Finally, the wedding photographer is married! Mike and I were married Alexandria, Virginia on October 10, 2015. (Two days before Mike's birthday. He has no excuse to ever miss our anniversary.) As a wedding gift, Mike gave me a Fuji x100t with the condition that it would be the ONLY camera I took on the honeymoon with us. At first, I was a bit nervous being locked into a 35mm equivalent focal length, but I was pleasantly surprised by the little guy! 
About a week after the wedding, he and I started our 2-week honeymoon adventure. We flew into London and spent 3 days in England. We spent two of those days in London and also did a day trip out to Cambridge and had a grand tour of several of the different colleges from our family friends who live there. After the 3 days, Mike and I took the train to France, rented a car, and spent 4 days traveling around Normandy. We traveled to Dieppe, Caen, Omaha Beach, Mont St. Michel, and Saint Malo. From there, we drove to Paris and stayed in Paris for a week. Mike lived in Paris when he was a kid, so he was able to give me a personalized tour of the city. Even after a week of being there, came home with a list of things to do for the next time we go! 

Below are a few favorites of mine from the honeymoon. (You'll probably notice I have a strange fascination with doors/doorways.)

I am taking a break from writing emails to write about some of the things that make my heart happy.Plus there is a behind the scenes look at lighting a wedding portrait on location at the end of the blog post.

CANNNDYYY- I have an insatiable sweet tooth. I constantly have candy near by. Right now on my desk I have 2 chocolate bars, one thing of Starburst, 3 bags of Skittles, and a half eaten bag of Dove Chocolate. Yep. So when I'm editing your photos, writing a blog post (like this one), or responding to an email, I'm probably on some sort of sugar high.

My lovely Fuji Instax Camera- So many people think that instant cameras are dead, and that is completely not true. Recently, I bought a Fuji Instax camera just for my personal entertainment. It may be a little on the bulky side, but I love taking it with me to shoots, weddings, and everywhere else and snapping some quick photos. It's also super handy for location scouting. Just bring a sharpie, and you can label all of your photos with the address that it was taken.

Photo Mechanic- This is one of those programs that has saved me SO MUCH time since I was introduced to it. (Shout out to Kyle LaFerriere.) I used to spend hours waiting for photos to import and render and whatever else in Adobe Lightroom just to narrow them down to the final photos. This nifty software makes culling down photos a snap. For example, I culled down ~5,000 photos in an hour and a half with Photo Mechanic. Usually, that would have taken me 4-5 hours. What this means? Less time in front of the computer and more time doing the fun stuff like ACTUALLY TAKING PHOTOGRAPHS!

Here is a quick look behind the scenes: If you follow my blog/work, you have probably seen Anna and Lucas' wedding at Rosemont Manor earlier this month. I just want to quickly show you how we lit one of the portraits of Anna and Lucas.

BTS Photos taken by Cory

The entire shot is a two light set up triggered by Pocket Wizards (two Plus IIs and a MultiMax). I added the one large key light to the upper left with a 30" Lastolite EZYBox with a Nikon SB-910 at a 1/16th. I then realized that the entire inside of the arch would be completely dark without an extra light. So I added a SB-910 (I think at a 1/32nd) with no modifier directly behind them on a chair. I pointed it up slightly toward their faces. That gave them a little bit of rim light and lit up the area behind them nicely. You can see PJ holding up the Lastolite on the handy-dandy monopod, and I am directly behind her. Camera settings: 50mm, 1/100 of a second, f/2.2, ISO 500

That's the finished product. Aren't they gorgeous?!?!

Moshe Zusman has a great blog post on his workshops website about how to build up lighting for a studio portrait here. You can modify/tweak that system for on location photos.

-Becca