Why Your Wedding Photographs Will Be Remarkable
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
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I was attending the Broadmoor Bridal Show on Sunday and I was talking with a woman who recently got engaged. It was near the end of the show - in fact, I was trying to pack up - when she approached me and began asking me questions about wedding pictures. She had a friend with her who was helping her plan her destination wedding at the Broadmoor and she had already made a lot of decisions. But she was still trying to find a photographer for her wedding before she flew home to southern California. A slide show of my wedding pictures from the past year was playing on the computer and she kept pointing to the pictures as they flashed by, nudging her friend. She asked what it was that made our wedding pictures look so different. I jumped into an explanation about how "we capture the moment" and realized immediately how canned and cliche that explanation really is. It didn't do justice to the pictures on the screen. The images were mostly of people and they were feeling something. They were caught in a moment 
that happened to be out of this world! These are remarkable photographs, but NOT very explainable ones. So, here's my best go at trying to explain it. What we do that makes our wedding photographs so remarkable is to photograph an Authentic Emotional Experience. By authentic, I mean truthful. You can't pose it, you can't orchestrate it and you can't recreate it. When it happens, it happens and just as quickly it's gone. We are the ones who happen to take a picture of it. Sounds simple. But it isn't. It's hard to do. Some photographers are great at fashion or details or dramatic poses of the bride and groom or all three. And we do that too... Ok, here's my second attempt at explanation. What we really do differently is to photograph YOUR emotional experience in a truthful and honest way. It's something this person
was trying to tell her friend as they watched the slide show. It's not every day that people wear their emotions on their sleeve. I mean really, who does that during a weekday at the office? But on your wedding day you DO do that and so does everyone else; your fiance, your best friend, your Mom AND your Dad, and your guests. Emotions are always on the surface and at any moment they show themselves. So that's what we do. We wait in the present moment, we watch and we photograph. It's these authentic emotional experiences that really matter. The truthful nature of your pictures causes you, your family, your friends and, yes, even strangers who don't know you to remark: "Wow! What a fabulous wedding picture!" We do a lot of things really well, but at the end of the day the thing we want to do the most is to make a wedding picture that is... REMARKABLE! If we do that, then we got it right. That's as good as I can explain it and, hopefully, next time I don't come up with something as cliche as "We capture the moment." — Sean
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Colorado Springs. Now, Sandy Vanderstoep, owner of 
what she had cooking (no pun intended) I immediately called her to see it. And when I got a peek inside, well, the gothic windows and wonderful hammerbeam ceiling had me at Hello:) I immediately made arrangements with Sandy to do a styled shoot and I invited some of the best wedding photographers in Colorado including the wonderful and amazingly talented 
Claire and her handsome friend Nathan to be our models. We had so much fun! The light inside The Carter-Payne is amazing and as we worked through the afternoon, the sun got lower and the light got sweeter! We couldn't have pulled this off without the help of many other wedding professionals. 
the most incredible deals on a wedding dress you can find anywhere. The selection is wonderful. Felicia Popescu, the best stylist I know of, graciously offered her help and transformed Claire from beautiful to amazingly beautiful! 
the wonderful red roses for Claire's bouquet and Nathan's boutineer. Other wedding businesses that graciously donated their work and time include 
are photography majors at 
I'm constantly reminded how fast my kids are growing up. Sometimes I feel like the proverbial shoemaker; photographing everyone except my own kids. It's really important to me to create a record of their childhood. But as they get older, I have to come up with new and innovative incentives (read: bribes) to get them to sit still.This past weekend I had some lighting equipment I wanted to test and it provided as good an excuse as any to take pictures outside at sunset. It was a little cold, but the jelly beans I had tucked away just for this purpose proved enticing enough for them to come outside, barefeet and all:) Black and white photographs are highly underrated, btw. These are just plain yummy! — Sean
