columbus wedding photography

It's rare when, when shooting a wedding I feel such an emotion of joy and excitement during the ceremony part of the wedding day.  Not because it lacks anything special and to the contrary it is the most important event of the day.  This day was different and maybe because of the connection.  Curtis is the guy that everyone knows!  Even when we were in college, going back to when we were in the Troy State University band together (yes, I was in band), everyone on campus knew Curtis.  And Leah, she's the girl that makes an impact on your life through encouragement and making you feel always welcome.  Together, the Lord has used them in such and amazing way and in so many peoples lives.  But getting to know the two of them together was a special blessing, one that allowed everyone to experience joy throughout the day.  Knowing how much this covenant meant to them and getting to see them join as one, was a perfect example of Christ and His Bride (the church).  Congratulations to you Curtis and Leah!  

Location: Auburn, AL

Ceremony: Lakeview Baptist Church

Florist: Opelika Floral Comapny

Cake Designer: Sonshine Cakes

DJ: Andrew Slay

I wanted to share a quick peek for Curtis and Leah who we had the honor of not only capturing their wedding day but also being a witness to them becoming one before God.  Thank you Curtis and Leah for your life and the love that you show to everyone!

A couple of months back I did something that I absolutely fear and get that feeling not so good feeling in your stomach.  When you read the following words you might cringe too....Dentist Appt.  I brush my teeth thank you!  Not that I don't like the dentist, its just all the sounds, the scraping noise, the sucking of the straw thingy.  AHHHH!  On this trip it was the usual, small talk about flossing, having my wisdom teeth taken out and then it turns to what do I do for a living.  The converstation goes like this...

Our dentist is originally from Africa (still has awesome accent)

D. So what do you do for a living

Me. I'm a photographer

D.  Really, what do you take pictures of

Me. Weddings

D. Wow, you have to see what I just got in the mail

Me. Ok (still sitting in the chair)

D.  Walks out to get boxes and walks back in with 3 Canon Lens Boxes as follows

50mm 1.4

85mm 1.2

100mm 2.8 macro

Me.  Woah!!

D.  Let's talk about your molar

Me. Doc, talk quick to me so I can check out that 85

I was completely FLOORED.  Here is my new dentist, who has all these (to him) toys, lenses that I dream about.  Then he says to me...

D.  Can you take a picture of me or my assistants?

Me. (thinking to myself) "Woah!!"

Right then it dawned on me, I talk all this trash about being a photographer, now it is time to back it up.  So with that, I pick up his 7D and put that brand new 85 magic right out of the box on and totally got to rock it out on the doc and his assistants.  From that we picked up a portrait contact as well as a wedding contact.  Lesson learned, you have to put in the hard work to know what to do if you are given the chance to perform.  If I was to say I was a photographer and showed them some sub-par pictures, they would have wrote me off as a Joe who just owns a camera.  

Since it was his camera and card, I don't have the pictures I took. :(  So, I'll just add a picture from a recent session of one of our little friends.  He was faster than normal with the rocket pack!

There are times when I get to shoot for myself and get to try out new things.  Really they are old things like different types of lighting styles that have been around forever.  I enjoy the aspect of really getting to dive into it and looking for the specifics, as well as trying to figure how can I add certain techniques to our weddings to make our couples look even more fabulous. 

I teamed up for a practice session with Nathan Leduc and Jenna A. (model) to do just that, practice and to see what we could come up with.  So it was a session of practice lighting, be creative with what you have, and we were in one location at the Columbus Municipal building for the first half and on top of a parking deck for the second half.

Coming up with quick lighting setups are hard to do on the spot especially with a paying client at hand.  I don't suggest ever testing something out with a paying client, this can definitely break you if you do fail.  This is why as a professional, we practice; but practicing on awesome models, that's even better.  Going back to the previous post, I figured I would pull this one and give the break down on how we set it up and how simple it was. 

So here is the quick set up on the above image.  After shooting picture right above this one, we turned around and saw this wall with these awesome grooves in it.  We liked and wanted to try to use it for the texture.  The first thought would have been to stick the model right up against it wall and try a shoot, but what we would have come up with would have been light spill all over the background (nasty).

(the below diagram is what it looked like)

- So I pulled the model about 5 feet off the wall so that we could get a decent background blur.

- With our softbox situated right in front of our model about 2 feet away, chin high and angled at a 45 degrees we are able to keep additional light spill at a minimum.

- because I didn't have my light meter right at hand, i started off with the lowest power on the strobe and worked my way up till I liked it.  This shot was about the 2nd or 3rd shot which put us at 1/16th power.

- Now that we have the model looking amazing, we have a background that is pretty dark.  Keeping in mind that the grooved wall was what attracted us to this spot, we decided to highlight it with off camera flash (canon 550ex) zoomed all the way out to 103mm.  This keeps the light focused as if a snoot was used.  The light skims the raised parts of the wall giving this golden rain looking effect in the back.  

*keep in mind I'm not looking for things that are technically right, but look and flatter my clients and are super quick and easy to do.   

(What we used)

- 1600w Alien Bee 

- 24x26 softbox 

- 550ex flash 

-(3) PW Plus 2

settings (ISO 200, F9, 1/200th, 66mm)

Go out and practice this so you can throw down some awesomeness and wow your clients when you show them the back of your camera.  The will be amazed!