Mosaic Photo | Blog

Cool photos make for cool designs.

C.J. and Laura went out and took some great engagement pictures of Aaron and Katie. Laura grabbed a shot that I immediately saw had great graphic potential. Then I learned that they did want a save the date card.

Since their wedding is going to be a summer wedding, I liked the idea of the bright blues. So my post processing was geared toward making the colors pop a bit more. Then I started laying out the text. I wanted a clean, simple look, while still adding a couple of graphic elements to the card. So keep us in mind if you happen to need a card or any other type of design along with your photos.

One of the most prevalent styles of wedding and portrait photography is labeled as “traditional” or “classic.”  These are fitting descriptions. This style of photography is conventional, long-established, and well, traditional.

Traditional portraits are detailed, straightforward, and have a highly produced feel. This style is exemplified by straight on, posed photos.  Details are meticulously attended to. The result is a clean, formal portrait.

Posed formal portraits is an important part of most wedding photography. These formal portraits give the opportunity to capture the bride, groom, their wedding party, and their families in various combinations. Formals are almost always an expected part of any wedding day photography.

Here’s our take on traditional, formal portraits and how we go about them.  Our approach for traditionally styled portraits is mainly client driven.  We offer ideas and suggestions for what poses will be taken on the wedding day as a part of our pre-wedding consultations.  There are certain must-have formals, but we shoot these photos for the clients and their families.

Technically, we aim to put the emphasis on the details in the photo.  We use soft, even lighting for the subjects to give a clean, simple look. We also light the background – something many photographers don’t do. Subtly lighting the background allows us to not let the background fall off  too much, adding color and context to the photographs. The goal of a traditional style photograph is a classic, formal image. So, we don’t want the lighting or an off-angle composition to detract from the purpose of the details in the image.

Making sure the dress, flowers, and hair perfect is an important element to a formal portrait. That’s why Laura is a great asset to have around for traditional portraits. Her keen eye for detail take these pictures to the next level.

For a formal, very traditional ceremony or personality, traditional photography is an important element to the wedding day photography.  While we never shoot solely in a traditional style, it is something that is an important part of building your wedding day memories.

Here are a few examples of our traditional photography style:

This is part one in the series. For the entire series, including the introduction, click photographic style.

An upcoming series to communicate more effectively and learn more about us.

If you read bridal magazines then you have probably run across an article or ten describing how to find the right photographer to capture your day. And chances are that you have probably heard the term “photographic style” thrown around.  It’s very helpful to be able to convey your tastes when talking to a photographer. Being on the same page with you the person you trust to take your photos can ensure that you will be happy with your photos.

A lot of times, ambiguous terms are thrown around describing a style of photography. Things like “photojournalistic” and “traditional” are two of the most common. But these terms could mean different things to different people. So we’re going to lay out what we think of for certain approaches to photography in order for us to be on the same page.

This series will be a chance to take a deeper look into what we do as photographers.  We’re pretty versatile when it comes to different styles, and in the coming posts we will illustrate our style as best we can.  In this series, we’ll talk about how we perceive photojournalistic and editorial style, different processing styles, and some other creative and technical way we do things.

The hope is that this series will be a great benefit to you.  Our goal is to show you an assortment of things we do, and that you will be able to say, “Oh, I like that,” or “This would be great if you could take this part here…” or even, “I don’t like this.” That way, you know what you like, and so do we.

We feel this series will be a great communication tool – with us or any photographer. But hopefully us.

I had the privilege of shooting some senior portraits for a really cool guy.  It was a lot of fun, and I was happy with the results, as was Jake’s family. That’s success in my book.

Jake is an avid drummer, and a great athlete.  Plus, he was open to do pretty much anything we could think of. So we went up to Wichita Heights to take some pictures on the baseball field. Then we grabbed a drum set and headed down to Old Town for some pictures there. C.J. and Laura took over from there and headed to Oak Park.

Generally, I have a few to several images in my head going into a shoot. From there, I usually think about my lighting scheme. I like definition and clarity in my images, but I also like to setup my lights so I have some room to interact with the subject and react. This time, I used my mad drawing skills and drew up what I was looking for in 4 or 5 shots. Here are a couple: 

I really don’t know why I went ahead and shot the pictures – the drawings are so lifelike. Just for clarity and completeness, the second portrait is lit by two reflective umbrellas and a bare strobe pointing back at the camera for some separation from the background. 

There were a lot of photos I really, really liked. Check ‘em out at the sharing gallery:
http://themosaicphoto.net/p117059846

Finally, let me direct you to our $100 senior portrait promotion.

A time-crunch photo assignment at a local youth rally.

September 24 was a nation wide rally, See You at the Pole, where students gather around their school’s flagpoles and pray for their school and nation. Many places, there is a city-wide rally that evening. Our friend over at Campus Ministry Network gave us a call and asked if we could take a few pictures to send out to the rally put on by a church in Asheville, North Carolina. The organizers out in Asheville wanted their upstart group to see what was going on in Wichita. Our assignment: deliver 3 to 5 images to Asheville.

Oh yeah. We had 15 minutes to deliver the pictures. Because of the time difference, the event here in Wichita started half and hour before it was over in North Carolina.  Before the event, I made sure I had wireless access at the church and sent a test email to the tech guy for the east coasters. Once the event started at 7:00, I allotted myself 8 minutes to get the pictures taken so I’d have plenty of time to send them off. I wanted to get at least three different looks. So I started at the front corner of the sanctuary and worked around in a circle. By 7:11 I had sent off 5 images.

The result was a mix of detail and wide shots, with a mix of ambient and flash.