Weather Appropriate Wedding Day Accessories

Your wedding date was selected many months ago and you have one simple request  – for the weather to be good!!

I’ve been thinking about my first wedding on the 24th. Will the weather be as gorgeous as the past couple of days? We’ll all just have to wait and see what the day has in store for us.

BUT the one thing you can do is accessorize for whatever Mother Nature throws at you.

Should you be so lucky and have a cloudless blue sky and beaming bright sunshine – get some stellar sunglasses. Maybe just for the pair of you but maybe even for your entire wedding party. They’ll help if you happen to have a great shade-less photo opp: One, they’ll keep you from squinting; Two, you’ll look like some high rolling moviestar.

Pulled these two photos from theknot.com (images individually credited)

Photo by: Laura Ivanova

Photo by: Amber Dawn

And rain? No worries, have some umbrellas on hand. Extra credit points if the colors coordinate with your wedding. Maybe swap out your fancy shoes for some rain boots, bright-colored sneakers or flats.

(photo by me)

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Wednesday’s on the blog I conjure up some bit of wedding advice. Sometimes it comes from my perspective as a professional photographer and other times just as a opinionated, currently happily engaged twenty something.

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For my work visit StephStevensPhoto

Production Stills for HGTV’s Tough As Nails

Last December I got an out of the blue phone call from a 2005 Hallmark Alum. She works for Scripps Networks [HGTV, Food Network, Travel, etc…] and needed a photographer to shoot production stills of a reality tv show that was filming in the Boston area.

Whiz, bang, boom – I found myself shooting in between filmed segments of HGTV’s new show “Tough as Nails”. Here are some of the pictures we shot.

ps. How excited was I to be a fly on the wall during the making of a reality tv show?? If you’re not familiar my favorite shows are the likes of Top Chef, Project Runway, Real Housewives [I prefer NYC] – so I was content just being there but also came away with some great photography.

pps. It premiers this Thursday, March 18th at 9:30pm.

Michael & Samantha

Dave

Bihn

You can read the Boston Globe Magazine write up here and a few snapshots of the article.

For more of my photography visit StephStevensPhoto

Happy Family

You’ll recognize this happy family from this shoot a few weeks back. We got back together for another one. I wanted to test out some new equipment and setup my portable studio in their living room for these fun family portraits.

when in doubt – no clothes are always in style

For more of my photography visit StephStevensPhoto

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ps. tomorrow I’ve got a newborn shoot  – check back here next week for a look.

AND I’m also meeting with a 2011 bride & groom to be. Seriously! Once spring and summer hit there’ll be no stopping it and we’ll officially be in the 21st century tween years.

Photo Assisting Promo Card | Throwback

This one goes back to April 2007. I was wrapping up my time at Hallmark and was looking toward the future. Where was I going after school and how was I going to make money once I got there? I had ambitions to work in the commercial photography industry and you get your foot in the door by assisting established photographers.

This promo card was my snazzy little resume.

front of the card

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inside of the card

The front highlighted my eagerness to start at the bottom rung – coffee gopher, custodian, all with the heart of a professional photographer. You can see that the camera icon has stayed with me. I researched all the people in Boston I really wanted to work with, signed a personal note inside and optimistically mailed out dozens and dozens. It gave me a few leads and interviews, a few assisting gigs. More than anything else the confidence to leave Western Mass, everything that was comfortable and move to Boston. Within a week of living in my new sublet in Jamaica Plain I landed a staff position as a photographer at FayFoto. Not quite the direction I had intended but I got to apply everything I studied at school. Well I’m still here and I’ve grown my photography in countless other directions.

Why was I reminded of this card? Because 2 days ago one of those card recipients Steve Dunwell, called me – way out of the blue – for an assisting gig. Almost 3 years later! I couldn’t take the gig but attempted to pass it along to some more recent Hallmark grads. When I go back to visit Hallmark, my instructors still tell me that they continue to show off my card to their current students. When it’s so convenient to peck out an email, text, facebook message its a reminder to myself to understand the power of a well crafted print piece – even if it takes 3 years to dig it out of a file box.

Photobooth fun at your wedding

Remember Christine & Brian’s Fall ’09 wedding. The one with the great Model T photobooth?? Give yourself a refresher & watch here. Plus the video is set to Matt & Kim’s “Daylight” and that song instantly puts me in a fantastic mood.

So my Wednesday Wedding Wisdom is….. Photobooths are awesome!! Say your wedding isn’t in an antique car museum and don’t have a Model T… then we’ll bring along some fun props, a poppy background, fake mustaches, hats, glasses and sure that cocktail you’ve been refilling all night makes for a good prop too!!

Well the distracted driver in this screen grab above is Tina and the guy she’s smooching is Jared. She was a bridesmaid for Christine and lucky me she got in touch and I’m coming along to their wedding this June.

Tina, Jared and I met this past weekend. Planning, strategizing, day-dreaming and then a little shooting. We grabbed these – aren’t they just the cutest??

And we all met because I shot Catherine & Adam’s wedding last Fall too. You all remember these two? They had the visually stunning, hand crafted and drenching backyard wedding? Yup, I love that one.

If we step back one more degree of separation, I met Catherine through my old college roommate and dear friend Cait. She’s often a photography subject of mine – here’s a brief collection over the years. If we step back a few more times we eventually get to Kevin Bacon…. stay tuned for those pictures.

Just kidding.

For more of my photography visit StephStevensPhoto

Have a Model Moment

Judy needed headshot update from the last one we took in late 2008. New Executive Director position at Emerge, new hairstyle = new photo (obviously).

So we got those and then she indulged me to go a little further, try some that were a little less “business headshot”.

Now I’ll admit being one-on-one with a camera, the flashing lights and attention is out of most people’s comfort zones. But it doesn’t take long to loosen up, get into the groove and have a model moment. It actually can be fun to jump into a persona, a you that some people don’t often see.

Trust is a huge part of this. You’ve got to trust that the person behind the camera has your best interests in mind. I’m guided by this principle, “If I can’t make you look good, then I don’t look good.” So game on!!

For more of my photography visit StephStevensPhoto

Spectacle Island Day-cation

Ben and I had a wonderful Boston getaway last weekend. We caught wind of a special trip out to Spectacle Island, one of the Boston Harbor Islands.

Such a great little hidden gem for both locals and city visitors. AND I can picture some fantastic photo sessions taking place here…. I’m gonna slip that one in my back pocket for the summer when the ferries start running on their regular schedules.

Oh you can camp on some of the islands too!!

Of course I yelped our excursion, the good and the bad. Spectacle Island, Cantina Italiana & Modern Pastry.

Ben and the Boston skyline 4 miles away

crime scene-esque muddy footprints

a good spot for plane watching

How adorable right? Makes me feel like summer.

For more of my photography visit StephStevensPhoto

Dinner with Tom, Gisele & Colin | Throwback

Over the past 2.5 years of shooting assignments for FayFoto I’ve attended some pretty swanky, high-profile events. This ranks as one of the coolest. The Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce‘s Centennial Celebration last May.

Tom, Gisele & Colin Powell

May 2009 was at the beginning of Gisele Pregnancy Rumors. Standing ultra close to her, I can testify she was showing zero signs of any baby bump-age.

But in the picture below you can see her trying to snag dessert off of Tom’s plate. This was pointed out me by another photog and shoulder to shoulder we both gleefully snapped away.

By this time Colin Powell, the featured guest of the evening, was speaking to the crowd of hundreds. I crouched in the front row to grab my handful of shots and even tweeted in between dramatic hand gestures.

For more of my work visit StephStevensPhoto

Beacon Hill: Charming, Sweet, Romantic

Waleed emailed me friday for a sweet little Valentine’s Weekend shoot with his girlfriend. They were both coming in from out of town and wanted something romantic and Boston. Beacon Hill – perfect!!

We scheduled a “quickie” portrait shoot on saturday and came away with some amazing pictures.

Note to self: Acorn Street (one of the most photographed streets in Boston) its residents do not take well to pro photo shoots. So get in and get out quickly before the lady yells at you. Or just go elsewhere because every little doorway and alley make for such rich backdrops.

Iconic Acorn Street back behind them.

Super Sunday 10K

This Sunday I’m running a 10K (6.2 miles) with Ben. It’ll be my farthest running attempt yet. I may not run the entire course continuously but I certainly will finish.

It’s two 5K laps around the Seaport District course in Boston.

Here’s Cait and I last year doing the 5K. Ben was our bag holder and faithful photog.

Cait won’t be there this year – she’s getting a snow storm in DC instead. Ben will be there and a half mile in I’ll just be in his dust. I’ll need some good music to keep me company.