How to get a great "the kiss" picture at your wedding :: also known as my theory of goldfish kissing

Ask anyone to list out the key events at a wedding ceremony and they'll likely say:
- Bride walking down the aisle
- The vows
- The exchange of rings
- And last but not least that moment where the couple are pronounced man and wife and they kiss

I shoot an engagement session with every couple whose wedding I'm photographing - it's a totally relaxed and fun session, kind of like you're on a date with your own little paparazzo trailing you:
- I get to know each couple better and it totally shows in the photographs
- You get to know my way of working
- We end up with some amazing pictures
- And last but not least I can explain my "theory of goldfish kissing"

And now I'll share that theory here. Let's say we could watch a slow motion kiss between a couple in love - eyes slowly close, breathing speeds up, heads tilt a little to accommodate noses, faces stay relaxed and lips might part just a tiny bit...

Let's watch that same kiss but now there's a camera pointed at the couple - one or both might keep their eyes open, the movement together gets a little more jerky and then for some inexplicable reason they will both inevitably make goldfish type faces (you know - pursed up lips sticking out) and sometimes it'll even be accompanied by a "mwah" sound.

Why is that? Seriously? Who wants to look like a goldfish at their wedding?! So at the engagement shoot there's a lot of laughing when I explain this theory and then the best part is the practicing!

As every post is better with a picture, here are some epic non-goldfish kisses I've photographed:


So if you're getting married in the next year, why not plan on some non-goldfish kissing homework. And if you have a spare 90 seconds, here is "best kiss" from last year's MTV movie awards for inspiration. Ok - maybe you don't want to take quite this long but it's kind of cute and they're definitely not looking like goldfish :)

Sausage dogs aren't designed for snow

Regular blog readers will be familiar with our two miniature dachshunds - Coco Chanel and Tiger Woods. Incidentally I recently had the funniest email from one of my 2009 grooms inquiring if I would now be changing Tiger's name in light of the recent indiscretions of the real Tiger Woods but I think that might be confusing for my Tiger Woods...

Tiger Wood's strategy in snow is to leap above the snow like a little reindeer (do reindeer leap?) to try to get back into the house as quickly as possible. She absolutely hates the cold and as soon as I open the door to take her outside she'll roll onto her back and start pathetically (fake) shivering in an attempt to make me feel bad.

Coco Chanel quite likes the snow. Despite being just 13lb and maybe 10 inches high, in her head she is a mean, lean hunting machine and she likes to sniff out trails in the snow in case she comes across a critter she can attack and bring down. Her snow strategy is to keep her head up on high alert and plow through at top speed.

My last couple of blog posts have been of a confessional nature (explaining about my lack of lobster know-how and lack of wedding album) and so I should confess that to get these pictures I had Paul carry the dogs to the far end of the garden and then release them knowing they'd make a beeline to get back inside. Poor Coco & Tiger - subjected to more snow just for me to take pictures :)

Let's talk about Professional Wedding Albums...

First up - I have a confession. We don't have a wedding album. And we got married in 2007.

It's true.

I'm a wedding photographer without a wedding album. Frankly I have no excuse - I have access to the most amazing professional album vendors and the most amazing wedding pictures - but something else always takes priority - processing a wedding, updating my website, blogging, finishing someone else's album. And it kills me. Friends ask to see our wedding pictures and I pull out a bunch of CDs and start trying to show them little thumbnails on the screen because the files are huge and take ages to load up.

And therein lies a common problem - so many couples are focused on getting the high-resolution files on disc (which I now include in all of my wedding collections - I know as a bride it was imperative for me to get those discs but then once you have them you're sort of all "hmmm, now what?") - that you find yourself a few years out without anything really to show for your wedding and all of those lovely pictures are trapped on a disc! So this blog post is a celebration of the smart people that order albums and a public commitment that I'll complete our wedding album this year!

I thought I'd show you pictures of the beautiful wedding albums I've created recently. First some lovely details - most of my albums are (clockwise from top left):

Lay flat - there's no break/cut for the middle of the page/spine - so you don't have to push on them and create a crease in the pages to see the full spread

Panoramic - means that the archival photograph print is perfectly bonded across the page so there's no break for the spine - you can showcase your pictures across two pages.

Flush-mount - the picture can go all the way to the very edge of the page - delightful!

Professional quality - check out the black silk lining - I love me a nice little Shutterfly album for vacation pictures but I have some Shutterfly books that just 5 years later are starting to warp a little or break at the spine. When you think of how much money you spend on your wedding, it's nice to know that your album is archival quality and it'll still be looking good when you celebrate your 25th and 50th wedding anniversaries!

I use Millers for my albums, they're the largest professional lab in the US and their quality and service is simply outstanding. I regularly ask their customer service team all sorts of ridiculous questions and they inevitably respond back within the hour with amazing help.

Another advantage of getting a professional album is that you have a huge variety of stunning album cover choices. Here's an album I recently ordered with a crystal clear acrylic cover - the metallic photograph is precisely bonded to an acrylic cover and then the spine and back are covered with leather. Delicious!

As well as twelve standard leather options from classic black to cardinal red to kiwi green and baby blue, you can upgrade to metallic or exotic leather options:

And let's not forget parent albums. Cute little duplicates of your albums because you know your Mom is going to want to show your pictures to ALL of her friends - and this way she won't be asking to borrow your album!

Most parent albums are press-printed so the pages are a little thinner and they have a great hinge feature so they virtually lie-flat. The picture on the right below shows the standard super thick panoramic flush-mount photographic pages next to the thinner press-printed pages:

And now, let's look at a couple of album designs. I'm a big fan of keeping it simple, elegant and timeless. I recently dug out my parent's wedding album and it's pretty basic - just pictures stuck onto white pages and I'm happy about that. You can add colors and fades and crazy filters and selective coloring and swirls and all sorts of other junk but your children and grandchildren will probably be happiest to simply see the story of your wedding told in an elegant layout - for example you might have a page with lots of detail/reaction pictures:
Followed by a full panoramic spread:

Mixed up with a feature picture and some smaller detail shots:
What's that? You'd like to see another album while you're here? Oh go on then!

Here are some pages from Kristine & Marc's fabulous wedding last October at Green Meadows Farm. You can add some simple text to the front page if you're not a fan of silver or gold imprinting, I think it looks a little more modern. All pages - except the first - are designed to run across two pages so you have to imagine a break in the middle:

I like being able to tell the whole story of the day - from the arrival of the grandparents to the bride about to burst with happiness and excitement as she walks towards her husband-to-be:

Adding a very subtle keystroke around each image adds a little depth to the picture:

How happy do these two look!

Sorry, I know I'm supposed to be talking about albums but I'm remembering how much fun this wedding was! I hopped in the hay ride with Kristine & Marc as they rode off from the ceremony and there is simply nothing like those "yay! we just got married!!!" pictures:

Well, maybe the "we just got married 15 minutes ago!" pictures:

Or maybe the pictures where I have a super long lens on the camera and I follow the couple paparazzi style:

And that's it for now on the topic of albums - 'fess up here in the comments (just pick name/url and leave the url part blank) if you've been married for a while and still have no wedding album! Or if you've been married for millions of years and you love your wedding album!

Happy Valentine's Day

I'm always in two minds about Valentine's day. The cynic in me feels it's a Hallmark holiday designed to force people to buy cards and chocolates and flowers when it's really the little things each day that count. And then there's the side of me that feels so happy and has a big grin on her face when the doorbell unexpectedly rings on Sunday morning and a big box of two dozen roses is delivered.

And then there's the part of me that thinks uh-oh, I got Paul a card and a pack of socks. I'm such a bad wife :)

So I attempted to improve my wifely rating with an artistically presented dinner. Cookie cutter towers make everything look better. Thanks Martha.

Hope you're having a great day with or without a heart shaped box of chocolates

A tale of two (sick) lobsters:

Growing up in the UK I don't remember ever eating lobster - you might have found it in the top London restaurants on the menu as lobster thermidor - but we didn't live in London and wouldn't have had the money for it anyhow.

I came to New England to move in with Paul back in April 2002 and that summer my parents came to visit. We lived in Newburyport at the time and I thought it would be fun to make lobster rolls and take them with us on a picnic whilst Paul was in work. We picked out two pretty big lobsters - maybe 3lb each - and I had them steamed at the store.

Standing back in the kitchen faced with two large and still warm lobsters, my parents and I looked at each other cluelessly. Of course, now I know you simply crack the claws and twist off the tail but for some crazy reason I decided the best approach was to take a large knife and cut them in half right through the body.

As I cut into the first lobster all of the guts and funky green stuff came spilling out and I gagged. "Ugh - this lobster must be a bad one" and I threw it away. And then "Ugh - this one's bad too! What are the odds of getting two bad lobsters" and the second one went into the trash. We had our picnic with chicken sandwiches and when Paul came home I was waiting to tell him how I had to throw $50 of lobster into the trash and was going to go to Shaw's to complain. He laughed and laughed and pulled them out of the trash to show me how to twist off the tails and claws.

My parents are here at the moment visiting and so we went to Brown's lobster pound in Seabrook, NH for a night of lobster.

Our great friends "The Bradleys" introduced us to Browns and it's such a brilliant place with insanely fresh seafood. You can bring your own beer and wine. Some people go all out and bring linen tablecloths and crystal glasses and flowers for their table. Here's my mum and dad; the blur is due to the hands flying in to pick up the steamers :)

Me and Mr H:

We ate all our lobster last night and only the shells went in the trash...

Have you read Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett? It's my new favorite book.

I feel like I've been a bad blogger :( I had a nice twice-weekly update thing going on and then I just fell off the blogging train. Never mind, I'm back with some fun posts planned on wedding albums and one for the guys on how to masterfully dip your bride.

Anyhoo, perhaps I'll update with some ramblings and pictures from our recent trip to the UK, we landed back in the US last night. Here's a nice little English countryside picture for you:


We flew back as my mother-in-law was having surgery to remove her gallbladder which happily went very well and Dorothy was "a model patient". Other highlights of our trip included:
- a quick train ride up to Liverpool to spend the afternoon with my amazing Grandmother
- the eating of lots of bacon sandwiches and potato chips (in fact, I think the whole concept of US vs. UK chips might deserve it's own blog post)
- meeting my future sister-in-law (Paul's brother is getting married next October in Mauritius very exciting)
- buying the most amazing pair of Kurt Geiger shoes in duty-free at London Heathrow Airport
- and seeing Jack again (see picture below). Paul brought Jack home from a shelter at least 15 years ago; he'd been beaten and treated cruelly but recovered to be the nicest dog I have ever met (sorry Coco & Tiger) and also the first dog I wasn't afraid of as he's such a softy. He's now an old old man and is mostly blind and deaf but he still enjoys a sausage on Sunday and roast beef on Sunday.



I bought Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett in the bookstore at Logan airport on the fervent recommendation of a friend and although I was rather skeptical about a book based on 12th century England and cathedral building (I know - sounds thrilling right?) I couldn't put it down. So due to my new found love of all things cathedral, on Monday, we squeezed in a little trip to Wells cathedral which is close to where my parents-in-law live. The self-timer feature of my lovely Nikon D700 was put to rare use to snap this picture of me and Paul:

Paul took this one of me sitting on the famous worn steps, I just noticed that I appear to have broken my ankle, but I think it's just my usual awkward sitting:

Here's an interesting door in the cathedral. I had to make a small donation in order to get a yellow sticker that declared I was OK to bring my camera into the cathedral as long as I promised not to use flash - I wish more places would do something like this:

Here's the area where the choir sit with little lamps to illuminate their music.

Wells is also home to the oldest residential street with its original building all surviving intact in the whole of Europe, building started in 1348:


Normal blogging service will resume shortly with lots of lovely engagement and wedding pictures but thank you for stopping by to put up with the history lesson!