a recent history in image sequence » Wedding

Mel and Jason’s Wedding

Dean — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 20:44:16 +0000

Two weeks ago I shot the wedding of Melanie Palmer and Jason Berg at the Elmhurst Art Museum in Elmhurst, Illinois with Brad. The day started out at the Berg household, where I followed Jason and family through the ritual of getting dressed and preparing for the ceremony. Back at the Art Museum (which by the way was designed by the amazing architect Mies van der Rohe) I set up for posed and strobed photos using my new Alien Bee and Pocketwizard combo. The ceremony was held outside the museum, adjacent to a local park. This was nice change of pace from the morning indoor church weddings I’ve been accustomed to shooting. Contrary to the weather forecasts for the day, it did not rain, but instead it was a very nice-looking, but SCORCHING HOT day outside. The reception included the usual wedding fanfare, but the museum setting, music, and celebration made everything super fun. Overall it was one of the most fun weddings I’ve had the pleasure to shoot thus far.

Photo notes: I feel like I’ve been out of practice for a while and missed some detail shots, wasn’t as quick to snap some moments, and spent a lot of time mucking around with my flash settings (I should have shot at a lower ISO, put my flash on manual, and just nuked the nice white ceilings since I had lots of extra batteries; I also should have used a 1/2 CTO gel — stupid tungsten house lights) but it was a great time and good re-learning experience nevertheless. I feel like Brad got better shots than I did but then again he had a very pretty bride to focus on at the beginning of the day. :P

Adam and Laura E-Session

Dean — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 20:10:03 +0000

After I shot Adam and Laura’s proposal they told me they were interested in doing an engagement session during thanksgiving break. I was very happy to oblige! :-)

He and Laura had a ton of great ideas for photo locations, so I drove out to Marengo / Belvidere and worked my magic for a few hours. Luckily the weather improved from a cloudy and rainy Thanksgiving week to sunny and mild during the weekend. It started to get cold during magic hour, but Adam and Laura were troopers — and we got to take most of the photos we had planned out. Thanks guys!

Matt and Jenny Proposal

Dean — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 11:06:39 +0000

Everyone’s getting married! Another one of the brothers from my fraternity, Matt (who graduated a little while back), came down from Chicago to propose to his girlfriend at the spot by an illiosk on the quad that they used to meet at after class. Scottie let me know about it the night before and thought that it would be a cool idea to creep on them through my lens like I did with Adam. However, we had no idea when they were coming or how they were going to be positioned. Nonetheless, it was still a really neat little moment to see from 50 yards away. I wish I had been creeping from a closer spot, and at a better angle, but such is life.

Adam and Laura Proposal

Dean — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 23:54:14 +0000

On Halloween my friend Adam took his girlfriend to Allerton Park for a scavanger hunt. Little did she know that it was really a setup for him to propose to her. :-)

I arrived with other friends John and Jared to set up the scavanger hunt, and my job was to take a photo of the moment of his proposal. Unfortunately, my camera ran out of battery and we were scrambling to get my extra battery / camera to me. Luckily, my other friend Mike was able to get my room open, get the battery, and drive half an hour to get it to me. As for the moment itself, it was pretty cool to see through my viewfinder. Unfortunately, the sun kept coming in and out of the clouds so I couldn’t really get a consistent exposure and white balance, and I wish I brought my teleconverter with me to get more reach.

I hid behind a ledge on the embankment of a mansion. Here’s the view from the other side of the lake. We were just going to go away after it was all over and let Laura and Adam leave without letting ourselves be known, but John and Jared didn’t hide very well apparently. They hooted and hollered accross the lake to congratulate them afterward. Laura said I looked creepy getting up from my hiding spot. :-P

Here’s Laura reading Adam’s letter.

We checked out the statue at Allerton before heading home.

And I got a few photos of Laura’s engagement ring.

Congrats guys!

Get Me To The Church

Dean — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 01:23:32 +0000

Sunday: Part 12 of a 13-part series of photos documenting my trip to New York:

[Warning: the slides might take a little while to load on slower connections.]

The big day arrived! My cousin Karina got married to a lucky guy named JV Alpas.
Lavendar theme + Philippine traditions + lots of family and friends = great wedding.
The photogs they hired were such pros! Nikonians though… D3/D700 I think. Ew. I chatted with em for a bit and let ‘em do their job. I wonder how their shots turned out. They ended up in the way of a lot of mine, haha.
The church lighting sucked as usual. I wonder if the pro photogs asked if they could strobe.

Headed over to the hotel. I took an hour nap because by now I had a pretty sore throat.
Got a ride to the reception hall from my uncle. Hors d’œuvres gallore! And open bar. :-)
THE RECEPTION WAS A BLAST! Did I mention open bar? Break out the Henne, haha.
Good food, great desert, and good music! Bust-a-move!
After party in the hotel lobby! I was pooped and passed out before my cousins who went out to get sammiches came back.

Photo notes: These may be a little underexposed, I edited on my laptop.