Agnes and Anthony

We live, right now, in a golden age for visual art.

Artist ego, peace, and spendy churches made for great conditions to grow masterpieces like Bernini’s Persephone and Hades and Michelangelo’s Last Judgement way back when during the renaissance.

A few years later, mass media, youth, and irreverent talent spawned a musical golden age with the Beatles and Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan.

We live, right now, in a time when more photos are taken and looked at than any other in history. Cameras now give anybody the opportunity to make whatever kind of image they want, and as many as they want.

That means, unfortunately, and inevitably, that there are tons of completely disastrous pictures being taken and shown. But I prefer to look on the bright side. It also means that more and more regular people are starting to know what a good photo should look like, just because they’re exposed to so many images every day.

This tsunami of pictures that rolls over us everywhere, all the time is gradually making us a discerning and visually aware culture. That’s really exciting, regular people have photo art as diverse as Anne Leibowitz and Ansel Adams, David LaChappelle and National Geographic, as a part of their visual common vernacular.

Mark Nielsen helped me out at Agnes and Anthony’s wedding, we were both struck by the dancer-like way Agnes used her body; concise and feminine. It influenced how each picture was taken after that first impression. The whole collection ended up reflecting Anthony and Agnes’s personalities, effusive, intense, and warm.

Samantha and Daniel

So many bad, and I mean bad photos are very authentic. I mean, they tell a story that’s the truth and nothing but.

Your dad making you stand for a picture at the zoo and you don’t want to and it’s written all over your face, or a snapshot with an ugly parking lot in the background (my personal pet peeve).

It’s authentic, it’s the truth. You really felt that way at the zoo, and there were really cars, lots of cars there when you took that snapshot. But they also happen to be not exactly the type of pictures you want to hang on the wall.

On the other hand, many beautiful pictures don’t always tell the truth. You can bring the perfect light in, pose your subjects just so, and create a technically perfect, pretty picture that is totally devoid of a story. Or you can retouch the photo to death, making the image a visual lie, or at least an picture of untruth.

An authentic and  beautiful picture, now that’s a challenge, but that’s what I shoot for each and every session.

Samantha and Daniel came out to meet me at historic Ybor recently for their engagement session, and we had a great time and made some great pictures.

I love how Samantha would look at Daniel with a look of longing and love and tenderness, and  how easy it was for Daniel to get Samantha to bust out with a belly laugh. They had great chemistry, and it showed.

Rikki and Chris

So we arrive in the limo to Rikki and Chris’s reception at the Rusty Pelican, and I find out the half of the spots I had picked out for great light/perspective/etc are not available to shoot!

Ok, breathe... and breathe again.

I took a few minutes to scope out something new. I hope I didn’t show it, but I had more than a little fear that I wouldn’t be able to pull off the kind of portraits I had envisioned.

But I look around and I see some great light bouncing up off the water there, some cool mirrors there, and these huge pier/support thingys that repeat in a nice pattern, etc.

I felt like Jason Bourne, he can walk into a room and fight you with whatever is available; a rolled up magazine, kill you with a towel, and blow the place up with a toaster.

But instead of looking for available weapons and explosives, I’m looking for creative light and perspectives on the spot. And instead of, well, killing people, I’m taking their picture. (yes, I am aware that my metaphor is an extremely testosterone-ly charged one).

I really lucked out with Rikki and Chris, they were totally game to experiment and try new stuff as we went. And even though they were a little self conscious at first (like everybody is), they quickly loosened and and let me see what they look like when they’re together, which is just what I’m looking for.
 

That's Kasey, the Maid of Honor and her boy Luke just before the wedding...

Meet Body, the Ring Bearer. I had to work overtime to get him to crack a smile for me.

We found this one totally by accident, Rikki leaned down to look at the water, and her eyes just, well they just caught fire

Over and over, I was caught by Rikki's form and way of moving

Sarah and Skory

Look through anybody's photo albums, and you'll see beach pictures, lots and lots of beach pictures. Well, vacation pictures anyway. You'll see anniversaries, parties, pictures of new cars and young kids.

You'll see people the way they want to be remembered; at their best and proudest moments.

There's some kinda instinct that kicks in when happiness or excitement ignites in the air of a room that makes a person need to take a picture of what's going on.

There were plenty of those moments at Sarah and Chris (Skory)'s wedding in Naples. Sarah had been planning her wedding for a long time, and it was overwhelmingly clear that she put a ton of thought and a truckload of effort into every detail and every decision. It came off wonderfully.  Her wedding was personal and refined, elegant and fun.

Sarah is a part time assistant to Kelly Werder, a planner and owner of No Worries Weddings and Events, who also was there on her wedding day, making sure everything ran smoothly with a cool eye and a practiced hand.

Sarah and Skory were at their proudest and looked their best, their happiness ignited each and every photo.

 

Michelle and Sean

I love, love, love the mind bendingly huge possibilities I have with my camera and lights and computer. Anything is possible, and that really gets me excited every time I focus and shoot a frame.


Sometimes I hear about photographers using this digital technology we got going on here as something to kick back and prop their feet up on. I mean, you can show up, let the camera do most of the work by shooting in some auto or semi- auto mode, send off your photos to be culled and edited by some company you found on the internet, and then drop the batch into a program that spits out an album.


But that's not art, right? It's so... formulaic. It's like finding out you can fly and shoot lasers out of your eyes, and the only way you can think to use your powers is to commute to work and heat up tv dinners.

I can set my camera to make a room feel bright and glowy, or moody and brooding. I can use lights to make an expression look dramatic or obscure, intimate or distant. I can use my computer to make a photo feel like you could step right over the edge of the frame, and into the scene. I feel like I have a whole production crew at my fingertips, and the world is my set.

When I arrived for Sean and Michelle's wedding, the first think I was struck by was Michelle's sunburst of a smile (I later found out Sean saw the same thing when he first met her). So I wanted to make the room and the rest of the wedding a metaphor for her glee; radiant and angelic.