Sarah and Justin

I met Sarah and Justin for their engagement session on Tuesday morning at Gasworks Park in Seattle. Considering our warm weather lately, that morning was surpizingly overcast and cold. Sarah was a trooper, though, and decided to go for most of the shoot without her sweater!

Sarah and Justin, it was great to finally meet you both face to face. I hope you love these!

Bellingham Wedding Photography: Kathryn and Dustin

Mindy and I had a great time at Kathryn and Dustin's wedding. Thank you guys! Kathryn and Dustin were up for multiple locations for their portrait session; they were happy to try anything I suggested; and they were SO HAPPY to be with each other. That makes for pretty nice images! They threw a great party too. Mindy even found herself dancing away on the dance floor for the last hour of the night!

Andi of Pure Bliss Desserts made the dessert table. I loved the depth in the cake.

How to Take Portraits in the Sun: Using Full Sun

Taking good pictures in the sun with a simple point and shoot camera can be challenging, and in the past I've blogged some solutions for shooting in the sun such as the following:

1) Bumping your exposure compensation

2) Using fill flash

3) Using diffused sun as rim lighting

4) Finding shade

Today I will offer one final solution to taking great photographs in the sun. You've probably heard the adage to shoot with the sun over your shoulder, right? Well, as much as I try to avoid it in daily shooting, that technique can work really well sometimes.

Problems

Watch out for people squinting into the camera, or dark shadows created in people's eye sockets. Both of which will almost definitely happen when shooting with the sun over your shoulder.

Solutions

To prevent this, I will often ask my subjects not to look at the camera when I am shooting. If they are focused on some task or interacting with each other, then they probably won't be looking straight at the sun and thus they won't be squinting.

Yes, it's a different kind of image, and possibly not the image you were looking to create, but it can work. Often, with couples, I'll just ask them to look at each other instead of the camera. That solves the squinting and the shadow problems.

Also, shooting with the sun over your shoulder, will create a much more saturated looking image, which can be a nice effect.

Kathryn and Dustin: Preview

Kathryn and Dustin were married this last Friday at the Hotel Bellweather in Bellingham. More to come.