But (mostly) I'm not bitter, because it's been amazing. You see, a few weeks ago, on a spontaneous (and rather expensive) whim I signed up for Justin and Mary's Spread the Love and Walk Through a Wedding workshops. Spread the Love was on Monday. It's a lecture-style workshop, and basically you just sit down and write notes as fast as you can for 7 hours straight. Yes, seven hours! And man, there was a lot of information. I was so busy writing notes that I didn't have time to take any pictures.
But if Spread the Love was hands off and pencils up, Walk Through a Wedding was totally different. First, Justin and Mary talked a bit about how they prepare for weddings and the whys of what they do. Then they taught us their method of shooting details. Basically it's all about side lighting from a window. And the results are pretty good. Then we got a chance to practice shooting details ourselves.
Our 'bride and groom' were Elizabeth and Ryan of Elizabeth Ryan photography, and they rocked out the fake wedding, happily posing again and again for us all.
Naturally, everyone was fairly trigger happy. It seemed like the group was pretty evenly split between Nikon and Canon shooters. Justin and Mary shoot Nikon, but they were happy to attempt to teach us Canon folk.
And we all got a chance to shoot the bride and her various 'fathers' walking down the aisle. (Left is Justin, right is Dean from Reno.)
THEN we went on to Bourbon and Branch for the 'reception', a 'secret' club/bar/I'm-not-sure-what hidden in the heart of SF. I had never been there before, and while it was a bit tricky shooting as there was zero natural light, it was really cool. And it gave me a lot of practice bouncing my flash, and shooting with an umbrella.
Here are some of the bridesmaids. I loved the styling of it all.
The details were killer!
And Julia was an excellent candy girl.
Some more portraits of the happy couple.
All in all, it was a great day! And I learned a lot. Thanks, Justin and Mary!
Posts
Now that is something I would love to do! They obviously gave you some great tips...your pics are amazing!
ReplyDeleteReally great shots Jess. I admit, I'm more interested in Bourbon and Branch. I've heard so much and yet so little about it.
ReplyDeleteLooks like a great workshop. Nice job on the photos. Too bad you're a little late, they should have booked you for the big one in England a couple weeks ago.
ReplyDeleteWow, what a great workshop. Better to practice on a "pretend" bride and groom than to attempt and mess up a real wedding. You did a great job nonetheless.
ReplyDeleteLove these!! Thanks so much for sharing! Your images are beautiful!!! ;)
ReplyDeleteGorgeous shots. I kept gasping aloud.
ReplyDelete