Luminaire Images Blog • by Molly Ann

About.com lists the NUMBER ONE thing to “splurge on” for a wedding as wedding photography!

Sad as it is to acknowledge, most of the wedding details that you worked so hard on will be mere memories the next day. The food will be eaten, the dress put away, the monogrammed napkins crumpled. But the photographs will be there to remind you of the memories and document your wedding day. So make sure that they’re top notch by splurging to get the best photographer that you can.

Take the time to shop around and find a photographer who you feel comfortable with, and who fits in your budget. Consider packages, which often give you a better bang for your buck. Make sure that you get a set of pictures printed by the photographer – the finishing work (editing, cropping, printing) should be far better than what you could do yourself.

Wowzers! Six weeks for one lens!

Ever wonder why lenses cost so darn much? Watch this video to find out…

On May 19 I was in Seal Beach and Huntington, shooting Simone and David’s wedding with my friend Justin. Apparently the couple met on Match.com—I think that makes them my first newlyweds who met online!

On Seal Beach Country Club’s golf course.

Oh man, it’s getting harder and harder to keep the number of my favorites down when posting online…I think I cut these down from something like 50! Heh, that’s how I know I’m improving; I produce more and more shots that my inner critic says less about!

Simone

Dapper David!

They had some great Polynesian dancers at their reception!

First Dance

Yesterday I was killing time in a Barnes & Noble before a wedding, and I came across Mugglenet.com’s What Will Happen in Harry Potter 7: Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Falls in Love and How Will the Adventure Finally End, which was really interesting to flip through. I have my own theories on which specific characters that will die, of course, but this book shed a little light on reasons why certain other characters had a high likelihood of not making it out alive as well.

I believe Mugglenet gives Harry Potter a 4-to-1 chance of dying in the next book.
They give Severus Snape a 2-to-1 chance!
And of course, they think Voldemort has a 0% chance of surviving Book 7
They also predict other more surprising deaths that hadn’t occurred to me, and give very sensible reasons as to why those characters are at high risk. I don’t want to spoil anything for anybody that wants the book to be a complete surprise though, so if you’re curious I suggest you go check out Mugglenet’s publication!

Images from Christi and Chad’s wedding on May 12, at the Portofino Hotel in Redondo Beach!

Christi’s heirloom necklace

Christi pretending that her dress corsets have to be tied TOO TIGHT!

Sasha, the flower girl

Chad with his best man. Being cool.

Nervously hanging around

Christi’s dad escorts her to the ceremony location

Ooo!

BUSTED! Sasha yawning during the ceremony!!

The impressive decorations were provided by Petals by David.

Mm! Can I have some?

Some of the groom’s close friends got a little wild during the money dance…

Grab that bouquet!!!

Now here’s an interesting garter grab…someone else’s flash must have gone off a fraction of a second before or after mine!

A couple weeks ago my friend Alison participated in the OC AIDS Walk, which was held at the Angels stadium on May 12. In full support of her and the worldwide campaign against AIDS, I decided to document what she did and how she got involved.

Alison

She signed up through her church, Rock Harbor, which apparently has a steady stream of signups for charities, fundraisers, and functions for their congregants to participate in, if they so wish.

At Rock Harbor’s OC AIDS Walk signup table.

At the Walk, Alsion received a special OC AIDS Walk pin!

Rock Harbor had a booth at the Walk, with a handprint art project underway to document how many people participated.

A local body art shop had set up a booth for face (and arm) painting.

Walkers from Rancho Alamitos High School had special tie-die shirts made up for the occasion.

Pre-walk stretching was led boot-camp style by the Orange County Sheriff’s Academy!

Cutting the start line ribbon!

Alison at the starting line, and me playing with post-processing grad filtration, hee!

Corporate sponsors like Disney also got in on the action (notice the little gloves on the flags?). According to organizers, the event was a smash success, with thousands of participants and HUNDREDS of thousands of dollars raised.

High fives at the finish line, in the shadow of the Angels Stadium ‘A’!

Ally with her support group: her boyfriend (r), and another Rock Harbor participant(l). All three of them finished proud!

On Sunday I was fortunate to go one-on-one with the incredibly talented singer/songwriter Stacy Clark. Not only is she is as lovely as the songs she writes, she’s really, REALLY fun. We had some adventures, to say the least.

We shot around her neighborhood in Newport Beach. Hopefully not too many neighbors saw us gallavanting around and acting like a couple of maniacs, hee!

(This was taken in a construction area)

I got a lot of fantastic images out of this shoot, but I love her “look” in this one.

Stacy has a pretty creative imagination, too. When I arrived at her house she informed me that at the end of the shoot she wanted to get some shots of herself fully clothed, with makeup, in the shower. I can tell you, as a photographer anytime a model steps up and announces they want to get absolutely trashed visually, it means the shoot is an automatic jackpot.

Additionally, I have been searching high and low online for a barter agreement template, and thus far I’ve only turned up one (free) document that can be somewhat easily used by photographers. So I downloaded it, modified it for photography, and now I am hosting it online for the remainder of May anyone to download and copy for themselves, should they need a photography barter agreement….remember, you should get everything in writing! Enjoy!