I still remember when Joyce contacted me via email about Joyce and Adrian’s wedding plan, which was actually a long time ago because the wedding photography was booked 18 months in advance.  It wasn’t just about the details of the wedding, but also sharing about how she met Adrian and how they fall in love and were there to support each other. And you know what? They don’t have to travel far to see each other, being each other’s neighbour (that also meant I didn’t have to travel far between the getting ready locations). Confirmed by the best man’s speech, “there was something going on across the fence”. 

Oh you know it’s going to be a really warm/family/heartfelt wedding when parents from both side welcome you with open arms. There were lots of happy tears, but at the same time, lots of giggles and dancing as the night comes to an end. So I felt like more like a guest and not just the photographer who rocked up and is doing your job. I even had a seat with my name amongst the guests, thanks guys.

We had so much fun being driven around on the golf buggy for our location. For anyone couple who is looking for something a bit adventurous, this is definitely the fun way to have your location shoot.  Maybe next time I will learn to breathe rather than hold my breath whenever the buggy makes a sharp turn.

And if you want a more thrilling experience on the golf buggy, try driving in reverse when making your entry into your wedding reception. Just like Joyce and Adrian did!

=)

And this picture to end the blog, because it’s Mother’s day coming up and it’s such a touching photo, the love of a mother.

Chrissy

Sometimes, less is more.

“And I will take you in my arms
And hold you right where you belong
Till the day my life is through
This I promise you baby

Just close your eyes
Each loving day
I know this feeling won’t go away
Every word I say is true
This I promise you…“

                                                                                                                                This I Promise You, N’Sync

“When the sun shines, we’ll shine together
Told you I’ll be here forever
Said I’ll always be a friend
Took an oath I’ma stick it out till the end
Now that it’s raining more than ever
Know that we’ll still have each other
You can stand under my umbrella
You can stand under my umbrella”

                                                                                                                                                                         Umbrella lyrics, Rihanna

The last couple of weeks have been an exciting week (a bit of stress in between) for Antz and I as we moved to our new home (and new studio) and doing renovations in between. So in the mean time, consultations will be done  done outside of the studio,….just for a short time.

Today I want to share with you a high tea bridal shower. I am quite surprised that bridal shower photography is not as popular as it is over in America. So hope to inspire any bride-to-be out there for your bridal shower. It is quite fun, good chance to play dress up and an excuse to get away from our partners and have a catch up with the girlfriends.

But this bridal shower has a little personal touch as it is one of my girlfriends from high school. I was honoured to be asked to be her bridesmaid. Being busy with the business, I am totally guilty of the role of a bridesmaid and can only happily assist in shooting of the party.

Our friendship goes back to the high school days, doing things typical teenage girls would do. Back in the days, where Maxibon ice cream was only $2, Marie would have the biscuit half and I would have the crunchy chocolate. Our other favourite food was hot chips with chicken salt and eating them when catching our bus home (even though we know we are not allowed to eat on the bus). Or have a pineapple doughnut for breakfast whenever we are not late to school. It amazes me the amount of junk food we used to eat and not care about a thing.

We were a bit of a bookworm with our studies (partially from parent’s expectations) so did similar subjects for our HSC. We adore our Maths teacher, even though we think he really needs a shave. Thinks our Economics teacher is quite weird and are never late to our Chemistry class for fear of getting detentions from our super strict teacher.  Only our English teacher we have different views, probably because English is not my favourite subject.

Here are some of the photos from the day, mostly of the details images for inspirations. I was not shooting the entire shower, partially because I was also participating some of the games we play. And of course, what happens at Marie’s high tea party…. stay at Marie’s high tea party. =P

Here is a photo of Marie and I, all grown up and married now. I was tempted to post photos from our high school days to show the memories we’ve shared but I think I would have to walk around with a paper bag on my head for a while (teenage acne much?).

Marie once shared a poem with me “People come into your life for a reason, a season or for a lifetime”.  So if you have friendship which would be lasting a lifetime,please do make time for regular catch up, even when finding time for each other is hard living life in the fast lane.

Chrissy

Hello everyone,

First of all, thank you to those who send in their entries for my 2012 Wedding Photography Competition. Secondly, apologies the announcement is just a little late due to emails technicalities (but it is now fixed).

This year, both of our brides- to- be are have the same first name. You will have the option to vote for either Laura & John or Laura & Roberto. So the winner will either be Laura or…. Laura. Confused much? =)

Just a quick reminder, to vote for your favourite couple, here are the steps:

1. Visit my Facebook page.
2. “Like” the page =) (Otherwise, your votes will not be included)
3. Click “like” to vote for your favourite couple
4. The couple with the most “likes” by 11.59pm 21^st of February is the winner. Easy peasy right?

So vote away everyone, please provide the supports to our couple by voting right away and don’t delay (oh em gee, did that sounds so cheesy or what).

Chrissy

Laura & John

“After a romantic dinner on our 5^th anniversary, John handed me a blind fold saying he wants to give me my anniversary gift. I sat in the car while John drove for what seemed like hours in anticipation of what there was to come. And then after many failures at guessing where we were going, the car stopped.

Walking hand in hand and step by step we walked along a gravel path,  John sat me down on a bench, still blind folded, and told me to wait patiently for my present. He dashed off. All I could hear now was the sound of water, the whistling of the wind and some sort of lighter noise. My mind suddenly filled itself with the image of beautiful tea-light candles, flowers and my present. John came back, took my hand and we continued to walk.

“Where are we?” I asked. No answer.

“Are we almost there?”

“Yes”.

We came to a standstill.

“Take off your blind fold”.

Mind still full of images of lit candles and flowers, I took the blind fold off. I saw the river. I saw the candles and I saw John. He had taken me back to the exact same spot he has asked me out exactly 5 years ago by the river near the park. But this time, he got onto his knees and instead of asking me to date him, he asked me to marry him! The sweetest part was that he made the ring from an American dollar note. The number 1 was the centre piece and popped up like a jewel. John said you’re the only one I want to marry.

Our wedding will be personalized as much as we can. I will be making most of my decorations, bouquets, boutonnieres and gifts. I’ve always felt it more thoughtful to make something than to buy it. I’ll be making my own wedding cake!.

We’re having customized photo booth with cardboard cut outs of ourselves standing/sitting besides a vintage chaise, against a pastel pink, peach and white ribbon back drop. In the backdrop will be hundreds of paper cranes and glass bubbles with candles hanging from the ceiling.

John wants to hire out an open vintage carriage decorated with silk flowers and a hand stamped “just married” sign. He’ll be the driver of course!

I’ve designed candles for the ceremony for each of our families and a candle for us.

Each of our guests will take with them a memento of our wedding which has been personalized with an individual message in them. We have even made personalized napkin holders!

It is very important to us that our dream wedding includes the capture of the intimate and special moments throughout the day so we may cherish these photos for the rest of our live. Chrissy we know you can do this because we’ve seen how passionate and warm you have been at Jenny and Andrew’s wedding.”

Laura & Roberto

“We were in Vincentia on New Years Eve, our daughter (three months old then) Caliah’s first holiday and Roberto came back down after working all day since he hadn’t taken leave between Christmas and New Years. He was singing to Caliah while I got ready to go into Huskissons with the family and our little family. He was singing Bruno Mars’ song Marry You.

We drove down to Huskisson only to be confronted with everyone leaving after the 9pm fireworks. We were later told that there were no more fireworks for the night which left me and my sister upset and wanting to chase fireworks. We ended up going down to where everyone else was in the end and staying in Huskisson until midnight making the most of it. I was still a little upset that we didn’t get to see fireworks like I was hoping but we ended up sitting on the boardwalk near the play equipment and grass.

Once midnight had come and left just as quickly Roberto asked me to take a walk with him, we made it to the end of the boardwalk which wasn’t very long when I stated that maybe we should go back completely unaware with what Roberto and Caliah would do next.

“Look what Caliah has” He said as I said but I don’t have an anniversary present for you yet. Roberto just looked at me and told me to open the tiny box that he had Caliah carrying in her tiny hands. I opened the box to find this amazing ring inside and I started crying as Roberto asked me to Marry him. I said yes in tears of course!!

Our wedding is being personalised with the use of a theme. The theme being “The Secret Garden”. I have numerous decorations from lanterns and an abundant amount of types of flowers I’d like to use as well as the perfect venue’s for the wedding, Gardens and a big house! Did I mention the keys? I have various antique styled keys much like the ones used in the movie and the book to decorate my invitations, venues, groomsmen, groom, bridesmaids and myself!

Winning this competition would mean the world to us, making our wedding the dream secret garden wedding I would LOVE it to be.”

* Disclaimer: The photos supplied by the finalists and are not taken by myself.

Flash photography, it was something I did not want to deal with when I first started. My excuse was “ Oh I prefer to use natural light over flash. Flash is too harsh on the skin, flash is not natural, flash is not flattering, flash is this, flash is that.” But really, this was all to hide the fact that I did not know how to use flash. When I did use it, the photo would look like the subject was photoshopped onto a fake backdrop. Looking at the spedlite was like learning a new language with the bunch of weird numbers (wouldn’t you say learning photography itself is like a new language)

But knowing how to manipulate your speedlite (or any light for that matter) is crucial, especially in wedding photography. Why wedding photography? Because most brides wear white or shades of white, so without flash, there is a high chance of overexposing the photo and the dress will result in a “blob” of white. Intricate details such as lace, crystals and the like will be all washed.

 There is a trend these days in photography to blow out the highlight, I do it as well sometimes. Eg, to blowout the background because it might not be the most interesting landscape. But I do try to not overexpose the dress to get “the blob” on bride’s dresses. It’s all very subjective, but this is my approach.

Trust me, when you get your exposure spot on, it will make your post editing much easier, quicker and you will not cringe at the photos because there is so much work needed to be done on it. Post editing should be enhancing the photos, not fixing the photo (please do rub it in the day I do not follow this protocol). There is an assumption, “Oh that can always be photoshop”. I realllllllllllllyyyyyy do not follow that approach in my shooting at all. I like to get it right in camera as much as I can, because, how many photos can you manually “fix”?

So here is a photo of Bec I want to show you how I use flash and natural light to balance the ambient mood. (I love her Swarovski-bling dress).

Here is the setting for this photo: 50 1.4mm @ 2.5m ISO 400 1/400s, manual exposure, spot metering, TTL flash.

Bet you thought this photo was taken using all natural light because Bec was standing next to a window? It’s a bummer I didn’t take a photo without flash to show you. But without flash, if you expose for the skin, then Bec’s dress will be mostly of “the blob”, as well as the bottom left of the window. If you expose for the background, then Bec will be very dark to the point you can’t see her face.

I spot meter for Bec’s dress so I don’t blow out the highlight of the dress. Note I did not crank up the ISO because I do not like too much noise in my photo (remember, light & airy is my style). I will then turn on my SB900, dial down the flash to -1.00EV, using TTL. If you need to use higher power flash, then add the diffuser on top of the flash to diffuse the flash. Eg, my diffuser is the milky Gary Fong’s dome.

I have posted the before and after editing.  Here are the steps to edit this photo:

1. +1 contrast
2. Lighten Bec’s face a lil bit.
3. Skin softening.
4. Sharpening of her eyes. (I do not sharpen the whole image, ever! Again, personal preference for my style.)

And that’s it!

Just be mindful not to over photoshop the skin, aka, airbrushing. Like they say, less is more.

Now, whenever someone asks me about flash, I still say I prefer to use natural light, but I have the flash on me at all time. It is my life saver. So come on, pick up your flash and don’t be afraid of it. All it takes is practice (just not on a bride ).

I will be blogging Bec and Jono’s beloved session and then their wedding soon. Guess this will be my sneak peek instead.

Chrissy

 Hi everyone,

How have the start of the year been for you? January have been super busy for me, as I am preparing a lot of projects for 2012 for my business.

So to kick start the year, here is your chance (or a family member or friends) to win a wedding photography collection worth up to $2,500. Below are the details of the competition. Please read the instruction carefully, as it has changed since last year.

The Wedding

Your love story will be witnessed by families and friends no later than 2012 (if I am not already booked).

Entries (500 words or less) needs to include the following details:

-          The date of your wedding

-          A recent picture of you and your fiancé showing your personalities. (helps to put a name to a face for our readers)

-          Your proposal story

-          How will you personalise your wedding.(details, details, details)

-          Why winning this wedding photography competition will assist you and your fiancé to achieve your dream wedding

The Goodies

-          Up to 8 hours free wedding photographed by Chrissy

-          1 hour beloved session.

-          Pre-wedding consultation.

-          High resolution of the colour-corrected digital negatives.

-          All entrants will receive a 10% discount.

The Selection Method

The winning couple will be chosen by our readers/likers ( no joke).  Finalists will have the opportunity to post on my Facebook page during the voting process. The couple with the most likes by 11.59pm on 14^th February 2012 will win.

To be eligible to vote, please “like” my page =)

Please send your entry to Christine(at)chrissynphotography(dot)com as competition closes 10^th February 2012. Finalists will be announced on my blog the next day.

The Extra Info

Chrissy loves all things vintage *ahem*, *hint hint*

Prizes cannot be exchanged for cash

Weddings held interstates and all over the world are welcome; however, travelling cost is not included.

You are willing to share your love story (and photos) on my blog/website, aka sign a model release contract.

Automatic entry to become a finalist if you know the exact date Antz and I have been together.

If Chrissy N Photography reaches 888 “likes” by the end of the competition, one random lucky supporter will win a session of your choice worth $888.

So please help me spread the news, post it to your wall, spam your friends emails because the date this competition closes is just around the corner.