Shot in New York last fall.
I can’t say I’m thrilled with the artistic value of this photo; however, these guys like this soooooo much there is no way I could leave it out. I have rarely seen people more excited about a picture as the one shown below…
Doesn’t this guy look like a young Prince Henry?
It’s been a long time coming, but I’m finally posting photos from my fall wedding marathon last year. Five weeks, four weddings, four states (other than Texas), and 1 ESOAL. It was a very busy semester, especially while taking 18 credit hours of college, but totally worth it.
Studying full time, working, and shooting weddings every weekend wasn’t the best thing for my GPA, but it all worked out in the end… barely 
Life is somewhat back to normal now. I’m working full time, taking my last 3 classes in college, and doing a few jobs on the side as I can fit them in. Anyway, here are some of the shots from the first of my fall weddings. The Erickson wedding took place in Missouri.
Well, I have a lot of weddings and such to post, but before I do I thought I would throw up a few pics of the fam in Indiana.
Benjamin
Elizabeth
Elizabeth
Like his older brother
My new neice Jaylynn - The hungriest girl I have ever met
Why is she crying, it had been about 10 seconds since the last time she had food.
Brayden!
Ashley and Jaylynn
Not easy to find - come on, everyone wants a Snuggy
Momma!
Go for it Jaylynn
Dad and Angie!
My 8 year old sister gives my Dad $10 for Christmas
Another moment that makes me a proud brother
Benjamin shooting my sister's gift with his new gun
Nanna
Papa and Benjamin
I remember telling Amanda how frustrated I was. Several of my “best” indoor church shots turned out underexposed. My first wedding was somewhat depressing; I tried so hard, and made no money. I spent over 100 hours photoshopping the images, and once I was finished realized that my monitor’s contrast was too high. This resulted in ghost-like spots on many of the darker images.
However, at some point in the months after this I learned a new trick. I had been bugged that some photographers could get such artistic shots in low lighting, and I couldn’t. The key is….. black and white.
When shooting digital, if you are going to err on any side of exposure, you should always err on the side of being underexposed. Highlights, or white overexposed areas, actually hold no color information, therefore digital correction is very difficult. Underexposed digital images still can hold good color information, which can be adjusted using various tools.
Now that shooting indoor weddings and events have become more common for me, I find myself adjusting underexposed images on a regular basis. On occasion, usually because the flash did not fire, or because flashes may not be allowed, I will have a very underexposed image; so much that basic color correction can’t help. I will show you a few examples.
At a wedding I was at this fall, I felt like the candid shot below was important; however, my flash did not fire, and it was too underexposed to return:
Using brightness correction tools (Curves in Photoshop) brighten it, however the colors are very distorted:
Simple solution; convert to black and white. I suggest using the channel mixer tool in Photoshop:
This is much better. In the above image I also increase the vignette to draw more attention to the center. I typically like to add a little color to create a warmer feeling. In the image below, I added a sepia photo filter with about 25% opacity, as an overlay layer to increase contrast, and then blurred some of objects in the front.
At this same reception, the room became more and more dark as the night went on and the sun went down. Here is another image that was important, but too dark to return “as is”.
Below you can see where I brightened the image; however, the colors are unacceptable.
These are some pictures taken for Rockwells Coffee, located in the great East Texas metropolis of Lindale, TX. I’ve taken several pics there over the years; this time around I’ve mixed it up a bit.
Expresso
Machine
I have a few other shots that were a little closer to my normal style:
I shot as a backup photographer for Krista Burns a few weeks ago at a wedding in downtown Tyler, which was a lot of fun. This being the case I haven’t sorted through many of the shots, but thought I would post a few.
I have been working on getting better at black and white photography. I am amazed at how much thought can be put into something seemingly so simple.
I know it's not actually b&w, but it's getting there.
Earlier this summer I had the privledge of shooting my good friend Matt and Bre Huff’s wedding. Matt and I share many good memories from living in the same house while interning at Teen Mania. We did things like cooking pankcakes in a bowl and hold regular contests to see how many sausages could be flipped at one time (I hold the record for that, I think it was 5). The weekend was a lot of fun; it was great to see many other old friends, and spend time with such nice family members.
Pictures are always more fun to take when people are comforateable with you taking them, and when they are having fun!
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