A group of friends and I got together, dragged out a ton of gear (laptop, projector, generator, studio light, cameras, etc), and put on an interactive art project at Victoria’s Nuit Blanche.  We offered people candy to let us take their photo and I’m putting together a grid of headshots, hopefully to be posted soon.  The rest of the photos will be posted on the Facebook event page when they’re ready, also hopefully soon.

Here’s a shot of my posse, and some cool people who came and posed for us.  Jon took this shot.  More about the event later.

Oh, and thanks for the glowsticks!

I shot the wedding ceremony and portraits for Lyndsey and Brennan on Halloween.  I was afraid it would rain, which is typical for Halloween in Victoria, but it was a gorgeous, sunny day.  These two deserved it.  They were so sweet and adorable.  Stylish too.  The red and black colours totally worked with the feel of Halloween.  And his tux had tails.   Awesome.

The ceremony was held at the Pemberton Memorial Chapel at Royal Jubilee in Victoria.  The light in the chapel was really gorgeous and bright enough that I never had to use my flash.  I couldn’t help but snap a few shots of the chapel from different angles.

We headed down to Gonzales Beach for some bridal party portraits in the very bright sun.  This is my first time doing bridal party portraits and I wasn’t quite sure what to do with a group of people.  Anyway, I made some silly suggestions (i.e. “bride and groom kiss and everyone else make a face”, “now everyone point at the couple”).  It worked out pretty well, I think.

I love her tattoos.    I love shooting a girl in a big, girly, white dress with cool tattoos.

I’m going to admit a flaw in my work to you, dear readers (and potential clients, eek!), in the hopes that it will help you better understand me and will help me grow as a photographer.

I suck at posing.

When I shoot portraits, I typically let people pose themselves. I usually ask them to stand or sit in a certain location and then just shoot away. I ask them for suggestions of what kind of shots they what and what kind of poses. I try to get them to show their personalities.  I try to make them laugh and be silly.  Sure, I can pose people in a way to make them look really good. I even have a book on it. But I find traditional poses very boring.  I want to see people for who they truly are.

I find letting people come up with their own poses creates the best photos, really showing off their personalities. For example, for the photo below from a Halloween wedding I just shot, I asked Lyndsey and Brennan to stand on the stairs, with one of them standing a few steps higher and both on opposite sides of the stairs. They were looking at each other and I suggested Brennan reach out his hand toward Lyndsey. I thought it might look cheesy, but sometimes cheesy makes the best photos. I stopped giving instruction and just took a bunch of photos. She took his hand. Then the below happened. Perfect Halloween wedding portrait. And it’s all them. You’re not going to get that if you’re constantly ordering people around. Sometimes our weaknesses can be our strengths.

Note that this probably isn’t the final edit, and the web format isn’t great for dark photos.

I finally got a chance to put together a full post about Mikayla and Chris’s wedding from October 10th. These guys really know how to have a fun, low-key wedding. They got married in a backyard in Oak Bay, which was lovely on a lucky sunny October afternoon. After the ceremony, instead of walking back down the “aisle”, they immediately broke out the champagne and everyone drank and chatted in the afternoon sun.

We headed down to Queen’s Park after for some photos of the newly married couple.  It was so easy to shoot the formals with these two.  They were full of smiles and love and willing to get a little silly.  It helps that they’re truly adorable together.  Phil took the beautiful shot on the left below, despite the challenging super bright sun.

The reception was at the Royal Victoria Yacht Club and was mellow and untraditional.  They had appys instead of dinner, and yummy looking cupcakes from Oh La La Cupcakes (which made me wish I could have dairy and gluten).   Phil captured the three great detail shots below.

Their first dance was to “I Wanna Grow Old With You” from The Wedding Singer, which was just too cute.

Phil, always the master of dancing photos, took the two below.

Thanks to Phil for being a stellar second shooter, as usual.  Thanks again to Mikayla and Chris for letting us be a part of their day.