Should the Groom See the Bride Before the Wedding?

More and more, you see wedding photographers who are encouraging the bride and groom to see each other on their wedding day, before the actual ceremony.  Here in Tampa Bay we get a fair amount of couples who meet before the ceremony, often because it's hard to avoid if they are getting married on the beach.

I always encourage my clients to do a "reveal" before the ceremony.  Most decline because they want to preserve the surprise for the walk down the aisle.  I don't push it at all... I don't really care much either way.  What's important is that the couple are happy with their decision.  I'm not unhappy if they don't want to do it.

That being said, I'm now going to tell you why you should do a reveal before the wedding. 

Think about it:  You want your husband to see you in that dress and be knocked out.  You want him to have an emotional reaction and you want to see it and share it. So, you reveal yourself to him in your dress for the first time, 50 feet away in a room full of people who are standing and staring at you both, with your father walking next to you!  Your husband will be having an emotional reaction but he will be fighting it with everything he's got because he's being stared at by 150 people and your Dad!  No man wants to start crying in front of his father-in-law. If he does have an emotional reaction, you can't see it because you're in the back of the room.  Add to that the fact that both of you are trying to concentrate on the ceremony (so complex that it requires a full-rehearsal) and you realize that there is a very special moment here that is being shoved aside for other concerns.

Allow your husband to see you in your dress for the first time in a setting where he can truly take it in and relish the moment.  He wants to hold you... he wants to kiss you... he wants to tell you how beautiful you look.  He can't do any of that during the ceremony.  He has to wait until it's all over to tell you how incredible you look and by then the rush of the moment is gone.

Let me make it easy for you.  If a man is going to propose to you, would you rather he do it in an intimate setting with just the two of you or on the Jumbo-tron at a ballgame?  My guess is that you picked the intimate setting.  It's hard to be "in the moment" with 50,000 people staring at you.

Do a "reveal."  Allow yourself to have a special, intimate moment before the wedding that is yours and yours alone.  Then, go do the ceremony as a team.  You'll both be more relaxed and confident.  Don't worry, there are still 150 people who are going to gasp and cry when you appear.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention, you also get great pictures.  :)

Booray Perry is a great wedding photographer with a funny name who works in Tampa Bay, FL.

Wedding lighting with off-camera light

I recently posted this picture on Facebook and I know that some of my photographer friends might be interested in the lighting so here's complete breakdown of the shot:

First, the settings
f2.8 - 1/160 - iso1600

This was the first wedding where I used the PocketWizard MiniTT1 and FlexTT5.  I've already talked about the advantages of having TTL control with off-camera lighting but this is the first time that I've also used zone control.

I set up my off-camera strobe (Canon 580EX) at the corner of the dance floor.  In this shot, it's to my left.  I pointed it at the ceiling with about a 45 degree angle.

On-camera is my 580EXII pointed straight up with a bounce card pointed forward.

Tampa Wedding Photographers will love this venue

I recently shot a wedding at Twenty-Eight Twelve in Valrico, FL. If you're a wedding photographer in the Tampa Bay area and haven't had a chance to shoot this venue then you are missing a great opportunity for some nice images.  Wedding Planner WCG Events ran the show and did a great job!

The venue itself is an old house with a large backyard. The interior is very nice with wood floors and a big staircase, victorian furniture, grand piano... tastefully done all around.

It's not big. The ceremony itself is held outside (reception, too) but there are so many great places to take pictures both inside and out.

Shooting outdoors can be tricky on a bright day but on a cloudy day it's a dream. I used a Canon 70-200mm f2.8 IS lens for most of the ceremony with no fill-flash necessary. This enabled me to shoot with wild abandon with no worries about harsh shadows. Of course, a cloudy day sometimes means rain and we were forced to stop the ceremony and move under the back porch eventually but as I told the bride, "These are the things that make a wedding memorable."

The thing I really loved about this venue is the variety of backgrounds that were available to me. There aren't many places where you can shoot the bride (through a chandelier) reclining in a well-appointed room and five minutes later shoot the wedding couple in front of a barn!

There's great texture there as well (bricks, etc) and they have fountains in the pool which are nice for shoot-through.

Let me warn you that if you have a cute daughter in your wedding she will be photographed almost as much as you. As the father of two girls (3 and 5 years old) I'm a sucker for little girls in white dresses. :)
It was great fun shooting there and my bride and groom were very accomodating every time I would grab them and ask for "one more shot."
Visit my website for more of my tampa wedding pictures.

Wedding Photography Tampa - Selective Color

One of the things that you see quite a bit of on wedding photography websites is selective color. Selective color pictures are the ones where the image is black and white but something in the image is in color (typically it's the flowers). It's a style decision that each photographer makes (along with a million others) as to if and when a photograph should be modified that way. Personally, I stopped thinking about it years ago because I never seemed to come across an image that I felt would be better with selective color. If a client requests it I'll do it but I can't recall the last time I did it by choice.


Then, last week I was working on a recent wedding that had a picture that seemed perfect for selective color. The reason it was a perfect choice was because it already looked like selective color! The picture below hasn't been modified at all... it just so happens that the tie is green and everything else is black or white. More Tampa wedding photography available on my website...

Portrait Session in Ybor City

Last week I headed down to Ybor City in Tampa to photograph Ashley. Ashley is a singer and musician so we decided to incorporate her guitar into some of the shots. From the very beginning I knew that it was going to be a great session because she is very easy-going, fun and inventive with her posing. I don't think I gave her detailed direction the entire time.... I just took pictures while she did whatever she wanted.

This picture was taken just as the sun was starting to set which gave me the great glow off the railroad tracks. I used off-camera lighting for the entire shoot so that I could have more control over the shadows. If I had to pick just one image from the day to keep it would probably be this one. Notice how the tracks curve down and lead to Ashley? This is a great trick to use when framing people for portraits.

Still at the railroad tracks. I cropped the tracks out of the shot because they were just too distracting to the final image.

I'm usually not a big fan of "selective color" in my photographs. I feel that it's been overused by photographers (especially wedding photographers.) Just because you can make something in the picture be in color while everything else is black and white doesn't mean you should. For this picture against a graffiti covered wall, I think it works. Usually, the thing that's in color stands out and becomes the focus of the picture. The difference is that in this picture, the color tends to make the black and white stand out because it is behind her.

My original intention was to have a sunset shoot but Ashley was running late and it got dark on us. So, I quickly started looking for ways we could turn the night to our advantage. In Tampa Bay there isn't a much better place for night photography than Ybor City with the lights and old Tampa feel (I love cobblestones). So, I put Ashley in the middle of the street, pulled out a second flash (lucky for me I tend to over-pack for photo shoots) and started taking pictures. As you can imagine, a picture like this takes a little more work than the others from the session. I have one flash to my left shooting through an umbrella and another on the ground under a car behind Ashley (see the bright flash on the right side?). Ideally I would have preferred to not have that back flash show so bright but I was hampered by space and the lack of a second tripod (wasn't planning for night shoot, remember?). Still, it works because it could just be light from a car. It makes a big difference in the picture because it puts a rim light on her legs.

Ashley changed outfits again (by the way, can I just say that the restrooms in the 15th street parking garage are cleaner than my house? Nice surprise...) and we moved to the curb. Careful observers might notice something missing from the guitar in this shot. It was distracting to me so I took it out with Photoshop.

It was getting late and we were ready to wrap but Ashley still had some stamina so we walked down to the main drag for a few more quick shots. I like this one because I was only using one flash but the car behind Ashley on the street acted like a rim light (see the nice halo of light around her head?).

Sweaty and tired, we called it a night. It was a fantastic shoot and a lot of fun! As always, you can see more wedding photography and portrait photography on my website.

Tampa Engagement Photographs in Ybor City

Ybor City is one of my favorite places to take pictures. There are so many textures and colors to work with that I could spend an entire day thare and never take the same picture twice.

Here are a few pictures from Douglas and Danielle's engagement session. For more wedding and engagement photography in Tampa, visit my website.

Engagement photographs, Lindsey and Tom at University of Tampa

I shot engagement photographs for Tom and lindsey last week at University of Tampa (one of my favorite spots). They actually met as toddlers and have known each other their entire life. They were great together and we got some terrific shots.






For more Tampa Bay engagement pictures visit my website at www.boorayperry.com.

Tampa Wedding Photography

Brad and Cindy were married on Saturday and I had the privilege of being their photographer. More Tampa wedding photography pictures can be seen on my website but here are a few of my favorites from the day.

The reception was held in an office building which made for a tough time finding a good location to shoot some couple's pictures. I recently had a client tell me that a photographer had told her that she wouldn't get good pictures because of the time of day she had scheduled her wedding. That's ridiculous. A good photographer finds a way. Lucky for me there was a brick wall right by the entrance. All wedding photography can benefit from a good brick wall. :)



I loved this picture the minute I saw it but for some reason it just screamed "old." Maybe it's because I like those magazine ads that feature pictures from the 70's. This picture just looked to me like something you would see in the album of a couple married for 20 years. So, I aged it a little in Photoshop.



When Cindy told me how big her wedding party would be I decided to break out the big lights. The trend currently is to take casual formal pictures (and I do..) but there is still something to be said for the old-fashioned, full group shot. With a group this big you really need a couple of large studio lights to get a good, even light across the entire frame.

I was setting up to shoot Cindy in front of these doors when a bridesmaid said, "Let's put Brad on the other side!" Great idea!

Here's the shot I was setting up when I took the one above. The scenery outside the doors wasn't the best so I frosted the glass in Photoshop.

Another reminder that I need to keep a sewing kit in my camera bag. They had to send down to the front desk for a needle and thread when one of the loops broke on Cindy's dress.

Booray Perry is a wedding photographer in Tampa

Bar Mitzvah Photography in Tampa

For more Bar Mitzvah photography, visit my website www.boorayperry.com.

I shot the Weinstein Bar Mitzvah in Tampa on Saturday. It was a nice event and great people. One of the things that they did (which I always think must be great) is hold the party in the same hotel that most of the out-of-town guests are staying in. It's just so convenient when you don't have to worry about transportation for everyone.



The trend right now at Bar Mitzvah's is to turn the lights down and pass out a bunch of glow-sticks, etc. This makes it tough on me because if I use flash you can't see the lights and if I don't, everything is a blur. So, I try to corral a couple of kids and play a game I call, "How still can you stand while I take this long exposure."

The "Cha-Cha Slide." It always seems like the Moms are having the most fun at these Mitzvah's, which is only fair since they usually do all the work!

As always, when ever there is a lull in the activities, I start looking for the kids.

The theme for the Bar Mitzvah was "World Cup Soccer."

Children's Photography Tampa Bay

For more Tampa children's photography visit my website.

The folks at my daughter's dance class were kind enough to let me slip in and take a few quick pictures of the dancers. My children are so used to me taking pictures of them that they ignore me like I'm paparazzi. However, I did manage to get one great shot.

Wedding Photographer Tampa

For more wedding photography in Tampa Bay, please visit my website at http://www.boorayperry.com/.

I photographed a wedding yesterday in Ybor City (that's a section of Tampa) that was just gorgeous. I've posted quite a few pictures from the wedding on my website so I'll try to refrain from going overboard here on the blog. It'll be tough, though, because there were just so many wonderful shots. Here are a just a few of my favorites from the day:

This may be my favorite picture from the whole day and I shot it first thing. It may seem a little odd to you that I would consider this picture my favorite but I just love so many things about it. I love that it's an unguarded moment reflected in the mirror. I love that you can see Dad in the background getting into his jacket. And of course, Michelle is so beautiful and the way the light hits her hair and she's got her eyes cut to one side. LOVE THIS PICTURE! By the way, if you ever hear someone mention the term "photo-journalistic wedding photography," this is the kind of picture they're talking about.

The church and the reception were decorated by Tiffany Packer, an independent designer and coordinator. I am always blown away by the job that Tiffany does. Yesterday she went to two ends of the spectrum by decorating an old catholic church for the ceremony as well as a modern ballroom for the reception. It was stunning.

The newly married couple..

After the ceremony, the entire wedding party crowded into a stairwell for the balcony while the the guests went outside to prepare for their exit. I climbed the stairs and managed to get this shot of the new bride. This is also photo-journalistic style wedding photography.

For a wedding photographer, little girls that serve as flower-girls are mana from heaven. Whenever there's a lull in the festivities I just look for the flower-girls. There's always a picture waiting there for me!

That's enough for the blog. Go to the Tampa wedding photography section of my website to see more!

Booray Perry is a wedding photographer in Tampa Bay.

Working the portrait steps

Please visit my Tampa wedding photography and Tampa portrait photography site at http://www.boorayperry.com/.

How many steps does it take to make a great portrait? In this case, about 13.

First you take a simple portrait of three brothers.

Then, make the creative decision to convert it to black and white.

Correct the levels.

Correct the exposure

Overlay a burn.

Clean up bad spots.

Fix the light glare on the glasses.

Adjust contrast.

Adjust tint.

Adjust shadows.

Dodge and Burn

Blur background.

Sharpen.

Crop.

Now you have something worth hanging on the wall...

More Tampa baby pictures

This is my blog. My business site is here.

These pictures are just too cute to not post...

Booray Perry is a children's photographer in Tampa Bay

Quinceanera Photographer Tampa

Last night I took pictures at a Quinceanera in Tampa and it was great fun. As I was standing off to the side, taking pictures of the family members being called up for the candle lighting, I started thinking about my job. There aren't many jobs where you get to eavesdrop on people at some of the most joyful moments of their lives. It's hard work (last night I averaged one picture every 20 seconds) but at the same time very rewarding knowing that you're responsible for preserving these moments forever.

It's a great job.

Here are a few pictures from the event...

Booray Perry is a Quinceanera photographer in Tampa