The Wedding

I photographed my first wedding last Saturday. I was a little anxious about it-wedding pictures are important and I could just see my self tripping and breaking the camera or cracking a lens before the wedding. Jared of course the master of soothing words gave me a comforting hug and said you'll do a great job. Don't worry. My wonderful husband also went out early that morning and bought me another 2GB card despite my assurance that there was no way I'd shoot through the one GB card I already had. THANK YOU JARED-my insightful, persistent, thoughtful, amazing husband! Halfway through the aisle walks I had to change cards.

I could bore you with the hour by hour take-but if your that interested click on the link and you can see the whole thing frame by frame. http://picasaweb.google.com/mel620/HopkinsWedding Or you can view the condesed version in my Wedding Faves album http://picasaweb.google.com/mel620/WeddingFaves.

I will say I arrived at 11:30am at the amazing home of the grooms older brother in Vail AZ, and didn't leave until almost 8:00pm. I will never again wear highheeled boots for a wedding shoot. Especially one where I'm running up and down two flights of stairs for eight hours. (But I looked cute...until the end of the day when my eyes were bloodshot and I had dried snot on my nose.) And I would love to invest in another camera body so I don't have to change lenses all the time. That being said- I almost forgot how much I love photography. Photojournalism more specifically. It is a privledge to be let into someones life, and then capture it. I felt part of the family-it's strange now to have gotten such an intimate look into someones life and then just be done. The real reward was when the mother of the groom came over to view the pictures and got really emotional and embraced me after the first few slides came up. She made me get emotional too. She shared many things with me that afternoon about why some the pictures meant so much to her, that caused me to reflect later. When I was a girl I dreamt of traveling to the most war torn beat down areas of the world documenting the horrors of humanity for all to see-somehow changing the world. I thank my Heavenly Father for giving me a family and a life so blessed and the opportunity to document the most special moments in someones life rather than the most horrid.

All in all there are a handful of shots I'm really proud of and another handful or so that drive me crazy and I can't for the life of me figure out why some frames have blurry spots-(besides depth of field and aperature setting) I am wondering if my cheap lenses have something to do with it.

I was told that there is more work coming my way-we'll see. I had alot of fun, and if I get to do it again-Great. Until then I think I'm going to take the plunge and paint my bedroom... My dear friend Malea is coming to visit with her family in a couple of weeks and Jared and I embark on our Hawaiian adventure April 4th. I've been sick this week, but am on the mend. Being sick has helped me drop a few more pounds-board shorts here I come!

All for now,

Mel