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First off if you’re looking for an wedding photographer take a look at my [Hudson Valley wedding photography](http://www.davebrownphotography.com/Hudson Valley-Wedding-Photographer.aspx “Wedding Photography Hudson Valley”) portfolio.

I feel like it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything.  I’ve felt really busy lately, but I think it’s just all in my head.  That and my throat hurt a bit so that kept me from doing the things that I really wanted to.  Like work on Jan and Andrews wedding photographs.  I have been desperately craving working on something creative.  But before I can have fun with the creative stuff I have to sort through all their images, and get ratings and stuff

out of the way.  That way I can find the images I really love easily, and eliminate the ones that are out of focus, or generally off exposures.

Say hi to Jan and Andrew a really great couple, who just seem to work together.  Jan cares more about other people than she does herself, and Andrew is an easy going generally cool guy.  I think these 2 are going to be just fine.  So here’s how I got to shoot their wedding.  My girlfriend is best friends with the bride, and offered up my camera to shoot the wedding.  The fact that I came attached to the camera was just added bonus I guess.  They already had another photographer lined up, but she doesn’t do much photoshop work, and they wanted some shots that were a little more retouched.  To get the kinds of shots that are my style, I knew I would have to go scouting locations before the wedding.  I really wished I was in Hudson Valley.  Hudson Valley wedding photography has got to be a ton easier when it comes to the backdrops that you can use for the formals, and the bride and groom shots.  But I was not in Hudson Valley, instead I was in Hays Kansas.  Yes that’s right… here’s the part where you say…”Oh I drove through Hays one time”.

So anyways before the wedding I went out scouting locations.   I found quite a few I liked.  About 10 total, but as it turns out we just didn’t get to them all.  Time was a commodity that I didn’t have.  The light was great it was 8 am, plenty of shade, tons of great soft light.  I hoped there would be more shade, but we ended up shooting at high noon.  The light was tough to work with, but I used it to my advantage.  That kind of direct sun can be a great hairlight, or rimlight.  Is it perfect? No.  But if you get a flash, give some fill, and work on getting even exposures you can get some really neat shots.  I actually kind of enjoyed being out of my comfort zone.  I didn’t have time to complain.  I didn’t have time to think.  I only had time to shoot.  It was all instinct.  If not for the stuff I have learned with the strobist crew it would have been all over for me.

Back to the first shot.  As soon as I took this shot I knew that it was going to be one of my favorites, but I needed to come up with a treatment that I felt fit the style of shot I was going for.  I really liked the duplicity of this shot, 2 doors, 2 people, it just struck me for some reason.  This location was so cool too.  I can’t really describe it, but you could tell it had history.  I think that’s what I liked about it.  I always go for grunge, before pristine.  Character is what I’m looking for when I scout locations.  That and tons of bright colors.  Hays doesn’t exactly have a lot of bright walls, or awesome colors to work with, So I got creative with what I had to work with.  For this shot I went with a really vintage look.  1960’s muted colors, some vignette.  I thought it worked well with the serious expressions on their faces.  Andrew kept saying “alright now do serious”.  Which was fine by me.  Photo stats : 1/200th, f/4.0, ISO250, 70mm.

This shot I went with a nice lomo look. High saturation, tons of colors, and some pop.  Photo Stats: 1/200th, f/4.0, iso 250, 98mm.

This is one of those shots where I used a fill flash to get an even exposure.  I think I had my flash set at 1/8th and shot away.  The funny part was seeing the inverse square law in full effect.  I think this was the first time that I saw a couple of steps one way or another could have such a huge impact on exposure.  Finding the right distance was key to these shots.  And before I post the photo stats and you call me a liar for having a flash, it was all on camera, and set to auto fp.  Meaning that I could sync up to whatever shutter speed I wanted, with some loss of power because it’s flashing multiple times as the shutter runs across the frame.  Photo Stats: 1/3200th, f/3.5, ISO 400

I really didn’t do that much to this shot.  Just increased contrast and took out a little bit of saturation.  I just liked the simplicity of this shot.  I still have no idea how they held those perfect smiles all day long.  Photo Stats: 1/320th, f/5.0, ISO400, 82mm.

again more vintage.  On camera sb-600 prolly at about 1/4. Photo stats 1/2500, f/3.5, ISO400.

More serious faces.  Alright actually I had to photoshop out a smile in this shot.  I’ll let you try and guess who.  Photo stats: 1/2500th, f/2.8, ISO 400, 70mm

Man his glasses were shiny.  I’m sure I’ll be posting some shots where you can actually see the whole landscape in his glasses.  Photo stats: 1/2500th, f/2.8, ISO 400, 70mm

Anyways congratulations to Jan and Andrew, and I hope you guys like what you see so far.  Keep in mind this is just a taste.  I still have a ton of work to do.  There are so many shots that turned out great, now the question is what to do with them all.

-Dave