Little Corner of Ania

I did say more to come, didn’t I? :)

Yeah yeah. Somewhat (cough) overblown, I know..and darnit, I spot a..eh.. spot on my lens/image sensor… but still..slightly cool effect, no? Ahem.

The awesome bridal suite at Hotel Norge …

I really like this photo…everything is always about the bride, isn’t? :)

Now, considering the groom’s a chef, the brides brother’s a chef and well, a buncha friends at the wedding were chefs and stuff… it didn’t come as a surprise that the groom really wanted photos of the behind-the-scenes at the kitchen as well. Seeing as the brides brother were the kitchen's boss/co-owner it also meant allowance in there were no problem (despite how busy&hectic it was at times). Lovesit :)

The company’s Søtt+Salt, by the way. Amazing food, natch.

Sadly, as a wedding photographer I don’t drink at work. Darnit! I love me a nice glass of cognac =)

Ballroom dancing..

It was such a wonderful wedding, and I am happy I was chosen to be a part of it!

Did I mention I’ve got myself a new cam a couple weeks ago? Yeah..shooting a couple of weddings this year (Whee! The first one’s only a week away actually!), so I splurged on a much needed necessity – getting myself a 2nd body. One – in case (Heaven forbid) anything happens to my beloved D700. Two – so I don’t need to swap lenses all too often. So when I was asked to do a babysession I was all too happy to oblige (uhm hello, babies? Yes please!)…anything to put my new (ok, I got it used, but to me it’s new) D3s to the test!

So, meet Miss S. Sure. She’s smiling here.

Here too! But lemme tell ya. It was not easy getting her to give us the slightest hint of smile. She remained sceptical for a good long while, and got mommy & daddy to jump through quite a few hoops working it in hopes of a smile or two....

But it’ ok. She is quite adorable no matter what. Even when she kept wanting to gnaw on her own fist on about half the pictures I took. Haa..babies, I tell ya!

Being a supermodel is such exhausting work. Then again, she’s just as adorable when closing her eyes, causing me to sneak in a few more photos…(actually, personally I prefer the photos with her parents in, doing regular parenty stuff..it’s the photojournalist in me loving such situations methinks)

 

And my new camera? Love, love, love the high ISO-abilities. It’s amazing. Really. Just need to trust it more, I’m a bit too afraid of hi ISO..which’s silly, seeing as it’s one of the main reasons I wanted the D3s. Seem to be able to hit correct focus most of the time (the focus ratio seem to be consistent with my old cam, possibly missing slightly more), although it might be a little slow on locking the focus in low light/low contrast situations, but I suppose that’s to be expected…just need more patience (or learn to focus manually…but I don’t trust my own eyesight, hrm…)

So.

I wasn’t really sure whether I was allowed to share images from my cousin’s wedding, but I just got the green light so here we go. Loads of photos :)

I attended this wedding as a guest, so I just snuck in a photo or two whenever, & just focused on enjoying the ceremony/party. Also, I didn’t sit close to the aisle so I didn’t get any photos from there, but I don’t mind… while everybody was busy looking for the bride I figured I’d check how the groom was doin’ =)

See the light from the windows btw? Very gorgeous & attributed to the atmosphere – but for a photographer it pretty much sucked..unless you enjoy working with multiple layers of different exposures & lots of time editing you’re bound to get extreme contrasts & either overblown/shadowry dark areas…remember external flash usually isn’t allowed in wedding ceremonies :p (know of handy tricks for such situations? Feel free to share!)

Love the gorgeous bolero she wore outdoors. Really added to the old school glam factor!

Their girls were adorable…loved their coats, I want one in my size!
(Which by the way reminds me I have my eyes set on this rain coat from Paola…pretty pricy but I’m a sucker for good causes/intentions so this’ll be mine come next weekend!)

So glam!

So, I took a few reception photos of all the guests…hi auntie+uncle!

The bride’s parents…they looked very Golden Age-Hollywod :)

Oy, that’s my mom + stepdad :) *wave*

Loved how they held hands in the beginning, when welcoming everybody…

And gosh. So dapper that cousin of mine, don’t ya think?

Grandma <3

Love her gesture..

More grandma :)

We were also treated with this jazz-y performance by this family ensemble (including the bride’s father). Very longue-like (I suppose? I dunno – I just know I enjoyed the music :p)

See. Father of the bride himself :)

This is becoming a tradition in the family – the tree + light of hearts…it’s quite sweet actually.

First Dance!

And a little kiss to seal that dance..

Umm. 3200 iso. Noticeable noise, and the details won’t be fine full size. Still, I think it’s a pretty amazing feat of the camera performing like this!

When photographing weddings I’m mostly for not using the flash. Personally I feel like the flash is like, an intruding element on such moments like this. Still, I do see the advantages of using flash for capturing such late night stuff more crispy & better. It’s not very evident here in websized photos, but becomes very clear for fullscale images. Hm. Or i can continue dream about a D4 (but hey, I’ll settle for a D3s, I’m not that picky ;p)

Oh and btw? This cake? Am so, so regretting only having one piece of it!! :’(
I was gonna get more then got occupied then it was time to leave so no moar cake! ><

Love the things external flash can do, wish I knew more about this stuff. So instead of wishing for better equipment as I usually do I decided I probably needed to get to know what I have. So pulled the sb-600 away from the TTL & just messed around w/manual power stuff. Shrug. I don’t know this stuff, I just mess around until I find something which looks somewhat okay-ish. Even though I’m sure people who knows this stuff will just say it looks so flash-y…but whatevs..

Being used to not using flash at.all. I welcome this change in style. So there.

Had a family dinner last night and figured I wanted a group photo of the younglings…forced’em all out in the dusk and did my best to get all seven to cooperate…

Needless to say..it was NOT easy…the kids were racing roaming the street while waiting for everybody to come outside, and when I finally got’em gathered they just yearned to go back to racing roaming…

Then I worried about getting everybody somewhat in focus…and too small aperture vs available light and too high ISO and spreading the flash evenly out and have it blend in somewhat and stuff..but I think…..guess it turned out fine-ish.

Still couldn’t get everybody to like, pose at the same time…but I guess that’s part of the charm w/these photos…

I mean..their attention-span is random, goldfish-ish and so not coordinated…

But again..it’s ok….cause…at least I got them all within the same frame and stuff…guess that’s the important part..

So! Happy to be taking my sweet nieces photos! We stole half an hour between the church and the dinner (bit short time, and since church took longer than expected we were slightly stressed) to sneak away to a nearby location to get some photos done.

She’s wearing my late grandmothers bunad from Hedmark – a folk dress my sister herself wore to her own confirmation (I inherited and wore my mothers bunad from Østfold).

Gorgeous, isn’t she?

And so cute along with her boyfriend..

I forgot to bring the reflector along, which was especially notably in the regular photos from this spot. Sigh. Still, with some fiddling in photoshop the photos came out alright. Note to self. Fiddling in photoshop is boring. Remember the reflector! Or get a better flash….

Haa. Bonderomantikk! ;)

I did however not forget to bring my Edge 80 along, and found time to play a bit. Love the dreamy photos they produce, and they seem to perform awesome in bright day/sunlight, although I do see that I need way more practice w/these..esp when it comes to figuring the various tilt angles out….(and maybe I probably need to get my eyes checked again soon).

I have a hard time finding a favorite I like…

I do love the 70-200 for portraits, though.

She’s so grown..

Here’s my sister dearest…she borrowed a bunad from her mother in law.

Love these girls! And so happy to get to shoot my niece on her big day :)

Right!

Done w/the photos – back to regular scrapbooking shortly! :)