2nd shot my first wedding...

2/18/2012

    Remember those old cartoons that would show a character
with an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other? Well I really
believe I have them on my shoulders! The angel was cheering me on, telling me
that this was such a good opportunity and to hustle my little butt off! The
Devil (or evil Janelle with horns and a tail) was saying turn back
now!! You can’t do this! Stick to what you’re used to.
You’re setting
yourself up for failure! You don’t even know these people that you’re shooting
with. You have no idea how to even use external Flash and this is an indoor
wedding. RUN Trick!!!

    Side note:
Hannah told me that it was an indoor wedding, in a dark venue and we need to use
an external flash the whole time… I had a panic attack! First off I
don’t even OWN a flash. Second, I don’t even know how to USE one, let alone turn
the thing ON! My self esteem quickly went Low… I
mean Low Low!
Jack could see that I wanted to back out, so he gave me a lil pep talk.

     Driving over my nerves almost got the best of me! I knew that the more that
I thought about it, the more that I’d want to turn my car right around! So I
turned my radio really loud so I couldn’t hear myself think. Gotye’s “Someone I
used to know” song was playing; I immediately started laughing because for the
past few days Jack hasn’t been able to get this darn song out of his head. Then
all my jams started playing so I was good! Isn’t it funny that music has the
power of taking you to a whole different place.


So now I arrived to the Fox Theater in Redlands and I’m looking for parking. I
admit that I am an ALRIGHT driver, but when you put me in an unknown
environment… ALRIGHT turns into HORRIBLE! I was totally zoned out
looking for parking when I almost hit a motorcyclist! It all
happened in slow
motion, I could see the fear in his eyes and him starting
to swivel the arms of his motorcycle. I got out of his way as fast as I could! I
pulled into a nearby parking lot and I feared that he was going to follow me and
kick my butt for almost killing him! I would’ve deserved it, but thank God he
didn’t. So I was off to a bad start…

Luckily things got better once I
met the team of photographers for the day. Hannah is the
head
hancho that got us all together. To say she’s amazing is an
understatement! She’s totally cool! Abbey&
Gina were the
other 2 second shooters, & they were awesome too! I love meeting friendly
people. Hannah gave us a tour of the dark theatre where both the ceremony &
reception were to take
place. We were trying out our cameras & settings
when I realized that my autofocus sensors weren’t grabbing on to anything that
didn’t have a pin light on it, and the bride & groom were not going to be
under a light. It was too dark for my sensors to focus. We tried everything and…
NOTHING! Im guessing it’s because I have a camera that doesn’t have as many
focusing sensors as the upper
level cameras do. This meant that I was going
to have to manual focus the whole reception! DUN DUN DUN…
the walls were coming in & I couldn’t breathe! So now I don’t know
how to use my flash & I have to worry about manual focusing too! I had
to take 3 shots of each pose & play with the focus to get at least one in
focus! It was sooooo frustrating but at least there were two other shooters

to get the shots. Other than that the whole wedding went smoothly! I have to
start doing some pushups to be able to hold the 70-200 2.8
lensaround, that thing is a monster! My little weak wrists were dying

trying to hold that thang up!

      I was on a real high
because after getting my toes wet, I wanted to dive right in! I am certain

that this is RIGHT for me! I want to be a wedding photographer! Thank you so
Much HANNAH! I am very appreciative of you for giving me this opportunity! I me
great gals from this & ate some bomb food!!! Yummm!!
Friends + Food = one happy gal!

Venue details...

Groom had to grab a smoke before he saw his bride, I followed him outside &
thought this was a cool photo because the flame added enough light to see the
details of his face!