Julie & Jason's photo paintings

A few weeks ago Dennis DeSilva from Studio Seven took a couple of his clients from one of his recent weddings to the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco for a few portraits. He suggested I come along and grab a few portfolio shots since this couple was attractive and would make great advertising pieces. So I grabbed my camera and came along. He was right. Jason and Julie are a very attractive couple, so we shot away and got some great images. Tonight I thought I'd try some more photo painting techniques and upload some LARGE images you can download in order to see what a photo painting looks like up close. Basically, the photo is treated with some painterly filters which are applied in various levels and strengths in different parts of the image to render a smooth, yet detailed image which when printed on canvas give an impression of a painting. Of course, this isn't a true painting, but the effect is similar and gives you a nice option when choosing larger prints for your wall. However, they even look great in your wedding album when printed on regular photo paper.

Either way, click on the images seen here and you'll get to see what I'm talking about. I purposely keep fairly true to life detail in the faces, but then treat the rest of the image with various filters to give a respectable impression of a painting. It is also worth noting that the second image within this posting is very lightly treated. It has been given only a light pastel chalk feel which helps smooth out the colors and skin tones and ends up leaving the subjects looking like they have nearly flawless skin.

All this is just something to keep in mind if you hire me as your wedding photographer. You'll look your best ... and even better.

Dana & Shane

It's been a busy month. Last Saturday I shot my 7th wedding in 6 weeks mostly as a 2nd photographer for Studio Seven. Not that being busy is a bad thing, but I also have several school groups to shoot in September as well. In fact, I have to go shoot another one less than 6 hours from now. Oh well, I guess sleep is overrated anyway. September 29th was Dana and Shane's wedding which Dennis DeSilva over at Studio Seven hired me to help him with. Everything was going fine, until a couple of important family members failed to show up on time for the beginning of the ceremony. So we waited over 45 minutes to start ... which kind of through our timing out the window for the romantic shots we had planned at the golf course next to the reception venue which was 20 minutes away. We just ran out of light and time to get to the golf course after the ceremony finally finished. Luckily, there was a very nice walkway next to another golf course just outside of the church. So we stopped the limos, grabbed our couple and got some really great shots on the spot. Improvisation is something a wedding photographer needs to be ready for when things don't go quite right with the best laid wedding plans, as is too often the case.

But, actually, I think these shots might have even turned out better than the ones we had planned. I love the random look of the posts in the wooden fence next to the golf course. And, all in all, I think we came up with some winners as you can see here.

So, yet another wedding in the can for this week, and another wedding to come next week. Think I'll sign off for now, and grab a few hours sleep before starting on the Fremont ISP school group portraits for the next two days.