Wedding at St. Mary's in Downtown Nashville with a Hilton Garden Inn Reception

Courtney and Wesley began and ended their wedding day at the Hilton Garden Inn located in the Midtown Area of Nashville on October 16th.  They began getting ready at the hotel and then the groomsmen and bridesmaids took turns heading downtown to St. Mary's for photos before the ceremony.  St. Mary's is a beautiful and historic church in Nashville.  It served as the first Catholic Cathedral in Nashville and during the Civil War it was converted into a hospital for Union soldiers.



After the ceremony the wedding party headed a block away to War Memorial Plaza where the bride and groom along with several of the bridesmaids actually risked damaging their dresses before the reception in order to get some fun shots in the fountains!  I was really excited about these shots!

The reception at the Hilton Garden Inn was beautiful and there was a really nice view from the balcony where we were able to get a few more bride and groom portraits at dusk.

Following is a link to the proof site where the rest of the photos may be viewed and ordered.
http://pictage.com/927034

   

HDR Shots for Property Owner's Portfolio

I was recently hired to take some shots of the interior and exterior of 6 medical office buildings around Nashville.  This is sort of an unusual type of shoot for me but I really enjoyed it! That is, all except for the getting up super early to get buildings before cars showed up. I used the HDR process in the examples below. 

HDR or High Dynamic Ratio is a process that works especially well with buildings. To get an HDR image, you need to use a tripod and take multiple photos while bracketing to get different exposures.  I set the shutter speed and aperture and change the ISO to get a perfect exposure and then overexpose a shot and then underexpose a shot.  Then you layer the 3 shots using a script in Photoshop or any number of plug-ins such as Photomatix.  They usually come out sort of smoky looking so it helps to raise the contrast afterwards and then you get images that look like the examples below.  You can vary a number of settings to control how cartoonish the images come out.  

I've tried this with portraits and it usually makes people look bruised or dead but if you are willing to spend the time in Photoshop, you can make a background look like this and then cut the person out of the shot with the best exposure and lay them over the HDR image so the background looks cool and the subject doesn't look like they were boxing before the shoot.  That is always something fun to try to mix things up a little and give your clients a little variety!

Amanda and Collin - September 4th in Franklin, TN

Amanda and Collin met while they were both vacationing in Las Vegas and it sounds like its been a whirlwind ever since.  Collin lives in Connecticut and Amanda has lived in Nashville so the two held down a long distance romance while Amanda finished up her degree at Belmont.  I've had a chance to connect with the two through Facebook and from what I can tell they have built up a lot of frequent flyer miles.

September 4th had to be the most pleasant weather for a wedding since at least April.  I've grown accustomed to the summer heat and humidity but this was such a beautiful day.  I took the wedding party outside for photos every chance I got!

The wedding ceremony took place at Clearview Baptist Church in Franklin, TN and the reception took place at the Old Natchez Country Club.  One of the groom's sisters who works as a designer in LA made the dress especially for Amanda and she did a fabulous job. I love these weddings with big wedding parties b/c they all heckle each other and make it so easy to get great natural fun expressions... without me having to break out my terrible comedy.

We had a blast with the photos.  I got groom shots with lasers in the hall of the youth area of the church, had the groomsmen do a variety of silly things on a stage, had the girls lounging in the grass and the sun, throwing flower petals, and then a short photoshoot on a golf green at Old Natchez just before they entered the reception and the twilight was amazing!  Following are some that I couldn't resist posting!

View the rest of their wedding photos at the following proof site:

http://pictage.com/912304

Also, click here to view a slideshow of my favorites.