Devinphoto…The Blog

Bridal Portrait

Here is an example of a wedding “Devin Style!”

If you like weddings that are unique, you will love these photos.  This wedding took place in Virginia.  The motif was a southern lawn party.   Invitations called for attire to be “Southern Sassy.”

The bride was…….my mother in law!

They set up a tent, croquet, mint julips, bananna pudding, all things southern.

Decorations

Wedding cake

The Tent

She made a grand entrance down the staircase to her husband…

The Entrance

The Bride

The Moment

The Ladies sang for the guests….

Wedding singers

All the southern belles wore their finest hats!

The hats

The FAMILY!

Family

Boys

Girls

The party went on into the evening….

The Couple

My girl and her mother

Andrew

Kiss

Cake

Dance

The end

Exceptionally romantic at heart, he needed her betrothal to be exquisite.

The Romantic

His version of exquisite was defined by the betrothal itself, not the pomp surrounding it.  She deserved a memory to be cherished for a lifetime.

The scene was set upon a mountaintop.  The ruse elegant and simple.  “Please, meet me and enjoy the sunset together.”

The Scene

The coffee was warm, conversation easy.  The natural back and forth chatting of man and woman.

The romantic  had two tricks with which to surprise her.  One, a joke engagement ring made of fishing line.  The other, his coupe d’grace of exquisite.

He enlisted the services of a photographer to forever preserve the images that were soon to be burned into her memory.  A surprise to last a lifetime.  Hidden out of sight, her betrothal was becoming a keepsake.

The Joke

The photographer recorded the beauty of new love as a silent movie unfolded before him.

The Moment

The Ring

She said yes!

True Love

The Ring!

The Beginning....

Rebecca and her family are terrific.  I really enjoy working with them, and we always get great photos.  One thing I really appreciate about her is that she is very creative and adventurous.

The images below are from their third session.  They are expecting their second baby.  She wanted this maternity session to be more about the FAMILY compared to the first pregnancy which was more about the PARENTS.

I asked her to get some finger paints as preparation for the shoot……

Fun Maternity Portrait

There are two things I try to avoid at all costs:  I never want to give my clients the same old pictures that everyone else does.  I also do not want to give you MY same images.  Every session needs to be unique and special.

Here is Rebecca looking fetching after her makeup job!

Fun Maternity Portrait 2

I love to make what I call “personality portraits.”  Instead of the typical “studio portrait”,  I give people something that tells the story.

Personality Portrait

This is a portrait of Michael’s portrait.

I was at his home to make a family portrait.  They are a very interesting family, and I spent some time doing portraits of the individuals aslo.

Michael was given a painting of himself by a client, and he wanted a photo of himself with it.

He was thinking side by side mimicking the painting.  I put him profile with no tie to create a subtle difference.

The difference in poses and missing tie give the resulting image something to really look at.  He loved it!

My opinion is that a family portrait should increase in value every day.

Your family is your most important thing in life, and your portraits should reflect that.

Artistic, memorable, family portraits, NJ, NYC, CT

Everyone who has seen this image has something to say about how beautiful it is.  What is interesting is that you do not see one face.

Although we did images where we do see their faces, this image stands out because of its VALUE.  It shows the beauty, joy, love at a specific point of time in their lives.  They know who they are - they do not need to see their posed faces with fake smiles.  They need to see the dynamic of their family.

Don’t settle for a family portrait that looks just like everyone else’s.  Get YOUR portrait of YOUR family.

Fangs

I told this client that I think this might be my favorite image of the year!  I laugh every time I see it!

The photoshoot was really centered around creating a family portrait.  They had just moved into a new house and wanted a portrait of the family and dog to use on their cards.  After we got that accomplished, we started having fun in the back yard.

The girls each had a set of fangs, but they could only find one.  So we had to improvise.

To me, the feature of this image that makes it great is the younger sister in the background.  Her FIERCE expression makes this image come alive!  It is an example of how I work on the set.  I DIRECT the set, and make it fun!  Without direction, she would not have been snarling.  Without fun, it would have looked staged.  I intentionally put her out of focus to add dimension to the image.

What a great family!!

“FIVE GENERATIONS!!!”

Well, you don’t get this opportunity every day!

Family portraits, NY, NJ, CT

The couple used me for a mini series - one maternity and one newborn session. We did the maternity session at the beach over the summer. During that shoot, she mentioned to me that her baby would be the fifth generation of women in her family, and she wanted to incorporate that into the newborn session.

She wanted to do some shots that had an “old world Italian” feel. We used a nice table in the kitchen with all of the women sitting around, fussing over the baby for those shots. (Which came out great )

I wanted to try something else also. I wanted to have the women looking stoic with the new baby standing out on her own. I had the women all wearing black dresses looking serious. Great, Great Grandma is holding the baby. The baby in white, with the big smile makes it work.

For me, this is not one of those extremely “artsy” images that makes everyone ooooh and aaaaah, but it is very special because of the five generations, and the feeling it evokes. When we were shooting this scene, the mother was a bit skepitcal about how it would look, but she loved the result when we got the proofs!