On December 30, 2009, I had the honor of photographing the Wedding of Frank Sommerhage and Mercedes Gonzalez. This was probably the most fun I’ve had shooting this year – their wedding had a spontaneous, natural, lighthearted feel in the air. Planned just enough to keep things moving, the event had enough wiggle room to take the pressure off the wedding party, as well as providing me a larger window of artistic freedom.
Below is a video of my favorites; please keep reading below.
Shooting with short notice, I came prepared with an arsenal of equipment, as well as my handy assistant Michelle. Given that the wedding was in the bright outdoors in the afternoon in Lake Eola, I chose a bright, modern feel, utilizing off-camera strobes and flashes. While in the past I’ve stuck with purely ambient light, I’ve recently found myself offering two styles, depending on my client; either a fun, modern, bright and crisp look, or a traditional, soft, sensual look. For this wedding, I of course chose the modern feel, which has a very 3D look and feel created by using multiple artificial light sources.
Frank and Mercedes were very open to trying out different ideas; as the wedding progressed, we started to feed ideas off eachother and came up with some fantastic shots, which are now the front of my wedding and engagement portfolio, along with some recent shoots with Allie and Brandon. They were also a big help in finishing the wedding album, which was a great learning experience for me.
After a long and detailed editing and organizing process, I’ve posted a slideshow of my favorite pictures from the wedding, as well as placed them as a featured wedding on my examples gallery. The next big step: the wedding album. With over 1200 photographs to choose from, narrowing down and cutting out photos present tough choices. Luckily, though, the digital format allows me to place quite a few into the album and tell a story, with many tiled photos of an action sequence next to one large photo, for instance. You can flip through the album online by clicking the link to blurb on the right. Choosing these were quite painful, as there were many other photos to choose from, but in order to tell a story and keep the viewer interested, I had to cut some photos I really loved. This is the curse of digital photography: too many choices!
In a few weeks, I’ll be shooting a wedding for Carmen and Nick, where I’ll be employing a more traditional look to fit their particular needs and wedding style. Below, you can view the photos individually and blow them up to full screen. Please also leave comments at the bottom of the blog!
