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Posts Tagged ‘Wedding’

Photography, Portrait, Wedding | 0 comment

Fall Engagement photos

©TimeLine Media - NOVA engagement photos

When the season start to change from Summer to Fall in northern Virginia, we are so lucky to have some beautiful light outside to make photos. These two asked me to make some engagement photos prior to their wedding next summer. With the sun going down earlier in the day, and the weather being a little milder, it was a perfect time to have a nice portrait session. Green Spring Park in Annandale, VA is a beautiful backdrop for photos. There is a lots of green areas, flowers, as well as structures that are perfect settings for all kinds of photos.

©TimeLine Media - NOVA engagement photos
©TimeLine Media – NOVA engagement photos

The 18th century historic home has beautiful red bricks and green shutters that are looks like printed backgrounds that photographers roll out in studios. Having the real thing to work with is much better! Although I was disappointed that a very large tree at the back of the house did not survive the last winter. But even the stump makes a great seat!

©TimeLine Media - NOVA engagement photos
©TimeLine Media – NOVA engagement photos

If you have any reason to get some family or other portraits, please let me know! It is very close to the holidays, a great time to update family photos. I know I will be making a lot of new ones this year.

©TimeLine Media - NOVA engagement photos
©TimeLine Media – NOVA engagement photos

TimeLine Media – www.timelinedc.com
703-864-8208

Event, Personal, Photography, Wedding | 2 Comments

9 Years!

Wedding photos

9 years ago, my wife and I were married! A time before social media, touchscreen phones, and surprisingly, almost a decade ago. This being a photography blog, this is a perfect forum to go through the old photo archive and look back. 2004 was near the start of the digital photography explosion. Our professional photographers used both film and digital cameras to cover our wedding.

Anniversary

When we purchased the negatives, we actually got a folder of film negatives! Our favorite photos were shot from the film camera. It was, of course, the more mature medium, and they knew how to get the most out of the film compared to the digital captures. I remember Yakov used a Nikon F100, and Don used a Canon 10D with battery packs on their flashes hung on large brackets. It was my first up-close look at how a professional wedding photographer works. I suppose my life changed in more ways than one that day!

Wedding photos
Wedding photos from 9 years ago

We did have our own digital camera, a Nikon (of course) Coolpix 5700. It was my first digital camera, and I used it every chance that I could. I tried to work image composition, experimented with lighting, focus, and re-learned all the lessons of photography that were difficult to learn without the instant feedback possible with digital captures.

Wedding Photography

Today, I am helping to make new wedding images for couples, and October continues to be a popular time in the DC Area for weddings. I did now know until my fiance picked this date, that it is the BEST time to get married! The really hot and humid weather is gone, but the real cold has not moved in. It is appropriate to have saturated fall colors in the clothes and flowers in the day. Looking back, it is so nice to see how we can enjoy some time outside for our photos as well as to have earlier sunsets for nice portrait light. Aside from the technical side, these are priceless memories of our family gathering and celebration. I will have to remember this the next time I go out to photograph another wedding.

Wedding photos
Wedding photos

TimeLine Media – www.timelinedc.com
703-864-8208

Ballroom Dance, Event, Photography, Wedding | 2 Comments

Dutch Angles – Tech Thursday

©TimeLine Media - Dutch angles in dance photography

This is a controversial subject in photographic circles. “Dutch” angles or shooting with the camera tilted from being straight with the horizon is a popular stylistic choice at this time. In browsing wedding photographer websites, I see the Dutch angles in many photographers that describe their style as photo journalistic. This stems from photographers that were chasing images to make newspaper headlines more loosely composing images just to “get the shot” no matter how straight the composition.

Chasing Photos

If you are chasing a person of interest, or in a war zone, it is understandable that you cannot always carefully line up images due to time constraints, or keeping your body from danger. The first working photographers I was exposed to in my career were wedding photographers. So many of them use this technique as part of their style. They are trying to create a different angle and change how images look especially if they have been made hundreds of times at different weddings in the past. In fact, I saw what they were going for, and I really adopted this as part of my photography.

©TimeLine Media - Dutch angles in wedding photography
©TimeLine Media – Dutch angles in wedding photography

There was a stark change in my view on this practice. When I started to shoot sports photography for a news media wire service, they gave some feedback. All images submitted to them had to have straight angles. If the photo we had of the action was tilted, they asked that it be cropped to a straight angle prior to upload. If not, the image would not be accepted. The reason was that for publication, angles needed to be level with the horizon – tilted angles do not translate to things like covers or spreads that magazines and newspapers publish. In looking at my ballroom dance photos, I was surprised to see how many of my images had the tilted angle!

Dance Photos

©TimeLine Media - Dutch angles in ballroom dance photography
©TimeLine Media – Dutch angles in ballroom dance photography

The first time I looked at these, I thought that the images looked more dynamic. Additionally the angle added to the excitement of the dancing action. Now, I think that these photos make me a little seasick. The walls and floors moving to one side of the image creates tension when being viewed, and not in a good way. So, I no longer intentionally tilt my camera. I try to keep angles as straight as I can. Moreover, I crop them to straight during post production if they are a little off. Let me know your thoughts on this. Do you or do you not shoot with Dutch angles as part of your style?

©TimeLine Media - Dutch angles in dance photography
©TimeLine Media – Dutch angles in dance photography

TimeLine Media – www.timelinedc.com
703-864-8208

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