Twelve hours of shooting and just under 1000 shots later, I completed my second wedding. The pace was much more hectic compared to Garret and Aki’s wedding, but we hung in there and stuck it out… we had no choice! Dan and Jasmine Perry were another AWESOME couple to work with. They had so much energy! 

I was really hyped up for this wedding… until I walked into the bride’s hotel room and heard someone yell “PATRICK!!!”. The room was full of about 10 girls and I had no idea who said it. Then I looked up, and in front of me was sitting AnneMarie, a facility manager from my old job. Before I could even say hi, she was already telling the bride that, “You have THE BEST photographer!” … at that point I felt the pressure.

Well… the pressure didn’t get to me. I took more than a few shots that I consider very successful. I’ve only edited the pre-reception shots so far. Here are the ones I like the most.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some things I learned/realized on this shoot:

1. The whole tradition of the groom not seeing the bride in dress was made up by some anti-photographer who just wanted to make my job harder.

2a. Wedding photographers should really be included in the planning process of the wedding day. 

2b. An outdoor wedding ending 20min before sunset is not a good idea when you have alot of family pictures to take.

2c. 30min to take family, bridesmaid/groomsmen and bride & groom portraits is not enough.

2d. …especially when you get to the bride & groom after sunset.

3. An awesome DJ makes the night reception so much smoother.

4. Valet parking makes having to get gear in and out of the car real easy.

5. I love wedding food. 

6. My $85 50mm f/1.8 lens still reigns supreme… with my 85mm f/1.8 in second.

7. A good photographer works with what they’ve got and still gets great results.

Here’s a little video from a shoot back in January at SleekTees headquarters in Orlando. 

Check out more of Legendori @ legendori.blogspot.com

It was my first time shooting at night with my strobes so there was a bit of a learning curve for me. I was using an Alienbee AB1600 with Speedotron beauty dish for the key light, two Elinchrom d-Lite2’s with softboxes for background/hair light, Elinchrom Skyports for wireless triggering and a Vagabond II for portable power. Here are the results:

 

 

You ever get used to doing something the same way for so long that eventually you just WANT to do it differently for the sake of maybe living a little dangerously or maybe just seeing what the results are?

Well… this weekend I just wanted to shoot some photos and just try a new style. I want to start focusing my on my post processing techniques and try out some new compositions by cropping differently.

(Cousin Kristen and her dance group performing at PhilFest. Instead of cropping with points of interests on third intersections, i’m trying eighths. this is on the seventh eighth. This is not a good photo at all, for so many reasons. It is a perfect example of my thought process… doing something the wrong way many times to learn how to do it one right way.)

(Sometimes you just have to work with what you’ve got. I didn’t get a good spot near the stage and I’m really short. Frame within a frame shot. I decided to convert to B&W because of the grain from shooting at iso3200. After that, I didn’t even bother doing any noise reduction in Lightroom because now I actually wanted the noise.)

(Benny eating some Halo Halo. Just trying the lomo look…. kinda. I could’ve pushed it more.)

(Benny has an awesome couch. I posted this picture because I’m trying to take tighter shots more often. After shooting wide (18mm (crop) or 28mm (full frame)) for so long, I noticed that alot of my shots were just huge areas with little subject matter to focus on. Shooting longer (50mm and 85mm) forced me to think more about the shot to actually show less. Wider shows more, longer shows less.)

Here’s a link to some great photos taken by a Canon 50mm f/1.0 L. The photographer is Mark Harvey. All I know is that he’s stationed in Korea for the military. I stumbled onto this link because I was surprised to see that he is selling this awesome lens for $3500. 

I shoot at 50mm more than anything else, so I just wanted to share this. The lens is super rare and is regarded as one of the fastest lenses ever made. From what I’ve gathered, the fastest lens ever made stops down to f/0.77 and is used for xrays. The qualities of this lens are amazing. It really takes some skill and patience and a steady hand to shoot at f/1.0. 

I’m shooting another wedding this Friday. Stay tuned.