OLLO Photography - Wedding Photography in Dallas

This weekend I met up with Katie and Bobby for a portrait session in Plano, at the same spot where this lovely couple got engaged a few months ago. It was a beautifull sunny morning, it could not have been a better day for a romantic date - it shows in the photos!

Congratulations, Katie and Bobby - and I am looking forward to photographing your wedding in a few months!

Here are some of my favorite shots for a sneak preview:

This past Saturday I was photographing the wedding of Lory and Jerry. I did their engagement portraits back in October in Ft. Worth Botanical Gardens - it was a beautiful day. Saturday was another beautiful sunny day with a romantic, emotional ceremony under the white gazebo at the golf course.
Please enjoy my favorite images of the day.

Lory looked absolutely incredible in her intricate princess like gown as her father slowly walked her down to the ceremony site. Jerry could not hold back his tears, and the ceremony got to a very emotional start... but it was not sad day - just check out all of them jumping and drinking afterwards!

And this photo proves that the groom was happy after all - it's not all tears at the wedding!

And this is how the happy couple looked after they were left alone (well, almost alone!) , bathed in the warm light of the spring afternoon.

The little guests, as always, added a bit of fun flavor to the event. I have a few more lovely images with the kids - will post those later!

I love those little wedding details that make the day even more special. Threading the beads on a silver chain  very last minute, checking out the shoes by the window, putting a touch of live flowers on the cake.  Weddings are so much about the details!

And finally, a few images from my favorite part of the wedding - getting ready! I love capturing the anticipation of the wedding ceremony!

Easter Sunday was a busy day for me! After spending about an hour and a half with Megan at her senior photo session (see the post from yesterday), I met Alexandra and Justin for their engagement photoshoot in the same park in Frisco.  What a good looking couple, and they are so visibly in love - and that always shows in portraits!  Alexanra's eyes are blue beyond the photographer's wildest dreams!

I am looking forward to the wedding this summer!

Here are some of my favorites!

This Easter afternoon I had the pleasure of doing two photo sessions: one for Megan - her high school graduation announcements are coming up! and another one for Alexandra and Justin - this was an engagement photo session for their upcoming summer wedding. The engagement photos will be posted later this week, once I have time to sort through all the images...

Working with Megan was a lot of fun! She could not strike a serious pose, but there was plenty of laughter going around! 
Both outfits looked great on her, but her personality really seemed to shine in her sexy cowboy boots! She was a good sport for rolling in the grass and acting silly - that gets the best portraits!

Here are my favorites from Megan's photo session!
 

This weekend I went to a baby shower for my friend Marina. I felt like it was a great opportunity to test out a new lens - I just purchased a Canon 50 mm f1.4 lens (it is the fastest one I own now!). Here are a few images:

I spent a few days in Manila, Philippines for a conference. Usually my business trips do not allow for much time to do photography, but this time I had a whole free day on arrival. For that occasion, I took my trusted camera with me and went around sleepy Intramuros for a few hours. The local population was glued to their TV screens: ironically, their boxing champion/national hero was  fighting a contender in Dallas, TX - of all places! The city was empty, the crime rate was at the lowest as all the thugs were watiching boxing. I enjoyed my solo walk!

First, the most notable sight of Metro Manila: the Jeepney. Those painted Jeep based mini-buses roam the city. They are wild!! Then, there are horse-drawn carriages.. less common than jeepneys, but still found everywhere.

Then, a little bit of history... A monument to Rizal, a national hero, featuring his execution by a firing squad. And a gigantic statue of some other hero at the far end of the landscaped park in central Manila.

A short walk around Intramuros under the blazing tropical sun. (Remember, no people in the streets - everybody watching the boxing match!)

And finally, my presonal favorite: a quick snapshot taken out of the bus window, late in the evening. Real life in Manila!

So, there were no weddings or engagements this month - all of my photography was focused on travel, and unfortunately I did not have much time to shoot. But I am making up for it -  I have a 3 weddings coming up, and a couple of engagement sessions - I'm excited!

This month is not a good month for wedding photography for me, but I get to do another thing I really enjoy: travel and take photos of cities that I visit. I spent a few days in London for a business trip a couple of weeks ago, and since I had two free days before I had to take off to South America, I did bring one of my trusted Canons (and my dear husband!) along for the trip.

The weather was very British the whole week. It was raining almost the whole day in Cambridge; we enjoyed wandering through Harry Potter style colleges, but the most pleassant parts of that day were unfortunately indoors. Here are a few images:

Once of the main squares in Cambridge, filled with bicycles drenched in rain..

A college courtyard with perfectly groomed British grass. Centuries of meticulous maintenance!

A classic college dining room.. can you imagine Harry Potter flying in on a broom??

An ancient navigation instrument displayed in the city museum, where we were hiding from rain and wind. Those things were excuisite! What happened to the beauty of everyday objects?

Can it get more stereotypical than this? The Westminster Bridge on a very British day with black cabs zipping around!

Yes, it does get more stereotypical once you set your foot inside the Tower of London. Guards in ridiculous hats guarding the entrance to Crown Jewels exhibit.

And the Crown Jewels (no photos allowed!) are hiding in this fortress. Those things were very sparkly: would love to see that kinds of bling in a wedding that I shoot one day!

This Tower courtyard was the last thing that many prisoners saw: this photo is taken from the royal execution spot, where many queens, princes and other nobility lost their heads during the middle ages.

Of course, i could not get away without some pictures of ponies. These are the sculptures of the favorite hourses of generations of British kings - shown next to their armor. I loved the golden yellow one!

And finally, to top it all off.. a surprise display of pride in the restrooms of the London Tower! Who would have guessed that this large tourist toilet facility has won multiple awards over the last 2 decades??

An awesome couple, just a pleasure to work with. These images were taken in mid-January, and I have not had a chance to post them since then.. and it's a shame! Their engagement photos turned out fantastic!

We met at the Dallas Art Museum and went straight for the backyard sculpture garden, a contemporary winter setting.
I love shooting in that garden, with all that modern scuplture the opportunities are endless.

Melissa looked great, but she was definitely not dressed for the weather.. Zak looked a bit cold, but more within reason. (How many times did I mention that you need to dress for a photography session in a way that makes you comfortable?) I stayed warm by moving around and jumping on benches, and making them rehearse their dacing routine in front of the camera. I really like the results - looking forward to being the photographer for  their wedding in May!
 

February and March are really busy months for me in my full-time job. I am traveling for business alsmost the whole time, and I do not schedule photo sessions during those months.  So there will be no new wedding and engagement images coming up soon.

Instead, I would like to spend this time answering questions that brides often have about digital photography: retouching, photoshop, and how does it matter for my wedding images?
After all, for decades photographer did very little retouching on professional film images, and everything turned out just fine. Why do I need digital retouching for my portraits?

Curious? Well, it is a lengthy subject, so let's attack it one blog post at a time.

Let's start with the basics.

Professional digital cameras are set up with a different expectation compared to consumer camreas. The are not optmized to prduce their best looking images straight out of the camere, The design intent is to capture as much data as possible and give the photographer as much flexibility in editing the image on the computer after the image is taken.
So, if your photgrapher does not do basic retouching for digital files, you are losing out on photo quality.

Let me explain this a bit more.

When you use your little digital camera to take a picture, it captures the image in JPG format and you open it on your computer.  The picture usually looks bright, with good contrast, but is often a little blurry, especially when you zoom in a little closer.  But overall, straight out of the camera and onto your computer screen - it looks pretty good. if you sent it to print  - home printer or mail-in lab like Shutterfly.com or Kodakgallery.com - it normally looks ok, but rarely looks excellent. Your camera software optmizes the image to look it's best on screen straight out of the camera. Can you get it to look great in print? Yes, probably.. but you need digital retouching to override original camera settings.

When your wedding or portrait photographer takes a photo with a professional digital camera, it captures the image in RAW format. (Ok, it can capture JPG images too. But if your photographer is shooting JPG on assignment, you should probably find another photographer.)   RAW format has amazing flexibility for color, brightness and sharpness correction. RAW format brings the best out of your images - for screen and print. But... when you take a RAW image and open it on your computer, it really does not look that great straight out of the camera. And the file size is at least 3 times bigger than JPG, so it opens slowly and painfully. When it does, it is very neutral: colors are a bit dull, contrast is a bit bland, sharpness is not really there. It requires retouching work in specialized editing software to bring the best out of it.  Once that work is done, you can save the result as a JPG file that will look amazing on screen and in print - way better than if you have taken the exact same image in JPG format. 

I hope this explains why you should always make sure that your photographer takes RAW images and does at least basic retouching on all of them.. if it does not happen, you've just hired a Ferrari with a driver who just  won't go faster than 20 mph! Don't let that happen to your wedding or portrait images, ever!