Justin & Kristina Witts

Yesterday was a beautiful day for a beautiful wedding. Congratulations to my cousin Kristina and her new husband Justin on their Marriage!  Kristina was so kind as to allow me to be a photographer for their wedding.  It was my first time as a wedding photographer and I learned a ton.  There was also another photographer Patti.   Patti has shot weddings before, but its not what she typically shoots or prefers to shoot.  She had some amazing shots up her sleeve and was very good with posing the bride.  I don't think my shoot could have been a success without her. Thank you Patti! I look forward to seeing your shots from the day. 

 

One valuable lesson is to make sure to analyze the whole scene with wedding photography.  I know that statement sounds like utter commonsense. But with your focus on the bride and family its easy to forget about the background.  I also think that With mountain bike photography, its usually pretty easy to get a good backdrop for a photo. There are woods/forest in the background or a nice drop with lakes behind. There is always beautiful scenery.  I think I have been taking the background for granted. I first noticed this with the shots from Eriks Spring Cup.  Our Spring came late this year, leaving the trees bare for the first MNSCS race of the season.  The photos lacked a certain pizazz and it didn't take me long to realize it was the lack of background.

With the wedding photography, most of the photos are amazing, but some shots Patti would set up and they were so beautiful I would just start snapping away, only to learn in post production that there was a big ole RV in the background of the shot! 

.Not so cool.    I should have learned then, but I was either lacking in the common sense department or its because It was my first time shooting as a wedding photographer, but it happened again later in some of the photos of Justin and Kristina (see the photo above). The wedding party was behind the gazebo and we were taking photos in front of the gazebo. I didn't even notice those folks while taking the pictures.   All in all, i have only been discussing the screw ups, but the wedding photos were a success, I have a boat load of wonderful shots and I think Krissy is going to love them. 

My new skills will be photoshop. I have yet to spend much time with photoshopping of photos. I will be taking some of the wedding shots and experimenting with removing people from a shot and then painting in the background.  I also want to work a little with smoothing out skin and blemishes.  I am excited to finally have the time to put some effort into photoshop.

You can find the photos from the Wedding HERE