gracious beyond words. this is the best way i can describe Sarah & Joe. these two planned the most incredibly beautiful wedding at DEVILS THUMB RANCH. during the ceremony, they had a beautiful reading by Henri David Thoreau (essays on love) that i thought so beautifully summed up who these two amazing people are; sensitive, thoughtful, intelligent and beautiful souls.

i was lucky enough to be joined on this wedding, by the fabulous and incredibly talented JAMEE PIERZCHALA of JAMEE PHOTOGRAPHY she is a good friend of mine and was gracious enough to help me out in a time of need. thanks Jamee, i appreciate your friendship and talent with the camera. here are some of my favorite images Jamee and i captured:

some getting ready shots.

they saw each other for the first time in this beautiful wood. if you are a bride trying to decide whether to see your groom before the ceremony, i highly recommend it...so romantic and stress free.

love this image that Jamee set up. schweeet.

a little cuddling is always a good thing before you get married.

Sarah looking gorgeous.

i love this shot of the bridal party...i think one of the groomsmen made a reference to "Resevoir Dogs" and i was so flattered.

ceremony details.

not a bad day to get married...and not a bad location eh?

the wild flowers were in full bloom and so beautiful.

one of my favorites from the day...i love the way it makes me feel, all warm and fuzzy.

i love this ring shot. Sarah is a elementary school teacher and her kids made her this book with pictures and drawings. i kind of got obsessed shooting the rings on just about every page of this book, but this was my favorite.

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i found the coolest thing on the internet today! as photographers we are fortunate enough to listen to music as much as we want as loud as we want, even when we are working...sweet. anyhow, you have to check this out, it is a site where you can create your own radio station, based on artists you like. as you rate the music, it can create playlists to fit your exact taste in music, plus you can create as many stations as you want to fit your many moods. the best part? there is an Pandora Application for the iPhone

CLICK HERE TO CHECK OUT PANDORA

oh, one more thing about Pandora. you can share your stations with friends, it's a music based social network...so if you have a real kickin' station, share it with me at james@jameschristianson.com

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we bought ian a new bike, because he kept saying bike bike bike bike bike ad nauseum...i think he likes his new bike!

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Hye-Jin & Dai were married last month at The Chateaux at Fox Meadows. The day was full of energy and awesomeness. They chose to have both a western ceremony and a traditional Korean ceremony, which was a lot of fun and full of color. i had a blast photographing this wedding and i am honored to have been a part of their celebration. some images from the day:

Hye-Jin looking beautiful.

i love this shot of Hye-Jin and her mother.

the couple in all of their awesomeness.

the wedding party.

a couple of my favorites of Hye-Jin.

Dai saved the day. when nobody could bussel the dress he swooped in and had it finished within seconds.

the ceremonial dress for the Korean ceremony.

in this shot Dai's mother tosses figs and chestnuts "which represent children) into a cloth held by the bride and groom. the more figs(girls) and chestnuts(boys) they catch, the more children they will have. i'm here to tell you that they caught a lot of these little guys.

Hye-Jin and Dai got back into their wedding clothes to make their escape, but i grabbed a couple more shots of Hye-Jin before they left.

Hye-Jin is a gifted piano player and teacher, so we had to put her at the piano for a quick shot.

they left in Dai's awesome 300z...love that car.

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this post might be a little antiquated in the world of technology, but i wanted to post it for those who are still shooting jpeg (i know, i know, you have your reasons)

let me first say that i am not one of those photographers who says "just shoot it however, we can fix it in photoshop!" i want to be very clear, as professional photographers we should be nailing most of our shots "in-camera" nuff said.

however, as wedding photographers we are dealing with people's priceless memories and i am all for anything that can help us do that better...like shooting RAW.

so i wanted to show the dramatic difference between RAW and JPEG. at one of my recent weddings "CHERESA AND MICHAEL"

we had this great image of Michael getting ready. well it wasn't a great shot at first, but i could tell it had potential. here is the original image. it had dramatic lighting (though you can't tell at first) and excellent composition, but...exposure was a little off, okay a lot off, like 4 stops off.

so i took this original image and exported it from LIGHTROOM as a jpeg. i then took it into photoshop and tried to bring it back to life. here is what happened. well, i can see the cool composition and the dramatic lighting, but but the image is so jacked it wouldn't be useable...right?!

so than i went back to LIGHTROOM to work a little magic and here is the final result.

this is an image that i can still be proud of (though, i didn't actually make this image), i can still put it in an album and wow, i can still proudly post it on my blog.

NOTE: with an image that has been underexposed by 3-4 stops like this, you probably won't be able to save the color information, which was the case here, hence the black and white.

hope this helps someone.

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