This Weekend | Houston Bound

It's been a little while since I posted something....Engineering life is pretty busy for me! But I am having tons of fun working on a new project!

I'll be heading to the H early Friday to shoot the wedding ceremony of two college friends of mine. I did their engagement session (my first ever) last year and was quite pleased with myself after about 2 months of learning how to shoot with a DSLR camera. I will be gone till Sunday so I should be posting some photos early next week if possible.

While I am there, I'll also be shooting an engagement session of another friend getting married in December. I'm hoping to shoot their wedding in Nigeria also if Engineering life can allow me the time. But we'll see how that goes. A destination wedding will be sweet!

I'm already thinking outside my box once again on how to make this wedding better than my last and I'm pretty positive it will be a good one. I'll be shooting with another Houston Photographer so that'll give me an opportunity to network with photographers in Houston.

By the way, has anyone ever shot a wedding where the church imposes certain rules and regulations that MUST be followed or else...? Well I was quite amazed last year when I saw the form photographers will have to fill out before shooting a wedding ceremony. I had not given it much attention until this week. I guess every church has different rules. I've posted a snap shot of what I will have to follow come Saturday. I just hope it doesn't hold me back from documenting important moments.
Oh by the way....Flash is not allowed in the church chapel! That is quite exciting (You think I am crazy huh?). Natural Light all the way. I guess it must be well lit indoors so the need for a strobe is 0. I love noisy images anyway so if its not well lit, my 30/40D should be more than happy to handle the noise. We'll see how it goes!
Wish me luck!

Lifestyle Portrait Session | Ms. Seyi Adeoye

It's been a while since I did any outdoor lifestyle portrait session so I decided to do one with a good friend of mine who also lives in Tulsa. The plan was to go out shooting all evening and Seyi was quite convinced that she's not a "picture taking" type of person. I told her not to worry, get dressed and God will help us achieve something...LOL! Maybe not that way but I told her we'd just have fun and be ourselves.

We were out driving through Tulsa downtown Saturday evening and couldn't find any interesting places to shoot so we headed to somewhere else. We found a spot which was not so great looking anyways but I was pretty certain we could use it to the fullest. It was around 7.30pm so the light was quite soft and that made our evening much more interesting.


I'm not that into telling people what to do when shooting, so I told Seyi to be herself and will help her out if it was necessary as far as her body position goes.. One thing I noticed she loved to do is LAUGH! Yes, LAUGH! We started off by talking about how weird the location was and she made friends with 2 bugs I think. But that didn't stop us, so I pretty much cracked her open by making her laugh. The first few frames I took produced the first shot which I showed her. She was going crazy! I was laughing all through and was not surprised because she was very natural in front of the camera so we continued our fun time shooting.

She's such a cool person to be around and she loves to write. Our last location for the evening was her campus (ORU) where I told her to take a seat and do what she does best...WRITE! I thought she was faking it but she was actually writing and couldn't stop because it was her moment to put her thoughts down into writing again. I know she'll be posting that soon. Trust me she's so good with words. Oh by the way, the first time I saw her handwriting, I was in shock. It looked like a computer font....No kidding! She's got the wonderful talent of writing and she's got her own inspirational blog called INSPIRATIONS OF SADE. Trust me you need to read it everyday, it's my new source of inspiration. 

Here are a couple of photos I want to show off. There are more but I'm reserving those for something special....You'll get to know soon! 

Wedding Moments

There is a reason why I love to shoot weddings. The moments are simply stunning.

The photo below was at the very first wedding that I ever shot with my new Canon 30D back in February. I had only been shooting with a DSLR about 5 months without any professional training and I was quite scared but excited to take on the challenge. It wasn't a paid gig (you have to start somewhere trust me) but I still wanted to deliver very strong and story telling images regardless. I had started shooting for OU's newspaper/ yearbook at the time and as a photographer, I was drilled on how much you need to tell stories with the images you create.

The fact that it is very possible to freeze the story in a moment as it happens is what drives me to shoot. I have not shot portraits in a while due to school and shooting more events and weddings and I'm not regretting it at all. Not that I don't shoot portraits anymore but I love the fact that when I shoot weddings, I'm not in control of anything...except my camera of course.

The point is.......Moments simply can't be anticipated. You just have to be prepared as a photojournalist to freeze those moments as they happen.


I remember when I took this shot. The bride must have been overtaken by her emotions that she couldn't look up for a while once she got in front of her groom to be. Only God knows what she was thinking at the point but it kept me busy recording her emotion on camera. It was simply stunning!

Alex & Ofi | Wedding Ceremony

I had the opportunity to shoot another wedding ceremony last weekend in Oklahoma City with another photographer from Tulsa. The groom is a friend from College and I was excited to document the beautiful ceremony with my images. I wasn't able to do any preparation shots since the official photographer covered it. It was a long 8 hours but was worth every second. One of the emotional moments was when the bride walked down the isle with her brother. Her dad passed away years ago and it was one of those moments when she cried. The ceremony had both the formal ceremony and the traditional reception ceremony with cool attires and all that good stuff.

Since I had not attended the rehearsal, I just had to go with the flow while anticipating some more dramatic moments. One of the cool things about weddings is the fact that you get to think of more creative ways to make a new wedding better than the previous one (True!). This one was no exception and I did some new things which you will be able to spot easily. I did some things with the video lights and got some more interesting angles. I remember being under the table when the toast was going on to capture another exciting moment with the whole bridal train while some people had fun stepping on me...My back hurts from that! Trust me I put my body under some interesting stress while shooting weddings and it pays off very well. People often wondered why I was flat on the floor shooting. I'm sure they thought I was crazy! Story telling is my passion and I try to deliver it in the best possible way. The couple's first dance was quite interesting as they were joined by friends/family which made it quite hard to focus on the couple. So instead of quitting, I brought out my off camera shoe cord and used the flash to bring out the couple while rendering everything else mostly black. I figured it would be cool to have a type of spot light on them instead of keeping everyone else in the light.

I chose to use a new post processing tone today so tell me how you like it. I always know what PP I would use as I shoot...I think that helps my work flow a lot more.

Thanks Alex & Ofi for letting me document your special day and I hope you both enjoy your photos.

Feel free to leave comments wether you know me or you don't. Thanks!

PJ #4

PJ #3 - You, Me and The Dog.

The title says it all.


 

PJ #2 - Leave A Note

Day 2 of my ongoing photojournalism. Yesterday was for the 2 Man Band and today is about a city artist who wants you to leave something while you listen to his songs. I watched him perform live to a cheering audience and was quite nice to see people drop some bills. Everyone was looking @ me crazy because of my 70-200mm. That thing always get people to notice you and I can't seem to live without it. I didn't see people give money yesterday though and there were 2 of them...HMM! 

I'm not only shooting Bands all week so don't get bored already. I promise something different tomorrow evening. I try to shoot when I get home from the gym and I'm loving it. Photojournalism is not as easy as it sounds as you always try not to piss people off with the camera in their face. I'm still scared of shooting subjects directly in the face because I had a terrible ordeal once. I'm trying to slowly creep out of that situation and hopefully shoot more creatively and to make people more comfortable when Im around with my camera....It really doesn't hurt at all..LOL!

Anyways enjoy and let me know your thoughts.

PJ #1

Shooting around the streets of Tulsa. Hopefully will be finding more interesting things to shoot. Not the normal thing I do but it's always good to go out and shoot.