finding true love

For fun, I thought I'd share with you formula for finding true love...in a picture that is. I've been narrowing down my all time favorites in hopes of finding something exactly perfect for my new house. Since my siblings both just got married, and they're all beautiful, I decided, if I'm going to print client pictures, might as well be them. You all remember Jocilyn & Cal's groomals and the beautiful mountain/rainbow setting. Well there was one shot of the rainbow that I love, love...but the portrait photographer in me kept thinking it would be SO perfect if Joc had only been in the shot. True love for me is a gorgeous setting + insert bride here. And while I usually shoot to do this in camera, this time around I had a thought:

Instead of wishing Jocilyn had been in my rainbow shot + wishing the double rainbow/vivid sky had been in hers, I decided to do as The Greats do...Photoshop. Yep. At the bottom of this post is a shot I pulled from Jim Garner's website. He won a huge award with this image at WPPI. When I first saw it I was in awe. And I still do love the shot. But he himself admitted it's a compilation of two images. At first knowing that really bugged me. But when faced with a similar dillema I realized if it's for the sake of art (and you're not claiming pure photo journalism), why not!

I'm so exicted to print this baby huge and hang it...I just can't decide which room will be best. It would be doubly awesome if my bro were in it, but weddings really are about the bride anyway :)

Anyhow, hope you enjoy this peak into how we professionals do what we do. You do have to get it right to begin with, but you also have to know what your options are afterwise. Note that in the two original images, I exposed for the sky, leaning towards an image that was underexposed so I could capture that rainbow. I also waited for that bird to get into the shot... But what came out of the camera isn't what my eyes saw. And that's where Photoshop comes in. The final product matches the beauty that I remember being surrounded in. And so for me, there's nothing fake about it. It truly was the breathtaking. Try as Nikon and Canon may, no camera will ever be able to expose for a scene the way our eyes can. There's no doubt in my mind that God knew what we was doing when he designed us. And he obviously hasn't slacked off since. This mountain setting was incredible and I feel so lucky to have been able to capture it and bring it home.




Jim Garner's award winning image...Maybe I'll enter mine this next year!