One of my favorite Seattle wedding venues, Lord Hill Farms in Snohomish, has many sets and vistas that make wedding photography fun and creative. There’s a pond, beautiful gardens, an indoor ceremony backup for rainy weather. Definitely one of my favorite venues without crossing the 520.
I got the chance to shoot with my friend Jeff Marsh, who was kind enough to let me test out some new gear. I joined him and his second-shooter Saskia Potter to document Maggie and Matt’s wedding at this beautiful venue one brisk March spring day.
Testing out the Sony A7rii
I was actually testing out the Sony Mirrorless camera, the Sony A7rii, to see if it would be a good system to which I could change from my Nikon systems. The verdict? These little guys are beasts. Long story short, for my purposes, the camera only had one problem: slow low light hunting with no focus-assist when there’s a radio on the hotshoe). I’m sure there’s a fix in there somewhere but off-camera flash is super important to me for receptions. As such, I’m still on a holding pattern. And now that the Fuji XTs are making headlines, I’m going to play for a bit still before switching fully to mirrorless.
Back to Maggie and Matt
These two make a really sweet couple. Light-hearted, super cute and an easiness in front of the camera, Maggie and Matt were a joy to document. Being photographed all day isn’t easy. I for one am terrible as a model. As such, I am appreciative of couples who try really hard to be natural and at ease for us.
Although I wasn’t a principal shooter, I had so much fun just grabbing these behind-the-scenes shots. The saying that your wedding day goes by really fast is 100% real, and being wedding photographers, our job is to freeze some of these moments in time so you can “get them back”, artistically and meaningfully.
Seeing and Reading a Photo
When I went to Foundation Workshops a few years ago, I learnt about “good seeing” and “reading a photo”. I’ve spent a lot of time these last few months honing in on these two things. How to look at a scene that may not be very aesthetically interesting when your options are limited, to flip it around to MAKE it interesting. How to look at those scenes later, adding in subjects, gestures and lighting, and “read” them to see if they translate well to your clients, all the while making sure you’re not getting too carried away with the process and missing the moments.
Here are some of these moments from Maggie and Matt’s wedding at Lord Hill Farms in Snohomish.
Enjoy!
