What a fantastic Easter weekend!  Saturday was an amazing day at the Biltmore for Miller and Matt’s wedding.  The Bloom Room did a beautiful job with the floral arrangements and the warm-glow of the ceremony made a memorable event. We really enjoyed our time with Tara, coordinator extraordinaire, who planned the day to a “T”. Although the sky threatened of rain, the day turned out perfect.

After the ceremony, the evening was kicked off with A Social Function. This band really knows how to play to the crowd as most everyone hit the dance floor.

Miller and Matt, thank you so much for allowing us to be a part of your day.  We knew from the engagement shoot that you guys are really special and we’d have a blast.  Have a great time in Italy and eat some Gelato for us!

Here are a few images from Matt and Miller’s day… Click on an image to view it larger or view a slideshow.

[Show as slideshow]

Do you have something that you say over and over like “we really ought to …” or “some day…” and it never happens? There are a few things in our life life that. We get too busy or distracted or other priorities come into play. We say all the time that we need to run over to the lake ( which is 5 minutes away) and have a picnic. We’ve said it for a couple of years, but never get around to it. Well, finally we have taken to time to “smell the roses” in a figurative sense. Here’s a quick iPhone shot of Cinnamon enjoying the ride and of our picnic spot.

OK, now for the exciting conclusion of  shooting for the final print.  This is a continuation of the post below, so if you haven’t read it yet, I’ll give you time to do that…

Take your time…

Next, I opened the file in Lightroom to make most of the adjustments.  I adjusted the levels to give the image more pop.  Then, adjusted the color to produce accurate skin tones while dragging the blue slider to adjust just the sky’s hue and exposure.  With the adjustment  brush, I painted areas of the sand and increased the exposure.  

Then, to finish up I brought it into photoshop.  I slightly vignetted around the edge by duplicating the background and applying a multiply mask.  Then, a gaussian blur is applied to that layer (not the mask).  I dropped the opacity of this layer to 15-20% and with a black brush on my layer mask, painted out the main subject.  I work with all of my brushes at low opacities with a feathered edge.  I want any adjustments to be gradual and with a smooth gradation.  As well, I work as much as I can in 16bit as this will hold the files integrity much better when making adjustments.  Finally, I added a little more contrast and sharpened (only around main subject).  This image was cropped as a pan for more drama.  Convert to 8bit and you’re ready to go.  

The final result is seen below…