Kathy and Willie got married out at Ponte Vedra at a place called The Driftwood House. I had never heard of it, but it’s right near the Ponte Vedra Golf & Country Club. It’s a two story house with a backyard space and right on the beach.

We’ve been getting lots of requests for “First Looks” at weddings. This is where a bride and groom see each other before the ceremony. I’ve had many brides ask me my opinion on this. Honestly, I like it.

The wedding day can be full of emotion, anxiety and stress. The first look is a great way to see your significant other before the walk down the aisle and possibly ruin your makeup for your ceremony photos.

We line a photographer up on each side of the couple so that we get the full emotion of the turn. Sometimes it’s hard to see a groom’s face if the first time he sees you is walking down the aisle. Plus he might be less inclined to cry in front of all those people. But a first look is very intimate and breaks the tension.

If we’re doing the first look on the property of the wedding ceremony, we usually do them about an hour or so before the ceremony starts. Either a photographer or someone from the wedding party will help bring the groom to the bride (typically). In the above case, we found a long white napkin we were able to use as a blindfold. I’ve also had a bride bring a party mask. This is an additional chance to make your wedding unique and to add special touches.

I usually use this time to take the bride and groom photos without the stress of being rushed into the party. It also breaks the photos up a little bit so you don’t have to do all the group photos AND then the couple photos. Makes it a little more relaxing.

Speaking of group photos. Both Kathy and Willie had sons from previous relationships. And I just loved how close and sweet Kathy’s photo turned out with her sons:

They had their reception in the backyard of The Driftwood House and had a tent set up. This is a time lapse shot from the balcony of a bedroom upstairs.

There was an interesting moment during this wedding where whales surfaced in the water. I heard some guests talking about it afterwards. My secondary and I were so focused on the bride and groom we never saw it. I know that Jacksonville is along the path for migrating whales but I’ve never seen them.

I searched my photos and couldn’t find the whales in the background of ANY of them.

When Kathy went upstairs to have her dress pinned, I let her know about the whales and also forewarned her that I was so focused on her I didn’t get any photos of the whales. I can’t remember what exactly she said, but I remember laughing, because she said that basically my eyes were where they were supposed to be and that everyone else should have been watching the wedding too.

Venue: The Driftwood House

Tent: St. Augustine Rentals

Cake: Publix & 3 Sisters Chocolate

Ceremony Music: Violinist Beverly Chapman

Other Vendors: St. Johns Illuminations

If you’ve lived in Baker or Union Counties or know many people from there, you know the Whitehead name.

Whitehead is not my husband’s last name. While I was born in Oklahoma, I have been here for more then 25 years. And I get asked ALL THE TIME, if I am “related to the Whiteheads…” and I cut the person off at that point and say “no.”

All of my family are basically in the Missouri area. In 2010, while pregnant with my daughter I started actually doing family research and got sucked into websites like Ancestry.com (where I have over 2,000 family members found). I have been able to trace my Whitehead line to a my great grandfather who was Whiteid but swore that the name was supposed to be Whitehead and changed it back. I have traced his family line up to a relative who came over from England to possibly NC or Va.

Well, after all of these years of saying “no I’m not related to them” about the Whiteheads here in Florida, nor having ever met any of them, I am now photographing one of their family’s weddings.

The funny thing is, my father is a retired police office and my uncle is a police officer and because of my work for law enforcement publications (writing and photography) my name is often recognized. And if you know the Whiteheads here in Florida, you know that the Whiteheads have been Sheriff in Union County/Lake Butler for many years.

So meet Josh Whitehead and his fiancee Amber:

Tanya, of Southern Charm Events, is the wedding planner for this wedding. And being that she is the ONLY person I know who lives in Lake Butler and I’m the only Whitehead photographer I know of, this seems like a perfect match! Not to mention, we share office space. (Please note, while we share office space, we do not work exclusively together, but sometimes things just work out that way!)

I took these some time ago, when it was a little warmer outside! But I kept putting off posting them. And since the holidays are all about family, I figured when better to have these up then right after Christmas!

I love that we were able to get some fun ring shots at the engagement session with something personal of theirs. Amber was fantastic about bringing props and special items.

And they are such a cute couple. I mean, together and individually.

They were sooo worried that they wouldn’t do good for photos, but they did just fine.

Josh said one of his family members asked if we were related and he told them that I was a “long lost cousin”, lol. This is kind of funny, because as we talked about ancestry he thinks that we might have the same/common relative that came from England. He’s supposed to put me in touch with his aunt. I would love to find out before the wedding if we REALLY are related and such, would be kind of fun to know.

They are doing a Cinderella themed wedding, complete with horse and carriage (Pinto Carriage Works). This should be loads of fun!

From my family to yours I hope you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. And for my Jewish friends, I hope you are enjoying your Hanukkah!

I wasn’t sure how my daughter would react to Santa so we had him come up behind her first in hopes of at least getting one shot of her not crying. (But as you can see from the photos above, a little bribery with a candy cane and she was good!)

This is actually the photo we used on our Christmas cards this year as well, I just love her expression.

I wanted to share this photo too, because it makes me laugh. Since I was photographing Santa with my clients, my friend Lauren, who owns Ten23 Designs, brought my daughter and her daughter up together for photos. But Mya was NOT having photos with Santa.

You asked for it, so here it is:

Location to be announced, but likely at a library or in the conference room of my office.

A handout will be provided with room for you to take notes. Christy will explain all the main functions of your camera (an SLR camera is needed) and explain the most common problems and how to fix them BEFORE taking the photo.

There will be plenty of time for one-on-one explanations with each person and their camera as well as question and answer time.

After a break for lunch (at the location of your choice) everyone will meet outside at a location to try out all your newly learned information. Christy will give everyone challenges to push their knowledge, but she’ll also be there to help anyone having trouble.

You’ll leave with a better understanding of your camera, how to take a better photo and more confidence in your abilities.

This class is meant for moms (or dads!) and anyone else who has a decent camera but doesn’t know how to use it to it’s full capabilities. This is not intended for professionals.

Class tuition is $125 and will be held on Sunday the 26th of Feb.

You can email Christy@Jaxphotographer.com (or send payment via paypal) to register. Class size is limited to ensure everyone gets the hands on attention needed.

Ok, this is kind of a fun post.

I always get things like “your camera takes great photos” or something like “my friend is a photographer.” It seems everyone who owns a camera is a photographer. But most don’t even know how to use their manual settings or adjust their camera to get a specific look or change the depth of field (how much is in focus).

One of my good friends, Lauren Atwaters, owner of Ten23 Designs has a nice Canon Rebel SLR. She is always joking that she’s going to be my 3rd photographer for weddings. Well one day I decided to play a little game with her. I told her to bring her son Isaac over and her camera.

(Christy and Lauren on another day, goofing off in the kitchen.)

Using my backyard we delegated certain rules. Isaac, being the oh-so-good kid that he is wouldn’t tell either of us the other one’s posing, etc. We had two different shirts for him to wear, to give a little bit of a mix.

I live on 4 acres deep on the Westside, so we didn’t want to just have a free for all in the backyard. I wanted the photos to have some similarities to them. So Lauren and I went and decided on four locations in the yard to shoot. She went first and I was to stay inside while she did her session. I said she had 5 minutes, but the girl must have been out there 20 minutes. I’m surprised Isaac even wanted to smile when it was my turn, lol!

In the past when she’s pulled out her camera I’ve kind of given her quick lessons on what certain settings did to achieve a look she wanted. And she was good, she didn’t leave her camera on completely manual for the shoot, she says she tried several settings.

If you know Lauren, she’s REALLY competitive. Which in a way is really good for this type of challenge, I knew she would do her best.

Now, in that competitiveness Lauren was ADAMANT that when I showed the photos that I not edit mine if I wasn’t going to edit hers. So, this is a rarity on this blog. Unless otherwise noted, ALL images are STRAIGHT OUT OF THE CAMERA (other then downsizing and sharpening for the web).

We’ll start off with location number one, the chair in the middle of the yard, and Lauren’s photo:

(Uncropped)

These were actually horizontal images (the one on the right is the SAME image as the one above it, only cropped) with a lot of extra grass and such so I cropped them vertical for her. Plus I figured it would make them match mine (below) a little more, for a better comparison.

All of Lauren’s photos appear to be in focus. And for being her own son, he interacted well with her. I love his smile, and obvious laughing in the right shot.

Mine:

Lauren and I both shot in the same general direction in the yard. When I got there the clouds had subsided and given us a strong bright light.

As you can tell from the background in my image compared to Lauren’s, mine is blurred more. I chose a very low depth of field and used my 70-200 L lense for all my shots. It provides a very pretty background and is great for portraits. But at about $2,000-$2,500 for JUST the lense, the average hobby or start up photographer isn’t going to have it.

When I pulled Lauren’s photos onto my computer, I started laughing when I saw these. Isaac didn’t tell me what his mom had made him do. I just thought it might be a fun, more action type shot to have him jumping. But what was even funnier is we both had him jump at the SAME spot.

(The white thing on his belt in my photo is a bug thing, the mosquitoes were horrible that day!)

I chose these two to show you because they are soooo similar in posing. Remember, there was NO color actions or anything like that done to these, these are pretty much straight out of the camera.

It’s amazing to me the color difference. We’re both shooting Canon, both within about 20 minutes of each other, in about the middle of the day (overcast for the most part).

Other then that, I can see that mine is sharper. And based on my posing of myself to take this shot, I can see that I went lower to make it look like a more obvious of a jump where she probably photographed straight on.

These are the stairs leading to my chicken coop. Lauren shot in one direction and I was apparently on the other side shooting the other way. I chose my direction based on the fact I knew the background would blur better.

But you can see the depth of field and coloring are obvious differences.

Towards the back of the yard there was a little bit of an area that was cleared along the side to show a little of the fence and fence posts.

The first thing that I notice between the two is “rule of thirds,” which is how you set up the image in your camera. As a photographer you generally don’t want the head of the person in the MIDDLE of the image or the person in the middle of the image unless necessary. By putting Isaac off to the side it adds more visual interest and the wire fence kind of leads your eye into him.

The narrower depth of field also meant that my photos didn’t look quite as “messy” behind him.

Here’s two vertical shots. Once again, depth of field on mine is a little cleaner and provides a nice colorful backdrop. The colors look richer as well.

——-

Because I love the emotion and genuine look in the photo of Isaac in the chair, I would say that’s her best shot. So I have taken that shot and edited it a little bit.

And here are a couple more of mine, UNEDITED.

I did this post for a couple of reasons. 1-to show in an easy comparison the difference between the quality of a professional and someone who has a good camera (have to know how to use it!) 2-to have a little fun with a competitive friend and 3-I’ve been thinking about offering up a class for “Momtogs”. So many of my friends and clients either own a decent SLR or will be getting one for Christmas and I get asked all kinds of questions all the time, so…

MOMTOG 101: Getting to Know Your Camera

I’m aiming to have the class in probably February or March.

Ideally it would either be 2 half days or one full day. The first part would be explaining your camera, settings, how things work, etc.

The second part would be a field trip so that you could put that knowledge to use, but I would be RIGHT there to help you. Because the worst part about having someone teach you something is going out to do it and running into a problem!

So if you would be interested in the class, watch the blog. You can also send me an email at Christy@Jaxphotographer.com or leave a comment and I’ll try and message you when all the details get put together.

I’m going to send a special thank you out to Lauren for agreeing to this challenge where the results would be made public. THANK YOU!

If you don’t have me added on Facebook, you can find me here. And Lauren’s page is here.

Sarah & Travis got married on August 5, in the Riverside area at Avondale United Methodist Church. Very sweet couple, very soft spoken.

The church has a strict rule about no flash photography and no movement during the ceremony so I stopped by their rehearsal for a few quick test shots and saw their decorations for their rehearsal dinner–bandanas and country, it was soo cute. So I asked Sarah if she wanted me to bring my “Just Hitched” umbrella and she loved the idea.

Of course, I’m getting ahead of myself… The bride has to get dressed first!

They had a very pretty ceremony at the church.

They had their reception at the University Club. Which is very pretty. And of course, the outside is perfect for photos of just the bride and groom.

Sarah had a little bit of a fish theme going on and I found this pretty fish paperweight and couldn’t help but incorporate it into her ring photos.

I’m not sure why, but I have a fascination with getting a good shot of the wine glasses for toasting. They just look so pretty to me.

Congrats to Sarah & Travis! May you have a long and happy marriage, you both are soo sweet!

DJ: Bouquet Sound

Cake: Kakes by Katie

Ceremony: Avondale United Methodist

Reception: University Club