Photographers look at the world differently than most people. Everything is looked at with varying degrees of potential. Mental formulas are calculated for every scene, every shot. Light & Shadow, Color, Texture, Composition, Perspective, Expression…It all comes into play in the span of a few minutes or even a few seconds.

For creating portraits, good photographers often start with a mental projection of the image they want to capture, they know the appropriate camera settings and lenses that it will require, they make the light work for them or they create it themselves, they bring in their experience and their view of the surroundings, add in the ideas for digitally editing/processing the image and they make it work for the end result of an awesome (hopefully!) photograph.

Wedding photographers have to do all of this rather quickly, with large numbers of people, while making sure everyone is having a good time. At least, that is what I try to do.

I am enjoying capturing weddings by myself, but for a few of my wedding packages, I offer a second photographer to come in for the day or a portion of the day. Logistically, it can be good to have two people in different places at once. Good teams can feed off each others ideas, sometimes even raising the creative bar. Sometimes though, the two photographers end up working the same scene. The results, while similar, can be awesomely different.

Take these two photos, for instance…

Neal’s Image

My Image

Neal Troester joined me on a wedding I shot earlier this year. He is one of the two awesomely talented guys with LemonLime Photography…yes, he cheated on his business partner, Eric, to come shoot with me.

Anyway, back to the photos, this is an example of the same direction, lighting, and nearly the same settings and lenses, but the final perspective and composition, although still straight on, is entirely different. I wanted the beams in the roof to be in my photo to lead your eye down to the folks and Neal wanted the reflective ground to be in his. Ends up, the results are stunning and I decided I like his version better. The key, though, is sometimes just changing your perspective only a few feet can make all the difference in the world.

Out of curiosity, which is YOUR favorite? Why? Why Not?

To all my incredible and patient wedding clients… a HUGE Thank you!

NINE Albums are currently being designed and the album proofs will be out very, very soon. Same with a bunch of DVDs…The new packaging is in and ready to ship very soon!

– John & Jessika, your proofs and blog post are almost ready (later today!)
– Tyler & Monica, your blog post is nearly there also later today!
– Michael & Amanda, your proofs and large blog post are going to be done tomorrow!
– Bob & Stacey, I am nearly done with your amazing wedding images and am getting them ready to show you on Monday or sooner!
– TJ & Krista, the windy photos look awesome…can’t wait to share them with you early next week!