Tag Archive for: Montana Wedding Photographer
A couple weekends ago, I drove over to western Montana to photograph the wedding day of Ashley and David at the fantastic Teller Wildlife Refuge Slack House and Barn in Corvallis, Montana.
This past weekend, I traveled towards the Flathead Valley in northwest Montana to the town of Big Fork to photograph Cierra and Brian’s wedding day held at the beautiful Cougar Trail Ranch. Here’s a sneak peak at some of the fun photos I got to make on their big day! This is just the tip of the iceberg and I’m excited to show you all the rest. Many more photos to come. Check back soon. Congrats you guys! -M
Happy New Year everyone! Well, I finally got around to editing down my favorite wedding images from 2012. It’s great to look back and relive all the fun memories of my wedding clients celebrations. I feel privileged and proud that I got to be apart of them all for that, I raise my glass to all of my brides and groom’s continued happiness. 2013 is already shaping up to be my best wedding year yet and the bookings are pouring in. If you know of any friends or family members that are looking for a unique way to have their wedding day documented, I hope you send them my way. Hope everyone had a great holiday and that you’ll continue to support my storytelling wedding photography in the new year. I feel very blessed. Cheers! -M
Last weekend I wanted to tap into my autumn nostalgia and celebrate the new Fall season by hosting a apple picking event and BBQ at my house here in Bozeman, Montana. Growing up in the Chicago suburbs of Illinois, one of my favorite activities was to go apple picking in the local orchards. So I invited some friends over for my First Annual Apple Pressing Party last Sunday. The idea was to all meet up on bikes and to go ravish the local Bozeman area apple trees then bring our bounty back for cider pressing, micro brews, BBQ and campfire into the evening. The reality was that this year was a lousy fruit year for the apple trees in the area and we ended up buying boxes from the local grocery store. Still, we borrowed a apple press from the good folks at Rocky Creek Farms and pressed about a gallon of delicious cider that everyone got to sample around the warmth of the campfire with nice rum and whiskey and smoked ribs. As part of the celebration, I also set up my photo booth over my cast iron yard tub/stationary hammock and we all went to town making fun, spontaneous photos throughout the evening. It was a great time! Here are some of my favorites from the evening.
Winter quickly approaches here in the Big Sky and I’m already starting to book wedding dates for my 2013 wedding season. If you or someone you know is in the market for a wedding photographer, now is the perfect time to be the early bird and book Greener Visuals Wedding Photography for your wedding day. I’d love to hear from you. Happy Fall everyone!
Whew what a ride! The last month has been busy with weddings and traveling back and forth to California. It’s great to have a little destination wedding photographer adventure on my weekends and it allows me the challenge of photographing in new places. Northern California never ceases to amaze me with all it’s buried treasures. I just finished up my latest photo story of Jenn and Chris’ Wedding Day that took place two weeks ago at the Ralston White Retreat in Mill Valley, California. These guys were a riot and were an absolute blast to photograph. It was also one of the most unique weddings I’ve ever attended. Jenn and Chris found me through the recommendation of some good friends of mine that saw me in action at a wedding a couple years ago. We talked about what they wanted out of their wedding photos and were looking for my documentary approach. These two were a wise couple who booked me early almost a year in advance and it was exciting to finally get to photograph it. As their website boasts, The Ralston White Retreat, “Is an old 1913 wedding venue for group retreats or special events nestled in the slope of Mt. Tamalpais which is located on 43 acres in beautiful Mill Valley, California.” It was a place of so much old fashioned character. I totally geek out to photographing in places like this. It was a very personable wedding to attend. The two had their ceremony outside in the front lawn which was followed by a relaxing cocktail hour that flowed into a lovely dinner inside the large house. Right away the group had great energy and I give personel props to their friends for their creativity as a pirate/ninja attack skit ensued forcing the groom to fight back “nerf style” for his fair maiden. It was totally random and awesome all at the same time. You got to love a group who still use their imagination and can play like kids. As the evening progressed I documented the guests laughing and playing in the Greener Visuals Photo Booth or get heavy into playing late night Garage Band video games. A great time was had by all and it was a pleasure to be apart of their wedding celebration. Wish you guys all the best. -M
To see all of their wedding photos, you can follow this link here.
God…I love what comes across your path on the internet.
I found this great unique groomsmen’s wedding toast the other day and wanted to share it with all of you.
I hope my friends are this creative when it comes to my wedding day. So awesome and so creative! Give the video a second to load then watch it all the way through. It’s just too funny.
I’m getting excited to start my 2012 wedding photography season. If you know of anyone looking to hire a fun, talented wedding photographer, send them my way! All the best, -M
What a year! I had the fortunate opportunity to photograph numerous weddings over the course of 2011. During the last couple of weeks, I’ve been going through all of my wedding shoots from this past year. It was so great to go back and relive those celebrations that I was lucky enough to photograph. So many fun times and way too many photos to choose from. I feel very fortunate. A big thank you to all of my wedding clients from the 2011 wedding season. Wish you guys all the best and thank you for letting Greener Visuals Wedding Photography be apart of your wedding day. Here are some of my favorite wedding images from the past year. I’m looking forward to making the 2012 wedding season even better. Happy New Year everyone! -M
A couple weeks ago I had the chance to return to Montana, my favorite place on earth, to photograph the wedding of an old college friend Christina and her new husband Ryan. I got to know Christina during my time tromping around the Big Sky state while attending The University of Montana in my pursuit of my degree in Photojournalism. In between my time fly fishing mountain streams and trying to make it to class on time, I came to know her through mutual friends and her involvement in the Missoula art scene. Christina, a Montana native, is a very talented painter and ended up getting her degree in the Fine Arts. From there, it was off to New York City for her where she eventually met her fiancée Ryan randomly at a friend’s apartment. Oddly enough it turns out that they both were from the same western Montana town of Whitefish located up close to the entrance of Glacier National Park. I’m always amazed at the curveballs of coincidence life can through at people sometimes. Two years apart in age, Christina and Ryan never new one another growing up but found each other in one of the biggest cities on earth. Go figure. As they grew closer in their relationship, the two parted ways with the “Big Apple” and have since made a life together living and working in Portland, Oregon. When it came to plan their summer wedding the location was an obvious choice.
On their wedding day, I awoke early to drive north of Missoula (where I had been visiting my parents) past the cherry orchards along Flathead Lake and eventually made my way northeast towards the entrance of Glacier National Park. Christina and Ryan chose a cute little 40-acre ranch just outside of Coram, Montana called Glacier River Ranch that was bordered by the gin clear blue waters of the Flathead River. There are few things in life more picturesque than a Montana backdrop and that day I couldn’t think of any. I arrived early so I could scout around the area and get a feel for the place. As family members were helping to set up, I decided to walk around the grounds for possible portrait locations. As I came around the side of a big ponderosa pine tree I startled a young black bear (about 30 yards away from me) and he quickly stood up on his hind legs to get a better view of the blond haired photographer that had interrupted his mid morning berry feast. Soon uninterested, it sauntered off until the delicious smells of a wedding reception food brought it closer to the wedding location so much so that the ranch owner had to scare it off with some warning shots of her deer rifle. Only in Montana. Love it. The rest of the day mimicked the visions of a good Norman MacLean novel. The late August weather was perfect and their afternoon streamside reception was stunning as the golden Montana light lit up the trees as it slowly made its decent behind Teakettle Mountain. Like any proper Montana wedding the rest of the evening was spent eating roasted pig, drinking fine wine and Montana microbrews and dancing to live music from a local string band. It was so great to spend the day photographing such a fun couple and an honor to be asked to photograph the wedding of a old friend. I wish them all the best. -M
You can view the very best images from Ryan and Christina’s wedding under my portfolio wedding stories section here. Or…
To see the entire wedding take you can see them all on my Photo Archive here.
I’m almost finished with my latest wedding photo shoot where I returned to the Big Sky state to photograph Christina and Ryan’s Montana wedding. Stay tuned for a big post soon.
Sometimes it’s the little things that can make a wedding peak over the top of awesomeness. A couple weeks ago, I helped Erin and Ryan do just that by setting up a photo booth for their guests to play in and take photos of themselves throughout the reception. What I love about offering photo booths to my clients is that they are totally customizable by the fun props and backdrops clients provide and are limited only by the creativity of their wedding guests. I have yet to keep a straight face while editing a photo booth take. So often they yield hilarious results. Being a high up the totem pole in the marketing department over at Facebook, Erin really wanted step it up a notch and have a social media aspect to her wedding day. She approached me about a concept of having her photo booth photos posted straight to Facebook throughout the evening so her friends and family could tag themselves and share the photos. I thought it was a pretty cool concept that I had never tried before but was up to the challenge. Through the help of my trusty photo assistant and local Denver photographer Justin Edmonds, we were able to figure out a solution using presets in Adobe Lightroom 3. The result was a couple easy clicks (on my computer which was tethered to my camera) and the photos uploaded straight to her Facebook page dedicated to her wedding day. It was a huge hit with her wedding guests and a new challenge I was pleased that we were able to conquer. In the end I couldn’t resist and stepped in to make a couple photos of myself. Too much fun. Here are a couple of my favorite images that were made during Erin and Ryan’s wedding. You can view the full photo shoot here on my archive site. Stay tuned for their wedding shoot. Coming soon. Until then, -M
After all of the excitement is photographed on the wedding day, the long hours editing and the careful attention to make each photo look it’s best, there comes the point in the process of hiring Greener Visuals Wedding Photography that brings the experience full circle…the delivery of the photos to the bride and groom. For the longest time I would send my clients their DVD of images in a simple, paper based disc holder. My wedding photography business redesign offered me a chance to ferment on how I was operating things throughout my business and a chance for me to improve on them. I knew I wanted to make my presentation from start to finish stand out. I want my clients to be proud of their wedding photography and be able to show it off to friends and family whenever they want. I knew I needed to raise the bar. I found my answer in Jewelboxing cases. These high quality cases are durable, have a sleek, modern look and are beautifully designed. They are a perfect way to preserve my clients wedding memories for decades to come. I’m thrilled to have them as a new standard for my Greener Visuals Wedding Photography clients.
Greener Visuals Wedding Photography’s got a brand new bag…of business cards that is. In my ongoing effort to the spruce up the “storefront” of my wedding photography business, it was time to design a new business card to reflect my new look. I decided my design skills were up to the challenge. Obviously I wanted to emphasize my new business logo, maintain a professional looking card while providing all of my important contact information. I think I found a good balance. I opted not to put a photograph on the back side of the card this time around. It was good for a while on my previous cards but I noticed that my old cards started being picked through so that I was left with the images that everyone had looked over. The few left over, though good images, didn’t always work for selling my business services. If I only have one image to make that impression on someone I’d better hope it is going to be an image that that one particular person is into. The design amounted to being kind of a shot in the dark. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and individual photography tastes are no different. So with that in mind I decided to forego the photo and put only my logo on the back. Like all things in business, it’s an experiment. I’m a wedding storyteller and I hope that my card will peak the right bride and groom’s curiosity. I’m continuing to have my cards printed through Moo.com on eco-friendly 100% recycled card stock. These cards are awesome. I’ve gotten nothing but complements from folks I hand them to. The cards have a slightly larger size (than a traditional business cards) and thicker card stock. Moo cards make a great impression and I aim to keep that tradition going with this new batch. Now all I need to do is distribute them. Shoot me an email with your address and I’d be happy to send you a couple. All the best. -M
When my wedding planner friend Catrina, of Catrina Maria Designs asked me to speak about green wedding photography at last week’s monthly meeting of the Sacramento NACE (National Association of Catering Executives) I was both excited at the proposition and a bit panicked. It has been many moons since I last made a big public presentation and the thought of it made me pause. But the idea of “going green” has been on my mind for years now and this was a great opportunity to think about how I could make my wedding photography business even more sustainable. So…What makes a green photography business?
From film to digital and how it has changed photographer’s workflow. A very brief history.
Back in the days of film there was substantial waste. The whole photography workflow was comprised of a wide variety of chemicals used in film development and print processing. There was a lot of waste ranging from spent developing chemicals that usually found their way down a drain to scrape photo paper emulsions being tossed in the trash. It was the chemicals (developing baths, stop baths, fixing baths, and rinse steps) themselves that were the most problematic. Many of them had limited shelf life and also could be hazardous to your health over extended periods of time.
These days most photographers have gone digital both from an ecological and economical standpoint. Digital photography offers a paperless and chemical-free way to capture an event, including being able to view online proofs before deciding which ones to print if at all. The transition from film to digital has greatly diminished the amount of waste produced from professional photographers.
In many ways you can say that the professional photography realm has naturally progressed towards many of the practices the green movement. But what business practices make up a green photographer? In other words, how can one make their photography business greener?
Making your wedding business greener?
It comes down to a self-evaluation of how your business operates and identifying things that can be improved on. Start at the core of the green movement with the 3 R’s –Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. The following is a list of things you can use to help green up your business.
Printing less stuff equals having less paper waste
You can help reduce this waste by using as little paper as possible, and being smart about the paper you do use. If paper is a necessity, using recycled paper can help. Evaluate your workflow and figure out how you use paper products. Is printing out emails and other documents pertinent to your productivity? Try keeping your digital files organized in their digital format. You can keep emails in your inbox but organize them in a way that makes them easier to find and reference. Many online email providers like gmail.com have made this step nearly effortless. It’s always a good idea to make back-up copies of important files and emails but instead of storing boxes of paper files, consider keeping them on an external hard drive. When you do need to print important documents, make sure you use a sustainable paper, and set your printer or copier to print on both sides of the page.
With unlimited storage online and the concepts of cloud storage system it is easier than ever to go digital with your documents and photography by merging that information into your online presence.
I try to have as much information on my website as possible. I have purposely chosen not to have my website based in Flash and instead have it based off of a WordPress CSS based blog format from Graph Paper Press. The open source code allows for faster load times and uses a fraction of energy consumption of Flash sites. Flash based websites consume a ton of energy to upload, are slow and worse of all they are invisible to search engine optimization algorithms like Google.
A great way to reduce paper use and get contracts and documents signed more quickly is to use electronic signatures programs. I am sold on ShootQ.com and I am slowly integrating it into my workflow. It’s a virtual studio manager that assisting me from the moment a prospective client contacts me through my website to the delivery of the photos. The program helps you manage the workload, stay organized, it provides a place for your packages and rates to be password protected online until the final images are delivered. Your entire business workflow is online with minimum to no paper waste.
The digital workflow also allows me to post the entire digital wedding take online for proofing instead of printing out a bunch of proof sheets for my clients. There are plenty of online photo archival sites that let clients search my full wedding take. It allows them to make print purchases, and/or download low-res images purchases for social media purposes instantly online. I use online photography photo storage company called Photoshelter but there are others like Pictage that can be good options.
Some other practices I’m integrating into my business are…
-Using rechargeable batteries in strobes to offset the waste of used batteries going into land fills. I’ve started using Nickel-Metal Hydride (Ni-MH) batteries. They have a higher price tag than alkaline batteries up front but the price is offset by the amount you can use them. They can be recycled hundreds of times. This fact can take the cost down to less than couple cents per energy cell over time. Sure, it costs some money for the power to charge them. But that is minor compared to the cost of replacing an alkaline batteries over time.
-I’m printing my business cards on 100% recycled paper from a great business card company called Moo.com. For a less expensive option check out PSPrint.com
-I buy more energy efficient hard drives for storing photos
-I try to buy used camera gear when possible if it’s in good condition like my new, used Nikon D3 pictured above.
-I strive to keep all of my equipment clean and free from dust. This helps my electronics run more efficiently. This also saves me a ton of time having to photoshop out dust spots on my images.
I have all of my electronics – computer, printer, external hard drive, and other office gadgets plugged into one power strip. By turning it off you can ensure that none of your appliances are secretly robbing energy. I was surprised to learn through my research that cell phone chargers left plugged into a wall when you’re not using them still draw energy, regardless of whether there’s anything plugged into them.
So…in conclusion, how can you sell your clients on green photography practices?
-Encourage brides to buy prints of only the photos they really want.
-Offer your brides an option to buy digital wedding albums or if they want a physical wedding album have green album options made from recycled material. Plenty of great choices out there like Wild Magnolia Design Albums
-Offer the option of them receiving their images on flash drives for photo delivery instead of DVDs. They are reusable and double as a cool promo for your business. There are numerous companies out there that can do this like FlashBay
-If brides insist on a DVD, (which most do) design it so that it will be something they will cherish. I use Jewelboxing.com cases that allow me to create beautiful high quality jewel display cases. They are durable, they look fantastic and with the right design can really make an impression on your clients.
-Eliminate the need for lots of camera flash use by encouraging your wedding clients to have their ceremony/reception in naturally lit areas for the wedding which could also mean just having their wedding earlier in the day (having a venue with lots of windows saves energy and creates beautiful soft light for photos).
Remember that becoming green is not about being perfect on day one. Making a commitment to the environment is an ongoing process. Take it in small steps. It can be easier than you think. All the best. Go Green.
I welcome and support everyone.
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