Two Sticks Studios – Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Poconos Wedding Photographers » Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Poconos Wedding Photography, Senior Photography and Portrait Photography

As we toil away and edit our weddings (OK, it’s not actually toiling – It’s a friggin’ ton of fun) I find myself stopping longer on some photos more than others. Well, I’ve been working on Amanda and Brian’s images and came across their first dance. Now first dances are special anyway. Bride and groom with the dance floor all to themselves, dancing to a song they picked together for the first time as a married couple. What’s not to love? At the Scranton Cultural Center it also usually means your initials in lights behind you. It’s splashy and beautiful and a really nice touch.

So I just thought Amanda and Brian’s shots captured a really nice moment for two great people and wanted to share them. There are a ton more photos to go through and I’m loving every minute of it! I can’t wait to see what else turns up.

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I honestly have no idea where to start with this one.

I guess I’ll just go to the beginning, sort of. I’ve been flipping through some images of Cassie and Matt’s wedding this past weekend, looking for things to write about for the blog. OVERLOAD. There are so many stories to tell, laughs to share and a few tears of joys. I swear I will try to get to all of them as best I can. For now, there is one thing that’s important to remember. I see a lot of people in love. It’s really a great job when I think about it in those terms. I see people in love every weekend. I meet families and hear stories that fill your heart.

Cassie and Matt are very, very special people who Bob and I consider ourselves very fortunate to know. Yes, they are in love. They care for each other. They have each other’s backs. Cassie has been through some rough times in the past couple of years. I’m not going to detail them here but it takes a special woman and a special man to persevere through those problems to get to this moment when she walked down the aisle to marry her guy. It was impossible to watch and not be moved.

So we wanted to put a couple photos up of them together. Through the tough times – together on their wedding day enjoying every single moment of a day that at some point probably seemed awfully far away.

Our most sincere congratulations to Cassie and Matt.

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  • October 16, 2014 - 1:34 pm

    joyce davies - Amazing job done by TWO STICKS. They TRULY love their job and it shows when they are working with the birde and groom and the whole wedding party. So pleasant, so professional, so caring, so artistic, and soooooo much fun. If you are looking for a photographer, you will not find anyone better than BOB and CHAD. Bob and Chad thank you so much for all you did to make Cassie and Matt’s Day so special. You are the best.ReplyCancel

There is just something about being able to shoot at the Colonnade in downtown Scranton. It’s such an unbelievable place with great character. And when you get to photograph upstairs in the perfectly appointed rooms, it really gets cool.

So I was looking forward to spending time with Jenn on Saturday as she got ready for her wedding to Joe. When I walked into the room, Jenn was hanging out with a couple of friends. Now the first order of business is usually to find a nice place to hang the dress for some photos. When I got there it was already hanging in front of a window. Absolutely perfect. I wasn’t even going to touch it. All I had to do was hang out and shoot.

Now our friends Josh and Paul, owners of the Colonnade, like mirrors – maybe more than I do – but there are always a few mirrors hanging around the building. They are a photographer’s best friend sometimes because if you use the angles right, they can help produce some images that have a lot of depth. The light coming into the rooms is usually great, too. You can see why this kind of stuff gets exciting to us.  I just spent a couple hours just hanging out with Jenn, telling stories, listening and taking photos. It was great. I love the stuff that I was able to get. Even better than that, it was relaxed time getting to talk to Jenn and her friends. I really couldn’t ask for anything more.

So what did Bob do with his time? He spent time hanging out with Joe – a good photographer in his own right – getting some really natural and cool portraits with some window light. I absolutely love how they came out. They’re a really good example of the kind of intimate and relaxed portraits we love having the time to do on a wedding day.

So enjoy the photos. And thanks to Jenn and Joe for trusting us to capture their day.

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I love that sentiment that every day is an adventure. Something about it just strikes me, but like most people it can be hard to live up to it when we get caught in routine and the stuff we have to do every day. But every day is an adventure with possibility and challenges and a chance to do something you’ve never done before. The whole idea marries well with photography, especially wedding photography.  Bob and I often work pretty hard with brides and grooms on their timelines for the day because we’ve been to lots of weddings and can help. It also let’s us know what kind of time we will have to do photos. Are we gonna have a lot of time for an elaborate setup or do we need to work more quickly to get our shots? Usually the answer is work quickly. Hey, there is a lot the bride and groom wanna do on their wedding day and they should do it all and love every second of it. So it’s our job to work fast and get great shots. No time is not an excuse on a wedding day! But it can be an adventure.

So this past weekend, we joined our friends Amanda and Brian at the Cultural Center for their reception. We had just gotten back from Mellow Park and some photos with the whole bridal party there and the cocktail hour was getting going. Amanda wanted to make sure we could still do some portraits at the Cultural Center. Who could blame her? It’s an amazing place to get photos done. We love it there! So while they had a quick drink, we started getting a plan together. We decided on the stage. Here’s where it gets fun.

We wanted it to have that stage look with spotlights and all the cool things that go along with being on stage and having your moment. This was gonna require more lights. So we started dropping flashes around the building like hand grenades to get the right effect. We then threw our friend Steve Serge, who was tagging along to help out, on the stage to serve as a quick model to test the light. Perfect!

The total time from idea to “go back to cocktail and enjoy your friends” is 14 minutes. The total shoot time for Amanda and Brian was 8 minutes. The first six were used to get the lights positioned properly and make sure everything was ready. We’re pretty happy with how the photos turned out. It was an adventure. We really hope you like the photos!

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Normally we like to throw a bunch of photos in our blog posts, but today I’m just going to do one because it’s pretty different from the other shots we produced that day. We were lucky enough to do Kyle’s senior photos. Kyle is on the Dunmore football team. He is the third Dunmore player we have been able to shoot this year, and they’ve all been great guys. They would have to be for some of the thing we ask them to do. 😉 In Kyle’s case, his photos were almost done when I handed him a Solo cup full of mud.

God bless him, he didn’t say anything when I said “would you mind go smearing this all over your face? I want you to look like it’s right after a night game played in mud.”

“Sure. No problem.”

I love this kid! (We also checked with Mom. She was all for it!)

Honestly, Bob and I only had an idea what we wanted but no real clue if it was going to work. This was going to be a little trial and error, but we figured we already had some nice shots of him. No harm in a little experimentation. Step one was get mud all over your face. Step two, was make it look like it was raining. Well we don’t have a rain machine in the studio. Don’t get me wrong, I really want one, but so far no dice! Step three make Kyle look tough and get the lighting on this right. To get the rain, Bob had to use a spray bottle and hide behind Kyle. For Kyle’s part he had to hold his pose really steady while the two of us tried to figure this out and get the timing right. You’d be surprised how hard it is to get the studio lights to capture the water from a spray bottle. Occasionally, we had to do some mud touch up. But finally, we had a workable image.

We really wanted it to have that Sports Illustrated portrait look so there was a step four. I took the photo and increased the clarity and contrast and adjusted the blacks a little to get the effect. We’re pretty happy with how the photo turned out. Here it is in color and black and White. We’d love to hear your thoughts.

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One of the thing a lot of photographers struggle with is portraits. You might be thinking, “how is that possible, you’re a photographer, shouldn’t that be your bread and butter?” Well it should. But with the number of semi-pros and photo enthusiasts out there it’s not really all that surprising that portraits have taken a back seat to photojournalism. And that’s fine, but portraits are still important and they don’t need to be daunting. I’ve watched too many photogs try to control every little part of the photo, down to the tiniest detail. While that’s admirable, on a wedding day it’s going to slow you down.

So our advice  – and it’s advice we remind ourselves to follow – is to keep it simple. It’s so easy to complicate photography, especially as you grow more confident and collect more equipment. You can start thinking well I know this technique and I have this new toy. It can get you away from what you enjoy doing and that’s taking photos that look natural and capture the person you are shooting in a genuine way. So there are two set of photos in this series, one of Michael and one of Lauren.

I did Michael’s photos. We weren’t rushed for time really, but where we were doing his photos was kind of dark and the backgrounds weren’t something that I loved. But there was a window. A window can give you options every single time. So in this case, I simply put Michael in front of the window and we chatted about the day while I grabbed some shots. Simple as that. As far as the technique, I shot on manual and underexposed by at least a stop. That let me concentrate on the light falling on his face and let everything else in the room fall away.  It’s one of my favorite ways to shoot because you can really isolate the person you are shooting and get rid of any clutter. In the end, they have a really classic look. I made them black and white to add to that feeling.

Bob shot Lauren’s images. These were done while she was still getting ready in the bedroom. Yes, that’s not all that uncommon, especially if you are looking to save a little time. Think about it. She’s already there, the light is usually decent. From there, it’s minor adjustments. So Bob snapped away as she was finishing up. He made minor adjustments to put her in nice positions for photos. Just like that a series of portraits are done that are very relaxed, beautiful and didn’t take a ton of time.
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