Gretchen and Nick carefully planned a dance for their bridal party to a mix of Michael Jackson songs and kept it a secret from their guests. It was awesome!

You have to love the poses at the end

With spring coming “wedding season” will shortly be upon us as well. Around this time every year I start looking for inspiration for this year’s weddings. The magazine racks are filled with “Wedding Issues” in the photography section, and these always offer a breath of fresh air after the winter slow season. I also have *tons* of books. I love looking through books, especially vintage wedding books, to see what I can dig up and reintroduce. I was looking at a book today called Capture the Moment: A Brides’ and Photographers’ Guide to Contemporary Weddings and was struck by how quickly things have changed.

For starters, everything back when this book was published was shot on film. This in itself is neither good nor bad. Looking at the pictures a bride today wouldn’t be very happy with them. Most of the images were shot on 400 speed film. This is neither fast nor slow, but it’s generally too slow for indoor available light and too fast for a sunny outside. There was a lot of image softness due to a combination of slow shutter speeds and large apertures. Why he didn’t use a 1600 speed press film indoors is beyond me. Also, most of the indoor images were very orange toned, this is because common indoor lights are tungsten and tungsten lights are actually orange compared to day light. This was actually very common back when this book was published, there just weren’t any fast tungsten films and even if there were you probably wouldn’t use them (because if you used flash or went outside everything would turn blue). People generally look better warm than cold.

Which brings us to the real point. When was this book published? 2002! Technology and client expectations have changed so much in less than a decade. Now it’s possible to do relatively complicated lighting, mix lighting, low light, and bright outdoor sunny pictures all within moments of each other. Exposures are better, sharpness is better, noise/grain is better, colors are more accurate, it’s astonishing! It’s not you’re parents’ wedding photography any more. Heck, it’s not even your older cousin’s wedding photography. The game has changed, definitely for the better!

There’s still wisdom to be gained from these arcane tomes. Poses, insights into wedding photography, shots to look for, etc. From a technique standpoint, we’re in a totally different place today, and our clients are better off for it.

Check out the 360 Main Street article on LTBH clothing by Gina Myers. Sweet!

This weekend I had the opportunity to work with the Bearinger Boys, a local Saginaw band. This band has the really awesome goal of lifting people above the hardships the area has seen, and focus us on cooperation and love to make Saginaw a better place to live. You can check their music out here:
www.myspace.com/johnwolfvasquez

www.facebook.com/TheBearingerBoys

Here are my shots of them:

Technically a blue moon is when there are two full moons in one month. This happened in January of 2010. My wife read a report that this will be the biggest and brightest moon of the year because the moon will be the closest to earth while full. Well, I couldn’t turn that opportunity down! That night I grabbed a camera, tripod, and the longest lens I own. The resulting image:

I had a big show on January 10th at the Dow Event Center and for these expos you need to have something to hand out. Plus it’s also good to have something you can hand prospective clients that shows examples of your work and tells a bit about you and your thoughts on what it is you’re doing. My old brochures were out dated, I’ve shot many weddings since they were designed and I put my pricing on them, which had changed, so they were of no use. This time I used separate price cards to avoid the previous dilemma. The design was done by myself and Kristen Amaro Forster and was kicked off with templates from Alexis Miller. I did the biz cards, Kristen took the templates and reworked them into some awesome Tri-folds, and the price cards were a collaboration. All the printing was do at The Print Shop. Now, without further delay:

Tri fold front:

Back:

Price cards:

Biz cards:

I just wanted to say “Thanks!” to everyone that stopped by my booth at the Bridal World expo at the Dow Event Center yesterday. It was a busy day of setting up, meeting and talking with brides-to-be, and tearing down. It was my second show and I was much more prepared to convey my vision of wedding photography. I received a lot of positive feedback and interest for which I am grateful.

Also I’d like to add a special thanks to the following people/companies for making this such a success: My wife, My family, Kristen Forester (my designer), The Print Shop of Saginaw, and SignImage,

According to this article Conde Nast is shutting down Modern Bride and Elegent Bride magazines. While this isn’t a wedding blog per se, this does show a trend that’s going on in the industry. Advertising is moving online and ad budgets are shrinking.

http://www.jessicaclaire.net/

That’s really cool!