Trystan Photography: An Intimate Portrait.

Please click the photo or follow the link to view our favorite photographs from Nikole and Patrick’s wedding at Arrowhead!

Whoooooweee, was this a fun wedding to photograph! My wife, Charlotte, was out of town (that is NOT why this wedding was fun), so the amazing and wonderful Kim Harms (my former Padawan learner is now a master) came along a shot this one with me. The reasons this wedding was funare because Arrowhead Golf Course is always stunning and fun to capture photos there, and secondly, Nikole was also stunning and Patrick was a true stud.

These two really dig each other, a lot, and it shows. Nikole would lock him with these looks that made the photos. I love them! Thank you Nikole and Pat for giving us so very much to work with!

Wedding planners cost a lot of money. Extra money (if you could just buckle down and do it all yourself) you’d save for other nicer things (like better cake, more flowers)  if you didn’t get that wedding planner. Right?

WRONG!

In my 7 years of being a professional wedding photographer, if there’s one thing I DO NOT take for granted, it the value of a competent and talented wedding planner.

I was inspired to write this post because one of my photographer friends on Facebook, Julie Kemerling, shared a great piece from the Examiner.com titled “The top 5 myths about hiring a wedding planner, debunked“. It’s a very convincing argument against the most common excuses and misconceptions brides have about the benefits of hiring a wedding planner.

And in the interest of further ingratiating ourselves to one of our favorite planners in the state, please allow Trystan Photography to humbly recommend the exemplary wedding planning services of Christian Wilkins at Bella Dia Events.

All of her events, be they partied or weddings, are perfect (and if they aren’t then you’ll never know because she gets things done!).

She is a seasoned pro, and juggles all the myriad details like it’s second nature. It makes my head hurt just thinking about it.

*Photo courtesy of Bella Dia Events

Please click the photo or follow this link to view our favorite photos from Kelley and Tim’s wedding at The Inn at Palmer Divide.

Ahhh, Tim and Kelley. You are two clients right after my own heart. Rowdy (maybe an understatement…), loving, and cool as ****.

This was an incredible wedding, and for once I’m going to try not to write a mini-novella about it and simply let my work tell the tale (you know, the whole “…a photo is worth a thousand words” thing?):

The following photos perfectly capture what I loved about their day:

We do offer a la carte digital files to all of our clientele, and it’s becoming a massive trend across the industry of professional portrait and wedding photography that the clients want the digital files.

We get this! We love the world of digital: sharing on Facebook, ease of use, inexpensive printing through any of the numerous consumer sites and labs out there…

… but that’s the dark-side. Chances are, because consumer labs are so inexpensive, you won’t get the kind of quality print you will get through a professional lab, i.e. Trystan Photography’s lab. But to get that quality, you have to pay the higher prices (in many cases, quite a lot higher!).

But that’s a choice each of our clients have to make. We try to make the pros and cons clear to our clients, and we do try and steer people away from a “purely digital” purchase, however, that is the momentum in our industry, and it’s what clients want today! We don’t fault anyone for wanting the digital files, but there is always a chance for dissappointment if printed elsewhere.

One of our awesome long-time clients just wrote me this morning with this tale of consumer lab woe:

“I do regret having someone else (I think it was Snapfish) print my favorite photo (file) from their session with you, even though I bought the rights to it…But it was not nearly as good quality printing as the other photos I got from you a la carte.  I want you to keep our files, as I will likely want to order a high quality print of that pic from you in the future.  If you’d please just not delete it, I hope I can buy it later on.  Feel free to post my comments on your website about how your print quality is superior.  THANKS.  – Linda”

Thanks, Linda, for your praise of our print quality. However, I do think the trend is moving away from high quality prints. It’s a paradigm shift for photography, and we just need to figure out how we’re going to adapt!

I’m thinking we’re going to make portraits a one-time (high$) flat-fee and include all the finished digital files, combined with a monumental lowering of the print prices through our lab. That way everybody wins: we make profit and the our amazing clients can still have files and affordable pro-quality prints? Thoughts?

Anyone else have a tale of “printing digital files” woe?

This individual, one-on-one, full day training is exactly what you need to get your wedding business churning. I’ll be offering certain days for class times between 10/11/2010 and 02/1/2011.

Download the PDF ( http://www.trystanphotography.com/wedding/ropes_web.pdf) for investment details.

From detailed evaluation of your business and pricing strategies, to the secrets of SEO and effective web presence, I’ll give you the foundation to grow your clientele without breaking the bank on marketing.

Our day will also include hands-on learning as I stage for you the most demanding shooting situations and also the worst-case scenarios I’ve encountered at weddings. We’ll discuss techniques and lighting philosophies that will enable you to overcome everything a wedding can throw at you. Armed with all this, you’ll never miss a shot!

I’d prefer to do each full-day class on an individual (one-on-one) basis, but we do have buddy and group rates for “The Ropes”.

Please call 719.359.5520 for details, or write me at trygve@trystanphotography.com.

Please click the photo or follow the link to view our favorite photos from Hein and Noel’s wedding at The Lodge at Elk Valley and The Cliff House.

This is one of those epic, star-crossed love stories that inspires you to shake your head and say, “How in the world did that work out?!?”

It’s so convoluted in moves and time-line, I’ve probably got it all wrong. But it’s impressive nonetheless…

Some people struggle to meet someone in their local bar. Hein (a strapping Dutch economist) and Noel (a stunning American art historian) met in The Hague. Then Hein left. Then it gets crazy. These two ended up, one in Michigan, one in Washington, then Florida… then someone went back to Europe… I can’t remember. Needless to say, these two kept love, romance, and a sense of connection going with hundreds, if not thousands of miles between them at times.

I love seeing love stories like that. I reminds me of the days of sea-explorers, or soldiers, who would keep their love alive over long distances only through letters. I’m sure Hein and Noel used phones, too, but I still think it’s romantic.

On another note, I do have to admit this was a very rewarding wedding for us. It was rather nerve-wracking to create photographic art for an art historian. Her job is to evaluate, critique, and deconstruct the artwork and the artist. Holy crap. So we finished the photos, crossed our fingers… and she loves them! It’s not an incredibly complicated formula: Get a relaxed couple who are in love, add fun, and make the light look really pretty and you get stunning photos. Yet, it is still nice to get that affirmation once in a while that we do this really well…

And an additional side-note: apparently (judging from the content of the toasts) the main connective expreience if you are close friends with Hein and Noel is thier incredible passion for cooking, eating, and sharing fine wine with friends. This might sound a little bitchy, but I don’t care. It gets to me: how in the world can two people be so into food and wine and be so friggin’ skinny?!?! Why doesn’t their joie de vivre make them fat like my joie de vivre does? Not fair. Not fair at all.

All kidding aside, thank you both for sharing your wonderful day with us. It was a pleasure and a privilege to document your love.