A winter wedding with even more snow (which seems to be a theme so far in 2008), and a fantastic time for all at Hamilton's Scottish Rite Masonic Lodge.
Lesley and Mike hosted a wonderful celebratation, from the rings riding by remote control truck to the best man, to the paper airplane distance contest (kissing), and the dancing contests!
I was thrilled to be part of it! Congratulations!
Well, Laurie and Cliff had the last wedding of the year, on December 29, 2007. We had a lot of snow, so the wedding was all inside the very beautiful and elegant Verses restaurant in Kitchener. Laurie and Cliff are a fantastic couple, and fantastic hosts, too: the food, the party and the atmosphere was all truly exceptional!
Ok, a perfect Italian wedding and Kung-fu "lion dance," with the bride and groom participating! What could be better--at Toronto's elegant Columbus Center. A perfect November wedding for a perfect couple!
A very elegant, very tasteful and very lively affair in Guelph for the beautiful bride and very cool groom: from the eBar downtown to the glorious church and the Riverrun Center!
Later in the summer Nina and Deepak had a really fun wedding that I was glad to be a part of...from the early-morning ceremonies with the groom to the delicious food in the evening: a great time!
My clients always ask me what kinds of equipment I use. I'm not really sure why they do that; the camera, after all, is only a tool. The best photographers just use different kinds of cameras as a kind of short-cut to their vision, and to that extent, the camera doesn't matter.
But, and this is a big but, I do believe in taking your wedding seriously, and equipment reliability and quality matters on the day. Some makers of equipment have better lenses too, or special purpose cameras that are more suited to a certain style of photography.
Because I shoot a mix of photojournalism--where you don't even know I'm there, with any luck--and more formal traditional photography, I use a number of different cameras and lenses, some designed to see in the dark and gather more light than your own eyes, even!
I currently shoot with a Leica digital rangefinder, the M8, and a Leica digital SLR, the DMR. Complementing the Leica bodies are various Leica lenses--and I think they are some of the very best lenses in the world. The rangefinders are also very small and discreet; most people don't even know when I'm taking a picture!
I also use a Canon 5d, which is an excellent digital camera, as a backup, and some of Canon's best lenses as well.
Finally, I also shoot BW film, if you want it, with two Leica M film rangefinder cameras: an M3 which is a classic manual camera and its younger brother the M6.
Yes, this time from Lesley and Mike and Erin and Mark!
These are some recent engagement pictures from Cliff and Laurie, Sylvana and Matthieu and some from the CNE with Raffi and Bianca! I hope you like them!
Yes, I am the world's worst blogger. It comes from being busy ;) The shots you are seeing here are just trying to bring the blog up to date with the main weddings up to December 2007, and I'll start posting 2008 weddings next month with Leslie and Mike's wedding in Hamilton!
A beautiful, if a little wet (it poured and poured!) wedding at the University of Guelph and the Arboretum. I was happy to be a part of the day!
Congratulations to Jing and Fred! They had a wonderful and intimate wedding, and I was truly honoured to be part of their day.
So much to blog--so little time! A big thanks to Elizabeth and Steve for letting me be their photographer on their big day in July. I was really happy to be a part of this!
You don't want to get burned with your wedding photography.
"Shoot and burn" is what a lot of photographers today are doing for their clients: shooting digital images and simply turning over a disc of images.
Many brides love this when they sign a contract, because they think it's more economical, or because they think they're going to "do it themselves" (or have a friend print for them).
At its worst, wedding "photographers" (who are often just someone with a digital camera and no sense of printing at all) simply pass on a CD of barely corrected or completely uncorrected images.
The result in the hands of a waiting bride can be devastatingly awful.
At its very best, a professional photographer will colour correct, crop and work with the files before they get handed over to a bride on a CD or DVD.
But even at its very best it's still very difficult for someone who isn't a professional to finish the files properly for print, let alone design an archival album.
For example, skin tones should be individually tweaked on each shot for optimum printing.
Depending on how--and to what device-- you're printing (the actual print technology), what you get on the CD and what you need to print well can be very different things--even when it's delivered in good faith.
Sharpening of digital files, too, needs to be handled on a per-shot basis for best results.
In fact, one significant way of telling a good photographer from trouble is to look at their prints.
Exceptional photography, after all, has always gone beyond just a good negative: you need a breathtaking print--and that takes as much work now as it used to in the darkroom.
But even when the final output is the Web or a DVD, correction and work on the final image is essential.
The end-cost in terms of time and quality from many "shoot and burn" simply isn't worth it: having a CD of 1000 mediocre shots--all of which need fixing--is no-one's idea of a good time.
Not having great prints, books and albums from your wedding day and photographer is simply false economy.
I could say a lot more about this, but that's for another post.
The many problems involved in creating high-quality printing is one reason I don't supply finished digital files for printing to my clients unless we're under a commercial contract (where I know they have graphic designers and their own print workflow and quality control). I will sell RAW files for archival purposes, but they're even harder to print well!
In other words, for me as a photographer, without control over the original files through to print, I simply can't deliver the exceptional results I want for my own clients.
So what's a poor bride to do who has made this frustrating choice and is now looking at a CD instead of an album?
Talk to your photographer first! Make sure they can print to your liking.
If you're absolutely stuck, give one of us a call. We may be able to work with what you have, and create something good for you.
But be aware that no amount of after-the-fact image triage substitutes for someone who can visualize the final print when they take your pictures to begin with.
In other words, only you can prevent this particular fire; don't get caught looking for a fire-extinguisher at the worst possible moment!
Paul Kekish is a local artist and one of my nearly life-long and dearest friends.
His mixed-media and acrylic original artwork is simply wonderful, both in terms of colour and composition but also in the way he plays with archetypal imagery, expectations of scenery and even text.
His new show is called Es-per-rahn-to, and yes, that's phonetic for Esperanto--the lost artificial language of hope ;)
It's being held in Stratford, Ontario (where the Stratford Shakespeare festival is) on all through the summer at The York Street Kitchen, 41 York St., Stratford.
For more information, you can call 519-273-7041.
Paul's work is represented in Waterloo, Ontario, by the Eldon Gallery.
