Don’t be confused by the title. It means that I got to help out the primary photographer with shooting a friend’s wedding. First of all, congratulations Joanny and Mike! Overall it was a great learning experience. I got to work with a talented photographer, Calvina of Calvina Photography. She takes photos that engage you like a story in a book does. Shooting weddings means you always have to be on the lookout for any candid moments. You’re constantly on the lookout and thinking what shot would make a great story. This is what you’re doing for the whole day on probably little to no food because reception’s not until 6 and you had to be at the morning ceremony before everyone else.

I mostly shot with my 50mm 1.8 and consist of most of the pictures you see below. This is still my favorite lens because of how fast it is and the quality of the glass. The one drawback is that it’s more like a telephoto lens on my D80, so I’m looking to getting a wider lens to replace my 18-200mm. I used my 18-200mm 3.5-5.6 indoors for the ceremony, which was just way too slow. I had trouble getting a sharp image. I also borrowed a 35mm, 85mm, and 70-200mm just for the ceremony part. It’s extremely draining, but at the end of the day, it’s worth it because you will have captured the fleeting moments that now last forever.

It’s been a while since I’ve been motivated to post here. That’s mostly because most of my time is taken up by work. Aside from that, I’ve been excerising my photography. About a couple of weeks ago I got to shoot unofficially alongside Calvina of Calvina Photography. She’s a friend from church who has an amazing porfolio of work. Definitely check her stuff out for inspiration. It was a great experience, albeit a very tiring and draining one. I learned much and will post some more pictures as well as my experience of shooting a wedding for the first time. I also got to capture some cool moments on my vacation trip to Denver to visit my sister and her new baby. I’ll definitely post those pictures as well once I finish doing some quick edits.

I’m finding myself shooting more and more in RAW now because of the ability to go back and edit since my camera sometimes limits me especially in low light situations. Also I’m kinda paranoid about quality loss with compression methods. (for example, I’m debating whether I should rip my CDs as .wav or 320 kbps VBR.) I also finally got my hands on the hardly sought after book, Never Sleep: Graduating Graphic Design. I’ve been trying to find a good price on this book since I read this post. It’s basically a biography about two designers who write about their experience of transitioning from student designer to professional designer. It is exactly where I will find myself in hopefully a couple years from now. I will post back about my thoughts about it. Lastly I’m currently working on a poster for my church. It is an 11″ x 17″ poster advertising the Children’s Mission Conference. I’m glad to have little projects like this to keep me working on design, as I find myself lacking motivation many times. It’s hard for me to design unless I’m given an actual problem, real or not.