Alyssa and Chris chose to marry at the incredible event space Block 41 in Seattle, Washington. After their wedding, we stepped outside for a few brief moments between rain storms and got this image of them with a little backlighting and canoodling. Block 41 is an industrial event space on 2nd street in the Belltown Neighborhood in Seattle. The wide open interiors with updated modern lighting were the perfect setting for this modern Jewish wedding. The bride and groom chose a beautiful, flower draped chuppah that paired with the interior beautifully. The ceremony happened in the upstairs loft area followed by a cocktail hour in the downstairs space while the loft was prepared for dinner. Finally, after toasts and a...
How many hours have you spent planning your wedding details? Have you thought about what they are going to look like? How about what story they are trying to tell? Wait!?! Did you even realize that the details you choose can tell your story to your guests? Imagine an air force wedding where instead of showering you with petals, people throw paper airplanes at you as come into your reception. Or how about a culturally diverse wedding where not everyone speaks the same language. How about each RSVP card has a line where each guest requests their favorite song. Then people are not just guests at your wedding, they are active participants and get to claim their song. now my daddy...
Q. What’s your story? How did you two meet? A. We met on match.com about two and a half years ago. I emailed Brad first and he liked me because I had an Anchorman quote on my page. After a few emails we went out to dinner and a movie. We just hit it off right away. Q. Who proposed to who? How long did it take? Were you surprised? A. Brad proposed to me. He was planning the engagement for about 8 months. I was going on a family vacation to Spain and I invited him to come. He said he couldn’t take off from work. Then while I was in Barcelona sitting at a cafe with my mom...
The stakes are pretty high when you are shooting your little sister’s best friend’s wedding. Charlotte is this incredibly powerful and giving human being who lost her mom several years ago to breast cancer. Knowing how important it was to document her incredibly huge and supportive friends, we focused on all the connections. So many people flew in from all over the world for this wedding. It was sweet, tearful, incredibly silly due to our charming groom Aaron. What I love about him the best is his constant ability to make people laugh and feel at ease. Seriously guys, this wedding was incredible. We began the day at the Salon Baddhare owned by a dear friend, Rhysa. All the girls...
It was torrentially down-pouring during Charlotte’s bridal session. We had to come up with a quick alternative somewhere in Myrtle Beach, SC that wouldn’t cost a bloody fortune so I took a shot in the dark and called Ripley’s Aquarium and told them of our woes. They totally stepped up, invited us in free of charge, and let us have full run of the joint! This is absolutely one of my favorite images. Charlotte was crouching on the other side of the seahorse tank. I had my assistant lighting her from the left with a Lumecube. The seahorses, of course, followed instructions so well and all gathered on the front left of the tank so I had almost...
When Marissa and Huntington got married at Terranea Resort a few weeks ago, I knew how important the detail shot of her dress would be to her. I got to spend some time playing and shot the dress on multiple backgrounds but this double exposure is my absolute favorite. I shot 2 exposures, the first was a very small painting hanging in the kitchen that had wonderful colors and brush strokes. For the second shot, I hung the gown from a light fixture in the hallway. By setting the camera to the Light mode, the dress overwrote the colors in the painting. Then I brought the two original images as well as the double exposure into Adobe Photoshop, layered them...
One of my favorite types of shoots is, quite honestly, a long one. I love taking time to get my friends (Clients? Subjects? Genie pigs?) to relax, sink into their experience and just have loads of fun while still creating magnificent artifacts of their time with me. We usually start out with a drink or lunch, chat and laugh a lot, then dive head first into our session together. This was absolutely true with Liz and Grant, both of whom are newscasters at WFMY News in Greensboro, NC. I worked with Liz and Grant first for their destination wedding in Cape May NJ at Congress Hall. (I seriously want to shoot there again so let’s make that happen, folks!) We...
When Liz Crawford and Grant Gilmore, famous WFMY newscasters, contacted me about photographing their Cape May wedding, I knew it was gonna be epic. Two super cool people madly in love with each other in a gorgeous location. I probably counted down the days to their wedding as much as they did. Traci: Tell me the one thing you love the most about your Fiancé. Grant: The one thing that I love about Liz is that her beauty truly starts from within. From the love she shares with her family to her ability to connect with any person she meets, her grace never ceases to amaze me. Liz: I love how attentive Grant is. It’s very un-guy like of him....
Traci: Where and when did you meet? Let’s have the juicy details! Jennifer: My best friend saw him at a party and after 30 seconds of meeting him, she said, “do you have a girlfriend – my best friend would be perfect for you.” Then she texted me a picture of Mason doing arm-in-arm shots with his best friend with the tagline “meet your future husband.” The next night we went to a baseball game together, and the rest is history! Ahhhhh, Jennifer and Mason. Where to start. Jennifer is my “beat the windmill bride” bride. She wore running shoes underneath her wedding gown and was willing to do anything, and I do mean anything, for her bridal...
Traci: What is unique about you as a couple? Courtney: We’re (in my opinion) the perfect example of how everything happens for a reason and if something is meant to be, then it will be. Cody asked Courtney to go to the Batman premier with him several years ago after meeting her at a mutual friend’s house. Courtney said yes. But, as luck or fate or whatever you may believe in had it, the date never happened. Fast forward several years later. Thanks to social media, they began chatting and he asked her out again. This time, it happened…over and over and over again. Before they knew it, he was taking Courtney on an elaborate scavenger hunt in Cozumel,...
Traci: What’s your story? How did you two meet? Lauren: Brian and I grew up about 10 minutes down the road from one another in Kernersville/Walkertown, but did not meet until we attended college at UNC Charlotte. Brian’s whole life has revolved around baseball, playing for Brevard College, and playing and coaching club baseball at UNC Charlotte. One of my good friends played club baseball for UNC Charlotte, and Brian and I met through him at a baseball party. First, Lauren and Brian are totally gorgeous. I am talking cover model gorgeous. AND they love fine art photography. I’m so glad they stumbled across me on a web search because they were a dream. It’s hard not to talk about...
Emily and Matthew’s wedding was the perfect example of how access and time with the bride and groom can create some magically intimate and gorgeous photographs. Emily and Matthew dated for a year before getting engaged on their first anniversary. Their different personalities complement each other and they are a super sweet and balanced couple. Traci: What is the absolute best thing about your fiancé? What would they say about you? Emily: The best thing about Matthew is that he knows me completely – he understands me, tolerated me and loves me completely. Matthew says the best thing about me is that I’m so different from him. There’s no redundancy in our relationship. Therefore, there’s enough contrast between us that...
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