Photography has filled me with purpose and joy, and taken me places I never thought I'd go. I have covered three U.S. presidents, been blessed by the Pope, and been stared down by Muhammad Ali. I've shared a laugh with Smokey Robinson, and had a picture I took of him used when he received a lifetime achievement award. I've photographed a 110-year-old woman as she told me what it was like to climb onto the torch of the Statue of Liberty. I was chosen as the only independent photographer allowed near Obama and McCain in their last meeting before the 2008 election. I'm the only photographer in the world to have been officially represented by the three largest photographic retailers in the Western hemipshere. Heck, I've even had a photographic technique named after me (which is crazy).
But I have never felt so blessed by photography as when I am photographing a wedding. At weddings, we are most visibly ourselves -- the walls we walk around with come tumbling down under the forces of joy, anxiety (and sometimes a bit of alcohol). To document that experience, the relationship of friends, families, and a couple launching a new stage in their life, is an incredible feeling. When a client says "This is the first picture I've seen of my parents that actually looks like them!" I feel like I've done something with lasting value. After years of shooting and more than 225 weddings under my belt, I still find each one to be more exciting than the last, and try to make each one the best one that I've ever photographed.
In addition to a staff of photo assistants, I am so happy to have my partner Wendy as a full-time studio manager to make sure that our clients' needs are met at every stage from the first inquiry until years after the wedding. Wendy is the hardest worker I have ever known, and she makes my clients' experience as stress-free as possible.
Urška - Wow! The colors and the composition is just stunning!
Magnus - Lovely!
I also shoot from behind a lot (with a flash) but tend to overblow the exposure – any recommendation to keep it to a minimum (except keeping the flash as low as possible of course)
Emmanuelli - I presume you are using tiff while ACR gets the new NEF format? Or do you usually process tiff?
Kelli Nixon - Love the shot! But I agree with the others about the overkill on the image size of the D800. Don’t get me wrong, I like the camera, but there are some things that I am having a real issue with on it. The grip being $400+ dollars is a bit insane!!
I really wish, like the others, that you could shoot at 16MB with it. 36MB is just too much for weddings.
mike - Gorgeous!
Matt Donahue - Beautiful photo. Do you color balance your flashes?
Craig Cacchioli - A lot of grumbles about the size of the image files. Perhaps Nikon have taken the leap a bit too soon. Sure, the cost of hard-drives is ever shrinking as the size of them is ever-increasing, and processors become more powerful, but let’s face it, this is a specialist piece of kit which is most likely not supposed to be used for weddings.
MikeV - is this a teaser of the D800 review?? coming soon i hope
Ryan Brenizer - All: If I’m going straight from the RAW converter to Photoshop for final processing, I export as ProPhoto RGB 16-bit TIFF to have as much data as I can, since that file only exists for about 15 minutes anyway.
Tony - The 35mm 1.4G is driving me nuts I can’t wait to order it. I’ve had the 24-120mm f4 VR II since September of last year and I’ve just never been crazy about that zoom range so I’m going to try out this 35mm as my wide prime and maybe throw in a 24mm 2.8 af-d. I’m a little jealous of how clean the D800 file is too I just ordered a D700 in December but oh well it’s still a workhorse of a camera. Can’t wait to see the full review.
Kandid Weddings - Love the composition and back-lighting. Looks majestic.