Today's the big day!
Saturday, August 30 2008 - 0 comments
I'm shooting my first "by myself" wedding today - Jeremey and Alison. My equipment is all ready to go: batteries are charged, CF cards are loaded, and extra batteries are standing by. Addresses are checked and mapped (reminder to self - need to get a GPS!). I thought I would be more nervous than excited today. Last night, I was incredibly nervous and chattered on about every possible scenario to my hubby Peter. He was so patient and reassuring with me. This morning when I bounded out of bed just after 6:30, Peter pulled the covers back up to his head and grumbled about my chattering and the earliness of the hour. But even as he grumbled, he mentioned reminders: don't forget to "check batteries, go over your image request list, make an equipment list". How lucky am I? Even in the early hours of the morning my hubby is still thinking of me.from the Mendenhall Inn to the DuPont Country Club
Monday, July 07 2008 - 0 comments
It was a crazy busy weekend! On Saturday, my hubby and I attended my friend Jacky's wedding to Chris. They had a beautiful ceremony at St. Thomas the Apostle Church and followed it up with a reception at the Mendenhall Inn in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. Although I brought my camera, I ended up hanging out with Peter and my former co-workers (I transferred to a different school in my district at the end of the 2006-2007 school year) more than taking pictures. And yesterday, I shot my first wedding! Don and Sue Engler , who I met last week , invited me not only to come shoot with them, but to use their gear as well. The actual wedding day went a lot faster than I thought it would - I arrived at the DuPont Country Club a little after 1 PM so we could take the pre-ceremony portraits. Despite the cloudy and somewhat rainy morning, the sky started to clear after I arrived and quickly turned into a beautiful, although quite warm, afternoon. Not only was this my first wedding as a photographer, this was also the first Jewish wedding that I had ever attended. I looked up Jewish wedding traditions on the internet so I would be prepared to shoot every important part of the ceremony and so I could have a better understanding of what I was looking at. I guess that's the teacher in me - I don't just want to show up and do, I want to show up and perform and you can only do that if you are prepared - to me, research is part of being prepared. I shot the entire day in Manual (with a Nikon D200) and found myself switching they camera settings (ISO, shutter speed, and aperture) quickly and accurately with few issues. I think I got some fantastic shots, but I'll know later in the week if I get a chance to stop by the Englers' to see the final images.