Back in the autumn, I met up with Tara and Seth in Chapel Hill for their engagement session. You can see we were blessed with great light and had a fab time. I’m looking forward to photographing their Brier Creek Country Club wedding next year!
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This week’s image is an example of what can be done in 5 minutes when you’ve taken the time to scout out the location in advance. In this case, we had just a few minutes after the November ceremony at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in Raleigh to take some quick pictures of the bride and groom. I’d taken the time to head out the day before to check out the lighting at that time and had noticed that there was an area across the road from the church that would provide a nice backdrop of autumn colours and light at that time of day. We would have been quite limited in terms of our options for wedding photography had we stayed in the immediate area of the church, but just crossing the road provided us with a nice environment to work with. Sometimes a little effort goes a long way!
Geek info: Canon EOS-1D X with EF 70-200 f/2.8 L IS II USM @ 168 mm, f/2.8 ISO 400 1/1250 sec
Wedding Ceremony: Sacred Hart Cathedral, Raleigh, NC
Wedding Reception: Second Empire, Raleigh, NC
Cake: Second Empire, Raleigh, NC
Make-Up: Belle Trachenburg, Raleigh, NC
Hair: Alter EGO, Raleigh, NC
Dress: Reverie by Melissa Sweet
One of my favourite places for wedding photography in Raleigh is the beautiful Sacred Heart Cathedral downtown. So I was very much looking forward to finishing up my 2012 wedding season with Kimberly and Mike’s marriage there with the reception to follow at Second Empire, just a block or so down the street.
I met up with Kimberly, her mum, grandma and bridesmaids at the salon, Alter EGO, in the mid-morning and took some time documenting proceedings with the girls before heading over to the church for the ceremony. Sacred Heart is quite small for a cathedral (it is actually the smallest Roman Catholic cathedral in the continental USA), but what it lacks in size it more than makes up for in character, and is a place I really enjoy photographing for two main reasons: 1) it has some really nice, interesting architecture and 2) it is challenging to work in and forces me to get creative. With regard to this latter, the rules for wedding photographers are quite strict and we are basically required to remain in the choir loft at all times, which means we really have to work the situation to come up with interesting compositions and angles. The lighting in Sacred Heart is also quite challenging given the variations in intensity and colour from the altar to the back of the nave. The bottom line is that to take interesting pictures, you need to think quite a bit, change lenses and points of view quite a lot, use the features of the church for your composition, etc. I always find that kind of situation fun to contend with.
Following the wedding, we took some quick pictures outside before heading back in for the formals and, from there, on to Second Empire for the reception. After cutting the cake and some speeches, the Second Empire crew served an amazing luncheon. They are definitely a very well-oiled machine when it comes to catering for these events; the service and food really are fantastic. It was the second time I had shot a wedding reception there in the space of a month and I really think they do a fabulous job.
I’m not really a huge fan of table shots or taking photos of people while they are eating, so I invariably spend my time during this part of the day taking macro shots of things like the rings, bouquet, etc. We had some fantastic December light on this day, so I headed outside to make the most of it. During the slower parts of the day, I also look for the interaction between people while they are talking and document that without intruding or making myself obvious, which invariably leads to some great images.
Kimberly and Mike’s big exit came courtesy of a 1960′s Ford Mustang. What a fantastic car to make their getaway in! I was so jealous!
Congrats again to the happy couple and all the best for a long and happy future together!
Here are just a few of my faves from the day…
Some really interesting juxtapositions and rhythm. Well done.
Thank you, ladies!
I agree.
joe, you did a wonderful job on the engagement and wedding photography! there is no way to pick just a few! thank you for making kimberly and mike’s wedding so special for them and for us all!
Excelentes fotos, felicitaciones.
great Joe.
OK, so the “Image of the Week” thing got a bit beyond me in 2012. I will endeavour to do better in 2013! I know I get a lot of feedback from people when I post these, so thanks to everyone for their comments. I’m glad people other than myself get something out of it!
Not your typical wedding photograph this, but one that jumped out at me when editing a recent wedding and which appeals to me specifically because it is a bit different. Sometimes, I feel that as wedding photographers, we run the risk of getting stuck in a rut of trotting out of the same cookie-cutter images time and time again. It’s a fine line we walk between pleasing our clients and becoming too formulaic, and pleasing ourselves and being too esoteric.
Luckily, my clients do tend to appreciate some of the subtleties of what I try to do when looking for the beauty in some of the more mundane moments of the wedding day. This image is a great example of that as it was something I just grabbed instinctively as I saw the moment coming together. The bride was getting her make-up done and I took a quick minute to walk around the salon and see what the other members of the cortège were up to. I saw the bride’s grandmother sitting on the seats by the window directly underneath the poster playing with her camera and saw the potential for a good photo if she just turned around a little to give me her profile and replicate the image in the photo above her. She obliged and I got the pic I was after.
Thanks again for indulging me. I’ll post some more photos from this beautiful wedding soon…
Have a great week!
With the season over for us Raleigh wedding photographers, I’m already looking forward to what 2013 has to offer! First up will be Jessica and Bo, whose Carolina Inn wedding I will be shooting in a few weeks. Their Chapel Hill engagement session took place one grey Sunday morning in November, where we met at the Carolina Inn, had a leisurely brunch at the Carolina Coffee Shop where we had a chat and got to know each other a little better, and then headed out to take pictures around the area.
It was a fun-packed and eventful session where we laughed, cried and I got ambushed by a rather large and playful Irish red setter. What can I say? We all have to suffer for out art. Thankfully, I came out unscathed and so did the pooch.
Jessica and Bo have a lot of fun together and that definitely showed through in the photos. Again, direction here was minimal; I prefer to take photos of people as they really are versus setting up cheesy poses that look uncomfortable for everyone involved. This is Jessica and Bo as they really are: fun, happy and in love.
Here are a few of my faves from their sesh:
by Joe Payne
very nice
beatifull