2 days ago we talked about coming out of the SLC LDS Temple and some group shots… and more or less about the beginning of this wedding.

Read It

We shall now continue

We’ll focus on the kids themselves and then next edition we’ll end off with the reception

I think this is a picture one of my interns took as I was setting up a shot… he got in close and photographed this neat moment. Go Will!

In any case you’ll notice a distinct usage of plant life in their pictures… a couple of reasons, she loves plant life, she studies it up at Utah St and she is even did her reception at Cactus and Tropicals and so I’m thinking I’ve done more than a few weddings at SLC Temple so I wouldn’t mind at all focusing on some places I haven’t been to a lot since often I’m focused on the building.

OK let’s meet them

This is Bret

He’s older than you think… not like ancient or anything but he’s older than his brothers who we kinda met last time.

And this is Michelle

OK we hope to hear from Michelle and Bret later with their stories and advice from the day and hopefully learn about what pictures are special to them with some fun stories why.

But for now I took a quick peak at the pictures she posted on facebook to see what she was liking.

She put up that first one

A couple of my favorites I put up last time

And there’s nothing like a good ol fashion straight smiling at the camera kinda picture.

I think we often strive for something totally new and I know I try to get a lot of pictures where they’re interacting in their own way.

But heh doesn’t hurt to just stop a moment and say let’s get the safe, normal, nice shot. The one your grandma will probably be happiest with… why not… we have a lot more time to get the other stuff.

It’s no problem really… the picture right before the one above was this one

I just move over to the side and say ok look straight at me and smile.

I guess I don’t really say that I usually smile big at them and say “hi” or my other tricks to bring out that real smile… you past bride and grooms know what I’m talking about.

OK so we started taking couple pictures after the group shots at 4:19pm and we actually had more time than I often have at the SLC temple for couple shots (before we run off to a reception or luncheon) we had just short of 1hr

Relatives point out how he uses his brows to smile big and say to watch out for that… so what do I do? I tell him to do his thing real big… because hey why not that’s him… I do however make sure to please the rest of the audience with more “normal” foreheads.

While sometimes we’re scrambling to get to all the typical spots I loved that we had an opportunity to spend a bit of time in the garden area next to the temple. It wasn’t in the middle of the sun lighting, in fact it was a bit darker which means we can control our own lighting (like with a bit of softbox)

and I get to do my framing with the trees and leaves stuff I like to do

OK we’re done with this location… let’s go. (Says I)

Oh wait wait right there… I lied we’re not done… one more

In fact two more… we need another one with the temple.

OK so you’re getting primped and prepped for a minute or two… and scott has a happy trigger finger… Groom it’s your turn to shine.

OK let’s keep on going

I’ve actually never shot this spot… probably because it’s so tight… I’m smooshed up against the wall squezing for every last inch of room to shoot  so I can get them and the temple and not look funny.

If there wasn’t a building where I wanted to stand I would have shot this a bit differently… but so often I leave miss serendipity choose my shots.

I think that’s a big aspect of my photography. If you want to know how Scott Jarvie chooses many of his pictures the key word is serendipity… look it up. (I just did)

We came across most of these shots because we had to pass by this spot when actually heading to another spot.

You’ll see that again later… we were walking to the famous pedestal thingy they have at the SLC temple for the full temple shot and we never ever got there. Serendipity (and lack of time… took us another direction 200ft short … with might I add a much cooler picture)

this walking set

OK let’s back up for a second… back when we were closer to the temple near the reflecting pool

I don’t mind people walking around and doing their thing… it’s a highly trafficked public place after all.

Sometimes if forces me to take different shots… things I wouldn’t normally do. I’m certain in both these pictures above there were people directly to the sides of both these pictures. It’s as if they dictated the crop on my these pictures.

Very often the construction dictates how far to the left of the temple I can shoot.

It also leads me to frame up totally different pictures like above… where we don’t have to worry about people in the pictures at all.

And then there are just some shots where you wish the people weren’t there… but yeah that’s not going to happen… just embrace it  (and then cast a spell on every viewer of the picture to ignore the other weddings on the steps of the temples… these are not the droids you are searching for)

And then I had them… Oh I don’t know… I think they were just caught up in the hugging moment… I was just there to document.

OK folks that’s all he wrote…

Next time we’ll bring you flowers

Food

Fun

oh and Babies too!

Oh and don’t forget twue wove

The Happy Couple – Wedding Story pt 2 is a post from: JarvieDigital Photography Blog

I’m thinking about cutting this one down in more manageable chunks… plus it means that I get to string it along for more days. I mean I wasn’t supposed to tell you my tricks. I suppose it’s more like a mini-series with jack bauer just about to do something crazy right at the end and you have to tune back in to see what happens in the next installment.

So here we go.

I was here

This was the first picture of the day… I took it to test out the camera. I just got my 14-24 2.8 back from the shop not too long ago and I missed it for getting cool architecture stuff.

So we so often show off when LDS bride and grooms come out of the temples… like their mini-revealing and unveiling. Their version of walking down the aisle.

But what happens prior to that moment… the non-lds (mormon) in the audience might find this interesting.

I’ve often seen many photographers just sitting in a waiting room waiting for their bride and groom… they’re missing out… this is time to get to know the family and get some of those candids and solo portraits.

Such as…

Then the moment comes… they come out.

Many times for the actual ceremony she’s wearing a different more subdued dress and so she goes and changes into her wedding dress, so often this really is the first time most have seen her.

Except of course her mom who probably went with her dress shopping (with the card) and her sisters who she played dress up for, of course. haha

But I present Mr. & Mrs. Spencer

So sometimes up to 90 couples could come out of these doors in any given saturday in summer… don’t hate.

We do get to have moment like these all the time.

Grandma and Grandpa giving their congrats.

Notice of course how many people have cameras … haha… i love it.

And then after the congrats time is done we have spots big enough to do our group shots with 100 ppl haha

Oh but first let’s drop in as the bride and groom steel a few slone moments for themselves in the hussle and bussle of the moment.

Then we gather families to do some group shots… our brothers of the groom jump in for some shots…

We’ll be catching back up with them for some more antics at the reception

I’m not afraid to stretch things out for an interesting full building shot or get down and dirty on the ground

The bride felt a deep connection to her asian brothers and sisters so this next one comes to you care of the far east

The real talent in this day of age and the thing that people really seem to appreciate is how quickly you can get through these formalities. Pump out these group shots, make it fun, make it quick, without yelling, without being rude, without making enemies, without down time… and to do all this without suffering on the quality. Anyone could spend 15 minutes setting up some elaborate and picture perfect group shot. But do you have 100 thankful friends or 100 sworn enemies at the end of this (specially if it’s too hot or too cold)

Then you move on over to the side giving way to the next happily married couple and you don’t mind at all… because I’d take this for a small group over steps any day.

Ahh these two like eachother as well..

Then you could always move to another spot for some more group shots.

Some kids find much joy in doing a good jump shot.

And all the while perhaps the moms look on.

And then take advantage of having an amazingly handsome and caring and kind and talented photographer around.

So yeah these aren’t the typical pics I put on the blog… usually we stick to the highlights of the day… the tender and breathtaking pictures.

We stick to the best of… we find the tender moments…

We often just put the scenic stuff.

Or the details of the day

But this is me showing off the rest of the story

I’m not no hourly worker… you get the full story… the full day. I’m a documenter of events.

• Real
• Friendly
• Emotion
• Personality
• Bright, Crisp and Clean
• Love in all it’s forms and expressions
• The joy of it all
  

So stay tuned next time for what happens next

Kudos to my two students that helped on the event Will and Justin – Will found that flower at the reception place and they’ll have more pics to show off as they roamed the reception.

Meanwhile back at Temple Square – A wedding story pt 1 is a post from: JarvieDigital Photography Blog

Today we’re bringing you the words from a recent bride, who I’ve become good friends with after she interned for a summer, she’s like my little sister now. She’ll share her two cents about picking wedding photographers and interacting with them.

I’ve done posts previously on her wedding pictures – Bridals - Engagements

Then she’ll share a couple of her favorite pictures and why. In a style I like to call: “Pictures with Meaning”. Which is really neat because I typically wouldn’t put any of these pictures up on the blog (Besides that last one)… they all seem to have special meaning to her (which is why I took them… but usually they wouldn’t translate to a large crowd online unless we were to explain why… which is what we’re doing)

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Alright, now for the good stuff, the reason you came to this blog in the first place… pretty pictures I realize that not everyone is going to be as obsessed with my wedding as I am. Ha. Gotta keep it real. So I’ll just share a few of my favorites.

This is one of my favorite pictures of the whole day. It might not seem like much, but it was when all the groomsmen had arrived for the pre-wedding pictures, and my brother couldn’t find his tie, so he came out half dressed to ask my mom where it was. I don’t think I laughed so hard the rest of the day.

I love this series as well.

I really wanted all of my bridesmaids to be individual and true to themselves, so they all picked their own shoes, and I love how these shots showcase that.

I want to put this one in here too.

Jake and I did a first look, and even though this isn’t the most fabulous picture of us, we were both just so excited and I think this captures our joy.

And this one…. I LOVE this one…

I don’t think I need to explain why.

I’m not sure what I was laughing at, but this was after we cut our giant cupcake.

I can’t look at it without smiling. I just love Jake laughing in the back.

Instead of a guest book, we did sort of a “guest plant” where people wrote on little cards and then hung them on the plant.

This card was probably my favorite of the bunch.

My florists did an amazing job, and I’m so glad he got a shot of the table settings.

This picture is probably my most favorite picture of my dad.

Ever.

This one cracks me up every time.

We were trying to get through family pictures, which were starting to wear on me, and this little rooster decided to stop by. I’m so glad I can look back and remember this.

I’ll stick this one in here as well, because I had always envisioned a shot of Jake and I from the back showing our reception.

I never told Scott that, honestly because I forgot to, but he got it anyways.

I could seriously post tons and tons more, because honestly this was a very small snippet of all the wonderful photos. But I feel like that would get really boring haha.

If anyone has any questions for me, feel free to ask. I’m an open book

Carissa’s advice for the future bride + Pictures with Meaning is a post from: JarvieDigital Photography Blog

Ah how sweet I am.

There’s a story about this little guy… see he was in the trash heap. There were a billion (only a slight exageration) flowers at this reception, it was flower city, the flowers were all amazing.

This little flower didn’t make the cut… but I liked it grabbed it and carried it for a bit… not even sure why.

Then I started taking detail shots. I said to myself why not put this on the table and shoot it like a close up ring or something layong on the nice table cloth.

Bam! now it’s one of my favorites, but this might only be because I knew the story and I’m emotionally compromised and it might just be OK.

OK back to the task at hand… remember how I said I photographed a wedding in Idaho. Well I’m not even gonna talk about the reception much yet, maybe tomorrow.

Except to show you how it ended.

It ended with a Flash and a Whirl… get it?

Now you’ll be back tomorrow… it’s like crack, you must know, you have to know… you have no choice. You are getting sleepy, very sleepy.

Ladies and gentlemen I present to you Bobbie Jane and David

Come on out

You might remember them from such oldies as Couple in front of Golden gate amd couple on boardwalk

Or couple next to plane

Or couple at random picnic

Wait wait let’s back up… so we’re at the Idaho Falls LDS temple. David and Bobbie Jane get married inside and we’re all just chillin outside waiting for them to come out. I walk around and try to find the group, you can’t really miss her sisters… because they look so much like her.

It’s a good oportunity for me to shoot some kids.

And some candids of friends I don’t know yet (which I will know by the end of the day)

But here they come! About to open the door and make the grand exit to be seen by friends and family.

Anti climatic, I know… since you already saw the exit.

But this is them putting on a small show for their friends and relatives with cameras. Which is fine by me because while they get a few shots, I get pictures of them the whole day.

Let’s hydrate that bride on a nice hot day… water anyone.

Forget that! Water is so ordinary. (I wanted to say Blah-Zay but I can’t figure out how to spell it)

Maybe the water just magically turned into the Dew

I will disuade you from thinking any magic was involved and reveal the trick.

His buddies brought it and they replaced the water bottle in her hand.

OK so we’re gonna kinda FF through the group shots… but we’ll hit some of the more amusing ones… you know… to keep you smiling.

Oh fine these next ones aren’t funny but it goes to show how everyone wins when we go under the shade, it’s not hot and it’s better lighting. I had Marco and Will helping out so that we could light them up to get the temple in the back.

And of course I gotta show the other family so we don’t cause problems. haha

May I take this moment to mention Will had only started with me the day before and the next day he was off shooting a wedding and helping with lighting.

The girls did some more fun stuff at the reception but I’ll take a moment for david and his sisters… tadah

Don’t worry her sisters held eachother

Cute baby break

I’m just sucking up to all the girls… they’re a sucker for the babies.

On that note… how about Grandpa and the baby

Like how I put that one bigger? It’s because you need to be wow’ed right about now. Or I guess this would be more of an awwhhhh moment.

Yes sir I’d be smiling too. (Well I guess it’s more of a grin, but yeah that’s what I’d be doing)

OK now let’s say our goodbyes to friends and family like mom and other lady.

Now for the moment you’ve all been waiting for.

(Side Note: This would have been a perfect time to pull out a picture of me… but alas. I have none… wait I have one of me at the reception… I’ll do something fun tomorrow)

Oh Young Love

Do you want to see her boquet? Did I need to ask?

Don’t just stand there gazing into eachother’s eyes… do something put your arms around eachother and … oh there you go… already doing it.

Yes we get the point

Oh ok we get it… you like eachother.

Haha like how I made it seem like all they ever did was kiss. Such power I wield as the blog editor!

More tender ahhh moments.

Well we’ve been spotted!

That didn’t last long back into eachother’s embrace they go

One could almost hear them say… “Oh Bobbie Jane I love you. Oh David I love you more. No I love you most.etc ” And of course all the while Bobbie Jane would be speaking in a southern bell accent because I mean her name is Bobbie Jane she simply must have an accent.

Ok Ok … nuf of this sappy stuff… I present to you socks and shoes in grass.

Rings on hands

And clenched hands… “never let go!”

A funny face should make you smile

Bye bye Bobbie Jane and David we’ll see you at your reception tomorrow… where we took an awful lot of pictures. Because well… we did.

Stay tuned tomorrow for the exciting conclusion… Bobbie Jane is excited… are you?

A Wedding Story: Idaho pt.1 is a post from: JarvieDigital Photography Blog

(Above is a picture from a wedding… done 5yrs ago)

Oh how times have changed.

Back in 2005 I did my first wedding. By september of 2005 I was doing the 3rd? wedding… i think. My prices were a bit lower (and by a bit I mean the geo metro vs. steam roller comparison) But you know I’m a bit better (queue similar comparison)

Now and then

It was funny to edit an egnagement shoot I took this week compared to re-selecting re-editing pictures from 5yrs ago. I end up with more useable and awesome pictures in a simple engagement shoot than a full day wedding.

(Above – from engagements Done this week August 2010)

The thing is I never had complaints… not even back then. They always seemed to be very happy with what they got. Most all of them are still great friends and follow the blogs and communicate on facebook. They know the deal they got back then, back when they were poor college student and 300-500$ for a wedding was a the extent of their budgets and I was the right man for the job.

What changed

Photographers will often cringe looking back at what they did so long ago… and try to convince people they’re not the same person.

• What I’m doing is going back and saying maybe it’s not what I’m doing now but… a big part is the finished product…
• I didn’t have the lighting set ups i do now… Flashes or Reflectors
• I didn’t have bunch of  $2k lenses i do now.
• I didn’t have assistants.
• I was using a D70 a kit lens 18-70 3.5-5.6
• There was no bluring of the backgrounds and I think this was even before my big purchase of a 50mm f/1.8
• Oh and did I mention the experience of 140+ weddings

But what can I do about it now??

Well I teach simple quick edits in lightroom to vastly improve pictures. There was no Lightroom when I did this wedding… the first Beta of lightroom even came out after this.

We can’t redo what we did 5yrs ago… but we can re-edit.

What do I have at my command now?

• A calibrated Monitor 30″ to improve my ability to really see the picture.
• I can focus on color quality of which the d70 vs d700 nikon has come a LONG way
• Using an old 17″ screen back in those days compared to my 30″ now I can really tell which pictures are in focus!!
• Lightroom can help me cheat back a bit of in-focusness into pictures.
• D70 had lots of noise so tadah the noise reduction of LR3
• I now know if the colors were butt ugly how split tones desaturations and even convert to B&W can help.
• Did i mention I can do all these things and re-edit a full wedding in a fraction of the time it took back then.
• Doesn’t hurt that I’m editing much mucho less pictures. Partly because I’m just choosing less and because I had less good pictures from weddings back then.

I know many are just skipping to the before and afters and skipping all this write up. But keep in mind these aren’t a before editing after editing… these are the finals that I gave them back in 05 probably editing on photoshop elements

Oh and keep in mind I’m re-editing JPGs

How do I feel about the past?

Ask me if I’m proud of what I did in 2005…. Do it… ask me?

Yes… yes I am. For what I had and the training I had, the equipment, the times of day I had to shoot. The situations… I rocked it! They certainly got their money worth. They were taking a big gamble on me and it turned out alright for them. All of them… I’ve always charged less than I could have. Which made the gamble and the investment a bit easier to bare.

Aint such a bad strategy to under charge and over deliver. After all I owe my career and lifestyle and dream job to the trust that these couples put in me. That and the 15hrs a day for 5yrs straight.

Should you pay for something like this now?

Would I hire someone for $300 for that level of work now? No way! The cameras are soooo much better… the color quality alone is crazy better. The amount of training available to people just 5yrs later… they better be tons better than that.

plus there has been 5yrs of a constant influx of better photographers and lots more good hobbiests. That that level doesn’t cut it for 2010 even for free. But for 2005 people were pretty happy with that stuff. And as we’ll see the framing and moments and stuff were still there. Not perfect but they were pretty snazy.

But dang that D70 had terrible colors (reminds me of the canon 50d bad) and that lens wasn’t sharp… but then again I was shooting at some high f-stops.

Imma gonna show some side by sides now… I’m about done reminiscing.

Deciding why they were the way they were.

These pictures almost look like I had started shooting RAW but hadn’t figured out that RAWs absolutely have to be editing because it’s required… whereas JPGs are already edited by the camera software. So I don’t think I knew how to handle working in raw quite yet.

That being said I’m not even editing the RAWs since I can’t find them. But I do have the JPGs so It’ll be a bit different to edit them.

(Above … the original of the same picture at the beginning of the post)

ORDER: New edit, (sometimes BW), Original Edit from 2005 (at the end)

To go through all old pictures and present re-edits of the pictures go here

Some more edits after the break

Get your pics pimped… how?

If you’re a wedding from 2005-2008 I might be able to do something like this. I edited 100 of this weddings’ pictures. (My selections)

But it does take work and time and so I’m not sure how to do it yet or what it might cost.

One thing is for sure… the most votes on this blog post for your wedding will probably win a re-edit. So have some friends speak up for your cause.

A “New”-Old wedding: 2005 is a post from: JarvieDigital Photography Blog

I’m not sure why I can get away with doing these things and it works so well sometimes.

It’s really so simple and cheasy and yet it works.

I just have them look at me and say “serious, now smile and now look at eachother and giggle like girls or whatever.”

I do it all really quickly to capture the first real emotions and the spontaneity.

I don’t give them time to think of the request and try to make it posed and stale… usually they’ll do it as a reaction to the request and then when they find themselves looking at eachother smiling and laughing it usually sets off a trigger to make them do it more and more when they realize what they’re doing… so I’m ready to capture the whole sequence.

Obviously sometimes it’s better than others.

People so often look at pictures and comment on faces… they love such and such person’s face in this picture. Well this is one way to make this happen more often

“Now just look at each other and giggle” is a post from: JarvieDigital Photography Blog

EXTRA WORK

When I made the decision to cut back on the number of weddings I made a decision to put more work in the weddings I do.

One of the things I started doing was double checking my edits, then triple checking and each time finding quick fast improvements that would make the pictures way better.

CHECK OUT THIS NEW AWESOMENESS -
(More about it in Posts to come)
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SELECTING

After those looks I would go back through and select pictures I think would look great in black and white. Now days after working on thousands of these I can often spot the picture that will look best in B&W but sometimes I have to double check by converting it quickly and then converting it back.

In Lightroom the shortcut is “V” you can check to see if it has potential if it does make a virtual copy and then make the second copy the one that will be B&W the shortcut for virtual copies is ctrl+’

I often find myself selecting the pictures with the most emotion and usually my favorite pictures are given that second B&W look.

One extra benefit

An extra benefit from turning pictures B&W is that going through the pictures is yet one extra look at them. And when they’re in B&W you often pay so much closer attention to exposure levels because colors (specially bright colors) are not playing with your perceptions anymore. I’ll therefore turn B&W see what needs to be done and make corrections before I create the virtual copy… so i don’t have to do things twice. B&W is also great for paying closer attention to making things sharper.

HISTORY

In times past I would tell my clients I could turn their pictures B&W but hardly anyone made reqeusts of me… I took that as a compliment that I was practically perfect. haha But in the end I figure they just don’t know what it might look like, and they might choose pictures that don’t look good in B&W

A little more history is that when I first started photography I wasn’t a fan of B&W… it seemed like cheating to me. I’ve grown to love it and recognize for me it’s spot in my work.

CREATING GALLERIES

Another fun thing I’m doing is creating a gallery of all the images from the session that I converted to B&W.

Usually I leave a copy in color because it often never fails that you do Only B&W and they’ll ask for the color… so if I just have B&W I either think the colors weren’t anything special or I was lazy and might pay for it later, it was probably an afterthought picture anyway.

To create a gallery of just B&Ws in Smugmug you’ll have to start in Lightroom (or similar program) keyword every B&W … I use the keyword “bw”

How to select all B&W the fastest… go to gallery go to the filtering options > select metadata options > change one of the columns to “treatment” > you’ll see you can filter by B&W > select them all > keyword them “bw” > then export > then upload to smugmug

In SmugMug: Add a new gallery seperate from the gallery that contains ALL pictures from the event the B&W gallery will be seperate with nothing to upload > when you get to the uploading section instead select Make Smart Gallery > select the from gallery option and select the gallery with all the pictures then add another qualifier and use that one to select by the keyword > then make sure to select the option that requires ALL requirements otherwise it will select all pictures from that gallery and all B&Ws you have on smugmug.

Anyway check to see if it works and then you have a gallery of all your B&W from that shoot

EXAMPLES

Uribe Wedding B&Ws

Jensen Wedding B&Ws

Fernsten Wedding B&Ws

Galleries in B&W is a post from: JarvieDigital Photography Blog

I love when i find good locations to photograph from above.

Remember we go through life seeing things at the 5′2″-6′ angle… change that up and you automatically add a unique quality to your pictures.

Dresses often look really good from this angle as well. These two didn’t need it but certain body types will appreciate it as well.

70mm f/2.8 if you’re wondering… I bet if I had my 50mm f/1.4 it would have a more dramatic effect but I would have had to work really hard to make sure his head was the same distance away as hers.

From Above is a post from: JarvieDigital Photography Blog

We’ll go ahead and divide this wedding day up into a couple of posts.

The ceremony was actually the 2nd part of the day after the First Look earlier that day at La Caille where they’d later return for the reception.

The ceremony was at a church in Park City where the bride’s dad is a pastor.

The bride was my first intern last year and so she knew a lot about wedding and planned a wonderful wedding.

If you want to see a bunch of highlights go here for now – and/or wait for the future posts

There were several photographers assisting me… this picture (above) was taken by my associate Amanda

Park City Wedding is a post from: JarvieDigital Photography Blog

Here is a preview of the wedding pictures taken last Friday in Los Angeles.

More pictures will be posted later of the events later that evening.

We tried to stay in areas out of the direct harsh sun… or we blocked the light with large reflectors.

To see more pictures see this preview gallery

LA Temple Wedding Pictures is a post from: JarvieDigital Photography Blog

So I think  a lot of people would love to have their pictures taken on a Hawaiian beach. This bride wanted it and that’s what she got.

Even as a very subtle sunset it was still good enough for some pretty cool pictures and perhaps because it was more subtle we were able to focus on some other locations and poses.

More pictures here

I had a ton of fun photographing for this couple, both of their families were awesome and their love of photography made it a wonderful experience for me.

That makes 2 terrifically awesome weddings in a row in Hawaii! Let’s not slow down or break the streak yet!

Sunset on a Hawaiian Beach – Wish Granted is a post from: JarvieDigital Photography Blog

Ok ok so it’s not exactly molten lava coming down a mountain… but it was once upon a time.

You should just be happy I wasn’t cheesy enough to title it “Whole Lava Love” – (Though I wanted to)

Anyway… expect a few more posts on this wedding. We did wedding pictures at the Kona LDS Temple and on the way to the resort we stopped in the middle of no where and took some fun pictures. It was like going to the salt flats for something totally unique, but obviously it’s not salt and we weren’t there at sunset, but where we were at sunset was pretty amazing and those will be coming… when I get back to Utah.  I leave Hawaii tonight and will be back in utah tomorrow. I have 3 weddings next week, so it’ll be busy.

Lava Love is a post from: JarvieDigital Photography Blog

Oquirrh Mountain Wedding is a post from: JarvieDigital Photography Blog

Couple shots before every wedding?

I could do this sorta thing for every wedding.

Either on a previous day or take some time prior to the actual event and take some great pictures of the bride and groom.
So often it’s expected that the couple shots come after the temple ceremony (LDS) or after the walk down the aisle ceremony. In both cases there is often very little time for couple shots with group pictures, luncheons and receptions coming up quick. I would argue many of the non-LDS weddings have even less time if the ceremony is later in the day (along with the nice light)

So I’m saying to all you brides and brides to be… put thought into your pictures. Sure we’ll get the job done in no matter what amount of time you give us. Just saying it might be better for you and me to plan for some morning pics or on a previous day.

In this situation this couple had to drive about 90 minutes (with traffic) to get back to where the reception was and had they not done pre-wedding pictures all of these pictures would probably not have happened. Even though we did take about 20-30 minutes for a few more after the ceremony on a nearby hill. (Coming soon)

I mean their reception location was stunningly beautiful and I had all sorts of ideas of amazing pictures, but they had guests to entertain and things to do. A reception to be had, the time for couple shots had passed and I’m sure everyone was glad the majority had long since been done.

Part of why I switched things up

Really to get better pictures is why I changed my pricing structure. I wanted to get better pictures with more serious clients.
I loved helping out the poor student, however it was time to step it up with those who were willing to aim for the best pictures ever and not just in word only. But would put in their part… where pictures would be seen as more important and not just a bystander doing whatever. I still love helping poor college students out but when they really have a passion for awesome pictures. We always find a way to make it work.
When they put more into it they get more out of it… and I’d gather perhaps they mean more to them!

In fact it’s getting to the point where I’m considering including this kind of thing (or at least bridal sessions) with Every wedding I do.

For Every Wedding is a post from: JarvieDigital Photography Blog

• Shoes – Check
• Boquet – Check
• Bride – Check
• Groom – Check
• Good interaction – Check
• Good smiles – Check
• Creative – Check
• Classical looking bench – Check
• Perfect – Maybe next time

They wanted to do something with the bench… I said sure let’s give it a try. At times I’d love to be the planner, think of great ideas way in advance, but then I realize why mess with a good thing.

All the Elements is a post from: JarvieDigital Photography Blog