I was privileged to be the official photographer for the welcoming ceremony of two new BC supreme court justices - Justices Harvey and Verhoeven.  The ceremony was held in one of the heritage criminal courtrooms at the New Westminster courthouse and was one of the rare times cameras are allowed into the courthouse.  Basically, the way it goes is the justices all attend, dignitaries such as the Chief Justice and Attorney General make glowing and often humourous speeches about the appointees, and the new appointees respond in kind.  After the shoot, we retired to the judges' chambers to get some shots of friends and family.  This shoot was definitely interesting in that I switched between available light (ISO 3200 on the D3 and D700) and portable studio light with the Hensel to get a variety of natural, yet dramatic looks in the windowless courtroom.

So I'm going to make a big push this year to get some more weddings done.  I love weddings.  I love the imagery and the emotions -- love and happiness (generally!).

I've talked to my fair share of glamour and fashion photographers and often it seems they consider wedding photography as the bane of all photography ("man, you couldn't pay me to shoot a wedding").  The reasons seemed pretty common -- the lack of creative control; boring; the bridezilla, the mother-of-bridezilla; the unpredictability.  Shooting with an experienced professional model can be as easy as shooting the proverbial fish in a barrel -- you can't go wrong, which is often why I like the challenge of working with a newbie model.  Wedding photographers seem more accommodating of the other side, but many seem to not nail the decisive moment, or worse, don't often know how to make people look good.

I thrive on unpredictability.  Years of sports shooting and photojournalism have made it easier for me to be ready for that decisive moment -- having the camera pre-focused, exposure set, and keeping an eye out on what's happening around you and having a sixth sense of what's going to happen.  That's what true photojournalism is, not the spray-and-pray approach that is often branded as such and only occasionaly gets something resembling a moment out of pure luck.  Wedding photojournalism is tough, as there is always inner aspiration of a good photographer to take a raw fleeting moment and turn it into something artistic that tells a story.  I love that challenge.

Part two of this big push is to incorporate the photojournalism with the glamour and portraiture aspects of my photography.  What better combination is there of being able to capturing both the emotions of the day AND capturing some dreamy fairy tale images of a bride on her big day looking her absolute best?

"Without light, you have nothing."  I think one of my mentors may have said that.  Or maybe I just did.  Regardless, my mission in the last few years has been to seek light in all its wonderful forms, to understand it, and to shape it.  I've had a host of great mentors, all of whom had a hand in shaping my ability to use and see light, but many who helped me to coax and capture peoples' emotions and their inner beauty.  I rebel against flat, featureless light.  We've all seen it -- the digital-looking, bluish tinted, shadowless, textureless light that is just awful, yet seems all-too prevalent in wedding photography from amateurs and pros alike.  Enough already!

Photojournalism + Glamour + Light = Awesome.  This'll be fun!

If there are any brides-to-be reading this, let's talk about working together!  Let's set a higher standard, and do something awesome.  I've got a special intro prices that'll probably just cover my costs because I truly want you to have better pictures.

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