A Break From The Norm

Tonight I had the pleasure (ok, actually down-right blast of an amazingly great time) to do an engagement session with Shirley and Steven at the Marshfield Fair. We began at Rexham Beach which is just a few miles away and got some great sunset shots, then on to the fair. To say we had fun would be a huge understatement.

It was so cool to just experiment with different settings to get different types of shots including night photography with delayed exposure and dragging the shutter. Check them out:

Sunny Days and flash

Picture it - 2pm on a very sunny day. You're asked to take a bunch of pictures on a beach that faces directly into the sun. What would the expected picture look like? Well, in most cases it would silhouette the subjects. They would be very dark and the background would be nice. OK, so instead you can try to compensate for the subjects. You get them to have a great skin tone and see the detail in their clothing - but oops, now your background is blown out with no definition and you can barely tell where the water ends and the sky begins.

This past weekend I faced just this situation - on the fly. We ended up getting some amazing pictures.

I heard people wondering, why is he using flash when it's so bright out? Well, notice the shadows above. They're heading toward the camera. The only way to compensate for the sun is to push back with an equal or greater amount of flash. Not to sound weird, but really not many wedding photographers do this. Look at these below. The first was purposely taken to show how the camera would take the shot without any modification to the settings or addition of secondary flash:

In the above situation I'm using natural light trying to get a sunset shot. The sun is still a little high. Their skin and clothes look fine (a little dark but can be fixed) but the sky is blown out. Not very appealing, right?

Here we used a side flash and adjust some settings on the camera and get a very dramatic sky with perfect lighting on the two of them. This is the kind of stuff you need to look for when determining who to hire. When checking out photographers look at the lighting, the composition, the detail. Don't be swayed by the fact the bride has nice bridesmaid colors of the architecture of a building is nice. Look at skin tone compared to the definition of the sky and clouds. Most photographers don't shoot a wedding with a second flash. We wouldn't shoot a wedding without.

I only put this in the blog so people can know what to look for when checking out photographers. Anyone can pick up a camera and shoot, but sometimes you can be faced with a tough situation and you've got to know how to work it. Also, every picture presented needs to be better than any other picture taken by any guest who happened to buy themselves a nice camera.

Candid's

I just think natural candids are so nice and can be taken at the oddest times.  For example, the above picture was taken without the bride realizing while she was having the back of her dress tied up.  It's so natural and elegant yet un-posed and just "As-is".  

Here's another great example.  The lighting is directional from camera left and highlights his hands around her waist, but was taken un-posed during their first dance.  They weren't aware this picture was being taken.  I think a lot of times people see the really good pictures presented on a photographers website and think "Oh, that must have been posed" but in reality it would be a lot more difficult to stop everything and pose such a shot.  Getting it natural looks a ton better, more realistic and simply nicer.

Hidden Jewel

Kate and Dave took me to a great beach in Duxbury that has so much to offer for so many different types of pictures. It could work great for any engagement session, high school senior session or whatever.

Tall grass with a cool bridge behind,
Sandy dune's with beach grass,

Oh, man. . . Go under the bridge and check these out!

Perfect sand for writing on. . .

It's just a gorgeous place to go. It does require a parking permit, but we just told the guy we were there to take pictures and he let us in. That usually only works at such beaches when it gets later in the day like after 5:30ish.

What A Cutie

Yesterday we had a baby portrait session with Ethan. Although he's only three months old, he has quite the little personality. Keith and I had a great time with him, mom, and grammy. Here are a few pictures from his session.

Recent Engagement Sessions

It's been super super busy lately, but I guess that's to be expected. Wedding photography + Summer = busy. I just feel so impressed to post about some of the engagement sessions we've had recently. Over the past month or so we've really had a blast with some great couples that have really had terrific sessions. Below are some pictures taken at a few of these. Although not all may be represented, I can assure you every session done has been fantastic and fun. I don't play favorites, but these pics I'd love to share.

I've used this spot for wedding pictures before, but never for an engagement session. I didn't even know it's actually a fountain. It's great for getting a bit of the city and really cool sunset or sky shots facing west.

First, Mark and Victoria. Talk about beautiful pictures. Wow, we really had a great time in Boston getting a ton of great shots along the water front and then into Post Office Square.


I love this shot. I was using a 200 lense standing probably 60 feet away and just let them do what they wanted. It looks so real. So natural.
Mark just has this cool look about him in a lot of the pictures and it really shows in this one. Put that with the architecture and it just all fits together.

Wendy and Joe picked Providence as their backdrop and really made it work. We were dodging showers on-and-off but really got some beautiful lighting and great shots in the most unexpected areas. There's two guys standing just off frame to the right who just wouldn't catch on that we're taking pictures, but you'd never know it. The colums are just perfect.

Just a little fun with the flash against this circle of columns.
I love brick walls. I don't think they knew what I was doing with this shot, but I hope they like it.
This has no other word but sexy. It just really has that look. Go figure, it's on the top of a garage. Long story. . .

Kristin and Brian's engagement session was (get this) at the house of a friend of the family. Look at the colums, the beach, the view. If I were them I'd have the wedding at this place! It was perfect!!

Andrea and David were having a bit of a vacation up in Rockport. They were just so naturally fun and energetic it shows (radiates even) in every shot. There was no posing or uncomfortable moments of staring into the lense. They just had fun and interacted while I simply looked at them and clicked a the button on the camera.
I love this shot. We were walking up a very touristy busy street with all these little funcky shops (Bear Neck in Rockport) and I say this shop just covered in flowers. To look at it regularly, it just looks like a regular shop with a sign and a telephone poll just slightly off camera right. But, with the right angle - Wow! It's all natural light and just surrounds them with flowers. We were walking by and I almost was just going to keep going but said "Let's try it and if it sucks we can delete it". They I saw and it's probably one of my favorites.
OK, so I'm a big fan of sunsets. Who isn't. This was actually about an hour before sunset, but with a high F-stop you can really pull out the colors and make it dramatic. I don't really like using photoshop to fake it later so it's all "In-camera".
They plan to use one of these for their Save-the-date's.
Seriously, how Hot is this. It was totally their idea to get completely in the water - not mine. So I figured, since their in that much, why not all the way. I asked Andrea to dunk her head completely to get her hair all wet. I love it!
This is what I was talking about. You can't pose this. Either the affection is there or not. It just shows.

Stacie and Dave had their engagement session near Buzzards Bay in Bourne. You know, by the train bridge that crosses the canal. This was perfect. They invited my wife and kids to come down and hang out at the beach while we went out and did the session. I thought that was SO nice of them. They are just great. We timed everything so perfectly that we were able to get some great beach shots, some fun stuff on train tracks and some perfect sunset pictures.

Is gritty the right word? I love steal and ironwork in pictures.
This,. . . oh yeah. Photoshop can't do that! It was like the second shot too. OK, I'll admit, I added a bit of saturation to the sky. But can you blame me. Love it!

How many times in your life are you going to see train tracks that just stop suddenly before a 70 foot drop into the ocean?
I just love the look of this one. It's kind of toned down has a cool look to it.
Yeah yeah. Standard sunset. But, the lighting on them working against the dark tones of the sunset is really nice.

If you can't tell - I love engagement sessions. It really gives me the opportunity to do fun and creative things and it's all about the pictures. Weddings are great of course, but engagement sessions are never rushed and really allow a chance for clients to become friends.

OK, I should probably post soon about recent weddings as well, huh?!