Erin’s Getting Married! Plus Some Shop Talk.

Although Jon and I are not married, I still refer to his parents, six siblings, their spouses, and all of their children as my in-laws. We’ve been together for something like two years now, living together for eight months, and Jon’s family has welcomed me with open arms from the very start. So, it seems appropriate to refer to them as my in-laws at this point, right?

That long-winded introduction was just to say that Erin, my sister-in-law, is getting married! She so sweetly asked if I could take her engagement photos. I consider myself strictly an amateur, but I couldn’t resist the chance to use my cameras for some interesting portraits—with the often stated caveat that the photos might be terrible and I hoped she had a back-up plan, of course.

So last Saturday, I dragged her and her fiance, Bradley, all around downtown Salt Lake City to see if we could make some photo magic. And I think we did! You can see the set here—photos that range from just ok to my favorites. Each time I look at these, I see aspects of my techniques that demand improvement if I am to continue with this type of photography.


I see that I need to back away from my subjects a little more and allow each frame to have room to breathe. (I blame the crop factor on my Nikon D90 for this penchant of mine. I am so used to 35mm “full frame” cameras that my D90 feels claustrophobic with my trusty non-DX lenses.)


I need to shoot at something other than the highest, most open aperture possible for my lenses. Poor Bradley is a bit blurry in a few of these because I was close to my subjects and my lens was wide open.


I need to learn how to post-process much better than I am now. I rely WAY too much on vignetting to make my subjects pop. Upgrading from Lightroom 2 – Student Edition is probably a good idea.

I fall in and out of love with this hobby sometimes, and lately I am on a high with it again. Even though only a handful of the photos are ones I would consider worthy of someday going into a portfolio, I thought I might as well show ’em off:

Say something.