Trystan Photography: An Intimate Portrait.

We have a pretty unique system for our Graphistudio albums here at Trystan Photography, in that we (the photographers) allow our clients as much control as humanly possible over the layout of their wedding albums.

They choose all of the photographs in the album. (Not all photographers do that…)

I do the design. I send them the layout to approve. (Not all photographers do that, either…)

Our clients can make as many edits to the layout at they would like! (Almost nobody does that…)

This process may equal many more hours of work on my end, but it guarantees that the client is getting the exact album they wanted and dreamed of. I definitely think it’s worth it.

However, lately our clients have been having a heck of a time narrowing down the photographs to a “reasonable” amount for our 40 page albums (80-100 pics max.) In this event, I offer to delete some photos for them (nobody has ever taken me up on this), or I just go for it and we see how many pages we’ll need to upgrade when i finish the layout…

Jil and David were the first couple to get their chosen pics back to me from the 2008 season (and they were one of our last ‘08 weddings… hmmmm, anybody reading this from May or June of ‘08?). Jil and David’s album is the biggest wedding album (66pages, 130 photographs) I’ve ever designed! But it’s soooooo cool.

I’ll try and post photos of the finished album when it gets back from Italy, but in the meantime you can check out the final approved layout…

This last New Year’s Eve was really one for the books.

Suzanne and Patrick are a very exciting, energetic and eclectic couple who’s wedding had a clear penchant for… non-conformity, shall we say?

It was an outdoor ceremony. In December. At night. And candle-lit. Oh, and did I mention it was possibly -7 below zero?

In all honesty, the ceremony really was beautiful, and the amazing thing to us was how many friends and family from Denver (at least 100 or more) braved the weather (I-70 was shut-down that day) to arrive at this tiny little night-time wedding at the Salida Golf Course. I don’t have many friends like that: it’s sad but, it’s true, and it speaks volumes as to the kind of people Suzanne and Pat are.

The cermony was short and sweet, but I was shocked at how hard it is to move around and get shots when it’s that cold out. We were all standing in snow, and when it’s that cold the snow squeals and squeaks almost like Styrofoam. The couple would be in the middle of the vows and I would try and move and… not good. So Char and I apologize to any wedding guests who couldn’t hear anything because of my awkward-self making all that unavoidable noise. Maybe it really wasn’t  loud at all, but to me it sounded like it was amplified!

On top of that, the liquid crystal displays on our camera’s didn’t seem to like the cold. Everything ghosted a bit on the back of the camera, but amazingly the image sensors functioned normally (I think the Nikon sensors are designed to withstand up to -30 or something absurd like that). And we had those hot-pack hand warmers in our pockets that we would periodically press against the cameras, so they were just fine.

Then came the dance. Suzanne and  Patrick didn’t want to do just any dance, so they did a live interpretation of what seemed straight out of the opening puppet show from “Being John Malkovich”. It was hilarious,  and all of the guests were floored with laughter. It was satirical ballet at its best, but in the midst of it all we still managed to get some really sweet shots of the couple, too.

Overall, it was the biggest small wedding we’ve seen, the most challenging, and the most fun.

Congratulations Suzanne and Patrick!