Alex the Photo Blog

In case you missed the photos from Friday of Mario and Lindsey’s wedding, click here!  Now, check out Part two of their beautiful wedding at Donaldson-Bannister Farm in Dunwoody, GA!

Homemade cake by a family friend and Dad rehearsing his toast:

One of Mario’s brothers’ notes for his toast….

…and he was a huge hit.

There are two distinct ways to get a man on the dance floor, as shown here:

I shot Lindsey and Mario’s wedding in October last year on the same weekend as Rachel & Andy’s wedding.  I also recently met with the woman who helped with the venue to put it on, Linda Shulin.  When I initially met Lindsey & Mario and heard they picked a beautiful location that generally doesn’t host many events, I didn’t think much of it other than “cool!  I new venue to check out!”  During and after the wedding, I came to find out how much work went into just getting the wedding approved there, let alone the WORK they all put into it!

When Keri and I had our wedding, we did it semi-DIY by choosing venues where we could bring all our own stuff versus paying the venue to do it all or contract it out.  We thought that was a challenge at times.  Lindsey and Mario chose a historical home owned by the city of Dunwoody that had never seen a wedding in recent years and was being modestly maintained by volunteers.  Lindsey, Mario, their families, Linda and I’m sure a number of others made it happen through much paperwork, permitting, and heavy duty landscaping!  It helps that Lindsey is a lawyer and Mario is a landscape architect.  :)

I was told a number of hours were put in for many days making the venue as beautiful as it was that fall day.  The most notable of which is that the location where the actual ceremony took place (the grassy area with the hand-made-by-Mario white arbor) was an old swimming pool just 2 days before the wedding!  Mario, friends, and family filled it in and sodded it so they could hold the ceremony there!  I don’t know about you, but I’ve never heard of so much hard work going into a wedding on top of all that jazz about finding a dress, caterer, DJ, and god-awful photographer.  ;)  Check out the photos below from one of the most beautiful DIY weddings I’ve ever heard of.

This was a POOL a few days prior!

And finally, a groomsmen idea.  :)

Here is the other wedding from last summer that I completely slacked on putting on the blog.  Adam and Rebecca had a beautiful wedding in Marietta with their reception at the Roswell Mill (one of my favorite venues!).  The happened to be on the hottest weekend of the year, but fortunately they planned their wedding indoors.  It was quite a challenge getting any photos outside due to the 100 degree+ heat (as you’ll see in one of the photos below).  I made sure to only run outside for a few shots at a time as there is nothing worse than a hot and sweaty wedding party.  A hot and sweaty wedding photographer is a different story… I wore all linen to try and beat the heat but by the time I got to the reception even my pant legs were soaked.  A/C was my good friend that night.  :)

With the New Year comes reflections on 2012.  Though I have no grand ideas and emotions I’d like to emote, I will say I am launching a few ventures this year to help Alex The Photo Guy keep the business strong in the new year.  I resolve to shoot more projects for myself and hang out with Marc Del Santro taking photos out in the wilderness (I have a few ideas for 2013 on that).  I also resolve to market my wedding business harder, update my website, follow-up on emails quicker, and stay on top of the blog.  With the latter resolution comes two blog posts- both way late, as they were weddings I shot during the summer at the height of the heat wave.  I generally stay on top of blog posts, but with wedding season continuing strong from summer to fall I fell behind on these two on the blog.

The first wedding I’m making up lost ground on was Sallie and Aaron in Asheville, NC.  Sallie is one of my sister’s best friends and she had a beautiful wedding at the Biltmore UMC and Doubletree Hotel.  It was a beautiful location wedding, albeit a very hot weekend.  The one thing Sallie told me was “I HAVE to have a mountain view shot.”  My trusty second shooter, Curt, accompanied me on the trip and we spent a few hours the day before scouting locations near the church that we could get to and from before the reception.  In the end it turned out, the best shot was in the parking lot of the church.  Few people saw this shot with their naked eye beforehand.  That’s because the trained eye of a photographer knows he needs to to lay on the black asphalt with a long lens in order to avoid parking barriers and the rusted chain link fence below the hill.  Plus, it helped that the sun poked its head from behind the clouds for just a moment, parting the way for the mountains.  ;)

Here is part two of Andy and Rachel’s Park Tavern wedding.  Not surprisingly, Park Tavern knows how to host a good party.  You’ll easily see below that this wedding was quite the party.  :)

Did I mention I was the second most talented photographer at the wedding?

I’ve posted before on Facebook that often when sitting at a coffee shop editing wedding photos, I find myself smiling back at Photoshop.  Not because I love the program, my computer, or my coffee.  I smile because for wedding editing, I’m looking through photographs of two people on the best day of their life.  Almost every photo has someone smiling, laughing, dancing, and sometimes crying tears of joy.  Maybe it’s the dumb reflex part of my brain wanting to mimic smiling faces I see or perhaps it’s that through the hectic 8 hours of photographing a wedding day, I only get to truly reflect on the event when going through the photos days later.

 As a general rule, I’m not often outwardly emotional as my wife (who cries at sad TV commercials) would note.  However, having been married and seeing Keri walk down the aisle in her dress and having family and friends there, I know what it feels like to be overcome these feelings on this occasion.  I say all of this because I smile a lot at coffee shops, but the other day I found myself tearing up.  I’m not particularly close to Andy and Rachel, though I have spend time with them prior to the wedding and think they are a wonderful couple, so it surprised me to feel the saltwater welling up in my eyes.  It was the following two photos in particular that got me.  Maybe it’s because I was in that same spot a year ago and wish I looked as sharp as Andy in his tailored suit.   For me, seeing these two photos of Andy as Rachel walked down the aisle really got to me.  You can see the childlike reflex of pulling his hands from his pockets to holding onto his suit like a security blanket.  He was overcome with this inexplicable emotion of seeing Rachel for the first time in that long white wedding dress.  I’m glad I was able to capture this moment on digital film.

These two photos aren’t the most photographically impressive photos, but to me they evoke more emotion than most.  These two got me.  I’ll post one more that I thought was sweet, then get on to the rest of Part 1.  This next one is pretty self explanatory of the mother-son dance, and to be honest I think explains a lot about the two photos of Andy above.  (p.s.- Andy, I hope this didn’t embarrass you too much). 

Alright!  Now onto the fun stuff!  I have to first give a shout out to the vendors as they pulled of a beautiful and fun wedding!  Simply Charming Socials did the day of coordination and lovely decorations, Pink Cupcake Dreams brought delectably decadent cupcakes (I took a few leftovers home to Keri!), and DJ Andrew Wrobleski lit up the dance floor (more of those photos to come in Part 2!).

From time to time I get general solicitations from various photography-related groups.  Usually it’s to sign up for a mailing list, join a club, or buy something.  Recently I was contacted by the Society of Professional Mexican Photographers asking if I could write an article on children photography.  After some research found out that the SMFP (they spell photo with an “f”- much easier) seems to be the Mexican version of the Professional Photographers of America- an organization that I am a member of.  Initially I was skeptical due to the broken English email, but I realized that the vast majority of my blog posts are in broken English as well.  I was happy to write the article and send a few pictures along and I just found out it was put in their online newsletter with the potential for me to have additional opportunities for their Latin American distributed print magazine.  I don’t fancy myself a writer (see blog entries 1 through 156), but it helped that the limit was 300 words for the article.  Once I was rolling on it, the only hard part was keeping it to 300 words!  I realize I should do more of these when the opportunity presents itself.  You may ask why a Mexican magazine?  My answer is that I have no idea… but I’m not going to complain if it furthers my international exposure.  :)   Here is the article as it appears on their website.  I wrote the article in American English and they translated it to Mexican Spanish.  The full English version is further below.  Enjoy!

Here is the content in the original language.  I tried to avoid $100 words so it would translate a little better.  That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.  :)

“Taking photos of children can be a challenge at times. We’ve all been there when a mother has asked us to photograph an unhappy, shy, or otherwise difficult child. Here are some ways to get the photos you want while helping the child become more comfortable with you and your camera.

The first thing I concentrate on is finding a good location. If the child is very young, it can often be wise to take photos at the family’s home. This way, the child will be more comfortable with his or her surroundings and doesn’t have to venture far to be comfortable. Generally, I like to shoot outdoors with children (except for newborn babies). It gives them the freedom to wander around and explore. Your job is to follow them (on your hands and knees if you have to!) to catch that perfect smile and natural pose.  The idea is to let them have fun on their own and you catch the moments that happen. There will be many disappointing photos, but the good ones are GREAT because they are natural- no posing!

Always make sure to tell the parents to dress the child in comfortable clothes and no busy patterns. Try to avoid the color white if you think the child could get dirty. Ask the parents to bring along rewards for the children in case they get upset. That way you can say, “if you stand over here, mommy will give you some juice!” Just be sure that these rewards (candy, snacks, juice) aren’t messy and could discolor teeth or get on clothes.

I generally shoot in natural light with no flash. This allows the child and I to move around a backyard or playground and give them the space they need. If the child is being good and will sit and pose, I’ll have the parent hold a reflector to supplement lighting if necessary. I typically shoot with the Canon 5d Mark II and a variety of lenses. My most used lens is the 24-70mm because it will give me a good range of close up shots for faces and smiles as well as wide angle to get playground items or helping family members. Depending on the lighting, I generally shoot between ISO 100 and 400. The idea is to shoot what will give you a high enough shutter speed in case the child is fast moving!

The bottom line is to get outside, play around, and have fun! You’re bound to get good photos if you and your subject are having fun!”