Joshua Mahar Photography » Wedding and Portrait Website

This is a teaser shot from Saturday’s wedding with Nate and Haley. So many good images. But for now…just a taste! Congrats you two.

It just came in, and I am really really excited for the possibilities. Here’s a “simple click” that I suped up a bit. I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

Here is the last set of images from Ryan and Kara’s wedding.

I posted a teaser image from Ryan + Kara’s wedding some time ago, and have been working on so many other projects that I simply haven’t had a chance to post these. I am posting in two parts. Thanks Ryan and Kara for sharing your fantastic wedding day! I had a great time celebrating with you. 

I am sitting in my hotel room , doing some last minute tech stuff in preparation for what I trust will be an epic wedding. My hotel is sitting in the middle of nowhere…actually is in Moses Lake. I made the 3.5 hour drive this afternoon. I am shooting the wedding tomorrow with my sister, Annemarie, who is a great photographer. I am really looking forward to it. Along the way the lighting was so nice, and the view from the road and look out areas where so good that we had to stop. We had been on the side of the road for about 2 minutes when a state patrol pulled over to see if we needed help. He was very nice, and had no problems with us chillin on the side of the road taking pictures. Here are a few that I took.

Ok…I am so beat. And yet…what a friggin great day!!! This was a 1-10:30pm wedding, and my was it fun. I am literally loading the pictures right now, and happened to jump down to this shot and simply had to post it. There is no way for me to tell you how much I love this image. It so fits them. Thanks Brad and Melissa for a great day, and congrats.

This is just one of several I plan to post from this wedding. I love this image. It was a great day, and I promise I will write more about it soon.

Here are just a few images from Adam and Brandi’s wedding day. The weather cooperated all day, and even though it was cold, these two were totally up for running around and making some fun images outside in February! I really enjoyed working with these two, and am so glad to have been part of their wedding day. SO FUN.

I had a fantastic time today talking with lots of brides-to-be. To those of you who might read this, thanks so much for stopping by to chat and look at my work. It was great to have met! I took some pictures of my booth, so for those of you following along that didn’t get a chance to visit, here is a sample of how it looks.
Cheers!

Something that I have thought about posting here for a while is a small piece about the albums that I make for wedding and engagement clients.

First of all, let me flesh out the difference between these and photo-books. A photo-book is essentially a thinner coffee table style book. These are a nice feature to a wedding package, but they are not my favorite to make. In fact, I’ve stopped offering them because I would rather spend the time working on designing albums. An album (at least the ones I offer) is thicker, uses quality paper, and is more of a finished product. These are keepsakes that you bring out and look through on your anniversary. These are the books you show your kids when they start asking questions about what your lives were like before they were around. I think these are the perfect compliment to wedding done in digital, because while you have the images on disk, many people leave off printing the images for when they have some spare time. Sarah and I never got around to doing that with ours, and it’ll be 7 year in May. Having something right out of the gate to hold in your hand is such a nice perk.

Unlike loose prints, the album tells a story. I try to design these with that purpose in mind. The albums that I use are made from “spreads” where I design the layout of the two pages. Unlike a traditional book with a gap or page break in the center, these are all one image, and only have a slight crease in the middle. This allows me to show the images at various sizes and to use more or less of the total page width to best fit the images for display. When I make the pages, I am starting fresh on each page, which allows me to really think about how to best show off the images on that page; because I don’t work off a template I am free to design specifically for the images at hand. One other element that I particularly like about the books that I am offering is the paper, which is watercolor. I remember when I first heard of fine art photographers printing on watercolor and thinking to myself how lame that sounded. It seemed like an attempt to merely do what was “artsy.” Don’t get me started on that. When I began using these books, I took a chance on the art watercolor, just to see how I liked it. Honestly, I was blown away. A lot of my images have a vintage-muted color look to them and the paper seems to perfectly work with that editing style. At the last wedding show I was at people kept commenting on how much they loved the albums, and one of the key factors was because the pages weren’t the typical high gloss material. Love it!! (several new books will be displayed at the Tacoma wedding show this weekend, for anyone who wants to see one in person)

Speaking of love, I have a confession…I love making these things. I know a lot of photographers hate doing these, not because of a lack of creativity, but because of the time drain. Yeah, they take some time. But…SO. WORTH. IT. Seriously, when I get a book back from the printer I am always a bit giddy (did I just type that out?), and can’t wait to share it. Having something beautiful and at a size worthy of display, right there in your hand is thrilling. Its much like the first time you print something bigger than 11×14. I remember the first time I printed an image at 16×24. I think my face melted off. It was like that the first time I got a book back. Anyway…enough gushing over the books. I hope you found this little window into my thinking on the albums to be helpful.

Cheers