NY Wedding

The hot topic for June seemed to be all the rain. Quite a damper for all the June weddings. Luckily one of my big weddings for the summer was in July. And yesterday was a great day at the New York Botanical Gardens in the Bronx. The sun was shining, the breeze blew softly and the families were a true pleasure to photograph.

My friend and colleague, Kathryn Deem, worked with me as a second shooter -- we're a solid team and she's a great photographer. We arrived at 11am and were in the car pulling out of the parking lot with the last guests and family members at 12:15am. A long day but a very successful one. I shot a total of 2750 photographs (Kathryn had just under 1000). Did people ever shoot this much with film? The first wedding I did was in 2003, thanks to my college professor Joe Lippincott. I used 10 rolls of 36 exposures. Is there value in shooting so much more? It's a long editing process that's for sure -- thank god for Lightroom, my choice for editing software.I was drawn to the image of Lisa dancing with the blue light -- I was trying some motion blur shots and for this frame my flash didn't recycle quickly enough so it was ambient lighting only. Sometimes accidents are successful.


The sun was bright so it was essential to find shade for the portraits. Kathryn and I went out in a golf cart with Jason and Lisa to drive around the grounds for an hour to shoot portraits with them and stopped at this bend in the road covered in green leaves. The light was ideal and with a little fill flash I was really pleased with how the frames from this set came out -- the line of the fencing on the left and the soft canopy light from the trees filling the background were what interested me.


I love detail shots -- this shot of their hands holding during the ceremony is a strong image, although simple.


Lisa's dress was beautiful and I decided to hang it in front of this window and use one of the tables to display her shoes. A spotlight hit the table so I placed the shoes there and I think I achieved the affect I was hoping for with this shot.


The flowers were incredible and plentiful, as were the stems. The families arranged for the flowers to be delivered to a nursing home today so they wouldn't be thrown out and wasted. I took home a nice bouquet as well to enjoy in my living room.


Weddings are a lot of work and definitely exhausting, but I find myself dancing and laughing at some point in the night at nearly every wedding I have photographed (around 50). That's a good sign when you're at work.