Please, no wind!

I had a wedding last weekend with Lynette and Brett. They are a great couple and so in love with each other.

It was an outdoor wedding and the weather forecast was looking good. I had scouted the location a week before and had lots of ideas for pictures.

The big day arrived and wouldn't you know it. Wind. I mean WIND! 20mph steady winds gusting to over 30mph! I haven't seen a day this windy in years.

Wind is the ONE thing that is impossible to cope with photographically. I can deal with rain and cloudy days, bright sunny days too. But the wind. That's another thing altogether. It ruins hairdos, it makes dresses misbehave, it tears at the flowers. Sure, if I had a large crew I could erect wind barriers like they do for movie sets. That takes lots of people and lots of time. There is no time on a wedding day. You gotta move.


I met them out at the park at 9:00am as they were setting up for the day. The wind was really wreaking havoc on all the decorations. Everything kept blowing down or away.

I knew that we could not get any decent photos with this wind. I had to reqroup and figure out a new plan of action.

It turns out the couple just built a new house and being large, the new stairway made a nice location for some formals. Since I had already planned to be there to capture the getting ready photos, it seemed like a perfect solution. They really liked having their new home showcased in the images since it was a house they built together.



We got the photos and we headed out to the park for the actual ceremony. It was still very windy. Wouldn't you know it, right after the ceremony, the wind started to subside. I stole the bride and groom for ten minutes and grabbed some of the shots I had wanted to do earlier in the day so they could remember the beautiful location.

I got them to the reception in plenty of time so they could make a grand entrance with all the guests assembled.

A fabulous time was had by all.

Click on any photo to see a larger image.

The reason why

I decided to start off with the session that really told me I needed a better studio space.

I had been working out of my house for several years but it was not very fun. The house had to be clean for anyone to come over and the setup often required more room than was available so I would set up in the garage.

This meant I would try to do location work as much as possible to avoid having to clean the house all the time.

I had a session scheduled with Vanessa Plourde. She's an up and coming model who had a pretty specific idea for a shot she wanted. It was a very clean beauty shot.

The setup required some overhead lighting so that meant we would be out in the garage. It turns out that on our scheduled day, it was nearly 100 degrees Fahrenheit outside. It was even hotter in the garage and there was no wind at all. Did I mention the incredibly high humidity? A dewpoint near 70 for those that know about that stuff.

The makeup was done by Christine M. and I was surprised that the makeup did not run. It was brutally hot.

Vanessa stuck it out and we put together a brilliant photo. A black and white version hangs on the wall of the studio as you first enter.

Welcome

Welcome to the first post.

I just opened a new studio in Minneapolis.

I decided that since I have so many photos the folks rarely ever get to see, I'll start a little blog and showcase some of them. I'll also share some shots from the studio sessions and show variations and give a little insight into some of the post processing and retouching I do.

We'll see where this takes us...