hone and overall begin to master certain skills. I have been to the Cairo Cafe so many times before, I feel that I have finally nailed shooting there. I believe this set rounds out my finest work there. And just as with the Cairo, I have also shot Big Daddy Caddy countless times before, and I cut my live music photography with them. I’ve really found my groove with them, and my August set was a shining example of where I have arrived. To top it off, to mark their new lineup change, I even did a staged promo shot (their first, even) around a pool table which turned out wickedly cool. One of the coolest things to happen this year was when I was running sound for Big Daddy Caddy at a wedding. Unbeknownst to me until I arrived, but the bride was an old friend from school many years ago. To top that off, the hired photographer was a customer from the music store. With such friendly associations, I was able to shoot some pictures to build my portfolio, and they turned out stunningly. I had a lot of great feedback from the downtown Indianapolis pictures I took back in May, so I went back with new knowledge and new techniques, and I think the results were fantastic.

Well, this is about as brief as I could be bring you guys up to speed over the summer. Most of you follow me on Facebook and/or Flickr so you’ve seen most if not all of this. I like to update about what I’m doing, not just for you guys who actually care, but I really like going back and reading details on what I’ve done, where I planned on going, and if I got there and how well I did. This update was very large, and I did have two large shoots in the end of August, but I’ll include details on those in an update later in the week!

Saturday was an eventful evening, with my first “hired” band shoot for local hardcore metal band Alex Renie (whom I’ve recommended to that they need a catchier, easier-to-remember name… but hey, I’m the only person who thinks so).  They played in the basement of a little head shop right across the street from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.  I have to say for a little metal show, the atmosphere of a dirty basement with graffiti on the walls was excellent. Not knowing what I was going to have for lighting, I brought three studio cans, two with red gels, and one with orange.  I end up finding the sole light source for the entire basement to be a window for daylight, and a single incandencent bulb overhead.  I was actually a bit worried at first.  With this being an earlier (6:00pm) show, the daylight was strong through the window.  I didn’t like the idea of A. the bright atmosphere and B. the mixed white balance of daylight/incandecent.  But as you can see from the pictures, the cans added a bit of extra color which helped quite a bit for backgrounds, and I was definitely able to tame the mixed lighting.  Having the red/orange cans being a bit warmer really helped the effect I was going for anyway.

I had already planned on going to the Cairo Cafe that evening because it was going to be packed for several parties and celebrations… and since it was only 3 miles away from the band shoot, I decided to go in early.  There was no point in going home.  So I rolled in and relaxed with a hookah.  Tonight I had a different goal in mind with my pictures.  In the past, I’d always been showing off the low-light capabilities of my D700 by shooting between ISO 2500 and ISO 6400… and while neat, I never could achieve the high contrast smooth look that I sometimes desired.  So I decided that I would experiment with flash.  Now, I’ve strayed away from flash.  I’ve always hated it.  I understood the concept behind fill and bounce, but for some reason my pictures always looked like A. I used flash or B. I tried to use flash.  I’ve been looking at some phenominal work with flash lately and decided I need to learn to embrace it as another tool… especially with my upcoming foray into weddings.  Wow I just said “foray“.  Well after some trial-and-error with flash power and WHERE the actual bounce was, I believe I got the results I was looking for.  I’m incredibly pleased, and hate to say, I will probably always shoot flash there from now on.

I just recently purchased some advertising in a local wedding guide startup called the Indianapolis Wedding Blog.  If you know anyone planning on getting married in the Indianapolis area, DEFINITELY have them check it out. It’s very slick and well put together, and will be a one-stop-shop for everything they’ll need. It’s run by a guy who also goes to Life Church where I run sound on Sundays.  I will be exclusively presented along with no more than 9 other photographers in their upcoming print edition of 5,000 circulated copies that will be their summer issue.  There’s no turning back now!  Speaking of “no turning back”, I have officially booked my first wedding for the first week of October.  The lucky couple are Bayleigh & Jeff.  A big congratulations to them (for the marriage, of course)!  That wedding will be at the beautiful Avon Gardens, and it’ll be an evening wedding!  Should be able to get some more interesting photos than your traditional early-afternoon-in-a-church!  Of course we can’t forget that Kala & Kevin are tying the knot as well next summer, and I’ll be taking care of their engagement photos next weekend.