Trash the Dress - Champagne explosion

Last night I did a Trash the Dress shoot, my first one ever. Towards the end of the night we set up shop near a beached boat and fired off some champagne. Here is my favourite resulting image:

One photo from a recent wedding

Here's a photo from a sand dune at a recent beach wedding.

Perspectives Photo + Cinema - An Outsider's View

Separately Perspectives Photography and Jared Brandon Productions have produced reliably stunning work. With a clear passion for creating beautiful wedding photos and stunning wedding videos these two teams of wedding creatives have been a source of inspiration; they know their equipment back to front and know exactly how and where to push it to create beautiful results. Now, in a mind bogglingly awesome move, they have joined forces to create combined wedding photography and video packages to completely capture you and your day. For those prepared to pay the premium that experience and talent come with at the upper end of the wedding market these guys will certainly be a force to be reckoned with.

Photography Style - an outside photographer's perspective

Isaac, Amber, and their helpers consistently produce stunning images from all parts of the day. Common features of their work appear to be the appropriate use of high powered flash and ambient light in their photo shoots. Critically the decision to roll with a shot dominated by flash or ambient light is a function of the setting/conditions and vision of the photographer rather than the blind application of a preferred technique. Indeed the subtle use of remote flash is also frequently employed to enhance an otherwise flash free image. All in all the Perspectives team know what they're doing and, if you like what they do, are well worth the money.

Video Style - an outside film-maker's perspective

Jared Brandon seems to be something of a pioneer in the New Zealand wedding video market. Drawing inspiration from established professionals outside of New Zealand he appears to take a more cinematic approach to wedding videography than what most people think of when they hear the phrase wedding videography. While the use of dSLRs is part of this - helping to achieve the cinematic look through their ability to produce images with shallow depth of field - the key aspect is in the departure from recording a wedding day. Instead Jared appears to focus on recording the story of a wedding day. By focussing on recording the story rather than simply recording the events his videos seem to invite you in - you feel like you are part of the day instead of just a spectator. You feel the emotion rather than witness it. You cry as they cry.

The Joint Venture - a prediction

This joint venture will be successful. However, given that they would each be successful alone the notion of a successful partnership may seem to be something of an obvious statement. Here though is the key. This venture will be successful because of the speed at which they will help their clients find what they are looking for. People who care about great images should care about great photography and great videography. While people often ask photographers to recommend videographers and vice verca this new venture does that immediately and demonstrates the added value that the other side can bring.

Check them out yourself here:
http://www.perspectives.co.nz/

Post Processing Wedding Photos - An Example

 Post processing is an important part of wedding photography. It's the difference between a  wedding photo that looks ok and a wedding photo that looks great. To help demonstrate this point I have included an example below

The picture above is the original image. While it is a wedding photo in that it contains a Bride and a Groom and looks kind of nice there is a lot of room for improvement. 

• First off the colour temperature is off; The Bride's dress is blue and the sunset isn't as stunning as it could be
• There is a strange spot of lens flare down by the Bride's legs
• There is something strange in the lower left corner

Luckily as the photo was shot in RAW format all of these issues can be corrected. If this photo has been shot as a jpeg we would not be able to change the colour temperature.

The results of the post processing are below:

To get from the original image to this image:

• The colour temperature was warmed up to make the dress white and the sunset more orange
• The lens flare was removed
• A vignette was added to darken the corners of the image and draw the eye towards the centre. Fortunately this has also knocked out the strange object in the lower left. If it hadn't the object could have been removed using a clone or heal tool.

Good stuff! This adjusted image now takes pride of place on my wedding photography website.

While these adjustments were made using Lightroom they can also be made with free software. By combining Gimp with ufRAW you will be able to open RAW files and heal irregularities (such as the lens flare in the original shot) in the image.

Gear Homestead - Wedding Photos

I wanted to share some photos from a wedding I shot at Gear Homsetead in Porirua a while back.
These will make their official debut along with the new Patten Makers Photography website (being developed by The Techroom) later in the week.

While I am an Auckland based wedding photographer I do enjoy travelling to Wellington and I can provide wedding photography in Wellington if travel expenses are covered. At the time of writing this full day packages including travel costs come in at around $2200 depending on fluctuations in flight, rental car, and accomodation costs.

If you're looking for an Affordable Auckland Based Wedding Photographer for your wedding photos you can check out our wedding photography packages by clicking here.