Whitney Lewis Photography » Bridal

Sunshine, Smiles, Sunsets, and FIREWORKS!

Whitney — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 05:14:27 +0000

For the fourth of july, we decided to take advantage of the opportunity for some pretty neat backgrounds and scheduled Brooklyn and Kagan’s formals for the evening. We planned to take some normal photos at a couple of different spots in Springville that we had scouted out, and then play around when it got dark to see what we could get with the fireworks. A half an hour before the shoot Thomas and I decided to go get some smaller fireworks of our own to play around with between sunset and the fireworks show. I am so glad that we did! We got a great variety of photos, but some of the “small firework” photos are my favorites.

In light of the upcoming state holiday this saturday, I figured I would get these firework photos up now and share them with you all… :) (For all my out-of-state readers, the 24th of July is “Pioneer Day”, which essentially comes out to a second fourth where people barbeque, set off more fireworks, and have lots of parades. As for me, I think any excuse to blow things up and see pretty colors is perfectly fine.)

We really lucked out- before the sunset we got some wonderful daylight photos. Not too harsh, some nice backlighting, and enough direct light to manipulate to my heart’s content.

Something about this one just makes me smile…

Now you’re probably thinking as you look at these next photos “Oh wow, Whitney must have enhanced the colors on that sunset- no way that is real.” However, if you were to think that, you would be WRONG. wrongwrongwrong. I can say with absolute honesty that this sunset was just as incredible as it looks. If fact, I think I actually decreased the saturation of the colors a smidge. It was unbelievable.

And now that the sunset is over, we get to play…. :D

Brooklyn is a big fan of Harry Potter- I think it shows…

This shoot was so much fun, and there are a lot of other photos I would love to share- so be sure and check out the full gallery here.

The next level

Whitney — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 15:25:58 +0000

Every now and then I have a shoot that I feel is a turning point in my photography. They are shoots that I look back on and in every session afterwards I see a marked difference- a boost in creativity and quality. I feel that this is a shoot that will meet those criteria. I loved doing Erin and Todd’s engagement photos at Wheeler Farm. They were a terrifically fun couple, great to both pose and simply react candidly, and they were both quite stylish. I especially liked Erin’s style, and felt we got some really good photos for their announcement and their reception sign-in book.

So when it came time to do Erin’s bridal pictures, I was definitely looking forward to it- she’s a gorgeous, stylish person who is fun to work with and I was confident that we would end up with photos to equal the engagement session. This shoot went beyond my expectations, so much so that I ended up with twice as many photos to give Erin as I normally do! Her dress, hair, and makeup were perfect, she brought lots of different shoes (at my encouragement- at the engagement shoot she had expressed a love of shoes), and she was happy and ready to go right from the start. We stuck around the City County Building in Salt Lake City, as well as around the Salt Lake Library.

Like I said, I have a pretty good feeling that this shoot will be one that will mark the beginning of even better things to come. Things just flowed…..

Erin brought this chaise lounge which fit the feel of the setting perfectly.

I was so pleased with this next one that I edited it before I had even processed any of the others and ordered a large metal print. It’s now hanging in the entryway to my office.

Sometimes I try to control the spill from a flash; sometimes, though, it’s just what you need.

I generally went with a very clean look for the processing for these photos, but there were a few where I had a bit of fun. This is one.

Click here to see the full, 176-photo gallery.

Some overlooked favorites

Whitney — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 16:11:29 +0000

After looking at the post of Abbey and Taylor’s formals shoot, I realized that some of my favorite photos of Abbey didn’t make it into the post. Here’s a few that I really wanted to share. This first one is probably one of my favorite all-time photos….

Jenny and Josh

Whitney — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 15:39:50 +0000

I love doing bride and groom shoots (or “groomals”) before the wedding. You get to pick the time and place, ensuring interesting locations and good lighting, and you can always reschedule if you have to because of bad weather. In this case, I was glad we did a formal shoot of Jenny and Josh as we ended up getting some rain on the wedding day, and because of the previous shoot didn’t have to stress too much about it. We took a couple of photos, and headed on out.

A Vintage Dress, Fit For a Princess

Whitney — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 16:25:24 +0000

Anastasia grew up watching Princess Diana and Sarah Ferguson each get married and looking at all those old pics from famous weddings in the 1950s and 1960s- it definitely had an impact on her wedding style. In fact, her wedding dress was made as an exact replica of Grace Kelly’s wedding dress when she married the Prince of Monaco. Her dress was beautiful, and definitely one of the most unique I have shot.

The tulips were in full bloom for the shoot- definitely one of my favorite flowers.

A horse and carriage ride was definitely a requirement. :)

Just take a look at that veil and the back of the dress….

I think the vintage feel of this one really fits the dress.

You can see more photos here.

Megan at Gardner Village

Whitney — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 03:48:20 +0000

Well I’m back! After a week and a half in California shooting two weddings and spending our first real vacation with Thomas, I am back and headfirst into the backlog of editing and blog posts. Sorry if you’ve checked the blog recently hoping for updates- I promise more will be coming….

Here are a few photos from Megan’s bridal session- we set up camp in Gardner Village and wandered around to see what we could find. It still surprises me every spring that sometimes you can get trees so colorful that you would swear it was fall.

Alyssa’s Bridals

Whitney — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 04:19:15 +0000

I met up with Alyssa and her posse in Salt Lake at Temple Square. We managed to schedule a time when they still had all these gorgeous tulips all over everywhere (alas, they have been replaced now with other flowers), which made for some eye-popping color in the backgrounds. Alyssa brought along three friends to help out with the session, and I put them all to work holding flashes and reflectors (future bridal-photo-posse-members be warned). Alyssa was so natural in front of the camera and just so easy to work with that I literally felt like I could shoot her all day.

She had this really fun shawl that she wore with her dress part of the time… I have never seen anything quite like it with a wedding dress.

Between the superbly manicured gardens and the classic architecture, Temple Square is a great place to shoot even when you are not trying to get “temple photos”.

I LOVE the exposed bulbs along this exit by the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. The lights, along with her pose, the way her dress is flared, and the combination with the visible flash give it a really “vintage 50′s paparazzi” feel to me.

I love spring. Love it. It’s just so refreshing after a really long, dull winter.

Click here for the full gallery.

Lindsey’s Bridals

Whitney — Sun, 16 May 2010 05:06:06 +0000

Well, yesterday Lindsey and Justin tied the knot and Justin got the see his beautiful bride in her dress on the wedding day, without any bad-luck-inducing sneak peeks beforehand. Thus, the rest of the world gets to see her now too!

Given the style of the dress, (“Think ball gown. Really really big, old school ball gown.” -Bride’s response to my question in the planning session) we elected to head downtown to get some classic architecture for the bridal photos. We wandered around a bit, and got some shots I was really happy with.

Stay tuned for the photos from their wedding….. it was a longer one (~10-11 hrs), but we had a great time. Gotta love photography.

The photo above is one of my favorite bridal pics I have ever taken. I love the lighting in it.

The stone and pillars below create a setting that I think perfectly fit the feeling that I think the dress conveys. Something very classic, very I’m-waiting-for-my-Prince-Charming-to-show-up-in-the-carriage.

The dress itself weighed 12 pounds and had well over a dozen layers of tulle. It made for some very neat “just casually relaxing” photos.

Click here to see more bridally-related goodness.

Natalie’s Bridals

Whitney — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 05:13:17 +0000

Recently I’ve been reading a fantastic photography book entitled “Light: Science and Magic”. Early on the authors make an observation that really struck home to me.

“In some ways, photographers resemble musicians more than painters, sculptors, and other visual artists. This is because photographers, like musicians, are more interested in the manipulation of energy than that of matter… Photography is the manipulation of light.”

I was impressed by this simple statement, and it underlined one of the primary reasons I love photography as much as I do, and especially why I love to shoot on location as opposed to a studio. The ever-changing nature of the light and weather conditions ensures that nothing is EVER quite the same. You can go to the same locations, at the same time, and it’s always different to one degree or another.

It was for this reason that when I saw the huge stormy clouds at the beginning of Natalie’s bridals I started to get little jitters of delight. It made for some wonderfully dramatic contrasty goodness. (did I put enough modifiers in that last sentence?)

I love working with really serious, sophisticated models…. ;)

The deep purple of this bouquet was gorgeous…

Take a look at the rest of the photos at the full gallery here.

Allison’s Bridals

Whitney — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 03:14:26 +0000

We got lucky with Allison’s bridal session and scheduled it on one of the few consistently warm days in the past couple weeks. It definitely makes it more pleasant to shoot when you can feel all your extremities.

Allison’s dress was beautiful, with a very classic, traditional feel. We explored the area around Daybreak in West Jordan for this shoot. A couple new locations were discovered, and there was much rejoicing.

She has a great smile, doesn’t she?

I love colors in the flare on the lens… I guess this is Darron’s treasure at the end of the rainbow? :)

Click here for the full gallery.