Where Craftsmanship Begins for a Wedding & Portrait Artist

Brides often gush about the beauty of their wedding images, or how amazing their custom art installation is at their home – or the beauty and quality of their wedding album. Nothing really makes me feel better than making a client happy – it is very self gratifying to know that I have given someone something that they love, and will last a lifetime.

I have spent countless hours honing my skills with camera equipment, from the camera itself to light meters, to remote flash triggering systems, to specialized lens/camera/monitor/projector calibration hardware and software. I have also spent more time than I can log designing in photoshop, and working with print labs to create perfect printed products.

With all of the above in mind, there is really no piece of equipment, no technique, no product, and no magical way to create a well crafted image without the right pose and expression. I always tell my photography students, “Pose, Compose, Expose, - but Expression trumps all”. I could spend all the time in the world creating a technically flawless portrait, but if the expression doesn't draw you in, make you laugh, make you cry, or make you think, then the image failed.

For this reason, I am always watching people (nothing creepy), taking note to how people interact with each other – what do beautiful moments look like, and how did they originate? This helps me to provide direction to clients and create organic scenarios in which real expressions happen, and I can put all of the technique to use. I study images from other photographers, magazines of all sorts (even my wife’s knitting magazines), and I find things that I like, then imagine what it took to create the scenario.

Working with people to create poses, scenes & scenarios is certainly an art of it's own, and this is where the real craftsmanship as a wedding and portrait photographer begins.

Photographic craftsmanship is the ability to work with someone, make them feel comfortable, confident, and beautiful, then create an image that they never could have imagined, then produce the image as a perfect finished product – weather it be a beautiful art canvas, a metal print, or a custom framed/matted art print.

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