TJK Photography: Weddng Photography Module, CDIA

Well, here is my first attempt at blogging, done at the request of our instructor as part of our wedding photography module at CDIA (my photography school.) I contemplated titling this blog "Why the *&$* am I shooting wedding photography?", but I ultimately decided that I really shouldn't alienate anybody who might see these images and say to themselves "hey, here's somebody I might like to have shoot my engagement or wedding!"

So here we go.....

One of the reasons I chose to go to school was to force myself to be creative in areas and situations that I wouldn't normally choose to photograph. Wedding and engagement photographs are definitely in that category. Not that I have anything against people getting married, or engaged, or against marriage in general, I would just prefer to shoot fine art, fashion, portraits, or sports. I had to go into the shooting days with the attitude of doing a fashion or lifestyle shoot, only with the subjects wearing wedding attire and being all lovey-dovey.

Part 1: The Engagement Shoot

For our "engagement shoot" we had 2 couples composed of 3 professional models and one shy intern from the modeling agency who was supposed to be doing wardrobe, but became a model when the 4th agency model didn't show. None of the "couples" were actually couples, but were expected to behave as though they had just become engaged. Who knows, maybe someday they will.

Gabe and Tiffany....aka couple #1

We did the shoot around the Georgetown waterfront in Washington, DC, weather was hot and humid. There were 12 photographers, 1 instructor, and 2 couples all trying to get those original, genuine images that we could be proud of for our portfolios. Sort of like a bunch of paparazzi all trying to get that 1 original photo of Bennifer at the beach....about as fun as....hmmmm...a root canal, maybe?

I took this opportunity to break out my Lens Baby, and shot the whole day with it. I started with a fairly wide aperture..5.6 which gives a pretty heavy blur effect around the perimeter, as you can see here.

Being apart....

...coming together, looking ahead to a happy future.

Yeah, yeah, I know...I need some crackers with the cheese.

The black/white image processing was done with NIK software Silver Effex Pro.

Acting 101....making it look good.

As I said before, there were 12 photographers. Our instructor kept saying "don't be afraid to include your classmates, make them part of the story!"

So, here it is: using the classmates to tell the story.

I set this shot up on the center lane line, and asked them to skip away and back. And they both could skip. Nice job Gabe!

There is a painted building under the bridge on the waterfront. The instructor paused us there, and everybody in the group got variations of the same image. Here is mine:

My Lens Baby working hard.

The next image is my favorite from the day. We were practicing shooting "through" things to do something interesting. The dappled shade was giving some nice soft light, and the models had one of their few genuine moments (or at least it appeared genuine, anyway.) This also looks the most like my fine art photography. I processed with the Silver Effex software using the soft IR film filter.

We moved over to Jack's Boathouse under the key bridge for the next series. A really great place on the river to rent kayaks or canoes, and spend an hour or 2 paddling on the Potomac...http://www.jacksboathouse.com/ for anybody who's interested.

Next is the final image of the series I put together for "couple" #1. I really like the green and white building, which is right next door to Jack's.

I didn't shoot the other "couple" quite as much, but I did end up with a couple of shots of them that I like...so here is couple #2, Jake and Katy. Katy is the intern who got drafted into modeling for us, and although she was nervous she did a pretty good job most of the time.

I shot more detail images of these guys, which is why you don't see them in these 2 images.

The last image I'm going to share from the engagement shoot was done at Jack's Boathouse again, I really liked the color of the boats leading to the gazebo, and our "couple" did a pretty good job looking like a couple. The hardest part was getting the other 8 photographers out of the frame for 30 seconds or so to be able to get this shot.