Photos by Christy

Monday, July 12, 2010

Up In The Air

Over the weekend, I went to Dallas to visit my friend, Sharisse. I took these pictures during the flight back home because I couldn't pass up the pretty sky. Don't worry though, I looked it up in the Sky Magazine, and cameras are ok to use above 10,000 feet, I think. I'll post the other pictures from this trip later this week. It was an amazing weekend crammed with a lot of activities, so you should probably start looking forward to the pictures now.

Monday, July 5, 2010

Wedding #4

Here are a few shots from the wedding I shot a couple weekends ago. I don't feel like resizing a lot of pictures or writing about the experience, so I'm just going to post a couple of my favorites and let you make of them what you will.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

My Latest Creation

It's funny how inspiration comes to one at the most mundane times. I got the idea for this project while driving to work the other day. It was around 4:30 in the morning and since I hadn't gotten a decent night's sleep, I was tired and driving on autopilot. I was in a pretty bad mood and even wearing my grumpy day shirt hadn't lifted my spirits any (for those of you who don't know what this means, my grumpy day shirt is a blue t-shirt with the grumpy old man from UP on it...the idea is that looking at it will make me smile and thus be happy). I really wasn't looking forward to sitting at a computer toning pictures for 8 hours that day (and then another 6 when I got home). My mind was wandering as I drove. I thought of my fight with my family from the night before and then thought of all the pictures I still had to tone from this wedding. I then asked God to help me make it through the day.

I thought about the times I am most happy, and I realized that I'm most happy when I have a creative project to work on. I love making collages of the places I visit. I wondered if I could do something creative with the photos from this wedding. My mind focused on a picture I had shot of Mark and Sarah by the arch. I had already saturated the color of the picture to make it look cool, but could I do something else with it? All of a sudden it came to me; I could make that the center and main photo, and then make the other photos black and white and create a border around the arch photo.

I immediately became excited and started figuring out sizes in my head. The whole thing is 16x20 inches. I figured they could make it an 8x10 if they thought 16x20 was too big. The photos on either side are 2x2 and the photos on the top and bottom rows are 1.5x1.5. As soon as I got to work, I drew a little sketch of it on a post-it so I wouldn't forget. I wouldn't be able to work on it until much much later.

I ended up starting it that night, laying out the main photos and placing a few other photos. That was around 10 p.m. and as I had to wake up at 3:30 the next day, I figured bed was where I needed to be. I finished it yesterday night and decided to share it on my blog (I sized it down for the blog, this is an 8x10 with a resolution of 72...basically crap quality, so don't get any ideas about stealing it).

I don't think I am going to post all of the pictures from this wedding. There are so many and I have to shoot another wedding Saturday. This is a collage of the events of the day and has a fair amount of the pictures in it. I tried to keep it to pictures of just the bride and groom since it was their day. I plan to give it to Mark and Sarah, and I really hope they like it. My siblings think it looks like a movie poster and could use a title scripted across the picture. Any thoughts?

Saturday, May 22, 2010

The Long Awaited Wedding Photos

Here are the rest of the wedding photos from May 2. I chose to make them black and white for my blog simply because I felt some of the photos look better in black and white. I don't feel like writing a lot right now and I have to go shoot another wedding soon, so enjoy...

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Wedding #2

I shot my second wedding on Sunday. I have decided that I really enjoy shooting weddings. Yeah, it's a lot of pressure, but they're so much fun to shoot. That being said, I'm glad I wasn't the solo shooter for this wedding. I had some focusing issues in the group shots. I've gone through all of the pictures I took, but have yet to tone them all. As some of you know, I started a new job on Monday. It's a toning job, so when I get home I'm not exactly excited to tone more pictures. Actually, that's not true, I like toning my pictures, I'm just not used to getting up early for work yet. I toned some yesterday, but really don't feel like toning tonight. (Plus I have to watch Biggest Loser with the family). I know this is a photo blog though, and I'm not sure how many people will actually read this...so here are a few pictures I took:

The ceremony was at the Jewel Box, so we took pictures before hand in Forest Park.

As soon as I saw this gate, I knew I had to take this picture

This was my idea as well...I really wish that pole wasn't there. I suppose I could Photoshop it out, but it'd be difficult (not like the cars in the background).

One of the bridesmaids put her bouquet on the ground...she got in trouble for it, but I thought the stones made a nice background.

At the reception, they had a wall of these diamond shaped mirrors by the dance floor. I thought it'd be cool to shoot the reflection of them dancing. I turned my on-camera flash towards the dancers (the groom and his mother) and then pointed my camera towards the mirror. The flash was a little hot on the groom's face, but I was able to tone it down a bit in Photoshop. I wish I had seen this shot earlier so I could've worked with it more. It would have been nice to have the bride and groom in this shot.