marissa and michael pratt winter engagement shoot

Yesterday Mike and I braved the cold with our awesome October 2009 clients Marissa and Mr. Michael Pratt- them more so than us- we were bundled up like the kid in a Christmas Story! We had the brilliant idea of having a fire pit to go back to and warm up in between shots...thanks for setting that up!!

There is a waterfall on the property we were shooting at and it made for quite the cool back drop.

Then provided a nice little set up for my ring shot with all of the ice ice baby

Michael Pratt grew up hauling bales of hay and stuff and was showing me their cool barn with all of the twine for baling the hay- and man, what an incredible back ground this made too with this light?

They put the OOOTT in Boot! Love this shot of them on the stairs leading up to the loft

Up in the hay loft was just........ yeah

Marissa is so beautiful and has the most intense blue eyes!

It's like they just jumped out of an old movie here

Did a little interior tractor shooting here

Mike thought it would be a good idea to see if this HUGE great dane would try to stick Mike's head in his mouth as a show of dominance... so of course I was on standby... but no dice! He just wanted our bagel!

Love the contrast here with the snow....extra special shout out to Miss Tammy Swales for her photoshop skillz...and I'll leave it at that

How cute are they? ?



Thanks so much Marissa & Michael Pratt for such a fun day and for being such troopers on this super cold day!!! We are totally looking forward to your wedding in October!

xxoo

Make sure you check out Mike's blog, for some more super cool shots

stephanie and john wedding at the rocky hill ct mariott hotel

Well HELLOOOO 2009!!!!!

Mike and I are coming into this new season with a BANG, and we couldn't be more excited if we tried! We have so many little tricks up our sleeves that are going to let us do what we love to do even better- we have some new team members!!! Which I am super excited about, watch for their intro blog post coming soon- and we are in general just so excited to keep pushing ourselves right smack out of our comfort zones.

Exhibit A:

Rocking the flash! And not just any old flash! We welcomed a brand new addition to our gear family the other day, the Nikon SB900 flashes. Now, to be honest I was a little skeptical. What exactly is THIS going to do that my SB800 didn't? Well. Silly me! This thing is SO DOPE. Nikon really has an outstanding remote flash- master-commander set up going on that we have dabbled in but never truly mastered to the point of reckless abandon. Until last night! Watch YO SELF people we are going to be tackling the off camera flash like we tackled available light and the video light- until it is our bee-YOTCH!! It' so much fun to challenge yourself to try new things and new technologies, at least we sure think it is and we just about exploded with excitement last night!

On a technical side note for anyone on the fence about buying an SB900- get this- the command dials are SO freaking easy to dig into from the master flash- and switching from master to remote to solo are crazy easy- also it now has a dial on it that makes jumping up and down in power or channel or between flashes super easy to do. The only downside is that even if you use it on manual power super low like Mike and I do, it chugs through batteries. But we are investigating our quantum battery options / rechargeable etc. Any input, leave it in a comment so we can investigate it more!!

OK. onward and upward- on to the images!!!!
I started off simple- shooting the cake with my SB800 backlighting it and my 900 bounced off the side wall to my left, on super duper low, like 1/64 power. Pure lighting deliciousness

During Stephanie's walk down the aisle I shot her future sister in law Becky, tearing up- all available light, no flash here

We only had a few minutes to do their formals before the reception started so Mike and I dragged down two cool chairs to the right in front of a window aka cleanish backdrop for us to try some fun backlighting. We put an SB800 behind them and both pulled from it. The benefit to doing this instead of using our video light is that there was really no way to quickly hide the video light, but since our flash has a little mini stand it comes with we just set it right down on the floor and viola! This is a typical Mike Romano type shot- he loves the darker more dramatic look-we kind of traded places so to speak for the day and each shot like the other, it was pretty funny

I am McLOVIN the lighting in Stephanie's father daughter dance... just enough light in the front and a nice crisp rim light

John's Mom was so expressive and fun to shoot!

John and Stephanie were very open to ducking out of their reception to do some more shots...which Mike and I were so excited about because it was snowing like crazy out! We did some recon and found this awesome little nook right outside of the doors to the ballroom! Complete with snow covered tree and brown walls... uh, we were in shooting heaven!!!!
To freeze the snow in mid air we backlit them with an SB800 on a stand that we both pulled from and then each utilized our 900's as we so chose to. I bounced mine off the side left wall at a super low power so as to not overpower them



We let them duck into this little nook that was protected from the snow fall for a moment and we shot some more! This was just available light here


This one may be my favorite. Yeah. It is!! I love it. Love it. Love it.

We were covered in snow, and so was our gear- good thing our D3's are so weatherproof!! Here is Mike working it

Once we were done with Stephanie she couldn't get inside fast enough, she was such a good sport! I caught her literally saying 'PEACE I'm OUT!!'


Well to say Mike and I are chomping at the bit to shoot our next wedding - Feb 21 with Kevin and Kerri!! Is a bit of an understatement!!

Special super thanks to Steph and John for letting us do our thing!! Congratulations!!

Check out Mike's shots HERE, or on Facebook!

adios, 2008!

Aye Dios mio! 2008 is almost OUTTIE!! I am sad to see it go... it was a great year- but I am even more excited to ring in 2009...

I am working on a recap of the year- there are so many things to celebrate both personally and professionally.... but I'll just touch on two of my professional favorites... one being the addition of my new team mate, Mr. Mike Romano! The second being the addition of my MVP, and Mike's MVP I'd wager as well... our fabulous fabulous D3's...

Having the eye and knowing what makes a good image to begin with is the A #1 component of everything. Let me just get that out there... but. But. BUT. butt. :)

When you have the tools to get what is in your head out, the way you actually see it... well hells bells people! That's awesome!

Whether it's the D3 or the new Canon or even a Diana camera, who cares as long as it's the D3! Just kidding. Really, as long as YOU can find the tool that is best for YOU, then HOLLA!!

So, with that.... here are two favorites, SO FAR!
Silly silly Mike! He makes the day go by even faster with his schenanigans and tomfoolery!

And the woman of the hour....my girl, my D3...! And if you think you see a new 50mm 1.4 G crazy awesome lens here you would be RIGHT!!

ashley + jordan, hartford engagement shoot

I feel like I am FREAKING OUT over here! For so many reasons! First, I love Christmas. I do. I love giving and planning surprises and decorating and Yankee Candles and Christmas Trees (I love them enough to capitalize them!!) And Holiday music! So I have ALL of them going right now in my studio! My Christmas Wreath Yankee candle is ablaze; Nat King Cole is singing away, I have my fuzzy orange slippers on and I just brewed a giant pot of Coconut Macaroon coffee! Yes, I will drink the whole pot- call me in 2 1/2 hours- if I can peel myself off the ceiling I will answer the phone.
I just went shopping for my family and have some awesome tricks up my sleeve for my people... I could just about implode all over my pretty keyboard trays with excitement!

And then there's this whole ENGAGEMENT SHOOT that I just shot with Mr. Mike Romano on Saturday. In my most favorite place, Hartford.

The thing I am the most pumped about is that it is totally new to me- I shot in places that I have never done an engagement shoot in before! It was like I was seeing my city in a whole new light- around every turn I was like - WHAT???!!! You can see the Travelers building from HERE? Like THIS???? Or the Colt Building? Or the hoo ha crazy metal shipping sculpture thing by the riverfront?? Yes, that is the official name.

Ashley & Jordan are so easy to be around- even though they kept telling me they were nervous, I was like, really? Are you sure? Mike and I both agreed that the normal beginning part of a shoot where we all kind of feel each other out lasted like, 2 seconds with them!

And without further ado... I bring you....

We started off heading towards the riverfront. But anyone who has been photographed by me knows that I am prone to stopping- something will inevitably catch my eye and I just have to give it a go! These stairs were no exception :)


And then I just had to get a little bit closer...and go all dark and mysterious about it! It's one of my favorites!


There was something about this view that really drew me in- the highway signs, the stairs... I have a thing for shots that kind of look like I am spying, but I of course am totally not! But I just like that 'unaware' look that these have...like I caught them just snuggling on stairs in public by the highway!





There were a fair amount of stairways involved in our shoot, now that I stop and think about it! They got quite the workout... I was like 'OK, go down the stairs! Now walk back up...slowly... OK now sit down! OK now go back down! Now drop and give me 20!'
Ashley is catching her breath here.... ;)


This view required them to scale an awkward little hillish thing- and was very weird for them to stand in as it was so off kilter- but- I LOVE IT!!! The background is SO Hartford! And so super pretty and architectural, and I have not yet seen anyone get this particular view of Hartford yet...!


YIKES! Jordan is looking pretty smokin' here.... I love this shot of him (and the Traveler's building ;)

Then by the riverfront there was this textured cement wall where I just asked them to cuddle and stuff...I love how Ashley was laughing here!

But then could rock the serious look just as well

On the walkway thing to the riverfront I knew I wanted to work this sculpture in somehow but not the same way that everyone else does... so I whipped out the 14-24...and froze! And then handed it over to Mike and was like 'Here you go! Rock it- this is SO your shot!' I know I am not wrong. Mike loves to gank my lens and rock the wide shots, it is something that he is really good at! So I took his 85 and I gave him the 14-24 and I am SO glad I did- this was a challenge for me to get something that SCREAMED 'SHOOT ME WIDE!' and I was like, Nope, it's an 85 1.4 for you, or nothing!
OK, enough nerd talk :)

love. love. love. They look so incredible in this shot, so happy, so pretty, so in love!

Oh it was cold out too! So what better way to spend a brisk cold day than by the water? Here I broke out my 105 2.8 MACRO lens- I really wanted to see what the compression did for this scene and I have to say I am digging it.


This next set up reminded me of the overpass shoot I did with my October Ten Eyck Tuesday class- it just screamed for a wide angle lens- or so I thought! But, I kept that macro on for this shot and similarly to the 70-200 we used in our workshop- The compression just looks so super pretty here. The moral of the story here? change it UP!!

An underpass can look pretty nice! Who knew!




Dusk is a great time to shoot in Hartford.... check out the Colt Building under their hands!

The blue sky played off the lights nicely...

And we're back to the Traveler's building again!! But different. This is one of my favorites!!!!

Now, how do you shoot the lights at Constitution Plaza in a new way? At dusk for one- what a great time to get the sky color in the shot




We stopped in to Spris, this really great restaurant right on Constitution Plaza to warm up, have some drinks and then dinner! (I would strongly advise making reservations, this place gets PACKED!) We had the best seat in the house (I asked ahead of time when I made the reservation) so that Mike and I could shoot for a bit outside


One of my most favorite shots of myself is one that Mike took last year, right in front of this wreath...so we had to revisit it and rock a shot for old times sake!!

So then I turn around? And see this super cool metal wall...and even though it has absolutely nothing to do with the lights, and the fact that you can't see them at ALL...I had to just shoot there. And OUT comes the trusty video light!!!

It was fun playing around with stuff and trying new ways of lighting them!


The lights are just great, really! What more can I say?? Here we used the video light to add a nice rim light along their faces for all of these shots







Ashley & Jordan I had SUCH a great time with you guys and am beyond happy with how these came out! Thanks for letting us play and try some new things...we are stoked for your BEACH wedding when it will be much, much warmer out...!

xxoo

Make sure you check out Mike's shots too!