I was in Hawaii last week and I was unable to land or find a wedding for that matter.
Apparently destination weddings are down in Hawaii, but way up in Mexico.
On the first day of my trip I met a man on the beach and before we even passed shoulders
I told myself that I had to take his picture. He was a striking local man and a serious surfer too.
The next day I made the introductions and before long we were taking some pictures. He really
wanted to be shot near the catamaran, and I wanted something more simple. As it turns out we both
got the pictures we wanted.

   

The definitive list of photos every wedding photographer should capture for you.

1. Emotion. The day is full of a lot of highs, maybe some lows but for sure some tears, smiles and nervousness on faces of  Bride & Groom and family members. Anything can happen on your wedding day and your photographer should be able to equipped and able to record the subtle emotions throughout the day.
2. Preparation for the day. Some of the most touching, or crazy parts of the day are the events leading up to the nuptuals. The guys go golfing, make pancakes or hang out in their boxers all morning while the ladies primp and pose all with their closest friends. Emotions come into play here, see above, so this event is not be missed.
3. Overall shot of location. At some point your photographer should find a suitable place for a photo depicting the whole scene. So often the bridal party or the guests only see a small portion of  the scene. Alot of money and time go into selecting the location, so make sure you get a scenic shot of what you paid for.
4. Details. Close-ups, macro, and micro shots of  your rings, shoes, place settings, flowers. Small details you spent time and effort on, so you should have a photographic memory of all the thing important to you.
5. Ceremony. This goes without saying, but often the light is lousy where the ceremony is, so make sure your photographer is aware of the ceremony location and is able to supplement the lighting with flashes or strobes if necessary.
 6. B&G with the Parents. Something casual, while dancing works great, or the photo booth.  I don’t recommend the posing head on, straight line, it’s …..well boring.
7. The party, This is when guests and the wedding party let their guard down. And after all isn’t the night reserved for a celebration?
8. Isolation of couple away from everyone else. I recommend the day before or the day after if time permits, otherwise make sure there is some alone time before the reception.
9. Black &White, the bride is in white, groom often in black, it’s a natural.
10. An image unrelated to the wedding. Something happening outside of the bridal bubble. It could be anything, a scenic, the big blue sky, or raindrops, but an image or two the will make you go ahh.

I was commissioned by the Globe and Mail earlier this month to take a portrait of Patrick Kabongo, an offensive lineman with the Edmonton Eskimos’ CFL football team. The story was about how much he volunteers and gives back to his community. Patrick is a 6-foot-6, 315 pound small C celebrity here in our northern city. Fans love him because of how he plays on the field but he’s also known for his personality. Every time I’ve seen him he usually sports a huge smile or a great laugh. But, he seemed almost serene in every photo I took of him.

Patrick and his family fled the African city of Kinshasa in 1982 when the Zaire government was battling rebel forces in a bloody conflict. He came to Canada and grew up in Montreal and got started in football through an organization that runs sports programs for underserved children. He ended up playing at Vanier College and then to Nebraska University. Sometimes we forget that these athletes playing in our CFL are all top ranked football players coming from prestigious US football schools.

The Technical Stuff: This portrait involved three lighting scenarios. I used my Nikon D700 with a 50mm f/1.4 for the blue photo and a Nikon D300 and the 17-55mm lens for the other two. The first photo is obvious, with two Nikon speed lights with white shoot thru umbrellas on either side. I also use a Honl 1/8 grid on a Nikon SB900 for very focused lighting on his face (for both lit photos). In the third photo I put the speed lights behind him. BTW, that’s the roof he’s holding on to.

Edmonton - December 12, 2009 - Montana Wolff Von Selzam holds a candle as other members hold up letters that spell HOPE as Community members, NDP MLA Rachel Notley, Council of Canadians, E-SAGE, Greenpeace on Campus, and the Sierra Club hold a candlelight vigil demonstrating Albertans' concern about people dying from climate change. PHOTO BY JIMMY JEONG for the Edmonton Journal.

-48 degrees (with windshield) weather didn’t stop Edmontonians from joining in on a co-ordinated 130-country vigil in hopes of some real action from the Copenhagen talks. I was quite surprised that so many people actually came out for this event. Didn’t they know that the Canadian Curling Trials were underway? Didn’t they know that my poor fingers were turning purple as I tried to squeeze every bit of available light on my Nikon D700 pushing the pixels beyond ISO 2500.

Or maybe they just knew that our newspapers are suckers when it comes to candle light vigils. There’s so much symbolism with that lighting of the flame. A shared hope.

The Technical Stuff: Shot with my trusty Nikon D700 at ISO 2500 (shot a couple at 3200 and it was still pretty clean) and a 50mm lens at an aperture of 1.4. I wish that Nikon would come out with that 35mm 1.4 already. I love the bokeh (the quality of the out of focus parts of the image) with a 1.4 aperture, but the 50mm focal length is just too tight for my style of bringing the viewer into the setting type of look.