Artisan Taste

On Saturday, I volunteered at WGBH’s Artisan Taste Event.  A beautiful day, live music, delicious food & drink, & friendly staff made for a great day of picture-taking!

Falling in love with wedding photography

I’m one of those people who follows, likes, pins, and generally seeks out and admires wedding photography. I have liked so many wedding photographers on Facebook, my feed is practically consumed by them – from all over the U.S. I see the sneak peeks photographers post in the days after the celebration and eagerly click through their albums, loving every minute of it.

One of those photographers is Caroline Winn – who I reached out to via email and was super nice and took time out to meet me for coffee and tell me about her journey. This past Saturday, she let me come along and assist/second shoot Peter & Danielle’s wedding at the Exchange Conference Center in Boston. It was my first experience with wedding photography, and let me just say…..LOVE! It was a busy, long, tiring, on-your-feet all day kind of day, but one of the ones where when you get home you can’t go to sleep because you’re still jazzed!

The day started out in Charlestown, where Caroline had me take another angle on the first look. After that we did portraits at Monument Park, and later headed to the ECC for the ceremony, where I shot down the aisle following Danielle’s entrance.

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I learned so much thanks to Caroline, and Danielle & Peter who were so happy and in love – thank you for letting me be a part of your wedding day!

It’s so exciting to see such a special day come to life in photographs that will be family keepsakes. I can’t wait for my next opportunity!

Before & After – Lightroom editing progress

In March 2014, I did my sister’s engagement photos. It was one of my very first “gigs” as a photographer and I was very excited, nervous, and super new to the whole thing. I had literally *just* purchased adobe lightroom 4 and obviously didn’t have much experience with the editing thing, either.

On top of that, I had just finished a photography course at Firefly53 and was shooting in full-on manual for the first time.

I managed to get some good shots and at the time was pretty happy with what I was able to do. Now when I look back at all the shots I took (485!!!) I see so many things I would do differently: under-exposures, over-exposures, blown-out backgrounds, inexplicably high ISO when I was in sunny Houston, Texas, bad poses because I wasn’t giving my subjects enough direction – and finally, some horrible newbie editing on my part. Since this is the only thing I can change now, to some extent, I decided to take another stab at some photos that I edited then, reset, and re-edit them, knowing what I know now. Here’s an example!

SOOC:

This sucker is straight of the camera, and aside from the background being completely blown out, it’s not too bad. They’re cute, the picnic table idea I borrowed from Pinterest, and with some editing, it’s a keeper.

2014 Edit:

Yikes. I’m honest when I say I’m not sure what I was thinking with this one. Black and white? No. I jacked up the clarity, which makes the dark parts of this photo look harsh and you can literally see the spots on her legs where I use the adjustment brush. Woof.

2015 Edit:

My approach this time is simplicity. I kept the photo in color to accentuate their natural skin tones, upped the contrast a little to make the colors pop, and used a little noise reduction – because once again I had the ISO way too high! There isn’t a huge difference from the SOOC version, other than it’s a little more polished, and it’s definitely less harsh than my first edit.

There are a lot of things I would do differently with this shoot if I were doing it now, but luckily I still got some great shots that we all love, they are my family and have to love me anyway, and thankfully, I’ve come a long way since then!

Happy Fall!

I hate being that person that jumps into the next season when the last one isn’t over yet – but it’s post-labor day so I feel like I can start to talk about how excited for this Fall I am!

Even though it’s 90 degrees today, I’ve already had this season’s first Pumpkin Spiced Latte (can’t you feel my coffee buzz from there?) and I have some definite plans for Fall this year. I’ve been working on a list, because that’s what I do, and I figured I’d share it here now and post pictures as I make my way through it all the way into November.

Part of my real focus on enjoying each season to its fullest this year is that right now I am pretty settled in where I am and what I’m doing. Last year at this time I was moving to Quincy, starting a new job, and jumping some personal hurdles that kept me busy and I didn’t get around to doing some of the things I love the most. When it was March and I looked back I was so disappointed that I hadn’t gotten around to apple picking or eating cider donuts! I didn’t pay attention to the leaves changing colors and I didn’t make it down to my favorite cranberry bog around harvest time. So this year I decided I would make a list of all the things, big and small, that I love to do as the air turns crisp in the Fall, to make sure I kept my focus on being here now and not getting caught up in the rush to the holidays.

I am also very excited because one of my very best friends recently got engaged and we’ll be doing her engagement session this fall – which is really such a special bonus to my favorite season! 🙂

• Apple picking
• Leaf-peeping drive/road trip
• Dress up for Halloween
• Watch Hocus Pocus
• Carve a pumpkin
• Drink apple cider
• Eat cider doughnuts
• Watch the cranberry harvest
• Make soup
• Celebrate my birthday
• Make fall sangria
• Make a pie
• PSL (check!)
• Shipyard pumpkinhead
• Pumpkin muffin
• Cheer at the TV during a Patriots game
• Take a family portrait
• Go to one of my cousin Noah’s soccer/flag football games
• Go to the Pembroke vs. Silver Lake Thanksgiving Day football game
• Wear boots with tights & scarves
• Go for a walk in the woods
• Go for a walk around Boston/Cambridge
• Have a cinnamon latte at Bourbon Coffee
• Run a 5K
• Visit Reed Hollow Farm
• Sit by a campfire (fire pit)
• Go to the wine festival/grape crush at Boston Winery
• Give mini-pumpkins to friends & co-workers
• Paint my nails dark
• Watch all the season premieres

Political Happy Hour – Senator Elizabeth Warren

There are definitely perks to working where I do – one of them being involved in this event last night with Senator Elizabeth Warren. She spoke about the insanity of the student loan system, the Affordable Care Act and its positive role in Massachusetts healthcare, and her love of relaxing with a light beer. It was a great event, with a packed room at Suffolk Law and some great lines of questioning from the Globe’s Joshua Miller. Topics ranged from whether she would endorse a democrat for president (to which she replied, “duh”), to her worst day of service – the day the Senate failed to pass gun legislation. Read the Globe story for more of what she said.

Next week’s Political Happy Hour features Boston Mayor Marty Walsh. Until then, more of my photos from last night’s event.