Anna & Jeff – Mendon New York Wedding Photography
I would be hard-pressed if I had to choose just one word to describe Anna and Jeff’s wedding at Westminster Chapel in Mendon, NY. Family. Love. Happiness. Each word could equally stand on its own; however, combined they equate more than they would otherwise individually. And, actually that is very much a testament to the bride and groom.
Weddings inherently involve the merging of families – some big, some small, but altogether two families ultimately come together to form a family anew. Anna and Jeff’s wedding was no exception and their families were a pleasure and joy to work with a be a part of while photographing Anna and Jeff’s wedding.
What would any wedding be without love, right? Anna and Jeff’s wedding had love abound; it was evident from the night of the rehearsal just how much these two loved each other, and there was no shortage on the day of the wedding either! Even after subjecting Anna and Jeff to a lengthy formal wedding photography session – thank you both for you patience – these two newlyweds were so enamored with one another they did not seem to mind one bit!
Finally, Anna and Jeff’s happiness is evidenced throughout their wedding photographs. From their first kiss during the ceremony, to the formal wedding photography session immediately following, and throughout the entire wedding reception, Anna and Jeff are one happy couple!
Anna and Jeff, congratulations to you both and thank you for the opportunity to be a part of your special day in what is sure to be a long, happy, and prosperous marriage. I thoroughly enjoyed photographing your wedding and capturing the myriad of special moments on your wedding day. Here are just a few of my favorite wedding photographs from Anna and Jeff’s wedding at Westminster Chapel.
Leslie & Brandon – Rochester Wedding Engagement Photography
This past weekend I photographed an engagement session for Leslie & Brandon, two Fairport natives whose wedding I’ll be photographing in a few weeks! For this engagement session, I traveled to Erie and spent the afternoon talking with them about how they met, various stories growing up, oh and taking some photographs along the way too. :)
Engagement photos are a great precursor to wedding photographs – Leslie and Brandon were able to get a feel for how I will photograph their wedding, and I can get a good idea of how they react to the camera. During the photography for their Rochester wedding, I’ll be able to draw on the engagement session to achieve more fluid and less invasive wedding day photography. As a Rochester wedding photographer, I’m committed to delivering the very best wedding photographs – engagement photos are one way that I differentiate myself and offer truly exceptional wedding photography.
Here are a few of my favorite photographs from Leslie & Brandon’s engagement session. Enjoy!
Sarah & Brian – Belhurst Castle Wedding Photography – Geneva, NY
In May I’ll be photographing the wedding of Sarah & Brian at the Belhurst Castle in Geneva, NY. Today was the first time I had an opportunity to met with them (they currently reside out of state), and I’m even more excited to be a part of their wedding day! I spent the afternoon touring the grounds with them in preparation of their wedding photography – discovering areas to shoot their formal wedding photographs and to get an overall feeling for the schedule of their wedding day.
The events coordinator, Carmen, has been a part of Belhurst for over 20 years and she was extremely helpful at answering Sarah and Brian’s wedding-day questions and putting them both at ease. Part of the stress of planning a wedding is answering the question, “Who’s going to do what – when?”. Belhurst’s attention to detail and customer-oriented approach is exceptional, putting any wedding-day jitters to rest and reassuring the wedding couple that every detail is masterfully and thoughtfully taken care of.
The possibilities for wedding photography on the grounds of the Belhurst Castle are more or less limitless; it really depends what style of wedding photography the bride and groom gravitate toward. For Sarah and Brian, I’m going to concentrate on edgy, sexy, fashion-inspired wedding photography with a look similar to that in a high-end magazine spread. We even discussed some ways of shooting the formal and bridal party wedding photographs in unique and different ways to really punctuate the desire for artistic and truly original photographs.
I brought my camera along and took a dozen or so photos while walking around the Belhurst grounds, talking about the wedding day in general and specifically the wedding photography. I’ve included a few of my favorite photographs below (I really like the photograph of Brian looking out at Geneva Lake and the photograph of Sarah silhouetted while standing next to the wrought-iron door inside the Belhurst Castle).
Caitlin & Erich – Rochester Wedding Photography
Spring is almost here and that means we’re inching closer to the beginning of another fantastic summer wedding photography season in Rochester, NY! I’m especially anxious to get back outside and start photographing what are sure to be some truly amazing weddings this year. So far, I’m scheduled to photograph weddings in a variety of unique locations from Sonnenberg Gardens in Canandaigua, NY to Gathering’s at the Senator’s Mansion in Churchville, NY.
In August, I’m photographing Caitlin and Erich’s wedding in Scottsville. This is a couple who is very on top of things – finding time to assemble a wedding web site blog with details on places to visit and things to do for guests visiting from out of town. Creating a wedding web site is a fantastic idea as it allows easy dissemination of information to a large group of people quickly and effortlessly – the blog format increases readability and maintenance too. Blogger.com is a free service from Google that allows you to setup a wedding web site blog effortlessly – try it now and spread the news that you’re getting married (and that you’ve found that perfect wedding photographer)!
As an aside from wedding photography, I was downstate last week and took a few photos of the Lain family farm in Westtown, NY. Here are a few of my favorite pics, and one additional photograph of my cousin Michelle during my trip down to Florida over Christmas. Enjoy!
Some New Friends and Some New Gear.
I met with my latest wedding couple, Kevin and Brittany, today at Starbucks to meet Brittany for the first time and to go over some great ideas that they both had for their wedding in June of 2009.
I can tell already their wedding will be fantastic, and I’m really looking forward to photographing their wedding next year!
Earlier today, I took delivery of some new photography gear that I will use immediately this upcoming weekend for my family portrait photography shoot in Webster. I purchased a new polarizing filter, UV filter, and some nifty cinch straps that will allow me to attach my tripod to my gear bag. I also picked up a new petal-style lens hood for my 17-85mm lens.
The lens filters were made by an Italian company, Hoya, and they are all multi-coated to reduce reflection, light scatter, and flare. :) The only downside is they’re about twice as expense as non-multi-coated photographic lens filters. :(
But, you can’t compensate for a fine piece of glass. ;)
I took a few snapshots of before and after pictures with the polarizer, the difference is remarkable!
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Flooded.
After about 30 minutes, the skies had cleared and the sun was beaming down. Craig and I watched as all that water disappeared into the storm drains – which was pretty neat because the water made a little tornado-esque vortex as it drained. Neat-oh!
Later tonight, when I got home, I decided to tackle my first relaxation technique for this week – meditation! It was a little weird at first, and took me a while to get settled in, but once I did it felt really good. I have to write a small lab report about it, so I’m not going to repeat information. But, it felt good – not only to cross it off my list of things to do, but physically, it was rejuvenating. :)
I think after photographing an engagement session or taking wedding photos, I might implement a little meditation time afterward to refresh and rejuvenate my mind! The next time I’m hired as a wedding photographer, I’m going to try and work in some meditation time. Shooting weddings is very much a non-stop job – I concentrate on delivering the best and most creative wedding photos possible, that it’s simply difficult for me to slow down. :)
Relaxing Lunch Retreat.
Seeing as how I had hot dogs for lunch on Tuesday, ham on Wednesday, and today an offering of pork, I was a little bit cashed out on swine. So, I did what most would do if they found themselves in a position similar to mine – leave for lunch. :)
My good friend Craig and I decided to go to Wegmans for a very relaxing lunch retreat. The Wegmans in Penfield has picnic tables along the right side of the store, a fact that is very unknown to most – including myself until today. We ate our lunch in the bright sun and afterward laid on the tables while discussing how to solve the world’s problems. I took a picture of myself laying on the table with my iPhone and sent it to my wife so she could partake in my joy too! :)
Afterward, I went back to finishing up the web site for Lindsay. The site had been a very slow work in progress for about 2 or 3 months so finishing it felt extremely satisfying; however, it will always be a work in progress as we unveil new upcoming events and list progress reports.
Check it out! http://www.LindsayGraygoEmpowermentScholarship.org
Afterward, I finished up some lingering yard work left over from the past weekend, including repairing some lattice work and priming it before I get a chance to stain it THIS weekend – sometime after working on my mini-paper for my Stress Management class. ;)
I also spent some time in the evening retouching some wedding photos, and researching some locations in Upstate and Rochester, New York for wedding engagement photography sessions.
Wedding Photography At Keuka Lake.
I photographed James and Luba’s wedding on Saturday and I’m very pleased with how the wedding photographs turned out.
I spent most of Saturday photographing the wedding, which was right next to Keuka Lake in Upstate, New York. I wrapped up taking photographs by 5:30 and I was able to manage a few hours at home afterward to import the nearly 2,700 wedding photos, select all the good images, kick out the bad, and have them posted online by 12am!
There were some really excellent images that I was able to capture that I hope to post in the coming days. This was the first wedding trying out a new post-production workflow and I was pleasantly surprised by how quick and efficient the new workflow is – it will dramatically cut down on the amount of time I spend post-processing photos.
On Sunday I received confirmation that I would be shooting some family portraits in July at the Webster Arboretum which I’m really excited about! I’ve never shot there before, so I’m looking forward to it!
The weather in Rochester, New York has been gorgeous, perfect wedding photography weather!! :)
Do West-Coasters Get SAD?
Today is the Chase Corporate Challenge at RIT and I’m excited because I’ll be getting out of work a little early to join the other 11,000 participants at this year’s race. Though, I’m on the fence if I’ll run, walk, or just hang back with my wife and help her out at her company’s tent. :)
I’m going to bring my camera and see if I can’t pop of a few shots before the race starts. If I end up not running, I’ll take a few pictures of the race start and of the first hundred finishers and my wife’s team’s picture too!
Portrait photography is something that I’m starting to really enjoy, along with wedding photography and fine art photography. There are so many beautiful locations in Rochester, New York and really in Upstate, New York in general. Photographing weddings in Rochester is truly exceptional!
It is beautiful outside! Something that I’ve noticed is that I’m much happier when the weather is very sunny and warm. I started reading forward into my Stress Management text, to get a jump start on things and not fall behind, and in the chapter the text refers to SAD, a phenomenon that occurs when people do not get enough sunshine – such as in the arctic circle. While I definitely do not suffer from SAD, it was interesting to read about the link between weather and personal health altogether.
There’s a consensus that folks on the West coast are a lot happier than us East coast folks, maybe there’s a correlation there. Can sunshine make one warm on the inside too?
Anywho – I’m excited for the weekend, as I’ll be photographing a wedding in Keuka Lake, New York which will kick start the wedding photography season in Rochester, New York. ;)
I’ll post some of the wedding photos later on in the weekend. It’s gorgeous outside – warm, sunny, and 70º!