This wedding was absolutely amazing, beautiful and gorgeous! Shot in Brenham, TX on a private estate, there were plenty of chic and contemporary touches to the entire wedding – from Danielle’s BlueBox Bridal dress, to the rings, to the flowers and centerpieces, and even the dessert cart!
First, let me preface this post by saying that I’m a long time friend of Danielle’s, who is the bride in these amazing photos. I remember working with her back at HEB about 6-8 years ago, back in our college days. Danielle, upon first meeting her, was quite possibly one of the most shy people I’ve met, but absolutely, without a doubt, the FRIENDLIEST. Danielle has a way about her that puts everyone at ease, and her quick smile, expressive eyes, and easygoing, shy personality enabled her to make friends easily. We’ve had many hangouts, conversations, and laughs, and I can say this – Danielle is one of the nicest people you will ever have the privilege of meeting.
She calls me up and asks me to be the photographer for her wedding and I was more than honored. When I met Christopher, I immediately understood why Danielle chose to spend the rest of her life with him – he’s absolutely the mirror image of Danielle, with a quick smile, encouraging word, and easygoing laugh that everyone gravitated to.
Vintage Chic was the theme, and I certainly aimed to capture the images in that manner .
Congratulations, Danielle and Christopher! Live, and love each other. Life is far to short for anything else.
Danielle’s dress is courtesy of Bluebox Bridals, a new place in Austin TX that specializes in upscale and modern yet vintage style dresses. Check them out!
Close up detail shot:
Full Length shot .
The bride, and the groom!
With this ring, I thee wed..
Sunset kiss:
The wedding part – the ladies!
Last, but not the least – Danielle’s flower bouquet.
Thank you for visiting, and I hope you enjoyed the images as much as I have taking them! It was truly a pleasure.
Hello, all! This is simply a quick tutorial to show how to mask out specific parts of an image, or to bring in a few bits to create a composite. Enjoy!~
The weeks after spring break brought along a LOT of changes. Most notably to my lighting setup – I previously extolled the virtues of the Calumet Genesis 300B strobe, and while I’m still a fan, it was kind of limiting in terms of what I could really do creatively. I needed something a bit more robust, has more power, and wanted to be able to grow into the system to do the things I wanted to do in terms of creativity.
Enter the Alien Bee Einstein! I purchased the system with a 51 inch PLM, Vagabond Mini Lithium battery pack, stands, and a 22′ beauty dish with a sock. I can honestly say I’m pleased as punch with the system itself!
First, let me address a few things – I wanted color consistency, from pop to pop. The Genesis was all over the place in color. The Einstein, with the color feature it has, is very consistent – NOT profoto level consistent, but within +/- 200 or so.
Secondly, I wanted power. Problem is, too much power can be just as big a problem as too little power. The Einstein had plenty with 640 watts at my disposal, AND had the ability for me to dial it down to as little as 2.5 watts. FANTASTIC.
Third, I wanted portability, and location power. The Einstein is TINY. Couple that with a Vagabond mini power pack, and I can shoot anytime, anywhere, anyplace, and put out as much power as I need.
LAST, but not least, I wanted it to be relatively inexpensive. I love profoto, hensel, broncolor, and all of those fancy top end lighting companies, but they’re expensive. The Einstein is $500.00 US, and really allowed me to invest in a system that can do a lot of things really well.
But hey! Let me put the proof in the pudding! Here are the photos I shot in the last couple of weeks using the Einstein setup!
My apologies, avid readers! I’ve been super busy as of late, and unfortunately, have not had ample opportunity to update my website’s blog! Nevertheless, here I am with a new update for you all to enjoy!
First, a bit of back story. I met my cousin Robert Ayala and his girlfriend Roxanne at the local coffee shop Spiderhouse, by pure happenstance. It’s weird how people of similar (yet strangely unique) tastes congregate and fate thrusts the chance meeting up on them! We had some nachos, coffee, and some sweet beer, and talked about topics ranging from Roxanne’s Laser Cats clothing line, to Robert’s aspirations regarding his film studies (this means learning how to make awesome motion pictures for those who unedumacated!), and a thought struck me – why not get some cool pics of Roxanne and her Laser Cats, and show a bit of the personality of these two eclectic human beings?
Fast forward a bit to Saturday, and here we are – all of these were lit by a my Genesis 300 b (which you might remember I sung the praises of in a previous post) in various lighting techniques, and these are the preliminary results! There are plenty more, I assure you – but for the sake of not overloading the interwebs with Roxaane’s Laser awesomeness, and Robert’s.. uh.. um.. ROBERTNESS, I give you these, humble reader.
Oh, yes! I also strongly encourage you to visit Roxanne’s Laser Cat site – it’s more than meets the eye. Direct your clickers here! http://www.daintylibrarian.com/
I know a few of you might have gotten some new toys over Christmas, and inevitably, some of those toys are bound to be DSLR cameras or new Flash guns or perhaps a fancy radio trigger set that you always wanted. Or maybe you got some new strobes with beauty dishes that you’re dying to try out, but not sure how to use them appropriately or what modifiers to get.
FRET NO MORE!
For starters, I’ll teach you these things:
Camera Modes: What are they for, and what do they do? What do those numbers and letters and ISO mean on my LCD screen? What the heck is a histogram?!
Secondly, I’ll teach you how to use your flashgun, and if you don’t have one, I’ll tell you WHY getting one is probably the best thing you can do for your photography. Seriously. Demystifying the numbers, letters, distance, f-stop, modes… that’s why you got me .
Maybe you want to learn how to do fancy stuff with off camera lighting, or perhaps learn how to use a strobe, decide which wireless triggers to purchase, or which modifier to buy – I can help you with all of that too – using equipment like this:
To create images like THIS:
Right now, the cost for the mentoring is $150.00/2 hours – but given this is the introductory course and the first time I’ve EVER done anything like this, I’m offering a 50% discount on the course to the first 5 people to contact me – info@innerlightcreations.com.
What are you waiting for? You got a fancy new DSLR. Isn’t it time you found your inner light?
Michael J. Samaripa is a professional photographer based in Austin, Texas who specializes in weddings, family portraits, senior portrait and maternity/children photography since 2004.
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