Kate & Ethan Wedding - Charllotte, NC

Last month I got to work with a great couple Kate and Ethan up in Charlotte, NC. We started the day with the bride and her party getting ready and then I ran over to the house of one of a family member of Ethan's while his guys got ready.

We then proceeded to the Peninsula Club on Lake Norman where the ceremony and the reception would be located. The ceremony was under a large white tent behind the clubhouse facing the lake and golf course. It was beautiful.

After group shots we went into the banquet hall which was very convenient. We managed to steal Kate and Ethan away to take some posed shots around the lake (which is where the first picture above is from).

Then we let the happy couple join the fun for dinner and dancing. And there was dancing...

More can been seen in a gallery on my website www.shutterdoggy.com

Sarah and Phillip get Married

A couple weekends ago I had the opportunity to work with fellow photographer, Emily Rearick in Charlotte, NC. We first met the couple, Sarah and Phillip at a hotel they were using for pre-wedding preparation. I spent most of my time with Phillip and his gang of closest family and friends involved in the ceremony.

Phillip putting on his cufflinks given to him by his bride.

My favorite group of shots were to get each of the guys after they were put together in front of the large window in the hotel room and shoot a close-up portrait using natural light at a very large aperture to isolate them from the frantic background.

The entire entourage then traveled to Catawba College which has a beautiful campus and presented some great locations for some group shots. We got some of the standard/formal stuff done but also had plenty of time to also have some fun. Setting aside time for photos is one of the best ways of making sure you get results. 

Starting with the traditional formal stuff is a good idea. Guys tend to get antsy and eventually punchy and goofy. When you have a great group of guys like this, you can use that to your advantage. Getting the expected formals out of the way, you can let them cut loose and get some great stuff that they will appreciate later. Moms like the formals grooms like the fun stuff. 

We then moved onto the venue which was beautiful. The couple had hired a classic Rolls Royce sedan for their transporation.

The ceremony was beautiful and there was an ample amount of natural light which was a blessing in most respects but a real challenge in other ways. Having plenty of light meant good light for a majority of the ceremony but also created very hot spots that had to be addressed when people were walking and standing in specific places.

After the ceremony, we retreated to a nearby country club and a good time was had by all.

Late into the evening, the couple walked through a gauntlet of well-wishers with sparklers (this seems to be a growing trend, apparently) and onto their brittish charriot. 

This day was the first time I had met Sarah and Phillip. But after spending time with people on their wedding day, surrounded by the people they love and trust most and love them, you tend to learn a good bit in a short period of time. They way they treated me, a near total stranger, on their special day said volumes about them as well as what their family and friends shared in their toasts. I wish them nothing but the best in their future life together and am grateful I was a part of it.

You can see a gallery of the highlights on my website here. And an even larger collection on my flickr account here.

Staff Portraits for Erskine College

I was asked the other day to take portraits of new staff members for Erskine College. We obviously wanted nice images and the best setting is to use the picturesque campus with the administration building they work in as the backdrop. The time of day was less than ideal, around 11:15 am (and about 500 degrees) but there was plenty of shade. The trick would be to tone down the bright building in the background and find some balance with the subjects.

I set the shutter speed to 1/250th and dialed down the aperture to get a decent exposure in the building in the background that had a lot of hot-white surfaces. In order to balance the exposure on the subjects, I needed a full burst from my SB-800. The problem with that is it takes a good while for the flash to cycle at full burst. So I tried something I haven't tried before and used a spare umbrella adapter on the Westcott 60" umbrella shaft to mount an additional SB-600 flash. I could set the flashes to half power and get the same power with more on tap if needed and a much faster cycle time between shots. It worked like a dream.

I now see the appeal of something like the Lastolite Triflash Sync that David Hobby reviewed on the strobist. I had to use two PocketWizard II's to fire my flashes. It would have been nice to just be able to use just one trigger for both (or more).

I used the Nikon D700 for all of these images and most of them I shot with the Nikkor 35-70mm f2.8. The more I use this lens, the more I like it. It is clunky and old, a lot of the marks have been worn away and it is noisy but it is so sharp. But for the pictures above and below, I used the Nikkor 70-200 f2.8 VRI at a longer focal length to get more isolation for the tighter compositions.

The whole session was only about 20 minutes but with this setup and two lenses, I could get a good variety of shots which is important. Even though the impending need for these images were for business cards, you never know when you will be able to get these people in front of you again. You are much better off thinking of future needs by taking a variety of shots including some with plenty of negative space if you ever need to drop in some copy for other marketing needs. You can view more from the set, you can see them here. These aren't going to change the world but it is what we needed and gave us some stock to use for other purposes in the future.

Shane Bryant Portraits

Shane Bryant is a long-time friend of mine. He is a gifted and talented ceramic artist who owns The William Felton School of Crafts in the west end of Greenville, South Carolina. He needed some photographs of him at his school for various media needs. I jumped at the chance to shoot him in his environment.

We took some out side shots featuring the front of his school/studio and then went inside to get some images of him surrounded by his work.

Using a Westcott 28" softbox on Shane and a 60" shoot-through umbrella for the back wall helped control the light a little. I wanted you to see his work but separate him from the background at the same time. 

Framing Shane with his work was important and took some maneuvering so you could see it but not have anything protruding out of his head and body.

After getting the straightforward posed shots, we let Shane do what he does best and throw some pots and get some images of him at work. These could be a bit more dramatic, so I just used one light in a Westcott 28" softbox.

It was amazing to watch him work. Working clay for him is so second-nature that he flies through it. It was tough going from shot to shot because the work transforms so fast. I pretty much shot as fast as I could changing up the framing to capture a good variety. The detail shots, which are normally a pretty mundane necessity, reveal the colors, textures and techniques involved in the work.

Kendra & Cord Wedding

Last Saturday I went to Murphy, NC to photograph a wedding for a great, young couple Kendra and Cord. We started the day with meeting Kendra at the salon getting ready for her big day.

The salon had a nice big white panel on the wall in the waiting area which was well-lit by huge storefront windows so we had her pose and show off her new look.

All the shots in the salon where made with the D700 and the Nikkor 50mm f1.8 lens using ambient light.

Afterward, my assistant (aka, my wife) and I ran ahead and scouted both the church where the ceremony was to be performed as well as the reception location to become familiar with the layout and find places to act as settings for some interesting photographs of this great couple.

The reception location was an ideal locale, the John C Campbell Folk School which consists of a wide expanse of grounds and beautiful new facilities as well as many old farm structures. Kendra and Cord's reception was in an outdoor pavilion building surrounded by fields, gardens and old barns - all with great potential for some fun images.

In the garden, there was a gazebo structure that was ideal for some warm images of them as well as Kendra and her bridesmaids.

These images were shot with the Nikon D700, Nikor 35-70mm f2.8 and the Nikon SB-800 in a Westcott 28" softbox.

We also moved around the nearby grounds and took advantage of the scenery. At nearby barns, we made some images of the couple as well as the groom with his groomsmen.

The above shot was using a Westcott 60" shoot-through umbrella with Nikon SB-800 and the below shot was using a Westcott 28" softbox.

Lastly, I drug the groom's party out into the field. I did this last because of the possibility of getting grass and various field "ingredients" on their formal wear, which they were anxious to get out of at this point due to the humidity. But they didn't gripe, they were gung-ho for anything I had in mind. So out we went.

The light was heavy overcast and the colors were a little muddy. It set the tone for a nice dramatic image but I wanted to isolate the groom, Cord, so I used a bare SB-800 from pretty far off frame aimed at his face to emphasize him in this image. Not that I want the groomsmen to disappear, but use them to help Cord, the man of the hour, stand out.

On an equipment-related note. I just received a new bag, the ThinkTank Speed Racer belt pack bag. I will have a more in-depth review of the specifics of this bag. But after my first real-world test of this bag, so far, I'm very impressed. It's fairly large but it's so well thought out and it holds pretty much everything I need. When dragging a wedding party around in gardens and barns, to be able to quickly move your gear and get to it when you need it saves you an enormous amount of time. That is time that if you spent it fuddling around for your equipment, causes people in formal wear and 80% humidity to start loosing patience.

More from the wedding can be seen here.

Chris Daughtry in Concert

On June 8th, I worked the Daughtry concert at Clemson University's Littlejohn Coliseum. Opening acts were Cavo and Lifehouse. Interestingly enough, the show was a hassle to photograph due to access limitations to the stage because Lifehouse was wrapping up the shooting of their most recent video which was shot at multiple venues but finished at Clemson.


Daughtry


Lifehouse


Cavo

More of my music photography can be found on my website.