Dustin + Erica: Last one, I promise.

SO- the 'holiday' season has indeed been hectic, so this is all you get for today:

Such a cute duo :) I'll be back after the first of the year!

Erica + Dustin: Another sneak peek. I couldn't help myself.

So, in lieu of the information I relayed in my last post, (and because I thought these turned out REALLY cute!) Erica and Dustin get another sneak peek. So while we were at Craig's Cruisers- we utilized the photo booth for a moment, but used our cameras. Cute-ness ensued.

Dustin + Erica: Sneak peek!

It's been a few days (almost a month, but who's counting, right?) since our last post. We've been taking some much needed relaxation time... and December isn't your typical wedding weather here in the mitten. However, we are back today with a sneak peek from an engagement shoot we did yesterday in the (larger than I thought) city of Grand Rapids. While we were out and about, we stumbled upon a movie set! But sadly, it was not the Bruce Willis movie, because as I googled, that movie had already had a premier about five days before... so I'm pretty sure Bruce wasn't still kicking it in G-rap. Still sort of exciting. Anyway- this is Erica and Dustin. They are so cute together, and so much fun to hang with! Dustin is pretty quiet (at least mostly) but he has a great sense of humor, and Erica is so sincere- I love that Erica's inability to hide what she thinks or feels shows right on her face! You'll see what I'm talking about when I get the whole post up. But for now, just this lonesome little photo:

With all of the Christmas festivities just days away- I may not be able to get the whole post up until after that madness (sheer madness- we have SIX 'Christmases'. I'm not exaggerating.). But I just may bring my work with me to do on a little bit of down time... we shall see. Until then, MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

Behind the scenes.

Taking photos of us taking photos (at work) has been a relatively new concept to us... it's not that we haven't THOUGHT of it before, we're just usually busy trying to get the best shots we can of our actual subjects to think about it at that given time. So I have a few to share with you today, pictures below are Aaron and Bethany, and myself:

 Incidentally, this next one is also from Aaron and Bethany's wedding- David was assisting me in trying out some lighting effects- and this hilarity happened:

 Kind of reminds you of something like this:

 The next one was shot during Michael and Emily's engagement session, it's actually a two for one, you can see David's shadow, with the strange mushroom shape coming out of his head (it was a street lamp):

 And- same shoot- at the public library- if you look in the bottom right hand corner you can see David two floors down shooting upward toward Michael and Emily in the top left corner:

Amazingly... we haven't had any shots that are that embarrassing yet... we'll keep trying.

The Great Undertaking: an appreciation for editing.

Wouldn't it be super awesome happy fun time if we could print a photo we shot without ever having to do anything more than point and click? I submit that that would be WAY too easy. And B-O-R-I-N-G. Sometimes within the frenzy of a wedding morning, no matter how hard you try, and how little time you have to adjust for things to get that shot that lasts a millisecond... sometimes, you just can't perfectly expose. Your fingers can't move quick enough, or you NEED to underexpose a little to catch the clarity. Sure, with landscapes you could point, adjust, shoot, print... but I'm talking about PEOPLE here. I dare you to try that! It just doesn't happen... let me rephrase: It just doesn't turn out well.

I have to say, even with all the time we photographers put into editing (hours upon hours upon hours and so on till we think we've become fused to our chairs...), I find it a necessary part of the art of photography. Photoshop and I are BFF's. And there is a friend poacher in our midst, called Lightroom. However, we just haven't warmed up to each other that much... yet. I hope lightroom and I can be good friends someday, but right now, I just don't have the time. Enough of my social life, the point of all this is that some people don't understand the process, and how we arrive to the things you're having printed. On average a photo takes a minimum of 10 minutes to edit. So let's put that in perspective for a wedding- average photo turn out (for me) is about 1000. So 1000 photos x 10 minutes= 10,000 minutes... or over 166 HOURS. That doesn't even begin to include the black and white versions or the complete custom edits- that's just adjusting for lighting anomalies, fixing blemishes, and optimizing... which sometimes takes a lot more than 10 minutes... however, I painstakingly and lovingly take this upon myself to create little masterpieces. It really is an art. And one that must be self learned. Sure, you can take advice, try out things you see online, even try some actions, and action recipes that other photographers put out there, but in the end- you find the zone and look you want to achieve, which is usually farther from where you thought you were going in the first place. I'll stop talking your faces off, and get to some photos.... because that's what we're here for.

Here is an example of a RAW photo (I try hard to not show anyone the RAWs... but this is for educational purposes...*gulp*)- COMPLETELY unedited (keep in mind this was kind of an off the hip shot... I don't usually meter so badly!)

I know, pretty dark. Generally, I would just drop this in the NO folder. But from what I could see, I loved the intimacy of the expressions, and of course the composition, otherwise I wouldn't have shot it, I also liked the lighting, even though it was dark. So I open it, and do some simple adjustments in contrast, black levels, so on and so on, approximately 10 minutes later, I have this:

It's nice, lighting is much better, and the general details that I liked in the first place are much more apparent. However, it's still just a photo. A little more editing, more time, at least another 10 minutes, and some personalization/style, and voila, a custom edit:

I know it's kind of hard to see the difference between these last two, I shall put them side by side for you:

Far left- the RAW file, middle- lighting adjustments, etc., far right- custom edit.

Gives you a better idea.

I have a few more examples, just for fun. So, here is RAW:

In the adjusted one below, you can see some recovery of the bride's back/arm and a little bit of color change, but there really isn't much difference between it and the RAW, so it was actually less than a 10 minute edit:

 And this last one really just makes it timeless to me:

 And I'll throw them side by side, for a more clear understanding:

And I have ONE more example. RAW:

 Some of you know that I LOVE to have the sun present and shining magical sun spots into my photos. And most of the time, you just can't shoot anyway but to underexpose those a bit, so there's a bit of a jump from the RAW above to the minor adjustments below:

And then, my favorite- the custom edit. I love this shot/edit combined. The little sunbow pops even more at their knees with this certain combo, one of my favorite elements in photos like these:

 And we'll do a side by side for good measure:

 So there you see a little bit of the process that goes into editing. It's very time consuming but very worth the results if you put the time and care into it. Happy editing!

Michael + Emily: Engaged!

Michael and Emily were such a fun couple to hang out with! The forecast was setting us up for a pretty nice afternoon, however, Michigan had a different plan, and it was quite frigid, but they were such troopers, and down for anything we threw at them! (THANK YOU!) You can tell how much respect and love they have for each other, and we are super excited to shoot their wedding in January! Yes, a January wedding. We have to work a bit harder here in Michigan, due to strange atmospheric phenomenon, so depending on how Michigan feels that day, we may or may not have a snow, a tornado, drizzling rain, sun... or... a snow tornado with drizzling rain and sun peeking through periodically. Seriously. Anyway- here are Michael and Emily, in all of their glorious leaf angel making skills:

 (I would have done a shoot in a public library before, if I knew it was legal!)

(All of the following photos in this series were taken at The Strutt, a very cool do-it-yourself kind of coffee shop in downtown Kalamazoo. I will be visiting there again, soon.)

And that's it for this post! I have to finish preparing Thanksgiving food for tomorrow! Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!