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

Turns out we might be a bit different from other photographers.

We hear from a lot of couples who meet with us. Sometimes it’s their first meeting with a photographer, sometimes it’s not. But we consistently hear stories about the number of hours a photographer is willing to work on a wedding day. On some levels I understand it. They can be long days, sometimes 14 or 15 hours long.  Some photographers choose to limit it to 8 hours or they will shoot ceremony and the first hour of the reception and things like that. OK, fine be me. Bob and I tend to look at it from a different perspective. We are in it until the very end – and no we are not trying to make other photographers look bad.

Our reason is very simple, early on we got some of our best stuff near the end of the reception when the crowd is loose and the cameras are forgotten. Anyone who has ever been to a wedding will tell you the last dance can be beautiful. It can be raucous. It can be both. Why pass up that chance? Weddings are special. The last dance of the night is special. A sparkler exit is special. The bride giving her dad one last hug at the end of the night is infinitely more intimate than the hug at the end of the aisle. We want that shot. So we stay and hope to get it. A lot of times it’s there. Sometimes it’s not, but it’s more than worth the time to find out, don’t you think?

So we thought it might be nice to share a handful of late-night shots with you. Thanks for looking.

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Brianne and Ryan wedding at Radisson in Scranton

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Normally we see it coming. The groom always has that look like he’s up to something. Not this time. Sam was cool. Nothing to see here – nothing coming. The planning was perfect, the timing impeccable – a sneak attack that caught Jessyca completely stunned and laughing out of control. The time honored cake smash went off perfectly. In fact, I think the cake was still being cut. There was no waiting on this one. It could have been a total cake face plant but Same was merciful. Just a  little icing on the cheek, but it was a great moment from Sam and Jessyca’s wedding – among hundreds of great moments.

So without further delay, here’s a series of fun shots from a time-honored wedding tradition. Thanks Jessyca and Sam for inviting us to be a part of your day. You guys were a blast to hang out with.

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  • August 25, 2014 - 6:58 pm

    Mary Beth Siracuse - You guys were awesome! Thanks so much for being part of Sam and Jessyca’s wedding day!ReplyCancel

    • August 26, 2014 - 9:52 am

      bobsanchuk - It was our pleasure. We had a great time, and Sam and Jessyca are a wonderful couple!ReplyCancel

I suspect there is probably a reason I have a bar in my house. I also suspect there is a reason it’s where I feel most comfortable. I’m also guessing it’s not hard to figure out those reasons. Either way, I do get excited when our couples suggest we do some of their photos in a bar or restaurant. One, it feels like I’m not even leaving my house. Two, I love the options. I love the pockets of light in bars and the neon and cool signs and all the things that make for cool backgrounds.

So for Amanda and Brian to say they wanted to stop by Mickey Gannon’s, who we owe a great deal of gratitude, to grab some engagement photos, we were all in. First, they could not be a sweeter or more accommodating couple. You guys were just so great to work with.  And our friends at Mickey Gannon’s gave us so much room to work and were so generous with their time we could not be more thankful. We just love the photos and, of course, we went back a little later in the week for some of those wings!

Without further delay, here are some of the photos we grabbed and a few others from a stroll downtown. As always, thank you so much for looking and we hope you like them.

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Filed in: Engagement
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Love can be found in a lot of places on a wedding day. It can found in the the vows and the look a husband-to-be gives his bride-to-be at the altar. It can be found in the long hug from a dad to his little girl. It can also be found in the details and the extraordinary effort some couples go through to produce meaningful, beautiful and treasured little touches on their wedding days. I am continually amazed at some of the ideas and the execution of some of these things.

Then Denise showed up and took this thing to a whole new level. As Chris and others were explaining to me on her wedding day, Denise did a mountain of work to prepare all of the little touches and the beautiful style of the wedding. I’ll stop talking so you can check them out and know that the bar continues to be raised.

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There is really no part of photography I don’t love, especially wedding photography. I’ve talked about it a little before and the number of disciplines you need to master to do it really well. You need photojournalism skills, fashion photography skills, people skills and macro skills. And mastering them takes time. I’m comfortable in most of them but if I was honest, macro was probably not my favorite. I like people, so taking photos of flowers and rings and stuff was maybe not my favorite part. But I’ve been doing my homework. It’s important and now I’m really starting to see the joy in it.

So in this blog post, I wanted to offer a few tips on how to produce some of the trickier shots at weddings, the ring shots. They’re important. Don’t kid yourself into thinking as long as you have a shot of them, it’s good enough. They are as important as every other moment you capture, so treat them that way.

So how do you get good ones?

1. Get a macro lens. I hate to just tell you buy an expensive piece of equipment but you need one to really do them right. In the absense of one, use your fastest lens and open the aperture as wide as possbile. A shallow depth of field is often what puts the focus on the rings and not something else.

2. Clarity. Make sure the image or section of the ring that you want to be sharp is uncompromisingly sharp. It’s not always easy with a macro lens and it can be tough to trust the LCD on your camera. Do whatever you need to steady the camera and nail the focus.

3. Light, light, light. Nail the lighting. As a general rule of thumb, use sidelight to give your shots texture, but use whatever you have available to you and get creative. A great place to start for those just getting going in their photography is put the rings on a window sill and let them bathe on the glow of window light.

The shots below were lit with an Ice Light, which is designed by photographer Jerry Ghi0nis. It’s got a ton of uses but I get he most out of it when shooting details. It mimics window light and really does a good job.

So here are just a couple examples of some of the ring shots I got a little while back at Bobby and Alicia’s spectacular wedding.

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I tend to break a lot of rules. I’m not really crazy about them, and I’m not all that wild abut being told what to do. I supposes that’s why most of the stuff I enjoy doing tends to be creative with the ability to explore a little and figure out what looks good, sounds right and feels perfect.

That can be a real gift in photography – and sometimes a real curse. As a background, I have no formal training when it comes to photography. What I know and what Bob knows has come through figuring it out as we go. When we moved into a studio space, we did so before we had any studio equipment. Forget the fact that neither of us had ever actually worked with any studio equipment. But we did get the equipment and would spend time from 1 a.m. to 4 a.m.  in our new studio practicing and learning how to use the equipment. No one told us the light goes here and the other light goes there. Our experience with studio photography was basically what we had seen on our own senior shoots.

It turns out that was a blessing because we were freed from the chains of  “you must do it this way” and allowed to experiment  to see what happened if we moved a light here or shot from this angle. There was a learning curve. Believe me, there was a learning curve and probably some embarrassing moments, but we kept pushing and trying and asking questions. Now, studio work is some of my favorite stuff to do. It’s not unusal to see us laying on the ground outside of our bay doors taking a photo. I have not seen a lot of studio photographers do that by the way. Sometimes our ideas fail. No question about it. Sometimes they don’t, and those are the times that are really exciting.

So we wanted to share a few photos from Steve’s recent senior session. There are some different angles and some shots you won’t typically see in a studio. In one case, we just took him away from the background and leaned him up against a kinda dirty (sorry Steve) metal door to get a different look. For us, our favorite questions is “What happens if we do this?” A lot of times we don’t know the answer, but a lot of times we like the result.

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Filed in: Portraits
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