My wife and I have known Allie since she was in high school. Neither one of us thought that there was a man out there as cool as Allie, but of course Allie had to prove us wrong . . . . and found the lid to her pot.  I had the pleasure of spending the afternoon with Allie and Tyler in a grove of pistachio trees in Gilbert, Arizona. Here are some of my favorite images:

Note to self: buy mirror sunglasses.

I had a great time playing with the colors in this photo.  If I were 14 I would say it looks “chill” even though it is warm.

Long before he fell in love with Allie, Tyler fell in love with the outdoors. Not one to shy away from a little competition, Allie drummed up this little number to catch her man’s eye. I was laughing the entire time we were shooting.  Which is problematic because laughter creates camera shake.  But I kept it under control.

  In today’s world of social networking we have all at one time or another written up a personal profile – a brief description of who we are and of the events that have occurred in our lives to make us that way. I told you that I have known Allie for a long time. Her personal profile is full of strength, hard work, optimism, and survival. I am so pleased with this next shot of Allie. It does what photography does best and provides a visual representation of that description of who we are and the events that have made us that way.

Is it possible that Tyler likes her even better without the antlers?

Yep!

As the sun set, I opened up the aperture on my 50 mm 1.2 lens all the way to 1.2 which gave us this extreme limited depth of field.  I told Allie and Tyler I was going to be making some extremely grainy old looking photographs.  They were excited about the idea.  I think they turned out well.

This is definitely on of my favorite shots of the day.  The grain, the encircling branches, the soft light.  It is all there.

Ever the hunter!

Tyler brought several deadly weapons to this photo shoot . . . and I just brought my camera.

Photography by Jared Platt, Platt Photography

Location: The Groves, Gilbert, Arizona

Slideshow Music by Fisher, “It’s a Beautiful Life,” courtesy of Triple Scoop Music.

Heather and Jeremy: A Wedding in Chandler, Arizona from Jared Platt on Vimeo.

Jeremy and Heather were married at Noah’s in Chandler, Arizona.  Noah’s is a small even hall south east of Phoenix.  I have photographed a few weddings there and all of them have been in the heat of the summer, so we spent the entire time inside.  When Heather approached me about the idea of not going outside for portraits and photos, I said, “YES!”  Who wants to go out in 107% temperatures and sweat it out.  Plus, it made for an interesting challenge.  So, I put together a portrait studio and with their retro style wedding dress and tux, I thought the portrait studio should feel a bit retro itself.  I was pleased with the outcome.  I love doing something a little different.

I loved the artwork for the programs for the wedding.  Very cool.  Very personal.

The chandelier was quite beautifully decorated by AZ Wedding Decor. It is not often that a centered “bullet composition” works, but I like this one.

I love the use of the monogram in both the boutonnieres and the bouquet.

And what bride can resist the cute shoes.  It is all about the shoes.  Of course, I know this more because I am married and my wife loves shoes as well.  I don’t know a woman who doesn’t.  But I am always excited to see what the bride has done with her shoe choice.  It says a lot about her more private side.

But the bouquet says even more about the bride and her public side.  And you have to admit that a fruit and vegetable bouquet is something very unique and different.  I loved it.  This was designed by How Appropriate Floral. It, changed the way I felt about the colors in the wedding.  So, a lot of the decisions I made about how to shoot the images and how to effect them in post came from this one detail.  I shot a lot of wide open f1.2 images for their portraits and details and pulled back the colors to make them more muted and soft.  While what I know of the client before the wedding, helps to dictate the direction of the imagery, it is the visuals I see when I get to the wedding that shape the final imagery and how those images will be seen.  I think that being open to changing direction, based on what is in front of me, helps me to truly describe the event and the people I am photographing.

This of course, has to be my favorite image from the wedding.  I love everything about it.  I love the bouquet.  Heather looks fantastic.The lens and aperture choice makes it soft and dreamlike.  The colors are perfect.  Sometimes you have a vision for a photo and you execute it perfectly, but the subject does’t nail the look, but she nailed it!  Way to be Heather.  Way to be.

And these little kids just made me laugh.  What a funny concept.  They loved their little capes and they were certainly fun to photograph in my studio. They were not “ring bearers” but were announcing the coming of the bride. Yet, another way Heather made her wedding a little different from the typical.

Jeremy’s tux was the one other thing that directed me to the style and feel of the final images.  His tux and his beard put me in the right frame of mind for the style.  We shot very high ISO, wide apertures and fixes lenses to create a grainy old school look to the portraits and photographs.  And when we didn’t shoot high ISO, we added the grain in post.  I think we got a great consistent style across the entire photo collection.  I am very happy with it.

The center pieces on the tables were created by Ethereal Events Decor.  They made for great foreground elements.

The tables were all covered with these big glass jewels, so I couldn’t resist putting the rings in the jewels.  This is always an entertaining few minutes of the evening for me.

Thank you Jeremy and Heather for trusting me with your wedding.

Photography Details:

Photography by Jared Platt, Platt Photography

Wedding Location: Noah’s, Chandler, Arizona

Slideshow Music: The Genesis by Jared Platt

Flowers by How Appropriate Floral

Decorations by AZ Wedding Decor & Ethereal Events Decor

Nick & Shelby’s Wedding, Mesa Arizona from Jared Platt on Vimeo.

Nick and Shelby were married in the Mesa, Arizona LDS Temple. Some of their portraits are there on the temple grounds. Others are our near Red Mountain and then others are at their home on South Mountain where they had their wedding reception. Here are a few of my favorite images from their wedding.

This is my absolute favorite image from the wedding.  The light coming through the trees is fantastic and the couple looks perfect.  I have another shot with them kissing, but I always prefer the almost kiss to the kiss itself.  There is more anticipation in it.

Shelby’s hot rod car.  I love that she brings the hot rod to the relationship.

I love the tone on this image.  It takes an otherwise, harsh sunny day and softens it up and cools it down quite nicely.

This little flower girl was super cute throughout the entire wedding.  It’s always fun to follow the kids around.

This was a cute idea.  The kids all drew posters for the bride and groom and then shared them with the couple at the end of the night.

The boys on the roof were tasked with trowing bird seed or something like that down on the couple as they left, but they completely missed.  The best laid plans…  But I did enjoy the motion in this shot.

Photography by Jared Platt, Platt Photography
Wedding Location: Mesa, Arizona LDS Temple
Slideshow Music: Kevin Burdick, Courtesy of Triple Scoop Music

Sara and Jay’s Wedding at The Wrigley Mansion in Phoenix, Arizona from Jared Platt on Vimeo.

Sara and Jay’s were married at The Wrigley Mansion in Phoenix, Arizona.  The mansion is an old, eclectic building with hallways and doors that lead you around in circles.  Each room is a unique place to shoot.  Which meant we had a number of choices for photographing the dress.  But this room ended up winning.  I loved the portraits hanging on either side and the texture of the translucent drapes.  Generally, I dislike the plastic hangers that come with the dress, but in this case, I was happy with the hanger because the white helped to set it apart from the wood valance.  I would like to know though, why it is that a bride can spend thousands of dollars on a dress and the dress shop only gives her a lame plastic hanger?  That is ridiculous.  They know the dress will be photographed before it goes on, and yet, they give her a white plastic hanger that, in most cases, takes away from the photograph.  I carry a hanger around with me to make up for this oversight, but in this case, the plastic hanger worked in the photo, so I didn’t use my wooden one.

We were on our way up the stair case (where I am shooting from) and I saw this little archway and the light coming down the staircase.  So we had to use it because the light was perfect.

The bride’s room at the Wrigley Mansion is full of soft feminine colors.  The paintings, wall papers and drapes are perfect for a slightly desaturated photograph.  I love the layers in this photograph.  Sara looks fantastic in it, the veil is coming into the shot, the painting is framing Sara nicely, the left side of the frame, though vacant, is held together by a bride’s maid’s shoulder and hair.  I just enjoy looking at this one.

This is one of those doorways in the Wrigley Mansion that leads through a series of rooms and hallways that make you feel like you are in a game of Clue.  And, it was a perfect spot for a portrait.  It is not often that you find this much wall without it being interrupted by frames, drapes, light switches, etc.  So I used every inch of vacant wall.  Just to the right and left are elements that would spoil the shot.  It is all about the Bride.  No other distractions are allowed.

This little ring bearer was quite a show.  Here he comes down the long stairway, which serves as the beginning of the isle at the Wrigley Mansion.  But he caught sight of the cameras and all the people watching him.

So he literally walked the rest of the distance, down the stairs and down the isle with the ring pillow in front of his face to avoid the paparazzi.

The entire way!  He was not interested in the publicity!  Everyone was laughing.  You couldn’t have planned that kind of entertainment.  I think that is why we have little children walk down the isle at weddings, in hopes that we get some comic entertainment.

Because the mansion is on a mountain, there few flat spots.  Lots of stairs and hills.  But there are also a lot of trees, and because it is on it’s own knoll, you can find great shade somewhere at any point of the day.  I am always photographing, regardless of what is going on.  Whenever the bride and groom are walking, I am snapping a shot here and there and always looking for little moments like this one.  A small glance, a smile, something.  I was happy to find this one.

I am particularly fond of this shot.  My wife saw it and said, “fantastic lines!”  Yep!  That’s what I was thinking when I was shooting this series.  This is one of those images that has to be seen at the camera.  It doesn’t appear from the contact sheet as a happy accident.  You have to see the lines and square up to them, otherwise they just fall apart in the frame and while you may get an ok shot out of it, you won’t get those “fantastic lines.”  The frame dictates the effectiveness of the lines.

The Wrigley Mansion’s entry way is full of visuals.  It is a rotunda with a staircase or a balcony completely surrounding the room.  You could shoot this room again and again and get something different every time.

I loved the graphic quality of this image with half of the frame in complete white and the other half in an textured white with a few darker elements and lines.  And then, of course, the main event, the kiss, happens in the corner of the frame making it more dramatic and full of energy as it battles with the convergence of the bottom and right hand edges.

Photography by Jared Platt, Platt Photography

Wedding Venue: The Wrigley Mansion, Phoenix, Arizona

Manuel and Samirah’s Wedding at the Grand Canyon from Jared Platt on Vimeo.

Manuel and Samirah were married at the Grand Canyon in front of a small group of family and friends. The small intimate wedding was full of beautiful ceremony and the location was as beautiful as it could be.

Here is a slideshow of images with my thoughts on the wedding, if you’re interested in what I was thinking about the wedding.

Photography Notes: A Wedding at the Grand Canyon from Jared Platt on Vimeo.

No chapel, no cathedral, no resort can match the awe inspiring combination of 17 million years of erosion and unpredictable in-climate weather. The view was breathtaking and the light was ever changing and fantastic. Of course we had to bare some cold weather. But, I’ll take the cold weather in exchange for the storm clouds and perfect light any day.

Just a note from the guests, left on a rock on Shoshone Point at the Grand Canyon. “Kiss the Bride”. And he did.

This has got to be the coolest way to make a bouquet. These are dried flowers made into a bouquet. They certainly fit in with the natural surroundings. And as a bonus, they were light and never started drooping.

Here comes the bride.

This is the longest isle. Samirah was escorted by her father in spirit by the soft beating of a drum. It was probably the most touching procession I have ever experienced.

To get a shot like this, you sometimes have to lean a little too far over the edge of a cliff. I was not completely comfortable with my proximity to the edge of the cliff, but we have to push the edge to get the perfect shot.

There were many tender moments in the wedding, but this one was difficult for me to shoot. This was a washing of the feet ceremony. This is something Christ did for his apostles before he was crucified. It was an act of complete humility. John the Baptist had told Christ that he was not worthy to lace the savior’s sandals, and yet, years the savior kneeled before his 12 apostles and tenderly washed dust and soil from their feet, to show his love and his purpose to serve them (John 13:5). It was truly the Condescension of God. So when Manuel washed his bride’s feet and she in turn washed his, I was struck by the complete sacred nature of the act. Of course, I am being paid to photograph this, but I felt like an intruder at this moment. It was truly the most religious act I have every photographed at a wedding.

Did I mention it was cold! It was May, but it was only 43 degrees out there on that pointe. And yet, Samirah bore the cold to get these great shots.

After the sun had dropped below the horizon, we went to a burned out section of the forest and got a few more portraits. The quality of light that exists after the sun sets is the best light, hands down.

Both Samirah and Manuel are pilots, so this was an appropriate setting for their wedding dinner. The entire wedding was a small group, so they all fit around this large table. The candles were a nice touch, but to avoid explosions, it was not possible to light the candles. Airplanes are full of fuel, even some of these old planes.

And finally, the rings! I wanted to use something that was unique to the wedding to photograph the rings. I think I nailed this one. It says so much about them, about how they came together (they met in a flight school situation) and I even though the dials, words and arrows made a great point. So I am very proud of this shot.

Photography: Jared Platt, Platt Photography
Slideshow Music Courtesy of Triple Scoop Music
Location: Shoshone Point, The Grand Canyon