Shea's Dress

Shea's dress fit her perfectly. Not just physically fit her, but it fit her personality. You see, Shea is one of the sweetest people you'll ever meet. She is bubbly, but not obnoxious, trusting, but not naive, fun, but not pretentious. She is a classic woman, with a modern elegance.

This photo was taken in the back corner of the lobby of Founder's Inn of Virginia Beach. We had an Alien Bee B800 with a translucent umbrella shooting through the window from the outside.

Shea, The Bride

I had the distinct pleasure of shooting Shea's bridal portraits, and now that she is married, I can share them here.

This was shot in the Founders Inn lobby in Virginia Beach. My trusty assistant Craig is outside keeping the light stand company. I had an Alien Bee B800 shooting in from the outdoors through a translucent umbrella.

Brother and Bride

This is my brother Jared and his fiance Kelsey. I was honored to be able to provide them with engagement photos that they will be using to announce the date of their wedding.

I'm especially proud of this shot because we only had the sun for about 20 seconds at this location before it ducked behind the clouds again. The one day I want direct sunlight for an outdoor shoot, it decides to hide. I got it though, and that shadow makes this photo.

Special thanks to my beautiful sister Phoebe for assisting me on this shoot. The wind would have surely taken my lighting gear down if it wasn't for her help.

Also, thank you to all the field owners out there who don't have prominently displayed "No Trespassing" signs.

You can browse the entire collection here, and I'll be periodically posting more photos in the coming days/weeks/months...

The Mother Of The Groom

This is an older picture of Patrick dancing with his mother at his wedding last year. The room we were in was not the most photogenic, thus demanding extra creativity in framing.

the women

I was hoping that this photo from the Crane/Charlton wedding would compliment the photo of the men that I took earlier in the day.

Going for a Vanity Fair cover idea, this probably would have been easier if it wasn't 20 degrees outside.

The Men

When I'm taking portraits of a group of men, the one thing I use as inspiration for posing and composition is "Oceans Eleven".

Taken with the Nikkor 24mm f/2.8 and lit with an Alien Bees B800 with a shoot-through umbrella and a Nikon SB28 bare as the backlight. This was taken in an almost completely dark room, but the low-light autofocus of Nikon cameras is unmatched.

Mr. and Mrs. Charlton

I don't usually like posting photos of clients until they have seen them, so now that Mike and Melody have their photos, I am going to blog them. Of course, if you know Mike, and are friends with him on Facebook, you'll probably get to see them all pretty soon.

Here is their first dance as Mr. and Mrs. Charlton. I snapped this with the 15mm fisheye lens I try so hard to use sparingly. It was perfect for this shot, but really hard to get away with. I shoot with prime lenses exclusively, which may seem like suicide for wedding photographers, but it's worked out pretty well so far. I use two bodies and four focal lengths to choose from in my shoulder bag. I could use some more telephoto lenses, but my style centers around the wide angle more than the tight crop, as you can see by the photo above.

Melody Crane...

...back when she was a Crane.

This is a shot from Melody's bridal portrait session. We got rained on, but we still had some pretty amazing locations.

Now that Melody and Mike have gotten married, I'm able to share these images. I'll post a few more in the next few days and weeks, but this one might be my favorite from the bunch.

Princess Bride: Bekah & Patrick

When I was prepping for Bekah and Patrick's portrait session before their wedding, I asked them what their favorite movies were. I like to ask those kind of questions to people, just to get a feel for their personal style and taste. I then planned on doing a partial recreation of key poses from their favorite movies.

Lit with a single Alien Bees B800 strobe at 1/4 power through a beat-up shoot-through umbrella. The sun is high in the sky creating our fill light, and the strobe acted as our rim. We were able to get a partial silhouette out of this set up, and I'm very pleased. Oh, and that lens flare off to the side? That's real. I'd tell you if I was photoshopping these things.

Scissorhands: Bekah & Patrick

My wife and I had the pleasure of shooting the wedding of our two friends, Rebekah and Patrick. This is from our whirlwind portrait session. We were trying to escape from direct sunlight and have a healthy amount of portraits from the 45 minutes we had with them.

This pose is inspired by one of their favorite movies, Edward Scissorhands.

If you're getting married and need a photographer, let me know. I'm currently looking to fill up my calendar and my portfolio.

Old Man And The Bride

One of my favorite shots from a wedding I was second-shooter for. Not much to say about this one except how much I love his little "I (heart) Jesus" button. Old people are so cute.

This was shot in a gymnasium with a really really high cream-colored ceiling. I bounced my little battery-powered SB-28 strobe straight up to get some bounce. I had that little guy turned all the way up for the whole reception, and I was just going through batteries like a hot knife through butter.

It's Not About The Dress

I don't shoot weddings that often, but this was a snapshot of a bridal portrait session that I was assisting on. It's not the bride, the dress, or even the flowers that are the subject in this shot, it's the composition. The framing of this shot is what makes the shot.

Andrew and Sara

I wanted to share a 'treated' photo.

Although this was shot with the Nikon d80, this photo was a mistake. Like an amateur, I wasn't properly focussed, so I chose to put some 'action' on it in an attempt to save the moment.

I wanted to replicate the feel of a photo from the sixties, shot with a bad polaroid or diana camera, which has the tendency to be a little soft.

Dear Nerds: Done in Pixelmator after cropping and initial color correction and RAW processing was done in Aperture. Paper texture applied with screen overlay with brush strokes of multiplied color. I de-focussed the distant background(the part that I had in focus) and adjusted the curves to crush the blacks and give it a lot of contrast. Meh... it's art.