Intimate Wedding At Lon's

A few weeks ago I had the privilege of being the photographer for a very intimate wedding at Lon's at the Hermosa Inn in Paradise Valley, AZ. The entire wedding, guests and all, was a group that is smaller than many bridal parties. Parents, brothers, sisters and closest friends..... oh, and a couple of photographers to share the day and capture it for them.

The venue was one I hadn't been to before, but absolutely perfect for this wedding. Lon's and the Hermosa Inn is an older property with mature landscaping and an interesting history (check the link above). Off the beaten path, it lies just west of Camelback mountain, nestled among some of the older homes in the Paradise Valley area. As we drove through the neighborhood to get there the beauty of the area just made me want to move in.


The photo above captures something I'd never seen before at a wedding - a "ring warming". I thought this was a wonderful idea and was particularly suited to such a close knit gathering. The rings are passed from hand to hand, from one guest to the next as their body heat warmed the metal bands, a sort of blessing of the union with each one present giving warmth to the couple. That's Christine's father passing the rings across the aisle to Jameson's family and friends.


Unlike many outdoor weddings in the Phoenix area that are held in the glaring sun, this one was fully shaded on a small patio between the rows of low casitas. The combination of warm light from the sun and cooler shadows from the canopy of leaves overhead made for some interesting lighting. I decided to match the sunlight with warming gels on my flashes. This threw the background into a deeper shade of blue. On some photos I corrected the background and sandwiched the two together, but I rather liked the effect of the cooler shades in the background. In the photo below there was no flash, just a shaft of golden sunlight filtering through the trees.



As noted before, Lon's is located just West of Camelback mountain (seen in the background below). The parking lot is just over this low wall and we'd wait for cars to pass by and grab shots whenever there was an opportunity. I still ended up getting several shots of vehicles pulling into the drive straight behind them.


Many of the doors had such great character, including this one. When I met Jameson and Christine at Lon's a few weeks ahead of the wedding we saw this door within a door and planned to get a shot of them looking through. The door was quite old and only hanging on one hinge. I had to slip something small into the crack in the smaller door to keep it from swinging closed due to the angle. My assistant for the day - Darren - held a flash on the other side of the wall to light them while I lit the door with a hand-held flash.


All in all, a beautiful wedding at a great venue. I want to thank both Christine and Jameson for choosing me to be a part of their day. I had a great time.

Why Photography Is Important

The following is something I shared with a group of friends, fellow wedding photographers, on a wedding photography forum yesterday. It was so well received that I decided to post it here as well.

I was shooting an e-session this past weekend at the Mesa Arts Center with my pastor's daughter, Christine and her fiance, Christian. The place has this fabulous blue wall that I love to use as a background element and all kinds of nifty water features.

We were taking these shots at one of the water features when I glimpse some movement coming into frame right (albeit out of focus).



The movement was this little guy. He dropped in with lunch and just wanted a drink, so I snap a shot with him as the center of attention.



...and then the bird flies away.



It's at this point that I think, "That's why I do this...... To catch fleeting moments that will never be just so again. These two people; this place and time of day; this little bird......"

How often you hear stories about loved ones who've died and what comfort the photos bring to the family, or sadder still when they pass on and the thought is, "We were going to get some photos done....." I'd been talking with someone about getting a shot of the various members of their family for some time and one day one of them was, like this bird, no longer there. Gone......

Have you ever seen a movie where someone suffers the loss of a loved one and they interact with a photo on the nightstand, drawing it close and examining the features, tracing them with a finger and then embracing it? Sure you have. Maybe some of you have actually interacted with photos in that way.

It's not just the passing of loved ones that may trigger this emotional connection to our art. Moms might sit on the side of the bed holding a photo of a son or daughter who's left home for college or a job in a distant place. Parents look back at photos of their children when they were younger and you see a trace of a smile at the corners of their mouth and a faint twinkle in the eye.

There's a reason why we hear about people dragging the family photos out of a burning or flooding home - sometimes even risking their lives. I can't picture someone racing back into a burning house to rescue the frozen wedding cake or tearfully tracing the edges of the caterer's menu.

This may sound maudlin or sappy or even self-serving, but as important as they may be to the whole experience, I just don't see the other things folks spend money on to make their wedding day "special" being able to have the same impact over time as our images and albums.

That's why I think that what we do as photographers is important.

I don't mean to take away from Christian and Christine, but this was just something I've been mulling over since the shoot. I'll put up some more photos in a blog post that's actually about the couple in a few days.