California Wedding Photographer, Photography Worldwide – Victor Sizemore’s Blog

Aileen and Matt got married in Maui on last Sunday and we did a killer shoot around the island on Tuesday. My buddy Jon Marrs shoot the ceremony for me and I flew down to meet everyone on Monday. After some great sushi in Lahiana I was ready to rock on Tuesday. We started in Paia with casual clothing, much like an engagement session, mostly to get them comfortable and in the flow. Then we moved on slowly making our way to Hana on the famous Hana Highway: 617 hairpin curves, 56 one lane bridges, and 52 miles. I would takes about 3 hours straight through. We stopped along the way at various locations from hidden villages, black sand beaches, waterfalls, and scenic overlooks. Finally, ending our day past Hana at the O’heo Gulch along the Pipiwai Trail, more commonly know as the “Seven Sacred Pools.”

Below are some of my first edits, more to come next week after my weekend wedding posts. Enjoy!

The IR is always a delight in Hawaii, it’s so green!

Big Matt on the Hana Hwy!

This was a nice roadside overlook but I had to stand on top of the Ford Explorer we rented to get the shot.

I like the monochromatic look of this image made by the white wash going over the black rock beach.

This was the Honokalani Black Sand Beach located in Wainapanapa State Park. I love the isolation with the bride in white.

I provided great contrast in black and white as well…

I was fortunate enough to work around most of the sun bathers!

This photo was processed only in Lightroom. Click HERE for the before and after. Notice the coloration effect, the sharpness & contrast change, vignette, and editing the people from the background. Let me add it looks better in 16 bit!

Sunday the weather was a little more questionable and it even sprinkled a time or two at West Ridge Golf Club. However, we got through the day unscathed! The gloominess even added a mood to our shoot and the infrared of the ceremony came out awesome! We had a great day starting in Fullerton where Jennifer and the girls were getting ready at her apartment. We even had a little extra time to throw a some “Cricket”. Where’s Alex when you need him? Anyway, below are some of my favorites from the day. Check out the coin shot, it has a really cool story attached…

Me throwing “Cricket” by my self but look at the results! The B&W is me shooting the coin with the 50mm Macro.

This coin has a very cool history! This 50 cent piece was the change from her grandfather purchasing his marriage license. He gave it to his wife to keep in her purse for good luck. Then Jennifer’s grandmother wrapped it and gave it to her at the shower for luck. She had carried the coin in her change purse for over 50 years! The coin is dated 1883 and was worn smooth…

On Friday night Joy was worried it would be raining for her big day but the weather cleared and it was absolutely gorgeous! We shot at Cerritos Library and the new Sculpture Garden, it was a great location for color and textures. This week is a busy one! My buddy Jon was down from Portland to shoot with me Saturday, then I have a wedding tomorrow and then off to Maui for a shoot on Tuesday!

The sun was bright so on this shot we used the “Sun Bounce” 2/3 stop diffuser.

Here are two of my other couples that were at the wedding:

Steve and Jenny Kim – April 22, 2006 (Left) and Tim and Christina – June 9, 2007 (Right)

Saturday kicked off the official “wedding season” for me, I don’t really have a weekend off until August except for one random Saturday in June. It seemed like we were all over the place on Saturday; South Pasadena, Cal-Tech, Altadena, and The New Otani Hotel downtown. It was a great variety of shots! The couple did their first meeting at Cal-tech where Thomas surprised Erin with some guitar and sang a song. The church in Altadena was the same church Erin’s parents were married in over 30 years ago. The day started out beautiful but ended up overcast by the afternoon. We ended our shoot on the hotel roof in the Japanese Gardens. Check out some of my favorites…

Last Friday I shot the second part of Pete and Liz’s engagement session, I’ll save myself the embarrassment from part I. Anyway, their friend David came along to shoot too, he’s the bestman in the wedding in May. I met David through them a little over a month ago and he has started to assist me on some weddings for experience. Here are a few of my favorite shots from the session.

Railroad tracks are always a winner!

I got Pete into the action a little bit but he was done after 20 minute, so went to eat!

This is my favorite shot from the session.

See the processing tips for this image from the previous post.

Adobe’s new Lightroom is unbelievable! If you don’t have it get it! This program will change the way you do things in a big way, it is super powerful. Anyway, below is an image I shot at my last engagement session and it shows the three stages the photo goes through to get to the finished image.

1) Original Capture – I underexposed this shot on purpose to retain some extra detail in the sky. It was overcast and almost dusk but the sky is still so much brighter that we realize. Most of the time it is easier to brighten the foreground than get the detail highlights back. (1/250 sec f/5.0 – 22mm w/16-35mm f/2.8 on Mark II N)

2) RAW Conversion – The middle image is what the RAW conversion looked like in Lightroom, still a little flat… I don’t normally adjust the Tone Curve, I prefer to do that in Photoshop when I “Tweak” the image. So for this I adjusted the white balance, added a vignette, and pumped up the fill flash which an awesome feature in LR along with a highlight recovery slider.

3) Final Image – I started with a little more ‘digital light’ (Dodging on a layer) so when I ran Kubota’s “Lord of the Rings II” it would accentuate those areas. Next I knocked off a little glow from the actions built-in mask. Then I created two masked ‘Level’ adjustment layers; one for an outer image burn and the other to darken the sky. Then I replaced the bulb in the street lamp and finally sharpened the edges in the photo.

Click on the photo to see a larger version:

This is my last WPPI post until the “Day in the Life” book is released. A side from all the hard networking that I mentioned in my last post… I was busy shooting the project this year and was covering anything about WPPI; speakers, trade-show, and etc. Here are a few of my favorites from the week…

Emi working the Graphi booth – Random chick working on the Mac at the “Boulangerie”, very Parisan

Jess and the SHOOTSAC – Joe and Mirta Barnett converting to Graphi (joking), hey they went Canon!

Kevin Kubota (Top), Joe Buissink (Bottom)

Michael and Louis Felix (Bottom)

Jules Bianchi getting interviewed (Top)

Marcus Bell                                                             Bob Davis

Vegas we a bit tiring as always, too much networking! Now it’s back to production and catch up before the wedding season is in full swing. Here are a few shots of me and friends in “slow sync” until I sat on my camera Tuesday night and busted the LCD screen!

Me and Kevin Kubota, my mentor  – Me and Amber from Kubota Image Tools

Me and Joel (EMP)  -  Me and Jess (JCSphoto)

THE Joe Latter and Alex Hill  -  Jenny (The better half of EMP)

Mikey (Evoke), Ryan Phillips, and me

Doug and Chenin – Boutwell Studio (Totally Rad Actions) and Me

Alex and Jim Kennedy                      –                     Lauren Hillary, Amie ?, Sara France, and Me

And of course I couldn’t leave out my Graphi girls: Michelle and Lanae!

We had the most awesome day in Santa Monica on Saturday expect for one minor thing which I’ll get to later in the post. Jeanette and Sung were awesome, you may remember their engagement session on the roof top in Downtown LA! Kelley Gin coordinated a great event, Alex and Jeff from Elysium Productions and my good buddy Jon from Portland was down to shoot with me. Casa del Mar has such a great style throughout the hotel so we tried to capture some of the richness in the photos. So of the other highlights; we found a great Jamaican food place called Cha-Cha’s Chicken and I saw Val Kilmer on the boardwalk. Then the not so pleasant experience happened later that night during the reception. Elysium and I both had equipment stolen from the ballroom out of plane sight. The hotel security team was even able to find some video footage from an outside camera to verify our claim to the Santa Monica police. It’s an unfortunate thing but it is an escalating problem within our industry. So wedding season is here so photographers please be extra careful, especially at big and nicer venues!