Weddings, like photographs, are all about the details that build up to that perfect moment- the decisive moment. 

It is about catching the natural, unexpected moments in a visually stimulating way.

I have been thinking about details related to my own wedding a lot lately, and going through the photos from weddings I have recently covered. It is hard for me to be so far away from my mom, sister, cousins and best friends as I plan this event with Evan, but I am lucky to have a fiance who is sharing the planning with me, and a soon to be mother-in-law who is always there for me and willing to help. It takes a lot of people to plan a beautiful and fun wedding and one of the most important things the day of the event is to be with all the people who are important to you and have helped to shape who you are. I know all the people in my life are helping in their own way. As a photographer, catching candid moments of families, friends and couples who truly love each other is one of the most rewarding images to solidify in time.

I have been accused by some friends of approaching my wedding as a photographer, thinking about what will look good in photos, rather than as a bride. For me, however, it is hard to separate the two. I will always look at the world through a photographer’s eyes.

When planning a wedding, there are many factors that must be considered…

The flowers

Where to get ready

How to have your makeup done

How to wear your hair and whether to wear a veil

What dress to wear

What shoes

Earrings?

What should the bridesmaids wear?

How big to have your wedding party

Where to hold the ceremony

What type of reception to have…

Big

or small

Shall there be dancing?

The music

Whether there will be a second line or a crawfish boil (these are New Orleans concerns)…

And, of course, the most important things are the moments between the couples

All of these details work together to make a beautiful wedding and when you are taking a photograph, it is the details that make an interesting image. Never forget to pay attention to everything going on in the photo–all the layers.

Every young photographer learns that light and shadow are bread and butter for shutterbugs.

I have been meaning to start a photography blog for years, and after my fiance helped me set it up today, I am finally going to give it a shot. I have been taking pictures since I was a little girl. It has always been an outlet for me to look at the world- somehow I am able to take a closer look through the filter of my lens. If I miss a shot because I don’t have my camera on me or because I hesitate, I think about it for days, weeks or even years. This is probably something I got in part from one of my mentors, a very talented photographer who I worked under at a newspaper in Greeley, Colorado. We were at a bar in Jackson Hole, Wyoming on a photo retreat, and I reached into my bag to grab my camera so that I could capture a funny scene that was playing out before us, but I missed the shot because I had the lens cap on. This is when he told me to throw my lens cap away and I have never again put a cap on my lens nor gone anywhere without at least some form of camera. Seconds are everything in photojournalism. It’s not always about composition, light and subject- sometimes it is simply about being in the right place at the right time and being ready. I studied photography in high school and college, working my way from the dark room to photoshop, and with my degree in journalism I went on to work at a newspaper in Longmont, Colorado where I learned from more talented photographers, one of whom will soon travel down to New Orleans to photograph my wedding.

Photography is my way of meeting people from all walks of life and studying their humanity. Somewhere along the way I decided I wanted to experience the act of helping people from the other side of the lens. I moved to New Orleans in 2008 to study nursing, and about a year ago began working in an emergency room at a very busy hospital on the west bank of the greater new orleans area. Nursing is a very rewarding, though tiring, career. I am happy to have the skill set to not only document the human condition, but also get my hands dirty by physically helping people. My dream now is to practice my nursing abroad, and of course document it along the way. In this new nursing chapter of my life, I never stopped taking pictures. Professionally, I currently mostly shoot weddings, which I love, but I miss journalism. My goals with this blog are to motivate myself to shoot more often and to stay more connected with the photo world, and hopefully along the way I will write or shoot something of interest to someone out there.

For my first post, I was inspired both by an argument with my fiance and some photos I shot when we had guests in from San Francisco. My fiance likes to live in the dark, as living in a tunnel would be his dream home. I, on the other hand, like big windows and lots of sunlight. I guess you could say that with his musical background, he cares more about the auditory nature of his surroundings, whereas I am the more visual one and need the light to see clearly. As I sat down to work on this blog, the sun went down and we argued about turning the lights on. The fact is, however, that both light and darkness are necessary for interesting photos.

As I said before, every young photographer learns that light and shadow are bread and butter for shutterbugs, but these tools are often taken for granted. While entertaining our guests, we took them to a New Orleans cemetery, or as we like to call it, city of the dead. New Orleans has above the ground cemeteries to prevent flooding and the consequently unsightly image of floating bodies. These static, simple shapes provide a great place to remember the basics of photography. A simple photo of a gravestone is so much more interesting when you pay attention to how the light is cast on the subject, how shadows create their own shapes, what patterns are being created and even how the subject is being framed.