Trystan Photography: An Intimate Portrait.

I know I say it over and over: a huge aspect of how Charlotte and I capture awesome photographs is directly dependent on how responsive, comfortable, and intimate our couples are. We can’t take happy, cool and funny photos of people who aren’t happy,cool and funny. One of the smartest things we ever did as a studio was we started to “pre-screen” our couples by essentially telling them how we like to work in a very informal, lighthearted way, and if they don’t like a fast paced, goofy, irreverent, joking atmosphere then we frankly aren’t the right photographers for them; and it’s worked wonders.

The caliber of clientèle we’ve booked over the last year or so has been a phenomenal crop of subjects. So cool, fun and relaxed that it’s a sheer pleasure to take their photographs.

Brittany and Rhead were no exception.

I met them in the lobby of the Brown Palace in Denver and we eased into shooting by doing a few test lighting shots around the hotel, talked about the reception set-up, walked around and shared ideas about the day of the wedding. Then we headed outside with the eventual goal of getting down to Coors Field. We stopped wherever we saw something cool or interesting to the eye and they were totally chill and fun about eveything. Brittany said, “… it feels more like we’re just hanging out and you happen to be taking photos…”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

We didn’t make it to Coors Field, but we did find this amazing little sculpted office park garden where we got some really neat long shots with remote lighting, too. It was funny though, the security team for the office building came out and informed us we could take no photographs of the building itself. It seemed like a strange rule, it must have been a secret Dept. of Homeland Security building of something. It didn’t have a markings or signs… very interesting.

Thanks so much Brittany and Rhead. I can’t wait for your October wedding!

Ahhhhh… the small weddings. This completes my series of small weddings from the Spring months of ‘08. I can’t tell you how much fun small weddings are. My absolute favorite photos to capture are couples together, in love. When it comes to the small weddings, it’s pretty much all we do. Most bigger weddings we’re lucky to get 45 minutes with the couple, (if that!), and at the small weddings we usually get 2-3 hours. Talk about time to make a shot work! No rushing, no stress, just fun, fun, fun photography with the couple (and sometimes with the wedding party).

Beth and Kenny had an intimate April ceremony at the Garden of the Gods. It was cold enough there was pretty much no one around, so it was really fun to have the park to ourselves. However, whatever mojo Beth worked to get nice weather for the ceremony came to an abrupt end the very moment they signed their marriage liscence afterwards. The wind suddenly roared in, and howled throughout the ceremony site, and we hustled off to get as many photos as we could before what ever monstrous storm front was blowing so hard moved in!

It got so bad, so cold and snowy, and so windy that we eventually retreated to the Broadmoor Hotel where Beth and Kenny were staying that night and tried to scrape together as many indoor looks as possible. Apparently that’s no bueno at the Broadmoor, even if you’re a guest there, because right as we were wrapping up, Broadmoor security came and politely asked us to stop photography. Overall, they were pretty cool about it; they understood that we’d basically just been blown indoors by the storm, otherwise we’d still be at the Garden of the Gods. But it was close. If we’d not been allowed to finish our photography, I don’t know where we’d have gone!

But through it all Beth and Kenny were so happy, so energetic, so happy / fun and cool, that the photos were pretty much effortless! Thanks you two!

Also, Beth wants to shoot a Trash the Dress (TTD) session, soon (bless her rebellious heart)! I’ll post those pics as soon as I get ‘em done in August sometime…

Sometimes you get a day that’s perfect.

Sometimes the weather is warm but not hot (you do not want to see me sweat).

Sometimes the Colorado skies are extraordinarily beautiful.

Sometimes you can feel just how much your clients are really in love.

These were just a few of the things that made Nadja and Joe’s Mystic Meadows wedding really special for us.