ashley & clay: trash the dress

i've been sooo wanting to blog these from last week's trash the dress session up in evergreen .... and i've given myself tons of responsible reasons not to (complete taxes... check, work hard on nearing launch of our new blogsite... check. book weddings and design albums and run with dash... check, check, and check. i had way too much fun editing them and just can't contain myself to post them.

ashley and clay were perfect clients. they asked for little and they gave a lot in return including the willingness to be creative and different, flexible and brave.

i brought along some of the big guns, including a 74-inch elinchrom octabank and a photographer that really knows how to use it, christina dooley. the idea for the first shot came from a recent annie leibovitz shoot of sean connery featured discussed by the strobist here.



here's a concept of featuring a spooky barn using the SFMF technique (single flash multiple frame) technique taught to me by john michael cooper. think of it as a daylight version of painting with light using a tripod and some photoshop compositing magic.


even with all the abilities of flash, nothing can beat the harshness of mid-day sun (shot at f/16 at 1/1500 sec):


and the natural sensuality of barn door light:


some anti-bridal portraits taken in the barn stall:


this horse loves to smile for the camera:


and then we were off to greener pastures:


as the sun started sinking into the mountains, we ran up to find this some mountain scenery near our home in green mountain. christina shot this one with no flash:


and i shot this one with a small flash for a kicker. i think they are both such refined shots.


and a few moments after sunset.


and click HERE to check out more images in the slideshow.